"Just let 'em alone," said the parson.
"Master Frank, there's a Latin maxim which was often put in the mouth of Sir Robert Walpole, and which they ought to put into the Eton grammar, 'Quieta non movere.' If things are quiet, let them be quiet! I would not destroy the stocks, because that might seem to the ill-disposed like a license to offend; and I would not repair the stocks, because that puts it into people's heads to get into them." The squire was a stanch politician of the old school, and he did not like to think that, in repairing the stocks, he had perhaps been conniving at revolutionary principles.
"This constant desire of innovation," said Miss Jemima, suddenly mounting the more funereal of her two favourite hobbies, "is one of the great symptoms of the approaching crash.

We are altering and mending and reforming, when in twenty years at the utmost the world itself may be destroyed!" The fair speaker paused, and Captain Barnabas said thoughtfully, "Twenty years!--the insurance officers rarely compute the best life at more than fourteen." He struck his hand on the stocks as he spoke, and added, with his usual consolatory conclusion, "The odds are that it will last our time, Squire." But whether Captain Barnabas meant the stocks or the world he did not clearly explain, and no one took the trouble to inquire.
"Sir," said Master Frank to his father, with that furtive spirit of quizzing, which he had acquired amongst other polite accomplishments at Eton,--"sir, it is no use now considering whether the stocks should or should not have been repaired.

The only question is, whom you will get to put into them." "True," said the squire, with much gravity.
"Yes, there it is!" said the parson, mournfully.

"If you would but learn 'non quieta movere'!" "Don't spout your Latin at me, Parson," cried the squire, angrily; "I can give you as good as you bring, any day.
"'Propria quae maribus tribuuntur mascula dicas .-- As in praesenti, perfectum format in avi.' "There," added the squire, turning triumphantly towards his Harry, who looked with great admiration at this unprecedented burst of learning on the part of Mr.Hazeldean,--"there, two can play at that game! And now that we have all seen the stocks, we may as well go home and drink tea.
Will you come up and play a rubber, Dale?
No! hang it, man, I've not offended you ?--you know my ways." "That I do, and they are among the things I would not have altered," cried the parson, holding out his hand cheerfully.

The squire gave it a hearty shake, and Mrs.Hazeldean hastened to do the same.
"Do come; I am afraid we've been very rude: we are sad blunt folks.