“That’s it, sir,” returns Durdles, quite satisfied; “at which he takes aim. I took him in hand and gave him an object. What was he before? A destroyer. What work did he do? Nothing but destruction. What did he earn by it? Short terms in Cloisterham jail. Not a person, not a piece of property, not a winder, not a horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but what he stoned, for want of an enlightened object. I put that enlightened object before him, and now he can turn his honest halfpenny by the three penn’orth a week.”
“I wonder he has no competitors.”
“He has plenty, Mr. Jasper, but he stones ’em all away. Now, I don’t know what this scheme of mine comes to,” pursues Durdles, considering about it with the same sodden gravity; “I don’t know what you may precisely call it. It ain’t a sort of a—scheme of a—National Education?”
“I should say not,” replies Jasper.
“ I should say not,” assents Durdles; “then we won’t try to give it a name.”
“He still keeps behind us,” repeats Jasper, looking over his shoulder; “is he to follow us?”
“We can’t help going round by the Travellers’ Twopenny, if we go the short way, which is the back way,” Durdles answers, “and we’ll drop him there.”
So they go on; Deputy, as a rear rank one, taking open order, and invading the silence of the hour and place by stoning every wall, post, pillar, and other inanimate object, by the deserted way.
“Is there anything new down in the crypt, Durdles?” asks John Jasper.
“Anything old, I think you mean,” growls Durdles. “It ain’t a spot for novelty.”