Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his reverie 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 humor, 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 _sang-froid_ 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 incarcerated was transformed into
the Doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange, eldritch,
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 Doctor 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 whist-table--
"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 aperture--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 his 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 toward 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 honor;
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."