Oh, ho! you know what I mean now! Yes, but, neighbours, you need not have taken it so to heart.

That was a scurvy trick of some of you to hang me in effigy, as they call it." "It warn't you," cried a voice in the crowd, "it war Nick Stirn." The squire recognized the voice of the tinker; but though he now guessed at the ringleader, on that day of general amnesty he had the prudence and magnanimity not to say, "Stand forth, Sprott: thou art the man." Yet his gallant English spirit would not suffer him to come off at the expense of his servant.
"If it was Nick Stirn you meant," said he, gravely, "more shame for you.
It showed some pluck to hang the master; but to hang the poor servant, who only thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought upon him, was a shabby trick,--so little like the lads of Hazeldean, that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the parish.

But let bygones be bygones.

One thing is clear,--you don't take kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block and a grievance, and there's no denying that we went on very pleasantly without it.

I may also say that, in spite of it, we have been coming together again lately.