Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps,
was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he
enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humour, the
astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld
the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found for
Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted captive
whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared speechless and aghast
upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the doctor enjoying his pipe,
and cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sangfroid that was truly
appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn always
suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that black
and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged up,
and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation
of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he
had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found, conjoined with
the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person
of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into
the breast of the parochial tyrant; while to his first confused and
stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so
tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious
equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more
and more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers of
Darkness, and that he himself, prematurely and in the flesh, stood face
to face with the Arch-Enemy.
Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do him
justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard by the
parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of the
squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled
invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's
ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing
Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the
stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under the
majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his
mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching
him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never
before been known to display,--except at the whisttable,--
"Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,--I am shocked at you.
I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my
whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle
ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had been
a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish! What
on earth has come to you all?"
"That's the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer," groaned the
squire, quite mildly and pathetically,--"What on earth has come to us
all? Ask Stirn:" (then bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't
you hear? What on earth has come to us all?"
"The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, provoked out of
all temper. "I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all."
"A mortal fiddlestick! Where's Leonard Fairfield, I say?"
"Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety's
sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though
both the squire and parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had
merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered into
their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any
possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks.
No, not even though, as I before said, the squire had seen, just under
his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures, that sight
had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought to have
been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles seemed to
him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but now,
catching hold of Stirn, while the parson in equal astonishment caught
hold of him, the squire faltered out, "Well, this beats cock-fighting!
The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for
Little Lenny!"
"Perhaps," said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and
attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would
permit,--"perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to
explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks."
The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile,
as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of
extricating him.
"Lord love your reverence, you'd better not!" cried Mr. Stirn. "Don't be
tempted,--he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near
him for all the--"
The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to
the parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than
all present--even than the tall squire--approached Mr. Stirn, with a
gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the
hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently.
"I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the Italian, lifting his
hat with his characteristic politeness. "It is certainly a great honour;
but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in
question admits you to a personal interview in another--and a hotter
world."