Been what?"

"Semminating"--

"Dissemminating, you blockhead--disseminating what?"

"Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging right _in medias res_, and
by a fine use of one of the noblest figures of rhetoric.

"Mr. Stirn!" cried the Squire, reddening, "did you say 'Damn the
stocks?'--damn my new handsome pair of stocks!"

"Lord forbid, sir; that's what _they_ say: that's what they have digged
on it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four
holes, and broken the capital of the elewation."

The Squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor;
he seated himself in his arm-chair majestically, crossed his legs, and,
in a voice that affected tranquillity, said--

"Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching an
assault upon--can I trust my senses?--upon my new stocks. Compose
yourself--be calm. NOW! What the devil is come to the parish?"

"Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn: and then laying the
forefinger of the right hand on the palm of the left, he narrated the
case.

"And whom do you suspect? Be calm now, don't speak in a passion. You are
a witness, sir--a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury!
this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical--but whom do you
suspect, I say?"

Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his
shoulder, and whispered--"I hear as how two Papishers slept at your
honor's last night."

"What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got out of his warm bed to
bung up the holes in my new stocks?"

"Noa; he's two cunning to do it himself, but he may have been
semminating. He's mighty thick with Parson Dale, and your honor knows as
how the Parson set his face agin the stocks. Wait a bit, sir--don't fly
at me yet. There be a boy in this here parish"--

"A boy!--ah fool, now you are nearer the mark. The Parson write 'Damn
the stocks,' indeed! What boy do you mean?"

"And that boy be cockered up much by Mister Dale; and the Papishers went
and sat with him and his mother a whole hour t'other day; and that boy
is as deep as a well; and I seed him lurking about the place, and hiding
hisself under the tree the day the stocks was put up--and that ere boy
is Lenny Fairfield."

"Whew," said the Squire, whistling, "you have not your usual senses
about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield--pattern boy of the village. Hold
your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish, after