At last by main force, and after a hard scuffle, the constables contrived to force the schoolhouse door open, and so to make way for the justices, the usher, and those of Jack's family who, as we have seen already, had made up their minds to give the usher possession, to enter. But having entered, the confusion and bedevilment was ten times worse than even in the churchyard itself. The benches were lined with a pack of overgrown rascals in corduroy vestments, and with leather at the knees, from all the neighbouring villages; in a gallery at one end sat a Scotch bagpiper, flanked by a blind fiddler, and an itinerant performer on the hurdygurdy, accompanied by his monkey--who in the course of his circuit through the village, had that morning received a special retainer, in the shape of half a quartern of gin, for the occasion; while in the usher's chair were ensconced two urchins of about fourteen years of age, smoking tobacco, playing at all fours, and drinking purl, with their legs diffused in a picturesque attitude along the writing-desk. One of the justices tried to command silence--till the Squire's commission to the usher should be read; but no sooner had he opened his mouth than the whole multitude burst forth as if the confusion of tongues had taken place for the first time; twenty spoke together, ten whistled, as many more sang psalms and obscene songs alternately; the bagpiper droned his worst; the fiddler uttered notes that made the hair of those who heard them stand on end; while the hurdygurdy man did his utmost to grind down both his companions, in which task he was ably assisted by the grinning and chattering of the honourable and four-footed gentleman on his left. Meantime stones, tiles, and rafters, pewter pint-pots, fragments of slates, rulers, and desks, were circulating through the schoolhouse in all directions, in the most agreeable confusion.