ually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard
by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of
the squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled
invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's
ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing
Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from
the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under
the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only
being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale,
catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he
had never before been known to display,--except at the whist-table,--

"Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,--I am shocked at you.
I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my
whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle
ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had
been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish!
What on earth has come to you all?"

"That's the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer," groaned the
squire, quite mildly and pathetically,--"What on earth has come to us
all? Ask Stirn:" (then bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't
you hear? What on earth has come to us all?"

"The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, provoked out of
all temper. "I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all."

"A mortal fiddlestick! Where's Leonard Fairfield, I say?"

"Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety's
sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though
both the squire and parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had
merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered into
their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any
possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks.
No, not even though, as I before said, the squire had seen, just under
his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures, that
sight had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought
to have been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles
seemed to him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but
now, catching hold of Stirn, while the parson in equal astonishment
caught hold of him,