The Mystery of Edwin Drood

  CHAPTER XII--A NIGHT WITH DURDLES

  When Mr. Sapsea has nothing better to do, towards evening, and finds thecontemplation of his own profundity becoming a little monotonous in spiteof the vastness of the subject, he often takes an airing in the CathedralClose and thereabout. He likes to pass the churchyard with a swellingair of proprietorship, and to encourage in his breast a sort ofbenignant-landlord feeling, in that he has been bountiful towards thatmeritorious tenant, Mrs. Sapsea, and has publicly given her a prize. Helikes to see a stray face or two looking in through the railings, andperhaps reading his inscription. Should he meet a stranger coming fromthe churchyard with a quick step, he is morally convinced that thestranger is 'with a blush retiring,' as monumentally directed.

  Mr. Sapsea's importance has received enhancement, for he has become Mayorof Cloisterham. Without mayors, and many of them, it cannot be disputedthat the whole framework of society--Mr. Sapsea is confident that heinvented that forcible figure--would fall to pieces. Mayors have beenknighted for 'going up' with addresses: explosive machines intrepidlydischarging shot and shell into the English Grammar. Mr. Sapsea may 'goup' with an address. Rise, Sir Thomas Sapsea! Of such is the salt ofthe earth.

  Mr. Sapsea has improved the acquaintance of Mr. Jasper, since their firstmeeting to partake of port, epitaph, backgammon, beef, and salad. Mr.Sapsea has been received at the gatehouse with kindred hospitality; andon that occasion Mr. Jasper seated himself at the piano, and sang to him,tickling his ears--figuratively--long enough to present a considerablearea for tickling. What Mr. Sapsea likes in that young man is, that heis always ready to profit by the wisdom of his elders, and that he issound, sir, at the core. In proof of which, he sang to Mr. Sapsea thatevening, no kickshaw ditties, favourites with national enemies, but gavehim the genuine George the Third home-brewed; exhorting him (as 'my braveboys') to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but thisisland, and all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, andother geographical forms of land soever, besides sweeping the seas in alldirections. In short, he rendered it pretty clear that Providence made adistinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, andso many other verminous peoples.

  Mr. Sapsea, walking slowly this moist evening near the churchyard withhis hands behind him, on the look-out for a blushing and retiringstranger, turns a corner, and comes instead into the goodly presence ofthe Dean, conversing with the Verger and Mr. Jasper. Mr. Sapsea makeshis obeisance, and is instantly stricken far more ecclesiastical than anyArchbishop of York or Canterbury.

  'You are evidently going to write a book about us, Mr. Jasper,' quoth theDean; 'to write a book about us. Well! We are very ancient, and weought to make a good book. We are not so richly endowed in possessionsas in age; but perhaps you will put _that_ in your book, among otherthings, and call attention to our wrongs.'

  Mr. Tope, as in duty bound, is greatly entertained by this.

  'I really have no intention at all, sir,' replies Jasper, 'of turningauthor or archaeologist. It is but a whim of mine. And even for mywhim, Mr. Sapsea here is more accountable than I am.'

  'How so, Mr. Mayor?' says the Dean, with a nod of good-naturedrecognition of his Fetch. 'How is that, Mr. Mayor?'

  'I am not aware,' Mr. Sapsea remarks, looking about him for information,'to what the Very Reverend the Dean does me the honour of referring.'And then falls to studying his original in minute points of detail.

  'Durdles,' Mr. Tope hints.

  'Ay!' the Dean echoes; 'Durdles, Durdles!'

  'The truth is, sir,' explains Jasper, 'that my curiosity in the man wasfirst really stimulated by Mr. Sapsea. Mr. Sapsea's knowledge of mankindand power of drawing out whatever is recluse or odd around him, first ledto my bestowing a second thought upon the man: though of course I had methim constantly about. You would not be surprised by this, Mr. Dean, ifyou had seen Mr. Sapsea deal with him in his own parlour, as I did.'

  'O!' cries Sapsea, picking up the ball thrown to him with ineffablecomplacency and pomposity; 'yes, yes. The Very Reverend the Dean refersto that? Yes. I happened to bring Durdles and Mr. Jasper together. Iregard Durdles as a Character.'

  'A character, Mr. Sapsea, that with a few skilful touches you turn insideout,' says Jasper.

  'Nay, not quite that,' returns the lumbering auctioneer. 'I may have alittle influence over him, perhaps; and a little insight into hischaracter, perhaps. The Very Reverend the Dean will please to bear inmind that I have seen the world.' Here Mr. Sapsea gets a little behindthe Dean, to inspect his coat-buttons.

