seemed aware of them; for his pale face grew more pale, and his sullen
eye more fixed and more vigilant.

"You get off them stocks," said Lenny, disdaining to reply to the coarse
expressions bestowed on him; and, suiting the action to the word, he gave
the intruder what he meant for a shove, but what Randal took for a blow.
The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided but by a
slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his balance, and sent him neck-
and-crop over the stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager rose
alertly, and, flying at Randal, struck out right and left.




CHAPTER III.

Aid me, O ye Nine! whom the incomparable Persius satirized his
contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a sudden, invoked on his
own behalf,--aid me to describe that famous battle by the stocks, and in
defence of the stocks, which was waged by the two representatives of
Saxon and Norman England. Here, sober support of law and duty and
delegated trust,--/pro aris et focis/; there, haughty invasion and
bellicose spirit of knighthood and that respect for name and person which
we call "honour." Here, too, hardy physical force,--there, skilful
discipline. Here--The Nine are as deaf as a post, and as cold as a
stone! Plague take the jades! I can do better without them.

Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he was not so tall nor so
strong, nor even so active; and after the first blind rush, when the two
boys paused, and drew back to breathe, Lenny, eying the slight form and