When the children in the village heard their parents laugh at the old man’s manner of dress, they began to think that it became them to do so too; and so they would grin and jeer when they met him, or perhaps make faces, or shout after him, and when they saw that such conduct vexed him, and made him cross, they did it ten times more. I think it was silly of Jasper to let such a trifle vex him, and I am sure it was very wrong of the children to behave in such a way to him: they should have had respect to his grey hairs, and they should have remembered that awful story in Scripture, how Bears out of the wood came and devoured the rude, bad youths that mocked Elisha. But I am sorry to say that there are rude bad children at Yateshull, as well as of old at Bethel, and so they made it their delight to plague Jasper Crabbe. Had he complained to Mr. Warlingham or the schoolmaster, this sad, disgraceful conduct would have been put a stop to at once, but he did not do this and was only very cross, and drove the boys off his premises, whenever he found them there. But he was one against many, and so when his back was turned, and he was in one place, two or three would be doing some petty mischief or another. I will do them the justice to say that I do not think the boys had any wish to injure him; only as he was cross to them,--they tried to vex him. It was a custom in Yateshull, as I believe it is in most country-places, that the school-children should have a half-holyday on the Fifth of November, and be allowed to make a Bonfire as soon as it was dusk.--The half-holyday was given in order to allow the children time to pick sticks in our Squire’s park, or to beg a few faggots of the farmers; but I am sorry to say, that instead of giving themselves the trouble to do this, the boys sometimes broke the hedges. This made the farmers very angry, and they would give no more faggots, and so the boys were puzzled where to find wood for burning: indeed one year they could get nothing but a parcel of wet straw from an old thatch, which only made a thick choking smoke, and would not burn up at all. The next year, Peter Perks, who was always a leader in all kinds of mischief, took it into his head to go and take sticks out of Jasper Crabbe’s hedges, and so accompanied by three or four other lads, he contrived,--without doing any great injury to the hedges, it is true,--but still very wrongly,--to collect a large bundle of sticks. But just as he and his companions were going away, old Jasper suddenly pounced upon them, and charged them with stealing, and said he should take them all before Justice Burns, and have them sent to prison.