was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks,
and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong
had got into the village. The peasant wore a sullen expression of
countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more
than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad smile to
his quick, hearty "Good-day, my man." The women peered at him from the
threshold or the casement, but did not, as was their wont (at least the
wont of the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his passing
compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy cottages. And the
children, who used to play after work on the site of the old stocks, now
shunned the place, and, indeed, seemed to cease play altogether.

On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public
work for nothing. Now that the Squire had resuscitated the stocks, and
made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish to
put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been
wounded by the Parson's opposition; and it would be a justification to
his own forethought, and a triumph over the Parson's understanding, if
he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the
stocks had not been repaired before they were wanted.

Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was something about the
Squire more burly, and authoritative, and menacing than heretofore. Old
Gaffer Solomons observed, "that they had better moind well what they
were about, for that the Squire had a wicked look in the tail of his
eye--just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbor Barnes's little
boy."

For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the
atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive
overt act of tyranny on the one hand, or rebellion on the other. But on
the very Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in the
four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution
commenced. In the dead of that night, personal outrage was committed on
the stocks. And on the Sunday morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest
riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farm-yard, that the knob
of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off;
that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical
villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourished or scroll work,
"Dam the