  'Well!' says the Dean, looking about him to see what has become of hiscopyist: 'I hope, Mr. Mayor, you will use your study and knowledge ofDurdles to the good purpose of exhorting him not to break our worthy andrespected Choir-Master's neck; we cannot afford it; his head and voiceare much too valuable to us.'

  Mr. Tope is again highly entertained, and, having fallen into respectfulconvulsions of laughter, subsides into a deferential murmur, importingthat surely any gentleman would deem it a pleasure and an honour to havehis neck broken, in return for such a compliment from such a source.

  'I will take it upon myself, sir,' observes Sapsea loftily, 'to answerfor Mr. Jasper's neck. I will tell Durdles to be careful of it. He willmind what _I_ say. How is it at present endangered?' he inquires,looking about him with magnificent patronage.

  'Only by my making a moonlight expedition with Durdles among the tombs,vaults, towers, and ruins,' returns Jasper. 'You remember suggesting,when you brought us together, that, as a lover of the picturesque, itmight be worth my while?'

  'I remember!' replies the auctioneer. And the solemn idiot reallybelieves that he does remember.

  'Profiting by your hint,' pursues Jasper, 'I have had some day-rambleswith the extraordinary old fellow, and we are to make a moonlighthole-and-corner exploration to-night.'

  'And here he is,' says the Dean.

  Durdles with his dinner-bundle in his hand, is indeed beheld slouchingtowards them. Slouching nearer, and perceiving the Dean, he pulls offhis hat, and is slouching away with it under his arm, when Mr. Sapseastops him.

  'Mind you take care of my friend,' is the injunction Mr. Sapsea lays uponhim.

  'What friend o' yourn is dead?' asks Durdles. 'No orders has come in forany friend o' yourn.'

  'I mean my live friend there.'

  'O! him?' says Durdles. 'He can take care of himself, can MisterJarsper.'

  'But do you take care of him too,' says Sapsea.

  Whom Durdles (there being command in his tone) surlily surveys from headto foot.

  'With submission to his Reverence the Dean, if you'll mind what concernsyou, Mr. Sapsea, Durdles he'll mind what concerns him.'

  'You're out of temper,' says Mr. Sapsea, winking to the company toobserve how smoothly he will manage him. 'My friend concerns me, and Mr.Jasper is my friend. And you are my friend.'

  'Don't you get into a bad habit of boasting,' retorts Durdles, with agrave cautionary nod. 'It'll grow upon you.'

  [Picture: Durdles cautions Mr. Sapsea against boasting]

  'You are out of temper,' says Sapsea again; reddening, but again sinkingto the company.

  'I own to it,' returns Durdles; 'I don't like liberties.'

  Mr. Sapsea winks a third wink to the company, as who should say: 'I thinkyou will agree with me that I have settled _his_ business;' and stalksout of the controversy.

  Durdles then gives the Dean a good evening, and adding, as he puts hishat on, 'You'll find me at home, Mister Jarsper, as agreed, when you wantme; I'm a-going home to clean myself,' soon slouches out of sight. Thisgoing home to clean himself is one of the man's incomprehensiblecompromises with inexorable facts; he, and his hat, and his boots, andhis clothes, never showing any trace of cleaning, but being uniformly inone condition of dust and grit.

  The lamplighter now dotting the quiet Close with specks of light, andrunning at a great rate up and down his little ladder with thatobject--his little l
adder under the sacred shadow of whose inconveniencegenerations had grown up, and which all Cloisterham would have stoodaghast at the idea of abolishing--the Dean withdraws to his dinner, Mr.Tope to his tea, and Mr. Jasper to his piano. There, with no light butthat of the fire, he sits chanting choir-music in a low and beautifulvoice, for two or three hours; in short, until it has been for some timedark, and the moon is about to rise.

  Then he closes his piano softly, softly changes his coat for apea-jacket, with a goodly wicker-cased bottle in its largest pocket, andputting on a low-crowned, flap-brimmed hat, goes softly out. Why does hemove so softly to-night? No outward reason is apparent for it. Canthere be any sympathetic reason crouching darkly within him?

  Repairing to Durdles's unfinished house, or hole in the city wall, andseeing a light within it, he softly picks his course among thegravestones, monuments, and stony lumber of the yard, already touchedhere and there, sidewise, by the rising moon. The two journeymen haveleft their two great saws sticking in their blocks of stone; and twoskeleton journeymen out of the Dance of Death might be grinning in theshadow of their sheltering sentry-boxes, about to slash away at cuttingout the gravestones of the next two people destined to die inCloisterham. Likely enough, the two think little of that now, beingalive, and perhaps merry. Curious, to make a guess at the two;--or sayone of the two!

