with other details in his dress peculiarly clerical, and already, even then, beginning to be out of fashion with churchmen – had served to fix upon him, emphatically, the dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of "Parson"; and took his way towards the Home Farm, at which he expected to find the Squire. But he had scarcely entered upon the village green when he beheld Mr Hazeldean leaning both hands on his stick, and gazing intently upon the Parish Stocks. Now, sorry am I to say that, ever since the Hegira of Lenny and his mother, the Anti-Stockian and Revolutionary spirit in Hazeldean, which the memorable homily of our Parson had awhile averted or suspended, had broken forth afresh. For though, while Lenny was present to be mowed and jeered at, there had been no pity for him, yet no sooner was he removed from the scene of trial, than a universal compassion for the barbarous usage he had received produced what is called "the reaction of public opinion." Not that those who had mowed and jeered repented them of their mockery, or considered themselves in the slightest degree the cause of his expatriation. No; they, with the rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon the Stocks. It was not to be expected that a lad of such exemplary character could be thrust into that place of ignominy, and not be sensible of the affront. And who, in the whole village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in were to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the very best and quietest lad the village had ever known? Thus, a few days after the widow's departure, the Stocks was again the object of midnight desecration: it was bedaubed and be-scratched – it was hacked and hewed – it was scrawled all over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic execrations on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions appeared, testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive sentiment of the parish. And perhaps the Stocks themselves were only spared from axe and bonfire by the convenience they afforded to the malice of the disaffected: they became the Pasquin of Hazeldean.
As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigour in authority, so affairs had been lately administered with greater severity than had been hitherto wont in the easy rule of the Squire and his predecessors. Suspected persons were naturally marked out by Mr Stirn, and reported to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them openly with ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his walks with a silent and stiff inclination of his head; and afterwards gradually yielding to the baleful influence of Stirn, the Squire grumbled forth that "he did not see why he should be always putting himself out of his way to show kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to be a difference between the good and the bad." Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and their whole kith and kin, with the iron-banded justice that belonged to his character. For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy, and vegetables from the gardens, were surlily suspended; others were informed that their pigs were always trespassing on the woods in search of acorns; or that they were violating the Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house, popular in the neighbourhood, but of late resorted to overmuch by the grievance-mongers, (and no wonder, since they had become the popular party,) was threatened with an application to the magistrates for the withdrawal of its license. Sundry old women, whose grandsons were notoriously ill-disposed towards the Stocks, were interdicted from gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger members of the parish than most other retaliatory measures, three chestnut trees, one walnut, and two cherry trees, standing at the bottom of the park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given up to the youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general defence of "private property." And the crier had announced that, henceforth, all depredators on the fruit-trees in Copse Hollow would be punished with the utmost rigour of the law. Stirn, indeed, recommended much more stringent proceedings than all these indications of a change of policy, which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its senses – such as discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the surplus labour of the village. But there the Squire, falling into the department, and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of human kindness – with which Providence has so bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and of which our Squire had an extra "yield" – burst forth, and washed away all the indignation of the harsher Adam.
Still your policy of half-measures, which irritates without crushing its victims, which flaps an exasperated wasp-nest with a silk pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing it up with a match and train, is rarely successful; and, after three or four other and much guiltier victims than Lenny had been incarcerated in the Stocks, the parish of Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent jacobinical tracts, conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing towns – found their way into the popular beer-house – heaven knows how, though the Tinker was suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there appeared amongst the other graphic embellishments which the poor Stocks had received, the rude gravure of a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots, suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath – "A warnin to hall tirans – mind your hi! – sighnde Captin sTraw."
It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture that the Squire was gazing when the Parson joined him.
"Well, Parson," said Mr Hazeldean with a smile which he meant to be pleasant and easy, but which was exceedingly bitter and grim, "I wish you joy of your flock – you see they have just hanged me in effigy!"
The Parson stared, and, though greatly shocked, smothered his emotions; and attempted, with the wisdom of the serpent and the mildness of the dove, to find another original for the effigy.
"It is very bad," quoth he, "but not so bad as all that, Squire; that's not the shape of your hat. It is evidently meant for Mr Stirn."
"Do you think so!" said the Squire softened. "Yet the top-boots – Stirn never wears top-boots."
"No more do you – except in hunting. If you look again, those are not tops – they are leggings – Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that flourish, which is meant for a nose, is a kind of a hook like Stirn's; whereas your nose – though by no means a snub – rather turns up than not, as the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca's parlour."
"Poor Stirn!" said the Squire, in a tone that evinced complacency, not unmingled with compassion, "that's what a man gets in this world by being a faithful servant, and doing his duty with zeal for his employer. But you see that things have come to a strange pass, and the question now is, what course to pursue. The miscreants hitherto have defied all vigilance, and Stirn recommends the employment of a regular night-watch with a lanthorn and bludgeon."
"That may protect the Stocks certainly; but will it keep those detestable tracts out of the beer-house?"
"We shall shut the beer-house up at the next sessions."
"The tracts will break out elsewhere – the humour's in the blood!"
"I've half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamington – good hunting at Leamington – for a year, just to let the rogues see how they can get on without me!"
The Squire's lip trembled.
"My dear Mr Hazeldean," said the Parson, taking his friend's hand, "I don't want to parade my superior wisdom; but if you had taken my advice, quieta non movere. Was there ever a parish so peaceable as this, or a country-gentleman so beloved as you were, before you undertook the task which has dethroned kings and ruined states – that of wantonly meddling with antiquity, whether for the purpose of uncalled-for repairs or the revival of obsolete uses."
At this rebuke, the Squire did not manifest his constitutional tendencies to choler; but he replied almost meekly, "If it were to do again, faith, I would leave the parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest pair of stocks that ever disgraced a village. Certainly I meant it for the best – an ornament to the green; however, now they are rebuilt, the Stocks must be supported. Will Hazeldean is not the man to give way to
