CHAPTER XII.
"But how on earth did you get into my new stocks ?" asked the squire, scratching his head.
"My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna." "Did he, and what for ?" "To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca.

The squire burst out a laughing.
"And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like.

Well, I can't wonder,--it is a very handsome pair of stocks," continued the squire, with a loving look at the object of his praise.

"Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in those stocks,--I'should not mind it myself." "We had better move on," said the parson, dryly, "or we shall have the whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor.
Now, pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield?
I can't understand a word of what has passed.

You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get into disgrace ?" "Yes, he has though," cried the squire.