"And if I had listened to Parson Dale—"
"You would have done a very wise thing," said a voice behind, as the Parson presented himself in the rear.
"Wise thing! Why surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Hazeldean, with spirit, for she always resented the least contradiction to her lord and master; perhaps as an interference with her own special right and prerogative: "why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is necessary to repair them."
"That's right, go it, Harry!" cried the Squire, chuckling, and rubbing his hands, as if he had been setting his terrier at the Parson. "St—St—at him! Well, Master Dale, what do you say to that?"
"My dear ma'am," said the Parson, replying in preference to the lady; "there are many institutions in the country which are very old, look very decayed, and don't seem of much use; but I would not pull them down for all that."
"You would reform them, then," said Mrs. Hazeldean, doubtfully, and with a look at her husband, as much as to say, "He is on politics now; that's your business."
"No, I would not, ma'am," said the Parson, stoutly.
"What on earth would you do, then?" quoth the Squire.
"Just let 'em alone," said the Parson. "Master Frank, there's a Latin maxim which was often in the mouth of Sir Robert Walpole, and which they ought to put in the Eton grammar—'Quieta non movere.' If things are quiet, let them be quiet! I would not destroy the stocks, because that might seem to the ill-disposed like a license to offend, and I would not repair the stocks, because that puts it into people's heads to get into them."
The Squire was a stanch politician of the old school, and he did not like to think that in repairing the stocks, he had perhaps been conniving at revolutionary principles.