calendar, Jack continued to wink so hard, and shut his ears so close, as not to see or hear of them; while as to the unhappy wights who differed from him, he had the eyes of Argus and the ear of Dionysius, and the tender mercies of a Spanish inquisitor, discovering scandalum magnatum and high treason in ballads which they had written twenty years before, and in which Jack, though he received a presentation copy at the time, had never pretended, up to that moment, to detect the least harm.

The last of these freaks which I shall here mention took place on this wise.  Jack had never been accustomed to invite any one to his assemblies but the ushers who had been appointed by the Squire, and it was always understood that they alone had a vote in all vestry matters.  But when John quarrelled with his family, as above mentioned, and a large part of the oldest and most respectable of his relatives drew off from him, it occurred to Jack that he could bring in a set of new auxiliaries, upon whose vote he could count in all his family squabbles, or his deputes, with Squire Bull; and the following was the device he fell upon for that end.

Here and there upon North Farm, where the village schools were crowded, little temporary schoolhouses had been run up, where one or two of the monitors were accustomed to teach such of the children as could not be accommodated in the larger school.  But these assistants had always been a little looked down upon, and had never been allowed a seat at Jack’s board.  Now, however, he began to change his tone towards them, and to court and flatter them on all occasions.  One fine morning he suddenly made his appearance on the village green, followed by some of his hangers on, bearing a theodolite, chains, measuring rods, sextants, compasses, and other instruments of land-surveying.  Jack set up his theodolite, took his observations, began noting measurements, and laying down the bases of triangles in all directions, then, having summed up his calculations with much gravity, gave directions to those about him to line off with stakes and ropes the space which he pointed out to them, and which in fact enclosed nearly half the village.  In the course of these operations, the usher, who had witnessed these mathematical proceedings of Jack from the window, but could not comprehend what the man would be at, sallied forth, and accosting Jack, asked him what he meant by these strange lines of circumvallation.  “Why,” answered Jack, “I have been thinking for some time past of relieving you of part of your heavy duties, and dividing the parish-school between you and your assistant; so in future you will confine yourself to the space outside the ropes, and leave all within the inclosure to him.”  It was in vain that the usher protested he was quite equal to the duty; that the boys liked him, and disliked his assistant; that if the village was thus divided, the assistant would be put upon a level with him, and have a vote in the vestry, to which he had no more