  'Ho! Durdles!'

  The light moves, and he appears with it at the door. He would seem tohave been 'cleaning himself' with the aid of a bottle, jug, and tumbler;for no other cleansing instruments are visible in the bare brick roomwith rafters overhead and no plastered ceiling, into which he shows hisvisitor.

  'Are you ready?'

  'I am ready, Mister Jarsper. Let the old 'uns come out if they dare,when we go among their tombs. My spirit is ready for 'em.'

  'Do you mean animal spirits, or ardent?'

  'The one's the t'other,' answers Durdles, 'and I mean 'em both.'

  He takes a lantern from a hook, puts a match or two in his pocketwherewith to light it, should there be need; and they go out together,dinner-bundle and all.

  Surely an unaccountable sort of expedition! That Durdles himself, who isalways prowling among old graves, and ruins, like a Ghoul--that he shouldbe stealing forth to climb, and dive, and wander without an object, isnothing extraordinary; but that the Choir-Master or any one else shouldhold it worth his while to be with him, and to study moonlight effects insuch company is another affair. Surely an unaccountable sort ofexpedition, therefore!

  ''Ware that there mound by the yard-gate, Mister Jarsper.'

  'I see it. What is it?'

  'Lime.'

  Mr. Jasper stops, and waits for him to come up, for he lags behind.'What you call quick-lime?'

  'Ay!' says Durdles; 'quick enough to eat your boots. With a little handystirring, quick enough to eat your bones.'

  They go on, presently passing the red windows of the Travellers'Twopenny, and emerging into the clear moonlight of the Monks' Vineyard.This crossed, they come to Minor Canon Corner: of which the greater partlies in shadow until the moon shall rise higher in the sky.

  The sound of a closing house-door strikes their ears, and two men comeout. These are Mr. Crisparkle and Neville. Jasper, with a strange andsudden smile upon his face, lays the palm of his hand upon the breast ofDurdles, stopping him where he stands.

  At that end of Minor Canon Corner the shadow is profound in the existingstate of the light: at that end, too, there is a piece of old dwarf wall,breast high, the only remaining boundary of what was once a garden, butis now the thoroughfare. Jasper and Durdles would have turned this wallin another instant; but, stopping so short, stand behind it.

  'Those two are only sauntering,' Jasper whispers; 'they will go out intothe moonlight soon. Let us keep quiet here, or they will detain us, orwant to join us, or what not.'

  Durdles nods assent, and falls to munching some fragments from hisbundle. Jasper folds his arms upon the top of the wall, and, with hischin resting on them, watches. He takes no note whatever of the MinorCanon, but watches Neville, as though his eye were at the trigger of aloaded rifle, and he had covered him, and were going to fire. A sense ofdestructive power is so expressed in his face, that even Durdles pausesin his munching, and looks at him, with an unmunched something in hischeek.

  Meanwhile Mr. Crisparkle and Neville walk to and fro, quietly talkingtogether. What they say, cannot be heard consecutively; but Mr. Jasperhas already distinguished his own name more than once.

  'This is the first day of the week,' Mr. Crisparkle can be distinctlyheard to observe, as they turn back; 'and the last day of the week isChristmas Eve.'

  'You may be certain of me, sir.'

  The echoes were favourable at those points, but as the two approach, thesound of their talking becomes confused again. The word 'confidence,'shattered by the echoes, but still capable of being pieced together, isuttered by Mr. Crisparkle. As they draw still nearer, this fragment of areply is heard: 'Not deserved yet, but shall be, sir.' As they turn awayagain, Jasper again hears his own name, in connection with the words fromMr. Crisparkle: 'Remember that I said I answered for you confidently.'Then the sound of their talk becomes confused again; they halting for alittle while, and some earnest action on the part of Neville succeeding.When they move once more, Mr. Crisparkle is seen to look up at the sky,and to point before him. They then slowly disappear; passing out intothe moonlight at the opposite end of the Corner.

  It is not until they are gone, that Mr. Jasper moves. But then he turnsto Durdles, and bursts into a fit of laughter. Durdles, who still hasthat suspended something in his cheek, and who sees nothing to laugh at,stares at him until Mr. Jasper lays his face down on his arms to have hislaugh out. Then Durdles bolts the something, as if desperately resigninghimself to indigestion.

