munion table."

It was observed, that while Mr. Clarke rehearsed this circumstance his
eyes began to stare and his teeth to chatter; while Dolly, whose looks
were fixed invariably on this narrator, growing pale, and hitching her
joint-stool nearer the chimney, exclaimed, in a frightened tone,
"Moother, moother, in the neame of God, look to 'un! how a quakes! as I'm
a precious saoul, a looks as if a saw something." Tom forced a smile,
and thus proceeded:--

"While Sir Launcelot tarried within the chapel, with the doors all
locked, the other knight stalked round and round it on the outside, with
his sword drawn, to the terror of divers persons who were present at the
ceremony. As soon as day broke he opened one of the doors, and going in
to Sir Launcelot, read a book for some time, which we did suppose to be
the constitutions of knight-errantry. Then we heard a loud slap, which
echoed through the whole chapel, and the stranger pronounce, with an
audible and solemn voice, 'In the name of God, St. Michael, and St.
George, I dub thee knight--be faithful, bold, and fortunate.' You cannot
imagine, gemmen, what an effect this strange ceremony had upon the people
who were assembled. They gazed at one another in silent horror, and when
Sir Launcelot came forth completely armed, took to their heels in a body,
and fled with the utmost precipitation. I myself was overturned in the
crowd; and this was the case with that very individual person who now
serves him as squire. He was so frightened that he could not rise, but
lay roaring in such a manner that the knight came up and gave him a
thwack with his lance across the shoulders, which roused him with a
vengeance. For my own part I freely own I was not unmoved at seeing such
a figure come stalking out of a church in the grey of the morning; for it
recalled to my remembrance the idea of the ghost in Hamlet, which I had
seen acted in Drury Lane, when I made my first trip to London, and I had
not yet got rid of the impression.

"Sir Launcelot, attended by the other knight, proceeded to the stable,
from whence, with his own hands, he drew forth one of his best horses, a
fine mettlesome sorrel, who had got blood in him, ornamented with rich
trappings. In a trice, the two knights, and the other two strangers, who
now appeared to be trumpeters, were mounted. Sir Launcelot's armour was
lacquered black; and on his shield was represented the moon in her first
quarter, with the mot