Next morning, however, he received a letter by the penny-post, written no doubt in Jack’s hand, but obviously dictated by the attorney, in these terms:—­

“Honoured Sir—­Lest there should be any misconception between us as to our yesterday’s conversation, I have put into writing the substance of what was agreed on between us, which I understand to be this:  that there shall be no let or impediment to the Squire’s full and absolute right of naming an usher in all cases of vacancy; that I shall have an equally full right to object to the said usher for any reasons that may be satisfactory to myself, and thereupon to exclude him from the school; leaving it to the Squire, if he pleases, to send another, whom I shall have the right of handling in the same fashion, with this further proviso, that if the Squire does not fill up the office to my satisfaction within half-a-year, I shall be entitled to take the appointment into my own hands.  I need hardly add that no Justices of the Peace are to take cognizance of anything done by me in the matter, be it good, bad, or indifferent.  Hoping that this statement of our mutual views will be found correct and satisfactory—­I remain, your humble servant,

     “JACK.”

The moment the Squire’s friend perused this missive, he saw plainly that all hope of bringing Jack to his senses was at an end; and that under the advice of evil counsellors, lunatic friends, and lewd fellows of the baser sort, Jack would shortly bring himself and his family to utter ruin.

And now, as might be expected, Jack’s disorder, which had hitherto been comparatively of the calm and melancholy kind, broke out into the most violent and phrenetic exhibitions.  He sometimes raved incoherently, for hours together, against the Squire; often, in the midst of his speeches, he was assailed with epileptic fits, during which he displayed the strangest contortions and most laughable gestures; he threw entirely aside the decent coat he had worn for some time back, and habitually attired himself in the old and threadbare raiment, which he had worn after he and Martin had been so unceremoniously sent to the right-about by Lord Peter, and even ran about the streets with his band tied round his peaked beaver, bearing thereon the motto—­“Nemo me impune lacessit.”  If his madness had only led him to make a spectacle and laughing-stock of himself, by these wild vagaries and mountebank exhibitions, all had been well, but this did not satisfy Jack; his old disposition for a riot had returned, and a riot, right or wrong, he was determined to have.  So he set to work to frighten the women of the village with stories, as to the monsters whom the Squire would send among them as ushers, who would do nothing but teach their children drinking, chuck-farthing, and cock-fighting; to the schoolboys themselves, talked of the length, breadth, and thickness, of the usher’s birch, which he assured them was dipped in vinegar