“Yes, I’ll give ’em you down your throat, if you come a-ketching hold of me,” says the small boy, shaking himself loose, and backing. “I’ll smash your eye, if you don’t look out!”
“Baby-Devil that you are, what has the man done to you?”
“He won’t go home.”
“What is that to you?”
“He gives me a ’apenny to pelt him home if I ketches him out too late,” says the boy. And then chants, like a little savage, half stumbling and half dancing among the rags and laces of his dilapidated boots:—
“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!”
—with a comprehensive sweep on the last word, and one more delivery at Durdles.
This would seem to be a poetical note of preparation, agreed upon, as a caution to Durdles to stand clear if he can, or to betake himself homeward.
John Jasper invites the boy with a beck of his head to follow him (feeling it hopeless to drag him, or coax him), and crosses to the iron railing where the Stony (and stoned) One is profoundly meditating.
“Do you know this thing, this child?” asks Jasper, at a loss for a word that will define this thing.