uperior 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 the stocks is 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 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 the stocks had remained as it was before
you touched it; 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 coattails!"

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

CHAPTER XXV.

The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked o