extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar.
That wish--

"The gods dispersed in empty air."

Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the parson's school, while Lenny
Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr. Stirn was
naturally, and almost justifiably, ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield,
who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed
for his son.

"Um!" said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, "you are
the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir! then I put
these here stocks under your care, and you'll keep off the other boys
from sitting on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three-holes
and chuck-farthing, as I declare they've been a doing, just in front of
the elewation. Now, you knows your 'sponsibilities, little boy,--and a
great honour they are too, for the like o' you.

If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d' ye understand?--and
that's what the squire says to me. So you sees what it is to be a
pattern boy, Master Lenny!" With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud crack of the
cart-whip, by way of military honours, over the head of the vicegerent he
had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two young unsuspecting
pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised their proprietors
to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could be more obnoxious
than that of deputy-governor or /charge-d'affaires extraordinaires/ to
the parish stocks, nor one more likely to render Lenny Fairfield odious
to his contemporaries, ought he to have been insensible to the signal
advantage of his condition over that of the two sufferers, against whose