But the squire and his son, Frank, were large-hearted generous creatures
in the article of apology, as in all things less skimpingly dealt out.
And seeing that Leonard Fairfield would offer no plaster to Randal
Leslie, they made amends for his stinginess by their own prodigality.
The squire accompanied his son to Rood Hall, and none of the family
choosing to be at home, the squire in his own hand, and from his own
head, indited and composed an epistle which might have satisfied all the
wounds which the dignity of the Leslies had ever received.
This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that Randal would come
and spend a few days with his son. Frank's epistle was to the same
purport, only more Etonian and less legible.
It was some days before Randal's replies to these epistles were received.
The replies bore the address of a village near London; and stated that
the writer was now reading with a tutor preparatory to entrance to
Oxford, and could not, therefore, accept the invitation extended to him.
For the rest, Randal expressed himself with good sense, though not with
much generosity. He excused his participation in the vulgarity of such a
conflict by a bitter, but short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance
of the village boor; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly
would have done under similar circumstances,--namely, intercede in behalf
of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. Most of us like a foe better
after we have fought him,--that is, if we are the conquering party; this
was not the case with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the Etonian was
concerned, the matter rested. And the squire, irritated that he could
not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had sustained, no longer
felt a pang of regret as he passed by Mrs. Fairfield's deserted cottage.
CHAPTER XVl.
Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new
employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with
which he was treated. Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into
character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality
and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English
village boy. On further acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's
innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that
required but development and direction. He ascertained that the pattern-
boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something more than
mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had a keen
thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth and
circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius which
converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with the germs
of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult to separate,
and hard to destroy, often mar the produce of the soil. With a
remarkable and generous pride in self-repute, there was some
stubbornness; with great sensibility to kindness, there was also strong
reluctance to forgive affront.
This mixed nature in an uncultivated peasant's breast interested
Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the commerce of mankind, still
looked upon man as the most various and entertaining volume which
philosophical research can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the
tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive; and Lenny's
language and ideas became insensibly less rustic and more refined. Then
Riccabocca selected from his library, small as it was, books that, though
elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found within his
reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language well,--better
in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not ill-educated
Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with which a
scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he had many of
the books which had formerly served him for that purpose. These were the
first works he lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo imparted to the boy
many secrets in practical gardening and minute husbandry, for at that day
farming in England (some favoured counties and estates excepted) was far
below the nicety to which the art has been immemorially carried in the
north of Italy,--where, indeed, you may travel for miles and miles as
through a series of market-gardens; so that, all these things considered,
Leonard Fairfield might be said to have made a change for the better.
Yet, in truth, and looking below the surface, that might be fair matter
of doubt. For the same reason which had induced the boy to fly his
native village, he no longer repaired to the church of Hazeldean. The
old intimate intercourse between him and the parson became necessarily
suspended, or bounded to an occasional kindly visit from the latter,--
visits which grew more rare and less familiar, as he found his former
pupil in no want of his services, and wholly deaf to his mild entreaties
to forget and forgive the past, and come at least to his old seat in the
parish church. Lenny still went to church,--a church a long way off in
another parish,--but the sermons did not do him the same good as Parson
Dale's had done; and the clergyman, who had his own flock to attend to,
did not condescend, as Parson Dale would have done, to explain what
seemed obscure, and enforce what was profitable, in private talk, with
that stray lamb from another's fold.
Now I question much if all Dr. Riccabocca's maxims, though they were
often very moral and generally very wise, served to expand the peasant
boy's native good qualities, and correct his bad, half so well as the few
simple words, not at all indebted to Machiavelli, which Leonard had once
reverently listened to when he stood by Mark's elbow-chair, yielded up
for the moment to the good parson, worthy to sit in it; for Mr. Dale had
a heart in which all the fatherless of the parish found their place. Nor
was this loss of tender, intimate, spiritual lore so counterbalanced by
the greater facilities for purely intellectual instruction as modern
enlightenment might presume. For, without disputing the advantage of
knowledge in a general way, knowledge, in itself, is not friendly to
content. Its tendency, of course, is to increase the desires, to
dissatisfy us with what is, in order to urge progress to what may be; and
in that progress, what unnoticed martyrs among the many must fall baffled
and crushed by the way! To how large a number will be given desires they
will never realize, dissatisfaction of the lot from which they will never
rise! Allons! one is viewing the dark side of the question. It is all
the fault of that confounded Riccabocca, who has already caused Lenny
Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after looking round and
seeing no one near him, groan out querulously,--"And am I born to dig a
potato ground?"
Pardieu, my friend Lenny, if you live to be seventy, and ride in your
carriage, and by the help of a dinner-pill digest a spoonful of curry,
you may sigh to think what a relish there was in potatoes, roasted in
ashes after you had digged them out of that ground with your own stout
young hands. Dig on, Lenny Fairfield, dig on! Dr. Riccabocca will tell
you that there was once an illustrious personage--[The Emperor
Diocletian]--who made experience of two very different occupations,--one
was ruling men, the other was planting cabbages; he thought planting
cabbages much the pleasanter of the two!