CHAPTER II.

Produced by David Widger

“MY NOVEL.”

By Edward Bulwer-Lytton

BOOK FIRST.

INITIAL CHAPTER

--SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.

Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND’S tower; time, night; season, winter.

MR. CAXTON is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is

turning round leisurely, and “for his own recreation,” as, according to

Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher should turn round the orb of which that

globe professes to be the representation and effigies. My mother having

just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding

it out at arm’s length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though

leaning both hands on my mother’s shoulder, is not regarding the frock,

but glances towards PISISTRATUS, who, seated near the fire, leaning back

in the chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad

humour. Uncle Roland, who has become a great novel-reader, is deep in

the mysteries of some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought

the “Times” in his pocket for his own special profit and delectation,

and is now bending his brows over “the state of the money market,” in

great doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall lower,--for Mr.

Squills, happy man! has large savings, and does not know what to do with

his money, or, to use his own phrase, “how to buy in at the cheapest in

order to sell out at the dearest.”

MR. CAXTON (musingly).--“It must have been a monstrous long journey. It

would be somewhere hereabouts, I take it, that they would split off.”

MY MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid him

the compliment of attending to his remarks).--“Who split off, my dear?”

“Bless me, Kitty,” said my father, in great admiration, “you ask

just the question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious

speculator on races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the

chief part of our northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis

could be correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers of Odin),

are of the same origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty,--I just ask

you, why?”

My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other

side of the light.

“Because, forsooth,” cried my father, exploding,--“because the Etrurians

called their gods the ‘AEsar,’ and the Scandinavians called theirs the

‘AEsir,’ or ‘Aser’! And where do you think this adventurous scholar puts

their cradle?”

“Cradle!” said my mother, dreamily, “it must be in the nursery.”

MR. CAXTON.--“Exactly,--in the nursery of the human race, just here,”

and my father pointed to the globe; “bounded, you see, by the river

Halys, and in that region which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a

word designating light or fire), has been immemorially called Asia. Now,

Kitty, from Ees, or As, our ethnological speculator would derive not

only Asia, the land, but AEsar, or Aser, its primitive inhabitants.

Hence he supposes the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But

if we give him so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the same

origin the Es of the Celt and the Ized of the Persian, and--what will

be of more use to him, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put

together--the AEs of the Romans,--that is, the God of Copper-money--a

very powerful household god he is to this day!”

My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were taking my

father’s proposition into serious consideration.

“So perhaps,” resumed my father, “and not unconformably with sacred

records, from one great parent horde came all those various tribes,

carrying with them the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they

wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation

of ‘Children of the Land of Light’ into the title of gods. And to think”

(added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck on the globe on

which his forefinger rested),--“to think how little they changed for

the better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the

icebergs of the Baltic,--so comfortably off as they were here, if they

could but have stayed quiet.”

“And why the deuce could not they?” asked Mr. Squills. “Pressure of

population, and not enough to live upon, I suppose,” said my father.

PISISTRATUS (sulkily).--“More probably they did away with the Corn Laws,

sir.”

“Papae!” quoth my father, “that throws a new light on the subject.”

PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring three straws about

the origin of the Scandinavians).--“I know that if we are to lose L500

every year on a farm which we hold rent-free, and which the best judges

allow to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had better make

haste and turn AEsir, or Aser, or whatever you call them, and fix a

settlement on the property of other nations, otherwise, I suspect, our

probable settlement will be on the parish.”

MR. SQUILLS (who, it must be remembered, is an enthusiastic

Free-trader). “You have only got to put more capital on the land.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well of that

investment, put your capital on it. I promise that you shall have every

shilling of profit.”

MR. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind the “Times”)--“I don’t think

the Great Western can fall any lower, though it is hazardous; I can but

venture a few hundreds--”

PISISTRATUS.--“On our land, Squills?--Thank you.”

MR. SQUILLS.--“No, no,--anything but that; on the Great Western.”

Pisistratus relaxes into gloom. Blanche steals up coaxingly, and gets

snubbed for her pains.

A pause.

MR. CAXTON.--“There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the

mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is, If our thoughts get

into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the

air; the second is comprised in the proverb, ‘It is good to have two

strings to one’s bow.’ Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must

do,--Write a book!”

PISISTRATUS.--“Write a book! Against the abolition of the Corn Laws?

Faith, sir, the mischief’s done! It takes a much better pen than mine to

write down an act of parliament.”

MR. CAXTON.--“I only said, ‘Write a book.’ All the rest is the addition

of your own headlong imagination.”

PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book rising before

him).--“Indeed, sir, I should think that that would just finish us!”

MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption).--“A book that will

sell; a book that will prop up the fall of prices; a book that will

distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your

affection to your species and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of

sound principles--by the sight of a favourable balance at the end of

the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little

circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember

when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left L1000 broke, one

remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that

the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks

to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk

in the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never in

so prosperous a condition.”

MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly).--“Pooh, pooh.”

MR. CAXTON.--“Write a book, my son,--write a book. Need I tell you that

Money or Moneta, according to Hyginus, was the mother of the Muses?

Write a book.”

BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus).--“O yes, Sisty, a book! a book!

you must write a book.”

“I am sure,” quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just

concluded, “he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and

how I come to read such trash night after night is more than I could

possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were

put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my own

counsel.”

MR. CAXTON.--“You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book

it shall be.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Trash, sir?”

MR. CAXTON.--“No,--that is, not necessarily trash; but a book of that

class which, whether trash or not, people can’t help reading. Novels

have become a necessity of the age. You must write a novel.”

PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious).-“A novel! But every subject on

which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels of low

life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels

philosophical, novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive

of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From

what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I

“‘Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy’s wing?’”

MR. CAXTON (after a little thought).--“You remember the story which

Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night?

That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot, puts

you chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you

with characters which have been very sparingly dealt with since the time

of Fielding. You can give us the country Squire, as you remember him

in your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving, the old

idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring

Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You

can give us the old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may yet be

found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Tractarian bog;

and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular

writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little

in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the

kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something

useful might be done by a few good-humoured sketches of those innocent

criminals a little better off than their neighbours, whom, however we

dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one

shape or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the

whole, as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the

dice-box of society how we will.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman

life is not so new as you think. There’s Washington Irving--”

MR. CAXTON.--“Charming; but rather the manners of the last century than

this. You may as well cite Addison and Sir Roger de Coverley.”

PISISTRATUS.--“‘Tremaine’ and ‘De Vere.’”

MR. CAXTON.--“Nothing can be more graceful, nor more unlike what I mean.

The Pales and Terminus I wish you to put up in the fields are familiar

images, that you may cut out of an oak tree,--not beautiful marble

statues, on porphyry pedestals, twenty feet high.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Miss Austen; Mrs. Gore, in her masterpiece of ‘Mrs.

Armytage;’ Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scottish manners) Miss

Ferrier!”

MR. CAXTON (growing cross).--“Oh, if you cannot treat on bucolics but

what you must hear some Virgil or other cry ‘Stop thief,’ you deserve

to be tossed by one of your own ‘short-horns.’” (Still more

contemptuously)--“I am sure I don’t know why we spend so much money

on sending our sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anachronism

of yours, Mrs. Caxton, can’t even construe a line and a half of

Phaedrus,--Phaedrus, Mrs. Caxton, a book which is in Latin what Goody

Two-Shoes is in the vernacular!”

MRS. CAXTON (alarmed and indignant).--“Fie! Austin I I am sure you can

construe Phaedrus, dear!”

Pisistratus prudently preserves silence.

MR. CAXTON.--“I’ll try him--

“‘Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio

Colurque proprius.’

“What does that mean?”

PISISTRATITS (smiling)--“That every man has some colouring matter within

him, to give his own tinge to--”

“His own novel,” interrupted my father. “Contentus peragis!”

During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had sewn together three

quires of the best Bath paper, and she now placed them on a little table

before me, with her own inkstand and steel pen.

My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, “Hush!” my father

returned to the cradle of the AEsas; Captain Roland leaned his cheek on

his hand, and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills fell into a

placid doze; and, after three sighs that would have melted a heart of

stone, I rushed into--MY NOVEL.

CHAPTER II.

“There has never been occasion to use them since I’ve been in the

parish,” said Parson Dale.

“What does that prove?” quoth the squire, sharply, and looking the

parson full in the face.

“Prove!” repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign, yet too conscious

superiority, “what does experience prove?”

“That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that their descendant

is not a whit the wiser.”

“Squire,” replied the parson, “although that is a melancholy conclusion,

yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the

Dales in particular; it is not one which my candour as a reasoner, and

my humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge.”

“I defy you,” said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. “But to stick to the

subject (which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson),

I only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I

don’t even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a

more disreputable spectacle?”

