se at her peril. Their valour grew hotter with
the reading of this cruel message, which they secretly hoped and
suspected she would refuse. The drum-major was called in, one Gideon
Greatbatch by name--a long, straight-haired, sallow-faced personage, of
some note among the brethren for zeal and impiety. By this we mean that
awful and profane use of Scripture phraseology with which many of these
gifted preachers affected to interlard their everyday discourse,
attaching a ludicrous solemnity to matters the most trivial and
unimportant.

In delineating this species of character, unfortunately not extinct in
our own days, we do not hold it up to ridicule, but to reprehension.
Irreverence and profanity, under whatever pretext, are without excuse,
even beneath the mask of holy zeal and ardent devotion.

The man stalked in with little ceremony and less manners. He stood stiff
and erect, the image of pride engendered by ignorance.

"'Tis our last," said Rigby, folding up the message; "and if our arms
are blessed, as we have hoped, and, it may be, unworthily deserved, ere
the going down of to-morrow's sun yon strong tower wherein she trusteth
shall be as smoke; for the hope of the wicked shall perish."

"Yea, their idols shall fall down; yea, their walls shall be as
Jericho," said the drum-major, with a sing-song whine, to sanctify his
blasphemous allusions, "and shall utterly fall at the sound of"----

"Thy two drumsticks, mayhap," returned Morgan, sharply; for this latter
personage, though his presence became needful in the camp by reason of
his reputed skill and bravery, was a great scandal to the real and
conscientious professors--of whom not a few had joined the ranks of the
besiegers--as well as the hypocritical and designing; some of whom did
not hesitate to liken him to Achan and the accursed thing, by reason of
which they were discomfited before their enemies.

"Thine ungodly speeches, Master Morgan, I would humbly trust, may not be
as the fuel that, when the fire cometh, shall consume the camp, even the
righteous with the wicked," said Gideon, as if shrinking from the
contact of so unholy a personage.

Morgan replied not to this deprecation, save by swearing--covertly,
though it might be--at the impudence and insubordination of these
inferior agents, whose disorderly conduct it was necessary to connive
at, while they were looked upon as saints and prophets--men from whose
presence was impiously expected the bless