It was about a year after Leonard's discovery of the family MSS. that
Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad mare in the Squire's stables, and
set out on an equestrian excursion. He said that he was bound on
business connected with his old parishioners of Lansmere; for, as it has
been incidentally implied in a previous chapter, he had been connected
with that borough town (and, I may here add, in the capacity of curate)
before he had been inducted into the living of Hazeldean.
It was so rarely that the Parson stirred from home, that this journey to
a town more than twenty miles off was regarded as a most daring
adventure, both at the Hall and at the Parsonage. Mrs. Dale could not
sleep the whole previous night with thinking of it; and though she had
naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on the eventful morn, she
yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than her own to pack up the
saddlebags which the Parson had borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so
distrustful was she of the possibility of the good man's exerting the
slightest common sense in her absence, that she kept him close at her
side while she was engaged in that same operation of packing up--showing
him the exact spot in which the clean shirt was put, and how nicely the
old slippers were packed up in one of his own sermons. She implored him
not to mistake the sandwiches for his shaving-soap, and made him observe
how carefully she had provided against such confusion, by placing them
as far apart from each other as the nature of saddlebags will admit. The
poor Parson--who was really by no means an absent man, but as little
likely to shave himself with sandwiches and lunch upon soap as the most
common-place mortal may be--listened with conjugal patience, and thought
that man never had such a wife before; nor was it without tears in his
own eyes that he tore himself from the farewell embrace of his weeping
Carry.
I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension that he set his
foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person to the mercies of an
unfamiliar animal. For whatever might be Mr. Dale's minor
accomplishments as a man and parson, horsemanship was not his forte.
Indeed, I doubt if he had taken the reins in his hand more than twice
since he had been married.
The Squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance with the pad; and,
to the Parson's gentle inquiry whether Mat was quite sure that the pad
was quite safe, replied laconically, "Oi, oi, give her her head."
"Give her her head!" repeated Mr. Dale, rather amazed, for he had not
the slightest intention of taking away that part of the beast's frame,
so essential to its vital economy--"Give her her head!"
"Oi, oi; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a doincing on
her hind-legs."
The Parson instantly slackened the reins; and Mrs. Dale--who had tarried
behind to control her tears--now running to the door for "more last
words," he waved his hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into
the lane.
Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the idiosyncrasies of
the pad, and trying thereby to arrive at some notion of her general
character: guessing, for instance, why she raised one ear and laid down
the other; why she kept bearing so close to the left that she brushed
his leg against the hedge; and why, when she arrived at a little
side-gate in the fields, which led toward the home-farm, she came to a
full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose against the rail--an occupation
from which the Parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at
length diverted her by a timorous application of the whip.
This crisis on the road fairly passed, the pad seemed to comprehend that
she had a journey before her, and giving a petulant whisk of her tail,
quickened her amble into a short trot, which soon brought the Parson
into the high road, and nearly opposite the Casino.
Here, sitting on the gate which led to his abode, and shaded by his
umbrella, he beheld Dr. Riccabocca.
The Italian lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, and stared
hard at the Parson; and he--not venturing to withdraw his whole
attention from the pad (who, indeed, set up both her ears at the
apparition of Riccabocca, and evinced symptoms of that surprise and
superstitious repugnance at unknown objects which goes by the name of
"shying"), looked askance at Riccabocca.
"Don't stir, please," said the Parson, "or I fear you'll alarm this
creature; it seems a nervous, timid thing;--soho--gently--gently."
And he fell to patting the mare with great unction.
The pad thus encouraged, overcame her first natural astonishment at the
sight of Riccabocca and the red umbrella; and having before been in the
Casino on sundry occasions, and sagaciously preferring places within the
range of experience to bournes neither cognate nor conjecturable, she
moved gravely up toward the gate on which the Italian sate; and, after
eying him a moment--as much as to say, "I wish you would get off"--came
to a dead lock.
"Well," said Riccabocca, "since your horse seems more disposed to be
polite to me than yourself, Mr. Dale, I take the opportunity of your
present involuntary pause to congratulate you on your elevation in life,
and to breathe a friendly prayer that pride may not have a fall!"
"Tut," said the Parson, affecting an easy air, though still
contemplating the pad, who appeared to have fallen into a quiet doze,
"It is true that I have not ridden much of late years, and the Squire's
horses are very high fed and spirited; but there is no more harm in them
than their master when one once knows their ways."
"Chi và piano, và sano,
E chi va sano và lontano,"
said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. "You go slowly, therefore
safely; and he who goes safely may go far. You seem prepared for a
journey?"
"I am," said the Parson; "and on a matter that concerns you a little."
"Me!" exclaimed Riccabocca--"concerns me!"
"Yes, so far as the chance of depriving you of a servant whom you like
and esteem affects you."
"Oh," said Riccabocca, "I understand: you have hinted to me very often
that I or knowledge, or both together, have unfitted Leonard Fairfield
for service."
"I did not say that exactly; I said that you have fitted him for
something higher than service But do not repeat this to him. And I can
not yet say more to you, for I am very doubtful as to the success of my
mission; and it will not do to unsettle poor Leonard until we are sure
that we can improve his condition."
"Of that you can never be sure," quoth the wise man, shaking his head;
"and I can't say that I am unselfish enough not to bear you a grudge for
seeking to decoy away from me an invaluable servant--faithful, steady,
intelligent, and (added Riccabocca, warming as he approached the
climacteric adjective)--exceedingly cheap! Nevertheless go, and Heaven
speed you. I am not an Alexander, to stand between man and the sun."
"You are a noble great-hearted creature, Signor Riccabocca, in spite of
your cold-blooded proverbs and villainous books." The Parson, as he said
this, brought down the whip-hand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on the
pad's shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of her innocent doze,
made a bolt forward, which nearly precipitated Riccabocca from his seat
on the stile, and then turning round--as the Parson tugged desperately
at the rein--caught the bit between her teeth, and set off at a canter.
The Parson lost both his stirrups; and when he regained them (as the pad
slackened her pace), and had time to breathe and look about him,
Riccabocca and the Casino were both out of sight.
"Certainly," quoth Parson Dale, as he resettled himself with great
complacency, and a conscious triumph that he was still on the pad's
back--"certainly it is true 'that the noblest conquest ever made by man
was that of the horse:' a fine creature it is--a very fine creature--and
uncommonly difficult to sit on,--especially without stirrups." Firmly in
his stirrups the Parson planted his feet; and the heart within him was
very proud.