into the presence of the wizard, to receive instructions from
him. First the imps threatened Gourlay, and then rushed on Michael
himself, as if they would tear him to pieces, and cried out with one
voice:

"Work, master, work; work we need;
Work for the living, or for the dead:
Since we are called, work we will have,
For the master, or for the slave.
Work, master, work. What work now?"

Michael Scott (no doubt the reader has by this time discovered that he
was the master of the castle), to keep the restless beings at work,
told them to give Gourlay three varieties of punishment, but no more.
They soon began their wicked pranks, first changing the seneschal from
one grotesque form to another. Quickly transforming him into a dog,
they chased him up and down and round about with a pan at its tail.
Next they made him assume the shape of a hare, while to all appearance
they became collie dogs. An exciting chase followed over hill and
dale, but the poor hare succeeded in eluding its pursuers, and
returned to the master, who, by one touch of his divining rod, changed
Gourlay into his own natural shape. As soon as the poor ill-used
servant recovered speech, he threatened to cut his throat, that he
might be freed from his severe bondage. Michael dared him to do such a
thing, as he had him wholly in his power, dead or alive. "Were you to
take away your life by a ghastly wound," said the wizard, "I would
even make one of these fiendish spirits enter into your body,
reanimate it, and cause you to go about with your gaping wound,
unclosed and unpurified, as when death entered thereat." "Cursed be
the day that I saw you, and ten times cursed the confession I made,
that has thus subjected me to your tyranny!" exclaimed Gourlay.

Michael again asked what living creatures were in the castle. The
servant replied, "I again repeat it, that there is no mortal thing in
the castle but the old witch, and perhaps two or three hundred rats."
"Call out those rats," said Michael; "marshal them up in the court,
and receive the visitors according to their demerits." At the same
time the master gave the servant a small piece of parchment, with red
characters traced on it, and told him to put it above the lock-hole of
the door. "It shall serve as a summons, and Prig, Prim, and Pricker
shall marshal your forces," continued the wizard. The citation was
effective: the running and screaming of rats were heard in every
corner of t