[13] We hope the admirers of the _minutiae_ in
poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description of a
pensive attitude.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIV
Scythrop was still in this position when Raven entered to announce
that dinner was on table.
'I cannot come,' said Scythrop.
Raven sighed. 'Something is the matter,' said Raven: 'but man is born
to trouble.'
'Leave me,' said Scythrop: 'go, and croak elsewhere.'
'Thus it is,' said Raven. 'Five-and-twenty years have I lived in
Nightmare Abbey, and now all the reward of my affection is--Go, and
croak elsewhere. I have danced you on my knee, and fed you with
marrow.'
'Good Raven,' said Scythrop, 'I entreat you to leave me.'
'Shall I bring your dinner here?' said Raven. 'A boiled fowl and
a glass of Madeira are prescribed by the faculty in cases of low
spirits. But you had better join the party: it is very much reduced
already.'
'Reduced! how?'
'The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with
family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get
neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his
nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow
walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a
sheet and a red nightcap.
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