himself,--as, indeed, a squire's right hand is generally more formidable
than the head can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe, because,
like the stocks of which he was deputed guardian, his powers were
undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the out-of-door
establishment. He was not the steward, yet he did much of what ought to
be the steward's work; he was not the farm-bailiff, for the squire called
himself his own farm-bailiff; nevertheless, Mr. Hazeldean sowed and
ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very much as Mr. Stirn
condescended to advise. He was not the park-keeper, for he neither shot
the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was he who always found
out who had broken a park pale or snared a rabbit. In short, what may be
called all the harsher duties of a large landed proprietor devolved, by
custom and choice, upon Mr. Stirn. If a labourer was to be discharged or
a rent enforced, and the squire knew that he should be talked over, and
that the steward would be as soft as himself, Mr. Stirn was sure to be
the avenging messenger, to pronounce the words of fate; so that he
appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the poet's /Saeva
Necessitas/, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed with whips,
nails, and wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of Mr. Stirn.
The calves knew that it was he who singled out which should be sold to
the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating hearts at his grim
footstep; the sow grunted, the duck quacked, the hen bristled her
feathers and called to her chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near. Nature had
set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the great
M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the brave, had an aspect so awe-
inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn; albeit the face of that hero was so
terrible, that a man who had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after
he had been dead twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf!

"And what the plague are you doing here?" said Mr. Stirn, as he waved and