I ask who you be?" said Stirn, falteringly, and half inclined
to touch his hat. "What's your name, pray, and what's your bizness?"

"My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to visit your master's
family--that is, if you are, as I guess from your manner, Mr.
Hazeldean's ploughman!"

So saying, Randal rose; and moving on a few paces, turned, and throwing
half-a-crown on the road, said to Lenny,--"Let that pay you for your
bruises, and remember another time how you speak to a gentleman. As for
you, fellow,"--and he pointed his scornful hand towards Mr. Stirn, who,
with his mouth open, and his hat now fairly off, stood bowing to the
earth--"as for you, give my compliment to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that,
when he does us the honor to visit us at Rood Hall, I trust that the
manners of our villagers will make him ashamed of Hazeldean."

O my poor Squire! Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean! If that message had
ever been delivered to you, you would never have looked up again!

With those bitter words, Randal swung himself over the stile that led
into the parson's glebe, and left Lenny Fairfield still feeling his
nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing to the earth.

CHAPTER V.

Randal Leslie had a very long walk home: he was bruised: and sore from
head to foot, and his mind was still more sore and more bruised than his
body. But if Randal Leslie had rested himself in the Squire's gardens,
without walking backwards, and indulging in speculations suggested by
Marat, and warranted by my Lord Bacon, he would have passed a most
agreeable evening, and really availed himself of the Squire's wealth by
going home in the Squire's carriage. But because he chose to take so
intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch; because he
tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes; because he spoiled his
clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into
the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the
air of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks--with
that hat, and a cross face under it--he had been forced into the most
discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home, at
war with gods and men;--_ergo_, (this is a moral that will bear
repetition)--_ergo_, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented
to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect;--I dare say you will enjoy
it more than he does.

CHAPTER VI.

If, in the simplicity of his heart