  Among those secluded nooks there is very little stir or movement afterdark. There is little enough in the high tide of the day, but there isnext to none at night. Besides that the cheerfully frequented HighStreet lies nearly parallel to the spot (the old Cathedral rising betweenthe two), and is the natural channel in which the Cloisterham trafficflows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, andthe churchyard, after dark, which not many people care to encounter. Askthe first hundred citizens of Cloisterham, met at random in the streetsat noon, if they believed in Ghosts, they would tell you no; but put themto choose at night between these eerie Precincts and the thoroughfare ofshops, and you would find that ninety-nine declared for the longer roundand the more frequented way. The cause of this is not to be found in anylocal superstition that attaches to the Precincts--albeit a mysteriouslady, with a child in her arms and a rope dangling from her neck, hasbeen seen flitting about there by sundry witnesses as intangible asherself--but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with thebreath of life in it from dust out of which the breath of life haspassed; also, in the widely diffused, and almost as widelyunacknowledged, reflection: 'If the dead do, under any circumstances,become visible to the living, these are such likely surroundings for thepurpose that I, the living, will get out of them as soon as I can.'Hence, when Mr. Jasper and Durdles pause to glance around them, beforedescending into the crypt by a small side door, of which the latter has akey, the whole expanse of moonlight in their view is utterly deserted.One might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's owngatehouse. The murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no wave passesthe archway, over which his lamp burns red behind his curtain, as if thebuilding were a Lighthouse.

  They enter, locking themselves in, descend the rugged steps, and are downin the Crypt. The lantern is not wanted, for the moonlight strikes in atthe groined windows, bare of glass, the broken frames for which castpatterns on the ground. The heavy pillars which support the roofengender masses of black shade, but between them there are lanes oflight. Up and down these lanes they walk, Durdles discoursing of the'old uns' he yet counts on disinterring, and slapping a wall, in which heco
nsiders 'a whole family on 'em' to be stoned and earthed up, just as ifhe were a familiar friend of the family. The taciturnity of Durdles isfor the time overcome by Mr. Jasper's wicker bottle, which circulatesfreely;--in the sense, that is to say, that its contents enter freelyinto Mr. Durdles's circulation, while Mr. Jasper only rinses his mouthonce, and casts forth the rinsing.

  They are to ascend the great Tower. On the steps by which they rise tothe Cathedral, Durdles pauses for new store of breath. The steps arevery dark, but out of the darkness they can see the lanes of light theyhave traversed. Durdles seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seatshimself upon another. The odour from the wicker bottle (which hassomehow passed into Durdles's keeping) soon intimates that the cork hasbeen taken out; but this is not ascertainable through the sense of sight,since neither can descry the other. And yet, in talking, they turn toone another, as though their faces could commune together.

  'This is good stuff, Mister Jarsper!'

  'It is very good stuff, I hope.--I bought it on purpose.'

  'They don't show, you see, the old uns don't, Mister Jarsper!'

  'It would be a more confused world than it is, if they could.'

  'Well, it _would_ lead towards a mixing of things,' Durdles acquiesces:pausing on the remark, as if the idea of ghosts had not previouslypresented itself to him in a merely inconvenient light, domestically orchronologically. 'But do you think there may be Ghosts of other things,though not of men and women?'

  'What things? Flower-beds and watering-pots? horses and harness?'

  'No. Sounds.'

  'What sounds?'

  'Cries.'

  'What cries do you mean? Chairs to mend?'

  'No. I mean screeches. Now I'll tell you, Mr. Jarsper. Wait a bit tillI put the bottle right.' Here the cork is evidently taken out again, andreplaced again. 'There! _Now_ it's right! This time last year, only afew days later, I happened to have been doing what was correct by theseason, in the way of giving it the welcome it had a right to expect,when them town-boys set on me at their worst. At length I gave 'em theslip, and turned in here. And here I fell asleep. And what woke me?The ghost of a cry. The ghost of one terrific shriek, which shriek wasfollowed by the ghost of the howl of a dog: a long, dismal, woeful howl,such as a dog gives when a person's dead. That was _my_ last ChristmasEve.'

  'What do you mean?' is the very abrupt, and, one might say, fierceretort.

  'I mean that I made inquiries everywhere about, and, that no living earsbut mine heard either that cry or that howl. So I say they was bothghosts; though why they came to me, I've never made out.'

  'I thought you were another kind of man,' says Jasper, scornfully.

