"Umph!" returned the sleeper awakened; "I have little to complain of
where so great a man was quartered before me, only the mattress was of
the hardest, the vault somewhat damp, the rats rather more mutinous than
I would have expected from the state of Caleb's larder; and if there had
been shutters to that grated window, or a curtain to the bed, I should
think it, upon the whole, an improvement in your accommodations."

"It is, to be sure, forlorn enough," said the Master, looking around the
small vault; "but if you will rise and leave it, Caleb will endeavour to
find you a better breakfast than your supper of last night."

"Pray, let it be no better," said Bucklaw, getting up, and endeavouring
to dress himself as well as the obscurity of the place would
permit--"let it, I say, be no better, if you mean me to preserve in my
proposed reformation. The very recollection of Caleb's beverage has done
more to suppress my longing to open the day with a morning draught than
twenty sermons would have done. And you, master, have you been able to
give battle valiantly to your bosom-snake? You see I am in the way of
smothering my vipers one by one."

"I have commenced the battle, at least, Bucklaw, adn I have had a fair
vision of an angel who descended to my assistance," replied the Master.