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 moved 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 bescratched--it was hacked and
hewed--it was scrawled all over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and
laconic execrations for 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 vigor 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-handed 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 neighborhood, but of late resorted to over-much 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 rigor 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 labor 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 Captins Traw."
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 parlor."
"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 nightwatch
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 humor'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 favors, 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!"