"
Mr. Fogo deprecated the blunderbuss, but agreed to sit up for the
ghost; and so for the time the matter dropped. But Caleb's eyes
followed his master admiringly for the rest of the day, and more than
once he had to express his feelings in vigorous soliloquy.
"Niver tell me! Looks as ef he'd no more pluck nor a field-mouse;
an' I'm darned ef he takes more 'count of a ghost than he wud of a
circuit-preacher. Blest ef I don't think ef a sperrit was to knack
at the front door, he'd tell 'un to wipe hes feet 'pon the mat, an'
make hissel' at home. Well, well, seein's believin', as Tommy said
when he spied Noah's Ark i' the peep-show."
Footnote, Chapter XVII
[1] I cannot forbear to add a note on this eminently Trojan
word. In the fifteenth century, so high was the spirit of the
Trojan sea-captains, and so heavy the toll of black-mail they
levied on ships of other ports, that King Edward IV sent
poursuivant after poursuivant to threaten his displeasure.
The messengers had their ears slit for their pains; and
"poursuivanting" or "pussivanting" survives as a term for
ineffective bustle.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF A YOUNG MAN THAT WOULD START UPON A DARK ADVENTURE, BUT HAD TWO
MINDS UPON IT.
At ten o'clock on this same morning Mr.
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