ed to their will, they found him a
serviceable instrument for their purpose, and used him accordingly.

The first sample of their art was exhibited upon Mrs. Trunnion. They
terrified that good lady with strange noises when she retired to her
devotion. Pipes was a natural genius in the composition of discords: he
could imitate the sound produced by the winding of a jack, the filing
of a saw, and the swinging of a malefactor hanging in chains; he could
counterfeit the braying of an ass, the screeching of a night-owl, the
caterwauling of cats, the howling of a dog, the squeaking of a pig,
the crowing of a cock; and he had learned the war-whoop uttered by the
Indians in North America. These talents were exerted successively,
at different times and places, to the terror of Mrs. Trunnion, the
discomposure of the commodore himself, and the consternation of all
the servants in the castle. Peregrine, with a sheet over his clothes,
sometimes tumbled before his aunt in the twilight, when her organs of
vision were a little impaired by the cordial she had swallowed; and the
boatswain's mate taught him to shoe cats with walnut-shells, so that
they made a most dreadful clattering in their nocturnal excursions.

The mind of Mrs. Trunnion was not a little disturbed by these alarms,
which, in her opinion, portended the death of some principal person in
the family; she redoubled her religious exercises, and fortified her
spirits with fresh potations; nay, she began to take notice that Mr.
Trunnion's constitution was very much broken, and seemed dissatisfied
when people observed that they never saw him look better. Her frequent
visits to the closet, where all her consolation was deposited, inspired
the confederates with a device which had like to have been attended with
tragical consequences. They found an opportunity to infuse jalap in one
of her case-bottles; and she took so largely of this medicine, that her
constitution had well nigh sunk under the violence of its effect. She
suffered a succession of fainting fits that reduced her to the brink
of the grave, in spite of all the remedies that were administered by a
physician, who was called in the beginning of her disorder.

After having examined the symptoms, he declared that the patient had
been poisoned with arsenic, and prescribed only draughts and lubricating
injections, to defend the coats of the stomach and intestines from
the vellicating particles of that pernicious mineral; at