The Parson put on the shovel hat, which--conjoined 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 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!"