of a young gentleman. It looked to him highly disreputable: the coat was
covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a gap
between the side and crown.

Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate through
which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park from a
small town, the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at the Hall,
--they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to the
preserves, the most troublesome trespassers on the park, the most
unprincipled orchard robbers, and the most disputatious asserters of
various problematical rights of way, which, according to the Town, were
public, and, according to the Hall, had been private since the Conquest.
It was true that the same path led also directly from the squire's house,
but it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal had been
visiting there. All things considered, Lenny had no doubt in his mind
but that the stranger was a shop-boy or 'prentice from the town of
Thorndyke; and the notorious repute of that town, coupled with this
presumption, made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of the
midnight desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm the suspicion,
which passed through Lenny's mind with a rapidity wholly disproportionate
to the number of lines it costs me to convey it, the boy, now standing
right before the stocks, bent down and read that pithy anathema with
which it was defaced. And having read it, he repeated it aloud, and
Lenny actually saw him smile,--such a smile! so disagreeable and
sinister! Lenny had never before seen the smile sardonic.

But what were Lenny's pious horror and dismay when this ominous stranger
fairly seated himself on the stocks, rested his heels profanely on the
lids of two of the four round eyes, and taking out a pencil and a pocket-
book, began to write.