of setting Lenny in the very stocks which he had too faithfully guarded. Eureka! the “example” was before him! Here he could gratify his long grudge against the pattern boy; here, by such a selection of the very best lad in the parish, he could strike terror into the worst; here he could appease the offended dignity of Randal Leslie; here was a practical apology to the squire for the affront put upon his young visitor; here, too, there was prompt obedience to the squire’s own wish that the stocks should be provided as soon as possible with a tenant. Suiting the action to the thought, Mr. Stirn made a rapid plunge at his victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket; and in a few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield was thrust therein,—a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune. This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied, by the suddenness of the calamity, for the resistance he might otherwise have made,—nay, for more than a few inaudible words,—Mr. Stirn hurried from the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions, he had hitherto even almost forgotten. He then made his way towards the church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, catch the squire as he came out, whisper to him what had passed, and lead him, with the whole congregation at his heels, to gaze upon the sacrifice offered up to the joint powers of Nemesis and Themis.
CHAPTER VII
Unaffectedly I say it—upon the honour of a gentleman, and the reputation of an author,—unaffectedly I say it, no words of mine can do justice to the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal suffering,—an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of holding.
For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission entrusted to him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had fought for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now in Lenny’s mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes the Anglo Saxon race,—the sense of justice. It was perhaps the strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of oppression and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from harsh parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the first time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its attendant feeling,—the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had been wronged, and he had no means to right himself. Then came another sensation, if not so deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the time,—shame! He, the good boy of all good boys; he, the pattern of the school, and the pride of the parson; he, whom the squire, in sight of all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on the back, and the grand squire’s lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation on his young and fair repute; he, who had already learned so dearly to prize the sweets of an honourable name,—he to be made, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer, and a byword! The streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And then came a tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be to her,—she who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and support; he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down.
Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from that hateful bondage,—for he heard steps approaching. And he began to picture to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the sad gaze of the parson, the bent brow of the squire, the idle, ill-suppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted character,—character of which the original whiteness could never, never be restored!
He would always be the boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words uttered by the squire came back on his soul, like the voice of conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth: “A sad disgrace, Lenny,—you’ll never be in such a quandary.” “Quandary”—the word was unfamiliar to him; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The poor boy could have prayed for the earth to swallow him.
CHAPTER VIII
“Kettles and frying-pans! what has us here?” cried the tinker.
This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it being Sunday, it is presumed that the donkey was enjoying his Sabbath on the common. The tinker was in his Sunday’s best, clean and smart, about to take his lounge in the park.
Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal.
“You in the wood, my baby! Well, that’s the last sight I should ha’ thought to see. But we all lives to larn,” added the tinker, sententiously. “Who gave you them leggins? Can’t you speak, lad?”
“Nick Stirn.”
“Nick Stirn! Ay, I’d ha’ ta’en my davy on that: and cos vy?”
“‘Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was trespassing on these very stocks; and he beat me—but I don’t care for that; and that boy was a young gentleman, and going to visit the squire; and so Nick Stirn—” Lenny stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation.
“Augh,” said the tinker, starting, “you fit with a young gentleman, did you? Sorry to hear you confess that, my lad! Sit there and be thankful you ha’ got off so cheap. ‘T is salt and battery to fit with your betters, and a Lunnon justice o’ peace would have given you two months o’ the treadmill.
“But vy should you fit cos he trespassed on the stocks? It ben’t your natural side for fitting, I takes it.”
Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable about serving the squire, and doing as he was bid.
“Oh, I sees, Lenny,” interrupted the tinker, in a tone of great contempt, “you be one of those who would rayther ‘unt with the ‘ounds than run with the ‘are! You be’s the good pattern boy, and would peach agin your own border to curry favour with the grand folks. Fie, lad! you be sarved right; stick by your border, then you’ll be ‘spected when you gets into trouble, and not be ‘varsally ‘spised,—as you’ll be arter church-time! Vell, I can’t be seen ‘sorting with you, now you are in this d’rogotary fix; it might hurt my c’r’acter, both with them as built the stocks and them as wants to pull ‘em down. Old kettles to mend! Vy, you makes me forgit the Sabbath! Sarvent, my lad, and wish you well out of it; ‘specks to your mother, and say we can deal for the pan and shovel all the same for your misfortin.”
The tinker went his way. Lenny’s eye followed him with the sullenness of despair. The tinker, like all the tribe of human comforters, had only watered the brambles to invigorate the prick of the horns. Yes, if Lenny had been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have pitied him; but to be incarcerated for defending them! You might as well have expected that the widows and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have pitied Dr. Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his own deadly machine. And even the tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he was, felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy! Lenny’s head sank again on his breast heavily, as if it had been of lead. Some few minutes thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became aware of the presence of another spectator to his shame; he heard no step, but he saw a shadow thrown over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with some vague idea that if he refused to see he might escape being seen.
CHAPTER IX
“Per Bacco!” said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny’s shoulder, and bending down to look into his face,—“per Bacco! my young friend, do you sit here from choice
