back was no
sooner turned, than Ferret, who had been peeping from behind the
pantry-door, ventured to rejoin the company; pronouncing with a smile,
or rather grin, of contempt, "Hey-day! what precious mummery is this?
What, are we to have the farce of Hamlet's ghost?" "Adzooks," cried the
captain, "My kinsman Tom has dropped astern--hope in God a-has not bulged
to, and gone to bottom." "Pish," exclaimed the misanthrope, "there's no
danger; the young lawyer is only seizing Dolly in tail."

Certain it is, Dolly squeaked at that instant in the cellar; and Clarke
appearing soon after in some confusion, declared she had been frightened
by a flash of lightning. But this assertion was not confirmed by the
young lady herself, who eyed him with a sullen regard, indicating
displeasure, though not indifference; and when questioned by her mother,
replied, "A doan't maind what a-says, so a doan't, vor all his goalden
jacket, then."

In the meantime the surgeon had performed the operation of phlebotomy on
the squire, who was lifted into a chair, and supported by the landlady
for that purpose; but he had not as yet given any sign of having
retrieved the use of his senses. And here Mr. Fillet could not help
contemplating, with surprise, the strange figure and accoutrements of his
patient, who seemed in age to be turned of fifty. His stature was below
the middle size; he was thick, squat, and brawny, with a small
protuberance on one shoulder, and a prominent belly, which, in
consequence of the water he had swallowed, now strutted beyond its usual
dimensions. His forehead was remarkably convex, and so very low, that
his black bushy hair descended within an inch of his nose; but this did
not conceal the wrinkles of his front, which were manifold. His small
glimmering eyes resembled those of the Hampshire porker, that turns up
the soil with his projecting snout. His cheeks were shrivelled and
puckered at the corners, like the seams of a regimental coat as it comes
from the hands of the contractor. His nose bore a strong analogy in
shape to a tennis-ball, and in colour to a mulberry; for all the water of
the river had not been able to quench the natural fire of that feature.
His upper jaw was furnished with two long white sharp-pointed teeth or
fangs, such as the reader may have observed in the chaps of a wolf, or
full-grown mastiff, and an anatomist would describe as a preternatural
elongation of the dentes canini. His chin was