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 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 Leamingtongood 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 the stocks is 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 VIII.