While he spoke, the squire, leaning heavily on the parson’s left

shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel with the right eye of

that disputatious ecclesiastic, so that he might guide the organ of

sight to the object he had thus unflatteringly described.

“I confess,” said the parson, “that, regarded by the eye of the senses,

it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and

is not elevated into the picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my

friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man,--of the rural philosopher

and parochial legislator,--I say it is by neglect and decay that it

is rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may call ‘the moral

topography of a parish.’”

The squire looked at the parson as if he could have beaten him; and,

indeed, regarding the object in dispute not only with the eye of the

outer man, but the eye of law and order, the eye of a country gentleman

and a justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously disreputable.

It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right in the middle;

through its four socketless eyes, neighboured by the nettle, peered

the thistle,--the thistle! a forest of thistles!--and, to complete the

degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the donkey of

an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very act of

taking his luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of--THE PARISH STOCKS.

The squire looked as if he could have beaten the parson; but as he was

not without some slight command of temper, and a substitute was luckily

at hand, he gulped down his resentment, and made a rush--at the donkey!

Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was

attached a billet of wood, called technically “a clog,” so that it had

no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had

justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at

the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope,

and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent

down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having

convinced itself that it had nothing further to apprehend for the

present, and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, according

to the poetical admonition, “Gather your rosebuds while you may,” it

cropped a thistle in full bloom, close to the ear of the squire,--so

close, indeed, that the parson thought the ear was gone; and with the

more probability, inasmuch as the squire, feeling the warm breath of the

creature, bellowed out with all the force of lungs accustomed to give a

View-hallo!

“Bless me, is it gone?” said the parson, thrusting his person between

the ass and the squire.

“Zounds and the devil!” cried the squire, rubbing himself, as he rose to

his feet.

“Hush!” said the parson, gently. “What a horrible oath!”

“Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on,” said the squire, still

rubbing himself, “and had fallen into a thicket of thistles, with a

donkey’s teeth within an inch of your ear--”

“It is not gone, then?” interrupted the parson.

“No,--that is, I think not,” said the squire, dubiously; and he clapped

his hand to the organ in question. “No! it is not gone!”

“Thank Heaven!” said the good clergyman, kindly. “Hum,” growled the

squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing himself. “Thank Heaven

indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine! I should just like

to know what use thistles are in the world.”

“For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire,” answered the parson.

“Ugh, you beast!” cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath reawakened, whether

by the reference to the donkey species, or his inability to reply to

the parson, or perhaps by some sudden prick too sharp for

humanity--especially humanity in nankeens--to endure without kicking.

“Ugh, you beast!” he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, which,

at the interposition of the parson, had respectfully recoiled a few

paces, and now stood switching its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift

one of its fore-legs--for the flies teased it.

“Poor thing!” said the parson, pityingly. “See, it has a raw place on

the shoulder, and the flies have found out the sore.”

“I am devilish glad to hear it,” said the squire, vindictively.

“Fie, fie!”

“It is very well to say ‘Fie, fie.’ It was not you who fell among the

thistles. What ‘s the man about now, I wonder?”

The parson had walked towards a chestnut-tree that stood on the village

green; he broke off a bough, returned to the donkey, whisked away the

flies, and then tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a

protection from the swarms. The donkey turned round its head, and looked

at him with mild wonder.

“I would bet a shilling,” said the parson, softly, “that this is the

first act of kindness thou hast met with this many a day. And slight

enough it is, Heaven knows.”

With that the parson put his hand into his pocket, and drew out an

apple. It was a fine large rose-cheeked apple, one of the last winter’s

store from the celebrated tree in the parsonage garden, and he was

taking it as a present to a little boy in the village who had notably

distinguished himself in the Sunday-school. “Nay, in common justice,

Lenny Fairfield should have the preference,” muttered the parson. The

ass pricked up one of its ears, and advanced its head timidly. “But

Lenny Fairfield would be as much pleased with twopence; and what could

twopence do to thee?” The ass’s nose now touched the apple. “Take it,

in the name of Charity,” quoth the parson; “Justice is accustomed to be

served last;” and the ass took the apple. “How had you the heart!” said

the parson, pointing to the squire’s cane.

The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the squire. “Pooh! eat

on; he’ll not beat thee now.”

“No,” said the squire, apologetically. “But after all, he is not an

ass of the parish; he is a vagrant, and he ought to be pounded. But the

pound is in as bad a state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned

doctrines.”

