'"Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" screamed a wild chorus of
voices that seemed to fill the churchyard. Gabriel looked fearfully
round--nothing was to be seen.
'"What have you got in that bottle?" said the goblin.
'"Hollands, sir," replied the sexton, trembling more than ever;
for he had bought it of the smugglers, and he thought that
perhaps his questioner might be in the excise department of the goblins.
'"Who drinks Hollands alone, and in a churchyard, on such a
night as this?" said the goblin.
'"Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" exclaimed the wild voices again.
'The goblin leered maliciously at the terrified sexton, and then
raising his voice, exclaimed--
'"And who, then, is our fair and lawful prize?"
'To this inquiry the invisible chorus replied, in a strain that
sounded like the voices of many choristers singing to the mighty
swell of the old church organ--a strain that seemed borne to the
sexton's ears upon a wild wind, and to die away as it passed
onward; but the burden of the reply was still the same, "Gabriel
Grub! Gabriel Grub!"
'The goblin grinned a broader grin than before, as he said,
"Well, Gabriel, what do you say to this?"
'The sexton gasped for breath.
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