The squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to work at the parish stocks.

Then came the painter and coloured them a beautiful dark blue, with 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 almshouse, 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 frere de loin) consisted of Mrs.Hazeldean, his wife; next, of Miss Jemima Hazeldean, his first cousin; thirdly, of Mr.
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.