The affair was an unhappy one for Neville. Jasper took care that the story spread abroad, and as it went it grew, so that almost everybody in Cloisterham came to consider Helena's brother a sullen fellow of a furious temper. And they believed it the more because Neville made no secret of the fact that he had fallen in love, too, with Rosebud, and in this they thought they saw a reason for his hating Edwin Drood.
Mr. Crisparkle was a faithful friend. He concluded soon that the fault was not all on Neville's side. But he was anxious to have the two young men friends, and he begged his pupil for his own part to lay aside the ill feeling. He went to the choir master also on the same errand, and Jasper assured him that his nephew would do the same. He even promised, hypocritically, that to bring this about he would invite both Edwin Drood and Neville to dine with him on Christmas Eve, in his own rooms, where they might meet and shake hands.
Both young men promised to come to the dinner, and Mr. Crisparkle was highly pleased, little dreaming what the outcome would be.
III
THE CHOIR MASTER'S DINNER
There was a quaint character in Cloisterham named Durdles. He was a stone-mason whose specialty was the chiseling of tombstones. He was an old bachelor and was both a very skilful workman and a very great sot. He had keys to all the cathedral vaults and was fond of prowling about the old pile and its dismal crypt, for ever tap-tapping, with a little hammer he carried, on its stones and walls, hunting for forgotten cavities, in which, perhaps, centuries before, persons had been buried. He wore a coarse flannel suit with horn buttons and a yellow handkerchief with draggled ends, and it was a daily sight to see him perched on a tombstone eating his dinner out of a bundle. When he was not feeling well he used to say he had a touch of "tomb-atism," instead of rheumatism.
Durdles was drunk so much that he was never certain about getting home at night, so he had hired, at a penny a day, a hideous small boy, known as "The Deputy" to throw stones at him whenever he found him out of doors after ten o'clock, and drive him home to his little hole of an unfurnished stone house.
The Deputy used to watch for Durdles after this hour, and when he saw him he would dance up and sing:
"Widdy, widdy, wen!
I ketches—him—out—arter ten!
Widdy, widdy wy!
When he—don't—go—then—I shy!
Widdy, widdy, Wake-Cock-Warning!"
It was a part of the bargain that he must give this warning before he began to throw the stones, and when Durdles heard this yell he knew what was coming.
Before the Christmas Eve dinner Jasper picked a friendship with Durdles, and, pretending he wanted to make a trip by moonlight with him among the vaults, he persuaded him one night to be his guide. While they were in the crypt of the cathedral Jasper plied him with liquor which he had brought, to such purpose that Durdles went fast asleep and the key of the crypt fell from his hand. He had a dim idea that Jasper picked up the key and went away with it, and was a long time gone, but when he awoke he could not tell whether this had really happened or not. And this, when The Deputy stoned him home that night, was all he could remember of the expedition.