"I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. "It is certainly a great honor; but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits you to a personal interview in another and--a hotter world." CHAPTER XII. "But how on earth did you get into my new Stocks?" asked the Squire, scratching his head. "My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna." "Did he, and what for?" "To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca. The Squire burst out a-laughing. "And so you got into the Stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can't wonder--it is a very handsome pair of Stocks," continued the Squire, with a loving look at the object of his praise. "Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in those Stocks--I should not mind it myself." "We had better move on," said the Parson drily, "or we shall be having the whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the Doctor. Now pray what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can't understand a word of what has passed. You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from church by-the-by) can have done any thing to get into disgrace?" "Yes, he has though," cried the Squire. "Stirn, I say--Stirn." But Stirn had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of narrative at second-hand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to communicate: the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from the addition of public humiliation. The Parson, mollified toward the rude and hasty invention of the beer-drinking, took the Squire by the hand. "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me," he said repentantly; "I ought to have known at once that it was only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny, brawling and fighting on the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too--I don't know what to make of it." "Like or unlike," said the Squire, "it has been a gross insult to young Leslie; and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the best friends in the world. I can't think what it is," continued Mr. Hazeldean, musingly, "but it seems that there must be always some association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine. There was I, son of his own mother--who might have been shot through the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder--and now his wife's kinsman--my kinsman, too--grandmother a Hazeldean--a hard-reading sober lad, as I am given to understand, can't set his foot into the quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that ever was seen--makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It is FATALITY!" cried the Squire solemnly.