"You'll not get it from me," asserted the squire, turning to
walk away.

As he did so, half a dozen hands were laid upon his arms
from behind, and he was held so firmly that he could not
move.

"Shall we give him a black coat, Joe?" asked some one.

"No," negatived Bagby. "Let 's see if being a 'babe in
the wood' won't be enough to bring him to reason.

The slang term for occupants of the stocks was quite suggestive
enough to produce instant result. The squire was
dragged back till his legs were tripped from under him by the
frame, the bunch of keys, which suddenly reappeared, served
to unlock the upper board, and before the victim quite realised
what had transpired he was safely fastened in the ignominious
instrument. Regrettable as it is to record, Mr. Meredith began
to curse in a manner highly creditable to his knowledge
of Anglo-Saxon, but quite the reverse of his moral nature.

So long as the squire continued to express his rage and to
threaten the bystanders with various penalties, the crowd stood
about in obvious enjoyment, but anger that only excites amusement
in others very quickly burns itself out, and in this particular
case the chill of the snow on which the squire was
sitting was an additional cause for a rapid cooling. Within
two minutes his vocabulary had exhausted itself and he relapsed
into silence. The fun being over, the crowd began to