fire by the convenience they afforded to the malice of the disaffected: they became the Pasquin of Hazeldean.

As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigour in authority, so affairs had been lately administered with greater severity than had been hitherto wont in the easy rule of the Squire and his predecessors. Suspected persons were naturally marked out by Mr Stirn, and reported to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them openly with ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his walks with a silent and stiff inclination of his head; and afterwards gradually yielding to the baleful influence of Stirn, the Squire grumbled forth that "he did not see why he should be always putting himself out of his way to show kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to be a difference between the good and the bad." Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and their whole kith and kin, with the iron-handed justice that belonged to his character. For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy, and vegetables from the gardens, were surlily suspended; others were informed that their pigs were always trespassing on the woods in search of acorns; or that they were violating the Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house, popular in the neighbourhood, but of late resorted to overmuch by the grievance-mongers, (and no wonder, since they had become the popular party,) was threatened with an application to the magistrates for the withdrawal of its license. Sundry old women, whose grandsons were notoriously ill-disposed towards the Stocks, were interdicted from gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger members of the parish than most other retaliatory measures, three chestnut trees, one walnut, and two cherry trees, standing at the bottom of the park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given up to the youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general defence of "private property." And the crier had announced that, henceforth, all depredators on the

fruit-trees in Copse Hollow would be punished with the utmost rigour of the law. Stirn, indeed, recommended much more stringent proceedings than all these indications of a change of policy, which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its senses-such as discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the surplus labour of the village. But there the Squire, falling into the department, and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of human kindnesswith which Providence has so bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and of which our Squire had an extra “yield"

burst forth, and washed away all the indignation of the harsher Adam.

Still your policy of half-measures, which irritates without crushing its victims, which flaps an exasperated. wasp-nest with a silk pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing it up with a match and train, is rarely successful; and, after three or four other and much guiltier victims than Lenny had been incarcerated in the Stocks, the parish of Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent jacobinical tracts, conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing towns found their way into the popular beer-house-heaven knows how, though the Tinker was suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there appeared amongst the other graphic embellishments which the poor Stocks had received, the rude gravure of a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots, suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath-"A warnin to hall tirans-mind your hi!

sighnde Captin sTraw."

It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture that the Squire was gazing when the Parson joined him.

"Well, Parson," said Mr Hazeldean, with a smile which he meant to be pleasant and easy, but which was exceedingly bitter and grim, “I

wish you joy of your flock-you see they have just hanged me in effigy!" The Parson stared, and, though greatly shocked, smothered his emotions; and attempted, with the wisdom of the serpent and the mildness of the dove, to find another original for the effigy.

"It is very bad," quoth he, "but not so bad as all that, Squire; that's not the shape of your hat. It is evidently meant for Mr Stirn." "Do you think so!" said the Squire softened. "Yet the top-bootsStirn never wears top-boots."

"No more do you-except in hunting. If you look again, those are not tops-they are leggings-Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that flourish, which is meant for a nose, is a kind of a hook like Stirn's; whereas your nose -though by no means a snub-rather turns up than not, as the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca's parlour."

"Poor Stirn!" said the Squire, in a tone that evinced complacency, not unmingled with compassion, "that's what a man gets in this world by being a faithful servant, and doing his duty with zeal for his employer. But you see that things have come to a strange pass, and the question now is, what course to pursue. 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 beerhouse?"

"We shall shut the beer-house up at 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 Leamington-good 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 they are 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 the VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I know, is your idol in history-"

"To be sure-she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort."

"Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace."

"Ha! and you would have me give up the Stocks?"

"I would much rather they had stayed as they were, before you touched them; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible pretext-and there is an excellent one at hand;the sternest kings open prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion!-and so it should be in that of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in the Parson's eloquence!-it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr Dale had profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.

"A marriage-yes; but Frank has only just got into long tails!"

"I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!"

The Squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sate 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 granddaughter.

"The gallus!" answered Solomons"he be a-goin to have it hung from the great elm-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 togither, 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. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy

which could not be expected from every English pretender to the lady's hand." Seeing that he had so far cleared ground, the Parson went on to intimate, though with great tact, that, since Miss Jemima would probably marry sooner or later, (and, indeed, that the Squire could not wish to prevent her,) it might be better for all parties concerned that it should be with some one who, though a foreigner, was settled in the neighbourhood, and of whose character what was known was certainly favourable, than run the hazard of her being married for her money by some adventurer or Irish fortune-hunter at the watering-places she yearly visited. Then he touched lightly on Riccabocca's agreeable and companionable qualities; and concluded with a skilful peroration upon the excellent occasion the wedding would afford to reconcile Hall and parish, by making a voluntary holocaust of the Stocks.

As he concluded, the Squire's brow, before thoughtful, though not sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth, the Squire was dying to get rid of the Stocks, if he could but do so handsomely and with dignity; and if all the stars in the astrological horoscope had conjoined together to give Miss Jemima "assurance of a husband," they could not so have served her with the Squire, as that conjunction between the altar and the Stocks which the Parson had effected!

Accordingly, when Mr Dale had come to an end, the Squire replied with great placidity and good sense, "That Mr Rickeybockey had behaved very much like a gentleman, and that he was very much obliged to him; that he (the Squire) had no right to interfere in the matter, farther than with his advice; that Jemima was old enough to choose for herself, and that, as the Parson had implied, after all she might go farther and fare worseindeed, the farther she went, (that is, the longer she waited,) the worse she was likely to fare. I own for my part," continued the Squire, "that,

though I like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his glasses, ha-ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's go and talk to her."

The Parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the matter, hooked his arm into the Squire's, and they walked amicably towards the Hall. But on coming first into the gardens they found Mrs Hazeldean herself, clipping dead leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The Squire stole slily behind her, and startled her in her turn by putting his arm round her waist, and saluting her smooth cheek with one of his hearty kisses; which, by the way, from some association of ideas, was a conjugal freedom that he usually indulged whenever a wedding was going on in the village.

"Fie, William !" said Mrs Hazeldean coyly, and blushing as she saw the Parson. "Well, who's going to to be married now?"

"Lord, was there ever such a woman?-she's guessed it!" cried the Squire in great admiration. "Tell her all about it, Parson."

The Parson obeyed.

Mrs Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed much less surprise than her husband had done; but she took the news graciously, and made much the same answer as that which had occurred to the Squire, only with somewhat more qualification and reserve. "Signor Riccabocca had behaved very handsomely; and though a daughter of the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean might expect a much better marriage in a worldly point of view, yet as the lady in question had deferred finding one so long, it would be equally idle and impertinent now to quarrel with her choice-if indeed she should decide on accepting Signor Riccabocca. As for fortune, that was a consideration for the two contracting parties. Still, it ought to be pointed out to Miss Jemima that the interest of her fortune would afford but a very small income. That Dr

Riccabocca was a widower was another matter for deliberation; and it seemed rather suspicious that he should have been hitherto so close upon all matters connected with his former life. Certainly his manners were in his favour, and as long as he was merely an acquaintance, and at most a tenant, no one had a right to institute inquiries of a strictly private nature; but that, when he was about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it became the Squire at least to know a little more about him- who and what he was. Why did he leave his own country? English people went abroad to save; no foreigner would choose England as a country in which to save money! She supposed that a foreign doctor was no very great things; probably he had been a professor in some Italian university. At all events, if the Squire interfered at all, it was on such points that he should request information."

66

And

'My dear madam," said the Parson, "what you say is extremely just. As to the causes which have induced our friend to expatriate himself, I think we need not look far for them. He is evidently one of the many Italian refugees whom political disturbances have driven to our shore, whose boast it is to receive all exiles of whatever party. For his respectability of birth and family he certainly ought to obtain some vouchers. if that be the only objection, I trust we may soon congratulate Miss Hazeldean on a marriage with a man who, though certainly very poor, has borne privations without a murmur; has preferred all hardship to debt; has scorned to attempt betraying her into any clandestine connection; who, in short, has shown himself so upright and honest, that I hope my dear Mr Hazeldean will forgive him if he is only a doctor-probably of Laws

and not, as most foreigners pretend to be, a marquis, or a baron at least."

"As to that," cried the Squire, "'tis the best thing I know about Rickeybockey, that he don't attempt to humbug us by any such foreign trumpery. Thank heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never tufthunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English lord, I

should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry!-pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married a Doctor of Divinity-excellent manwore a wig, and was made a dean! So long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button. If he's that, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on a stage with a Merry-Andrew.'

"Lord, Hazeldean! where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry laughing.

"Pick it up!-why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last yearwhen I was buying short-horns-with a red waistcoat and a cocked hat, a little like the Parson's shovel. He called himself Doctor Phoscophornio -wore a white wig, and sold pills! The Merry-Andrew was the funniest creature-in salmon-coloured tightsturned head over heels, and said he came from Timbuctoo. No, no; if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor, we shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress, tramping about the country in a caravan!"

At this notion, both the Squire and his wife laughed so heartily that the Parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the intention of making his report to Riccabocca.

It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred equanimity that the Italian received the information, that he need apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the insular prejudices or the worldly views of the lady's family. Not that he was mean and cowardly enough to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that felicity which he had left off his glasses to behold with unblinking naked eyes :-no, there his mind was made up; but he had met with very little kindness in life, and he was touched not only by the interest in his welfare testified by a heretical priest, but by the generosity with which he was admitted into a wellborn and wealthy family, despite his notorious poverty and his foreign descent. He conceded the propriety of the only stipulation, which was conveyed to him by the Parson with all the delicacy that became a man professionally habituated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of mankind -viz., that, amongst Riccabocca's friends or kindred, some one should be found whose report would confirm the persuasion of his respectability entertained by his neighbours; he assent ed, I say, to the propriety of this condition; but it was not with alacrity and eagerness. His brow became clouded. The Parson hastened to assure him that the Squire was not a

man qui stupet in titulis, (who was besotted with titles,) that he neither expected nor desired to find an origin and rank for his brother-in-law above that decent mediocrity of condition to which it was evident, from Riccabocca's breeding and accomplishments, he could easily establish his claim. “And though," said he smiling, "the Squire is a warm politician in his own country, and would never see his sister again, I fear, if she married some convicted enemy of our happy constitution, yet for foreign politics he does not care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your exile arises from some quarrel with your Governmentwhich, being foreign, he takes for granted must be insupportable-he would but consider yon as he would a Saxon who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or a Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our Wars of the Roses."

The Italian smiled. "Mr Hazeldean shall be satisfied," said he simply. "I see, by the Squire's newspaper, that an English gentleman who knew me in my own country has just arrived in London. I will write to him for a testimonial, at least to my probity and character. Probably he may be known to you by name-nay, he must be, for he was a distinguished officer in the late war. I allude to Lord L'Estrange."