"We had better move on," said the parson, dryly, "or we shall have the
whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same
predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor. Now,
pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can't understand a word
of what has passed. You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who
was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get into
disgrace?"

"Yes, he has though," cried the squire. "Stirn, I say, Stirn!" But
Stirn had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to
his own powers of narrative at secondhand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he
had to communicate,--the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt
punishment inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his
young kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit
from public humiliation.

The parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the beer-
drinking, took the squire by the hand. "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me,"
he said repentantly; "I ought to have known at once that it was only some
ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of decorum. But
this is a sad story about Lenny brawling and fighting on the Sabbath-day.
So unlike him, too. I don't know what to make of it."

"Like or unlike," said the squire, "it has been a gross insult to young
Leslie, and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the
best friends in the world. I can't think what it is," continued Mr.
Hazeldean, musingly; "but it seems that there must be always some
association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine.
There was I, son of his own mother,--who might have been shot through the