upt in utterance.

"O Mr. Helstone, is it you, sir? I could hardly see you for the
darkness; it is so soon dark now. Will you walk in, sir?"

"I want to know first whether it is worth my while walking in. Whom have
you upstairs?"

"The curates, sir."

"What! all of them?"

"Yes, sir."

"Been dining here?"

"Yes, sir."

"That will do."

With these words a person entered--a middle-aged man, in black. He
walked straight across the kitchen to an inner door, opened it, inclined
his head forward, and stood listening. There was something to listen to,
for the noise above was just then louder than ever.

"Hey!" he ejaculated to himself; then turning to Mr. Gale--"Have you
often this sort of work?"

Mr. Gale had been a churchwarden, and was indulgent to the clergy.

"They're young, you know, sir--they're young," said he deprecatingly.

"Young! They want caning. Bad boys--bad boys! And if you were a
Dissenter, John Gale, instead of being a good Churchman, they'd do the
like--they'd expose themselves; but I'll----"

By way of finish to this sentence, he passed through the inner door,
drew it after him, and mounted the stair. Again he listened a few
minutes when he arrived at the upper room. Making entrance without
warning, he stood before the curates.

And they were silent; they were transfixed; and so was the invader.
He--a personage short of stature, but straight of port, and bearing on
broad shoulders a hawk's head, beak, and eye, the whole surmounted by a
Rehoboam, or shovel hat, which he did not seem to think it necessary to
lift or remove before the presence in which he then stood--_he_ folded
his arms on his chest and surveyed his young friends, if friends they
were, much at his leisure.

"What!" he began, delivering his words in a voice no longer nasal, but
deep--more than deep--a voice made purposely hollow and
cavernous--"what! has the miracle of Pentecost been renewed? Have the
cloven tongues come down again? Where are they? The sound filled the
whole house just now. I heard the seventeen languages in full action:
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in
Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in
Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews
and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians; every one of these must have had
its representative in this room two minutes since."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Helstone," began Mr. Donne; "tak