  'So I thought myself,' answers Durdles with his usual composure; 'and yetI was picked out for it.'

  Jasper had risen suddenly, when he asked him what he meant, and he nowsays, 'Come; we shall freeze here; lead the way.'

  Durdles complies, not over-steadily; opens the door at the top of thesteps with the key he has already used; and so emerges on the Cathedrallevel, in a passage at the side of the chancel. Here, the moonlight isso very bright again that the colours of the nearest stained-glass windoware thrown upon their faces. The appearance of the unconscious Durdles,holding the door open for his companion to follow, as if from the grave,is ghastly enough, with a purple hand across his face, and a yellowsplash upon his brow; but he bears the close scrutiny of his companion inan insensible way, although it is prolonged while the latter fumblesamong his pockets for a key confided to him that will open an iron gate,so to enable them to pass to the staircase of the great tower.

  'That and the bottle are enough for you to carry,' he says, giving it toDurdles; 'hand your bundle to me; I am younger and longer-winded thanyou.' Durdles hesitates for a moment between bundle and bottle; butgives the preference to the bottle as being by far the better company,and consigns the dry weight to his fellow-explorer.

  Then they go up the winding staircase of the great tower, toilsomely,turning and turning, and lowering their heads to avoid the stairs above,or the rough stone pivot around which they twist. Durdles has lightedhis lantern, by drawing from the cold, hard wall a spark of thatmysterious fire which lurks in everything, and, guided by this speck,they clamber up among the cobwebs and the dust. Their way lies throughstrange places. Twice or thrice they emerge into level, low-archedgalleries, whence they can look down into the moon-lit nave; and whereDurdles, waving his lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbelsof the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn intonarrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow uponthem, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedesthe heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down ofdust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind astair--for it blows fresh up here--they look down on Cloisterham, fair tosee in the moonlight: its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead,at the tower's base: its moss-softened red-tiled roofs and red-brickhouses of the living, clustered beyond: its river winding down from themist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heavingwith a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea.

  Once again, an unaccountable expedition this! Jasper (always movingsoftly with no visible reason) contemplates the scene, and especiallythat stillest part of it which the Cathedral overshadows. But hecontemplates Durdles quite as curiously, and Durdles is by timesconscious of his watchful eyes.

  Only by times, because Durdles is growing drowsy. As aeronauts lightenthe load they carry, when they wish to rise, similarly Durdles haslightened the wicker bottle in coming up. Snatches of sleep surprise himon his legs, and stop him in his talk. A mild fit of calenture seizeshim, in which he deems that the ground so far below, is on a level withthe tower, and would as lief walk off the tower into the air as not.Such is his state when they begin to come down. And as aeronauts makethemselves heavier when they wish to descend, similarly Durdles chargeshimself with more liquid from the wicker bottle, that he may come downthe better.

  The iron gate attained and locked--but not before Durdles has tumbledtwice, and cut an eyebrow open once--they descend into the crypt again,with the intent of issuing forth as they entered. But, while returningamong those lanes of light, Durdles becomes so very uncertain, both offoot and speech, that he half drops, half throws himself down, by one ofthe heavy pillars, scarcely less heavy than itself, and indistinctlyappeals to his companion for forty winks of a second each.

  'If you will have it so, or must have it so,' replies Jasper, 'I'll notleave you here. Take them, while I walk to and fro.'

  Durdles is asleep at once; and in his sleep he dreams a dream.

  It is not much of a dream, considering the vast extent of the domains ofdreamland, and their wonderful productions; it is only remarkable forbeing unusually restless and unusually real. He dreams of lying there,asleep, and yet counting his companion's footsteps as he walks to andfro. He dreams that the footsteps die away into distance of time and ofspace, and that something touches him, and that something falls from hishand. Then something clinks and gropes about, and he dreams that he isalone for so long a time, that the lanes of light take new directions asthe moon advances in her course. From succeeding unconsciousness hepasses into a dream of slow uneasiness from cold; and painfully awakes toa perception of the lanes of light--really changed, much as he haddreamed--and Jasper walking among them, beating his hands and feet.

  'Holloa!' Durdles cries out, unmeaningly alarmed.

  'Awake at last?' says Jasper, coming up to him. 'Do you know that yourforties have stretched into thousands?'

  'No.'

  'They have though.'

  'What's the time?'

  'Hark! The bells are going in the Tower!'

  They strike four quarters, and then the great bell strikes.

  'Two!' cries Durdles, scrambling up; 'why didn't you try to wake me,Mister Jarsper?'

