This remonstrance being received with yells and flying stones,
according to a custom of late years comfortably established among
the police regulations of our English communities, where Christians
are stoned on all sides, as if the days of Saint Stephen were
revived, Durdles remarks of the young savages, with some point,
that 'they haven't got an object,' and leads the way down the lane.

At the corner of the lane, Jasper, hotly enraged, checks his
companion and looks back. All is silent. Next moment, a stone
coming rattling at his hat, and a distant yell of 'Wake-Cock!
Warning!' followed by a crow, as from some infernally-hatched
Chanticleer, apprising him under whose victorious fire he stands,
he turns the corner into safety, and takes Durdles home: Durdles
stumbling among the litter of his stony yard as if he were going to
turn head foremost into one of the unfinished tombs.

John Jasper returns by another way to his gatehouse, and entering
softly with his key, finds his fire still burning. He takes from a
locked press a peculiar-looking pipe, which he fills--but not with
tobacco--and, having adjusted the contents of the bowl, very
carefully, with a little instrument, ascends an inner staircase of
only a few steps, leading to two rooms. One of these is his own
sleeping chamber: the other is his nephew's. There is a light in
each.

His nephew lies asleep, calm and untroubled. John Jasper stands
looking down upon him, his unlighted pipe in his hand, for some
time, with a fixed and deep attention. Then, hushing his
footsteps, he passes to his own room, lights his pipe, and delivers