ysterious "single buffer,
Dick Datchery, living on his means," as a lodger in the "venerable
architectural and inconvenient" official dwelling of Mr. Tope, minutely
described in the eighteenth chapter of _Edwin Drood_, as "communicating
by an upper stair with Mr. Jasper's," watching the unsuspecting Jasper
as he goes to and from the Cathedral.

Chapters twelve, fourteen, and twenty-three refer to Jasper's Gatehouse,
and its proximity to the busy hum of human life, in very vivid terms,
especially chapter twelve:--

"Among these secluded nooks there is little stir
or movement after dark. There is little enough in
the high tide of the day, but there is next to
none at night. Besides that, the cheerfully
frequented High Street lies nearly parallel to the
spot (the old Cathedral rising between the two),
and is the natural channel in which the
Cloisterham traffic flows, a certain awful hush
pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and the
churchyard after dark, which not many people care
to encounter. . . . One might fancy that the tide
of life was stemmed by Mr. Jasper's own Gatehouse.
The murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no
wave passes the archway, over which his lamp burns
red behind the curtain, as if the building were a
Lighthouse. . . .

"The red light burns steadily all the evening in
the Lighthouse on the margin of the tide of busy
life. Softened sounds and hum of traffic pass it,
and flow on irregularly into the lonely precincts;
but very little else goes by save violent rushes
of wind. It comes on to blow a boisterous gale. . . .
John Jasper's lamp is kindled, and his Lighthouse
is shining, when Mr. Datchery returns alone
towards it. As mariners on a dangerous voyage,
approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along
the beams of the warning light to the haven lying
beyond it that may never be reached, so Mr.
Datchery's wistful gaze is directed to this beacon
and beyond. . . ."

The sensation of calm in passing suddenly out of the busy High Street of
Rochester into the subdued precincts of the Cathedral, as above
described, is very marked and peculiar, and must be experienced to be
realized.

Among the ma