which he declared himself perfectly satisfied.
The parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and
the squire, much to his astonishment to find himself still alive,
was conveyed to Limmer's Hotel, where, after a considerable amount of
anguish, the ball was extracted and the wound healed. Now it was all
over, the squire felt very much raised in his own conceit; and when he
was in a humour more than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became
a favourite allusion with him.

He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the
most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley's return to
parliament, and defended his interests at risk of his own life, he had
an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote,--upon all
matters, at least, connected with the landed interest. And when, not
very long after Audley took his seat in parliament (which he did not
do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a
manner wholly belying the promises the squire had made on his behalf,
Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it could not but produce
an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterwards the squire's exasperation
reached the culminating point; for, having to pass through Lansmere on
a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to
vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he
never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a
heightened colour and an indignant expletive. M. de Ruqueville--who was
the greatest wit of his day--had, like the squire, a half-brother, with
whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke as
his "frere de loin!" Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's
"distant-brother"!

Enough of these explanatory antecedents,--let us return to the stocks.

CHAPTER XI.

The squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to
work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and coloured them
a beautiful dark blue, with white border--and a white rim round the
holes--with an ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest
public edifice in the whole village, though the village possessed
no less than three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius of the
Hazeldeans,--to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the parish pump.

A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never gladdened the
eye of a justice of the peace.

And Squire Hazeld