The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sat down on the stocks.

All the female heads in the neighbouring cottages peered, themselves unseen, through the casements.

What could the squire be about?
What new mischief did he meditate?
Did he mean to fortify the stocks?
Old Gaffer Solomons, who had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, and who had been for the last ten minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and said, "Them as a cut out the mon a hanging, as a put it in the squire's head!" "Put what ?" asked his grand-daughter.
"The gallus!" answered Solomons,--"he be a going to have it hung from the great elfin-tree.

And the parson, good mon, is a quoting Scripter agin it; you see he's a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two han's together, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany." That description of the parson's mien and manner, which with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate.

He dwelt much upon the sense of propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting that the squire might be consulted before any formal communication to his cousin; and he repeated Mrs.Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honour and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them.