remarks were possibly not intended to reach the ears of the party, but
certainly were not so cautiously whispered but they occasionally did do
so. The male remarks, indeed, generally died away in the throats that
uttered them; a circumstance that doubtless saved the utterer from some
very rough rejoinder at the hands of the Doctor, who had grown up in
the habit of a very ready and free recourse to his fists, which had a
way of doubling themselves up seemingly of their own accord. But the
shrill feminine voices sometimes sent their observations from window to
window without dread of any such repartee on the part of the subject of
them.

"There he goes, the old Spider-witch!" quoth one shrill woman, "with
those two poor babes that he has caught in his cobweb, and is going to
feed upon, poor little tender things! The bloody Englishman makes free
with the dead bodies of our friends and the living ones of our
children!"

"How red his nose is!" quoth another; "he has pulled at the brandy-
bottle pretty stoutly to-day, early as it is! Pretty habits those
children will learn, between the Devil in the shape of a great spider,
and this devilish fellow in his own shape! It were well that our
townsmen tarred and feathered the old British wizard!"

And, as he got further off, two or three little blackguard barefoot
boys shouted shrilly after him,--

"Doctor Grim, Doctor Grim,
The Devil wove a web for him!"

being a nonsensical couplet that had been made for the grim Doctor's