CHAPTER LXXXVII.
IN WHICH TWO COMRADES ARE TETE-A-TETE IN THEIR OLD QUARTERS, AND DOCTOR STURK'S CUE IS CUT OFF, AND A CONSULTATION COMMENCES.
The buzz of a village, like the hum of a city, represents a very wonderful variety of human accent and feeling.

It is marvellous how few families thrown together will suffice to furnish forth this _dubia coena_ of sweets and bitters.
The roar of many waters--the ululatus of many-voiced humanity--marvellously monotonous, considering the infinite variety of its ingredients, booms on through the dark.

The story-teller alone can take up the score of the mighty medley, and read at a glance what every fife and fiddle-stick is doing.

That pompous thrum-thrum is the talk of the great white Marseilles paunch, pietate gravis; the whine comes from Lazarus, at the area rails; and the bass is old Dives, roaring at his butler; the piccolo is contributed by the studious school-boy, whistling over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs.Fondle's farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room, is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song--shut your ears, and pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the bawl upon its lips.
So, on this night, as usual, there rose up toward the stars a throbbing murmur from our village--a wild chaos of sound, which we must strive to analyse, extracting from the hurly-burly each separate tune it may concern us to hear.
Captain Devereux was in his lodging.

He was comparatively tranquil now; but a savage and impious despair possessed him.