many voices speaking, nothing intelligible could be made out.

When next the mists cleared a little from the old visionary's
brain, David gathered that Cromwell was close by, defending himself
with difficulty, apparently, like Charles, against 'Lias's
assaults. In his youth and middle age--until, in fact, an event of
some pathos and mystery had broken his life across, and cut him off
from his profession--'Lias had been a zealous teacher and a
voracious reader; and through the dreams of fifteen years the
didactic faculty had persisted and grown amazingly. He played
schoolmaster now to all the heroes of history. Whether it were
Elizabeth wrangling with Mary Stuart, or Cromwell marshalling his
Ironsides, or Buckingham falling under the assassin's dagger at
'Lias's feet, or Napoleon walking restlessly up and down the deck
of the 'Bellerophon,' 'Lias rated them every one. He was lord of a
shadow world, wherein he walked with kings and queens, warriors and
poets, putting them one and all superbly to rights. Yet so subtle
were the old man's wits, and so bright his fancy, even in
derangement, that he preserved through it all a considerable
measure of dramatic fitness. He gave his puppets a certain freedom;
he let them state their case; and threw almost as much ingenuity
into the pleading of it as into the refuting of it. Of late, since
he had made friends with Davy Grieve, he had contracted a curious
habit of weaving the boy into his visions.

'Davy, what's your opinion o' that?' or, 'Davy, my lad, did yo iver
hear sich clit-clat i' your life?' or again, 'Davy, yo'll not be
misled, surely, by sich a piece o' speshul-pleadin as that?'

So the appeals would run, and the boy, at first bewildered, and