Old Gaffer Solomons observed, "that they had better moind well what they were about, for that the squire had a wicked look in the tail of his eye,--just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbour Barnes's little boy." For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive overt act of tyranny on the one hand or rebellion on the other.

But on the very Saturday night in which Dr.Riccabocca was installed in the four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution commenced.

In the dead of that night personal outrage was committed on the stocks.

And on the Sunday morning, Mr.Stirn, who was the earliest riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off; that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll-work, "Dam the stocks!" Mr.Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings with horror and alarm.

And when the squire came into his dressing-room at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet) informed him, with a mysterious air, that Mr.Stirn had something "very partikler to communicate about a most howdacious midnight 'spiracy and 'sault." The squire stared, and bade Mr.Stirn be admitted.
"Well ?" cried the squire, suspending the operation of stropping his razor.
Mr.Stirn groaned.
"Well, man, what now ?" "I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore," began Mr.
Stirn; "and I can only 'count for it by s'posing that them foreign Papishers have been semminating--" "Been what ?" "Semminating--" "Disseminating, you blockhead,--disseminating what ?" "Damn the stocks," began Mr.Stirn, plunging right in medias res, and by a fine use of one of the noblest figures in rhetoric.
"Mr.Stirn!" cried the squire, reddening, "did you say, 'Damn the stocks' ?--damn my new handsome pair of stocks!" "Lord forbid, sir; that's what they say: that's what they have digged on it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four holes, and broken the capital of the elewation." The squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor; he seated himself in his armchair majestically, crossed his legs, and, in a voice that affected tranquillity, said,-- "Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching an assault upon--can I trust my senses ?--upon my new stocks.