  'I did. I might as well have tried t
o wake the dead--your own family ofdead, up in the corner there.'

  'Did you touch me?'

  'Touch you! Yes. Shook you.'

  As Durdles recalls that touching something in his dream, he looks down onthe pavement, and sees the key of the crypt door lying close to where hehimself lay.

  'I dropped you, did I?' he says, picking it up, and recalling that partof his dream. As he gathers himself up again into an upright position,or into a position as nearly upright as he ever maintains, he is againconscious of being watched by his companion.

  'Well?' says Jasper, smiling, 'are you quite ready? Pray don't hurry.'

  'Let me get my bundle right, Mister Jarsper, and I'm with you.' As heties it afresh, he is once more conscious that he is very narrowlyobserved.

  'What do you suspect me of, Mister Jarsper?' he asks, with drunkendispleasure. 'Let them as has any suspicions of Durdles name 'em.'

  'I've no suspicions of you, my good Mr. Durdles; but I have suspicionsthat my bottle was filled with something stiffer than either of ussupposed. And I also have suspicions,' Jasper adds, taking it from thepavement and turning it bottom upwards, 'that it's empty.'

  Durdles condescends to laugh at this. Continuing to chuckle when hislaugh is over, as though remonstrant with himself on his drinking powers,he rolls to the door and unlocks it. They both pass out, and Durdlesrelocks it, and pockets his key.

  'A thousand thanks for a curious and interesting night,' says Jasper,giving him his hand; 'you can make your own way home?'

  'I should think so!' answers Durdles. 'If you was to offer Durdles theaffront to show him his way home, he wouldn't go home.

  Durdles wouldn't go home till morning; And _then_ Durdles wouldn't go home,

  Durdles wouldn't.' This with the utmost defiance.

  'Good-night, then.'

  'Good-night, Mister Jarsper.'

  Each is turning his own way, when a sharp whistle rends the silence, andthe jargon is yelped out:

  Widdy widdy wen! I--ket--ches--Im--out--ar--ter--ten. Widdy widdy wy! Then--E--don't--go--then--I--shy-- Widdy Widdy Wake-cock warning!'

  Instantly afterwards, a rapid fire of stones rattles at the Cathedralwall, and the hideous small boy is beheld opposite, dancing in themoonlight.

  'What! Is that baby-devil on the watch there!' cries Jasper in a fury:so quickly roused, and so violent, that he seems an older devil himself.'I shall shed the blood of that impish wretch! I know I shall do it!'Regardless of the fire, though it hits him more than once, he rushes atDeputy, collars him, and tries to bring him across. But Deputy is not tobe so easily brought across. With a diabolical insight into thestrongest part of his position, he is no sooner taken by the throat thanhe curls up his legs, forces his assailant to hang him, as it were, andgurgles in his throat, and screws his body, and twists, as alreadyundergoing the first agonies of strangulation. There is nothing for itbut to drop him. He instantly gets himself together, backs over toDurdles, and cries to his assailant, gnashing the great gap in front ofhis mouth with rage and malice:

  'I'll blind yer, s'elp me! I'll stone yer eyes out, s'elp me! If Idon't have yer eyesight, bellows me!' At the same time dodging behindDurdles, and snarling at Jasper, now from this side of him, and now fromthat: prepared, if pounced upon, to dart away in all manner ofcurvilinear directions, and, if run down after all, to grovel in thedust, and cry: 'Now, hit me when I'm down! Do it!'

  'Don't hurt the boy, Mister Jarsper,' urges Durdles, shielding him.'Recollect yourself.'

  'He followed us to-night, when we first came here!'

  'Yer lie, I didn't!' replies Deputy, in his one form of politecontradiction.

  'He has been prowling near us ever since!'

  'Yer lie, I haven't,' returns Deputy. 'I'd only jist come out for my'elth when I see you two a-coming out of the Kin-freederel. If

  I--ket--ches--Im--out--ar--ter--ten!'

  (with the usual rhythm and dance, though dodging behind Durdles), 'itain't _any_ fault, is it?'

  'Take him home, then,' retorts Jasper, ferociously, though with a strongcheck upon himself, 'and let my eyes be rid of the sight of you!'

  Deputy, with another sharp whistle, at once expressing his relief, andhis commencement of a milder stoning of Mr. Durdles, begins stoning thatrespectable gentleman home, as if he were a reluctant ox. Mr. Jaspergoes to his gatehouse, brooding. And thus, as everything comes to anend, the unaccountable expedition comes to an end--for the time.