The
night wanes; feasting, revelry, and music have encroached upon our
usual hours of solitude, and morning will be here apace. Ere we
are stricken mute again, bethink you of our compact.'
Pronouncing these latter words with more of impatience than quite
accorded with his apparent age and gravity, the Giant raised a long
pole (which he still bears in his hand) and tapped his brother
Giant rather smartly on the head; indeed, the blow was so smartly
administered, that the latter quickly withdrew his lips from the
cask, to which they had been applied, and, catching up his shield
and halberd, assumed an attitude of defence. His irritation was
but momentary, for he laid these weapons aside as hastily as he had
assumed them, and said as he did so:
'You know, Gog, old friend, that when we animate these shapes which
the Londoners of old assigned (and not unworthily) to the guardian
genii of their city, we are susceptible of some of the sensations
which belong to human kind. Thus when I taste wine, I feel blows;
when I relish the one, I disrelish the other. Therefore, Gog, the
more especially as your arm is none of the lightest, keep your good
staff by your side, else we may chance to differ. Peace be between
us!'
'Amen!' said the other, leaning his staff in the window-corner.
'Why did you laugh just now?'
'To think,' replied the Giant Magog, laying his hand upon the cask,
'of him who owned this wine, and kept it in a cellar hoarded from
the light of day, for thirty years, - "till it should be fit to
drink," quoth he.
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