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 a set of thankless rapscallions."
"I think," said the Parson, "that you will allow that the House of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined resolute dynasty enough – high-hearted and strong-headed. A Tudor would never have fallen into the same calamities as the poor Stuart did!"
"What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do with my Stocks?"
"A great deal. Henry the VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I know, is your idol in history – "
"To be sure! – she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort."
"Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace."
"Ha! and you would have me give up the Stocks?"
"I would much rather they had stayed as they were, before you touched them; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible pretext – and there is an excellent one at hand; – the sternest kings open prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion! – and so it should be in that of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in the Parson's eloquence! – it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr Dale had profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.
"A marriage – yes; but Frank has only just got into long tails!"
"I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!"
CHAPTER XXV
The Squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sate down on the Stocks.
All the female heads in the neighbouring cottages peered, themselves unseen, through the casements. What could the Squire be about? – what new mischief did he meditate? Did he mean to fortify the stocks? Old Gaffer Solomons, who had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, and who had been for the last ten minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and said – "Them as a cut out the mon, a-hanging, as a put it in the Squire's head!"
"Put what?" asked his granddaughter.
"The gallus!" answered Solomons – "he be a-goin to have it hung from the great elm-tree. And the Parson, good mon, is a-quoting Scripter agin it – you see he's a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two han's togither, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany."
That description of the Parson's mien and manner, which, with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the Parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting that the Squire might be consulted before any formal communication to his cousin; and he repeated Mrs Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honour and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal,