He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley's return to Parliament, and defended his interests at the risk of his own life, he had an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote--upon all matters at least connected with the landed interest. And when, not very long after Audley took his seat in Parliament (which he did not do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a manner wholly belying the promises the Squire had made on his behalf, Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer, that it could not but produce an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterward, the Squire's exasperation reached the culminating point, for, having to pass through Lansmere on a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned, without a heightened color and an indignant expletive. Monsieur de Ruqueville--who was the greatest wit of his day--had, like the Squire, a half-brother, with whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke as his "_frère de loin_." Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's "_distant brother_!"--Enough of these explanatory antecedents--let us return to the Stocks.
The Squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales, and set to work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and colored them, a beautiful dark blue, with a white border--and a white rim round the holes--with an ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest public edifice in the whole village--though the village possessed no less than three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius, of the Hazeldeans: to wit, the alms-house, the school, and the parish pump.
A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never gladdened the eye of a justice of the peace.
And Squire Hazeldean's eye was gladdened. In the pride of his heart he brought all the family down to look at the stocks. The Squire's family (omitting the _frère de loin_) consisted of Mrs. Hazeldean, his wife; next, of Miss Jemima Hazeldean, his first cousin; thirdly, of Master Francis Hazeldean, his only son; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas Higginbotham, a distant relation--who, indeed, strictly speaking, was not of the family, but only a visitor ten months in the year. Mrs. Hazeldean was every inch the lady--the lady of the parish. In her comely, florid, and somewhat sunburnt countenance, there was an equal expression of majesty and benevolence; she had a blue eye that invited liking, and an aquiline nose that commanded respect. Mrs. Hazeldean had no affectation of fine airs--no wish to be greater and handsomer and cleverer than she was. She knew herself, and her station, and thanked heaven for it. There was about her speech and manner something of that shortness and bluntness which often characterizes royalty; and if the lady of a parish is not a queen in her own circle, it is never the fault of the parish. Mrs. Hazeldean dressed her part to perfection. She wore silks that seemed heirlooms--so thick were they, so substantial and imposing. And over these, when she was in her own domain, the whitest of aprons; while at her waist was seen no fiddle-daddle _chatelaine_, with _breloques_ and trumpery, but a good honest gold watch to mark the time, and a long pair of scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her flowers, for she was a great horticulturist. When occasion needed, Mrs. Hazeldean could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and imperial raiment for a stout riding-habit of blue Saxony, and canter by her husband's side to see the hounds throw off. Nay, on the days on which Mr. Hazeldean drove his famous fast-trotting cob to the market town, it was rarely that you did not see his wife on the left side of the gig. She cared as little as her lord did for wind and weather, and, in the midst of some pelting shower, her pleasant face peeped over the collar and capes of a stout dreadnought, expanding into smiles and bloom as some frank rose, that opens from its petals, and rejoices in the dews. It was easy to see that the worthy couple had married for love; they were as little apart as they could help it. And still, on the first of September, if the house was not full of company which demanded her cares, Mrs. Hazeldean "stepped out" over the stubbles by her husband's side, with as light a tread and as blithe an eye as when in the first bridal year she had enchanted the Squire by her genial sympathy with his sports.