At his heels followed a train of ragged boys, shouting and hallooing, "The wizard! the wizard!--Ah! Bah! The old devil's kin!" At this cry the dull neighbourhood seemed suddenly to burst forth into life.

From the casements and thresholds of every house curious faces emerged, and many voices of men and women joined, in deeper bass, with the shrill tenor of the choral urchins, "The wizard! the wizard! out at daylight!" The person thus stigmatized, as he approached the house, turned his face with an expression of wistful perplexity from side to side.

His lips moved convulsively, and his face was very pale, but he spoke not.

And now, the children, seeing him near his refuge, became more outrageous.
They placed themselves menacingly before him, they pulled his robe, they even struck at him; and one, bolder than the rest, jumped up, and plucked his beard.

At this last insult, Adam Warner, for it was he, broke silence; but such was the sweetness of his disposition, that it was rather with pity than reproof in his voice, that he said,-- "Fie, little one! I fear me thine own age will have small honour if thou thus mockest mature years in me." This gentleness only served to increase the audacity of his persecutors, who now, momently augmenting, presented a formidable obstacle to further progress.