only to detect ordinary depredators and trespassers; but, first, to discover the authors of the conspiracy against the stocks; and, secondly, to “make an example.”
He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early morning; and just as the afternoon bell was sounding its final peal, he emerged upon the village green from a hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to observe who had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks. At that moment the place was deserted. At a distance, the superintendent saw the fast disappearing forms of some belated groups hastening towards the church; in front, the stocks stood staring at him mournfully from its four great eyes, which had been cleansed from the mud, but still looked bleared and stained with the inarks of the recent outrage. Here Mr. Stirn paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brows.
“If I had sum ‘un to watch here,” thought he, “while I takes a turn by the water-side, p’r’aps summat might come out; p’r’aps them as did it ben’t gone to church, but will come sneaking round to look on their willany! as they says murderers are always led back to the place where they ha’ left the body. But in this here willage there ben’t a man, woman, or child as has any consarn for squire or parish, barring myself.” It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm akimbo. “Hollo, you, sir,” said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, “where be you going at that rate?”
“Please, sir, I be going to church.”
“Stop, sir,—stop, Master Lenny. Going to church!—why, the bell’s done; and you knows the parson is very angry at them as comes in late, disturbing the congregation. You can’t go to church now!”
“Please, sir—”
“I says you can’t go to church now. You must learn to think a little of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to serve the squire! and you must serve him too. Why, your mother’s got the house and premishes almost rent-free; you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and feel for his honour! Poor man! his heart is well-nigh bruk, I am sure, with the goings on.”
Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn dolorously wiped his own.
“Look at that ‘ere dumb cretur,” said Stirn, suddenly, pointing to the stocks,—“look at it. If it could speak, what would it say, Leonard Fairfield? Answer me that! ‘Damn the stocks,’ indeed!”
“It was very bad in them to write such naughty words,” said Lenny, gravely. “Mother was quite shocked when she heard of it this morning.”
MR. STIRN.—“I dare say she was, considering what she pays for the premishes;” (insinuatingly) “you does not know who did it,—eh, Lenny?”
LENNY.—“No, sir; indeed I does not!”
MR. STIRN.—“Well, you see, you can’t go to church,—prayers half over by this time. You recollex that I put them stocks under your ‘sponsibility,’ and see the way you’s done your duty by ‘em! I’ve half a mind to—”
Mr. Stirn cast his eyes on the eyes of the stocks. “Please, sir,” began Lenny again, rather frightened.
“No, I won’t please; it ben’t pleasing at all. But I forgives you this time, only keep a sharp lookout, lad, in future. Now you must stay here—no, there—under the hedge, and you watches if any persons comes to loiter about, or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just arter; so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. Be sharp, boy, or it will be worse for you and your mother; I can let the premishes for L4 a year more to-morrow.”
Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very significant remark, and not staying for an answer, Mr. Stirn waved his hand and walked off.
Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected, and greatly disliking the neighbourhood to which the was consigned. At length he slowly crept off to the hedge, and sat himself down in the place of espionage pointed out to him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is called the point of honour is a barbarous feudal prejudice. Amongst the higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices may be supposed to prevail, Lenny Fairfield’s occupation would not have been considered peculiarly honourable; neither would it have seemed so to the more turbulent spirits among the humbler orders, who have a point of honour of their own, which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance of all lawful authority. But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up much apart from other boys, and with a profound and grateful reverence for the squire instilled into all his habits of thought, notions of honour bounded themselves to simple honesty and straightforward truth; and as he cherished an unquestioning awe of order and constitutional authority, so it did not appear to him that there was anything derogatory and debasing in being thus set to watch for an offender. On the contrary, as he began to reconcile himself to the loss of the church service, and to enjoy the cool of the summer shade and the occasional chirp of the birds, he got to look on the bright side of the commission to which he was deputed. In youth, at least, everything has its bright side,—even the appointment of Protector to the Parish Stocks. For the stocks itself Leonard had no affection, it is true; but he had no sympathy with its aggressors, and he could well conceive that the squire would be very much hurt at the revolutionary event of the night. “So,” thought poor Leonard in his simple heart,—“so, if I can serve his honour, by keeping off mischievous boys, or letting him know who did the thing, I’m sure it would be a proud day for Mother.” Then he began to consider that, however ungraciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the appointment, still it was a compliment to him,—showed trust and confidence in him, picked him out from his contemporaries as the sober, moral, pattern boy; and Lenny had a great deal of pride in him, especially in matters of repute and character.
All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield reclined on his lurking-place, if not with positive delight and intoxicating rapture, at least with tolerable content and some complacency.
Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of an hour, when a boy came through a little gate in the park, just opposite to Lenny’s retreat in the hedge, and, as if fatigued with walking, or oppressed by the heat of the day, paused on the green for a moment or so, and then advanced under the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks.
Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously.
He had never seen the boy before: it was a strange face to him.
Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers; moreover, he had a vague belief that strangers were at the bottom of that desecration of the stocks. The boy, then, was a stranger; but what was his rank? Was he of that grade in society in which the natural offences are or are not consonant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks? On that Lenny Fairfield did not feel quite assured. According to all the experience of the villager, the boy was not dressed like a young gentleman. Leonard’s notions of such aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a dazzling vision of snow-white trousers and beautiful blue coats and incomparable cravats. Now the dress of this stranger, though not that of a peasant or of a farmer, did not in any way correspond with Lenny’s notion of the costume of a young gentleman. It looked to him highly disreputable: the coat was covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a gap between the side and crown.
Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate through which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park from a small town, the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at the Hall,—they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to the preserves, the most troublesome trespassers
