Page:Monthly scrap book, for February.pdf/17

 bit—not a snatch of a prayer can I think of. With a black hen's dung beneath my feet, and a black-hafted knife in my hand, I'd defy man or devil."

"Oho! man o' th' leather!" again assailed his ear.

The dark space before him became immediately painted with myriads of uncouth shapes, which varied with inconceivable rapidity, enlarging to the most stupendous masses and decreasing gradually, yet in a single instant to the merest atoms. They came upon him in huge armies, threatening instant demolition, and suffering a mutation at a hair's breadth from his body, prostrated themselves in all humility at his feet, or passed over him like the globules which dance in the sun's rays. Huge creatures, like mountains, skipped about with all the activity of fleas; and pigmies of half a barleycorn in length stalked by as solemnly as mourning kings. Body and mind could not support this long, and Darby soon fell into a profound sleep.

On awaking at day-break, he found himself in an empty, dilapidated house, and his staff lying by his side. With great difficulty he hobbled to the top of the main staircase, from which, he had the mortification to discover, he had lain distant but a few paces. On descending to the hall, he found the door almost battered to pieces, and moved across it with the sneaking and alarmed air of a dog that has been on a midnight prowl to the fold.