“New-fashioned!” cried the parson, almost indignantly, for he had a

great disdain of new fashions. “They are as old as Christianity; nay,

as old as Paradise, which you will observe is derived from a Greek,

or rather a Persian word, and means something more than ‘garden,’

corresponding” (pursued the parson, rather pedantically) “with the

Latin--vivarium,--namely, grove or park full of innocent dumb creatures.

Depend on it, donkeys were allowed to eat thistles there.”

“Very possibly,” said the squire, dryly. “But Hazeldeau, though a

very pretty village, is not Paradise. The stocks shall be mended

to-morrow,--ay, and the pound too, and the next donkey found trespassing

shall go into it, as sure as my name’s Hazeldean.”

“Then,” said the parson, gravely, “I can only hope that the next parish

may not follow your example; or that you and I may never be caught

straying.”

CHAPTER III.

Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect

his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny

Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple.

Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his mother rented a

few acres of grass-land from the squire, and it was now hay-time. And

Leonard, commonly called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow.

The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the many nooks

of the long, green village lane. And a thoroughly English cottage it

was, three centuries old at least; with walls of rubble let into oak

frames, and duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes

of glass, an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. There was

about this little dwelling all the homely rustic elegance which

peasant life admits of; a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few

flower-pots were placed on the window-sills; the small plot of ground

in front of the house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some

large rough stones on either side the little path having been formed

into a sort of rockwork, with creepers that were now in flower; and the

potato-ground was screened from the eye by sweet peas and lupine. Simple

elegance, all this, it is true; but how well it speaks for peasant and

landlord, when you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has

some spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment! Such

a peasant is sure to be a bad customer to the alehouse, and a safe

neighbour to the squire’s preserves. All honour and praise to him,

except a small tax upon both, which is due to the landlord!

Such sights were as pleasant to the parson as the most beautiful

landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He paused a moment at the

wicket to look around him, and distended his nostrils voluptuously to

inhale the smell of the sweet peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay

in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then

moved on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well-polished as they

were,--for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way,--on the

scraper without the door, and lifted the latch.

Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph

painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the

grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as

elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a

glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty

haymakers.

Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision

of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she

now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson’s footstep, she

showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,--a countenance

from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment,

effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke “of sorrows, but of sorrows

past;” and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of

the fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have

favoured the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in

the languid air and “within-doors” occupations of a town.

“Never mind me,” said the parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick

courtesy, and smoothed her apron; “if you are going into the hayfield, I

will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny,--an excellent boy.”

WIDOW.--“Well, sir, and you are kind to say it,--but so he is.”

PARSON.--“He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best

lad in the whole school at his Catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I

assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I

fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!”

WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).--“‘Deed, sir, when

my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done.

But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there

in dear Mark’s chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used

to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my good man smiled

on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown

up, and did not want me any more.”

PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).--“You never hear anything of

the old folks at Lansmere?”

“‘Deed, sir, sin’ poor Mark died, they han’t noticed me nor the boy;

but,” added the widow, with all a peasant’s pride, “it isn’t that I

wants their money; only it’s hard to feel strange like to one’s own

father and mother!”

PARSON.--“You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite

the same man after that sad event which--but you are weeping, my friend,

pardon me; your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in

another way.”

WIDOW.--“I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o’ pride in me!

and that’s the reason they always looked down on me.”

PARSON.--“Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a

year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him

when he grew up, as they ought.”

WIDOW (with flashing eyes).--“I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such

thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given

him a kind word sin’ he was born!”

The parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield’s

hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride;

but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making

in the most irritable of all rancours,--namely, that nourished against

one’s nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said,

“Well, time enough to think of Lenny’s future prospects; meanwhile we

are forgetting the haymakers. Come.”

The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard

into the fields.

PARSON.--“You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny

should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have given

it away on the road.”

WIDOW.--“Oh, sir, it is not the deed,--it is the will; as I felt

when the squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year

he--that is, Mark--died.”

PARSON.--“If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be

long before the squire may put the two pounds on again.”

“Yes, sir,” said the widow, simply; “I hope he will.”

“Silly woman!” muttered the parson. “That’s not exactly what the

schoolmistress would have said. You don’t read nor write, Mrs.

Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety.”

“You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor sister; and

though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after

him when we came together.”

CHAPTER IV.

They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like

most country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up

from his rake, with lively blue eyes beaming forth under a profusion of

brown curly hair.

Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy,--not so stout nor so

ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty, nor yet so

delicate in limb and keen in expression as are those children of cities,

in whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still

he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the

grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements. There was

in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of

innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had been brought up by

a woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and

such intelligence as was yet developed in him was not ripened by the

jokes and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings from

his elders, and good-little-boy maxims in good-little-boy books.

PARSON.--“Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit of school, I see: it

can teach you nothing better than to be a support to your mother.”

LENNY (looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened glow over his

face).--“Please, sir, that may come one of these days.”

PARSON.--“That’s right, Lenny. Let me see! why, you must be nearly a

man. How old are you?”

Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother.

PARSON.--“You ought to know, Lenny: speak for yourself. Hold your

tongue, Mrs. Fairfield.”

LENNY (twirling his hat, and in great perplexity).--“Well, and there is

Flop, neighbour Dutton’s old sheep-dog. He be very old now.”

PARSON.--“I am not asking Flop’s age, but your own.”

LENNY.--“‘Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop and I were pups

together. That is, I--I--”

For the parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield; and the haymakers,

who have stood still to listen, are laughing too. And poor Lenny has

quite lost his head, and looks as if he would like to cry.

PARSON (patting the curly locks, encouragingly).--“Never mind; it is not

so badly answered, after all. And how old is Flop?”

LENNY.--“Why, he must be fifteen year and more..”

PARSON.--“How old, then, are you?”

LENNY (looking up, with a beam of intelligence).--“Fifteen year and

more.”

Widow sighs and nods her head.

“That’s what we call putting two and two together,” said the parson.

“Or, in other words,” and here he raised his eyes majestically towards

the haymakers--“in other words, thanks to his love for his book,

simple as he stands here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself capable of

INDUCTIVE RATIOCINATION.”

At those words, delivered ore rotundo, the haymakers ceased laughing;

for even in lay matters they held the parson to be an oracle, and words

so long must have a great deal in them. Lenny drew up his head proudly.

“You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?”

“‘Deed he is,” said the widow, “and of all poor dumb creatures.”

“Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, and that you met

a friend who wanted it more than you, what would you do with it?”

“Please you, sir, I would give him half of it.”

The parson’s face fell. “Not the whole, Lenny?”

Lenny considered. “If he was a friend, sir, he would not like me to give

him all.”

“Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well that I must e’en

tell the truth. I brought you an apple, as a prize for good conduct in

school. But I met by the way a poor donkey, and some one beat him for

eating a thistle, so I thought I would make it up by giving him the

apple. Ought I only to have given him the half?”

Lenny’s innocent face became all smile; his interest was aroused. “And

did the donkey like the apple?”

“Very much,” said the parson, fumbling in his pocket; but thinking of

Leonard Fairfield’s years and understanding, and moreover observing, in

the pride of his heart, that there were many spectators to his deed,

he thought the meditated twopence not sufficient, and he generously

produced a silver sixpence.

“There, my man, that will pay for the half apple which you would have

kept for yourself.” The parson again patted the curly locks, and after

a hearty word or two with the other haymakers, and a friendly “Good-day”

to Mrs. Fairfield, struck into a path that led towards his own glebe.

He had just crossed the stile, when he heard hasty but timorous feet

behind him. He turned, and saw his friend Lenny.

LENNY (half-crying, and holding out the sixpence).--“Indeed, sir, I

would rather not. I would have given all to the Neddy.”

PARSON.--“Why, then, my man, you have a still greater right to the

sixpence.”

LENNY.--“No, sir; ‘cause you only gave it to make up for the half apple.

And if I had given the whole, as I ought to have done, why, I should

have had no right to the sixpence. Please, sir, don’t be offended; do

take it back, will you?”

The parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as

the ass had poked its nose there before in quest of the apple.

“I see,” said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, “that if one don’t give

Justice the first place at the table, all the other Virtues eat up her

share.”

Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a forward, impudent

baggage as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other

people’s apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his

due; and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward

Virtue in her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in

picking the pockets of her sisters--tried to filch from him his lawful

recompense. The case was perplexing; for the parson held Susceptibility

in great honour, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to

give her a slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So

Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from

Lenny to the sixpence.

“Buon giorno, Good-day to you,” said a voice behind, in an accent

slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure

presented itself at the stile.

Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of

black,--the pantaloons tight at the calf and ankle, and there forming a

loose gaiter over thick shoes, buckled high at the instep; an old cloak,

lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry;

a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was

thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven

hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the

sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and

swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty

to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed,

neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like

what we are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic,--to wit, a long

hooked nose, sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took

something wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through

which they shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in

which a physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness, and

some closeness, complete the picture. Imagine this figure, grotesque,

peregrinate, and to the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical; then

perch it on the stile in the midst of those green English fields, and

in sight of that primitive English village; there let it sit straddling,

its long legs dangling down, a short German pipe emitting clouds from

one corner of those sardonic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the

spectacles full upon the parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny

Fairfield looked exceedingly frightened.

“Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca,” said Mr. Dale, smiling, “you come in

good time to solve a very nice question in casuistry;” and herewith the

parson explained the case, and put the question, “Ought Lenny Fairfield

to have the sixpence, or ought he not?”

“Cospetto!” said the doctor, “if the hen would but hold her tongue,

nobody would know that she had laid an egg.”

CHAPTER V.

“Granted,” said the parson; “but what follows? The saying is good, but I

don’t see the application.”

“A thousand pardons!” replied Dr. Riccabocca, with all the urbanity of

an Italian; “but it seems to me that if you had given the sixpence to

the fanciullo, that is, to this good little boy, without telling him the

story about the donkey, you would never have put him and yourself into

this awkward dilemma.”

“But, my dear sir,” whispered the parson, mildly, as he inclined his

lips to the doctor’s ear, “I should then have lost the opportunity of

inculcating a moral lesson--you understand?”

Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his pipe to his mouth,

and took a long whiff. It was a whiff eloquent, though cynical,--a whiff

peculiar to your philosophical smoker, a whiff that implied the most

absolute but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the

parson’s moral lesson.

“Still you have not given us your decision,” said the parson, after a

pause.

The doctor withdrew the pipe. “Cospetto!” said he,--“he who scrubs the

head of an ass wastes his soap.”

“If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs

of yours,” said the parson, testily, “you would not make it any the

wiser.”

“My good sir,” said the doctor, bowing low from his perch on the stile,

“I never presumed to say that there were more asses than one in the

story; but I thought that I could not better explain my meaning, which

is simply this,--you scrubbed the ass’s head, and therefore you must

lose the soap. Let the fanciullo have the sixpence; and a great sum it

is, too, for a little boy, who may spend it all as pocketmoney!”

“There, Lenny, you hear?” said the parson, stretching out the sixpence.

But Lenny retreated, and cast on the umpire a look of great aversion and

disgust.

“Please, Master Dale,” said he, obstinately, “I’d rather not.

“It is a matter of feeling, you see,” said the parson, turning to the

umpire; “and I believe the boy is right.”

“If it be a matter of feeling,” replied Dr. Riccabocca, “there is no

more to be said on it. When Feeling comes in at the door, Reason has

nothing to do but to jump out of the window.”

“Go, my good boy,” said the parson, pocketing the coin; “but, stop! give

me your hand first. There--I understand you;--good-by!”

Lenny’s eyes glistened as the parson shook him by the hand, and, not

trusting himself to speak, he walked off sturdily. The parson wiped his

forehead, and sat himself down on the stile beside the Italian. The view

before them was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally) enough

to be silent for some moments. On the other side the lane, seen between

gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts that hung over the mossgrown pales of

Hazeldean Park, rose gentle, verdant slopes, dotted with sheep and herds

of deer. A stately avenue stretched far away to the left, and ended at

the right hand within a few yards of a ha-ha that divided the park from

a level sward of tableland, gay with shrubs and flower-pots, relieved by

the shade of two mighty cedars. And on this platform, only seen in part,

stood the squire’s old-fashioned house, red-brick, with stone mullions,

gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots. On this side the road, immediately

facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from

the curves in the lane, while, beyond, the ground declining gave an

extensive prospect of woods and cornfields, spires and farms. Behind,

from a belt of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the

parsonage-house, backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in

front. The birds were still in the hedgerows,--only (as if from the very

heart of the most distant woods), there came now and then the mellow

note of the cuckoo.

“Verily,” said Mr. Dale, softly, “my lot has fallen on a goodly

heritage.”

The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly.

Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all

that fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.

However, before the parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the

cause, Dr. Riccabocca’s thin lips took an expression almost malignant.

“Per Bacco!” said he; “in every country I observe that the rooks settle

where the trees are the finest. I am sure that, when Noah first landed

on Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in

the pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the

cattle as they came out of the Ark.”

The parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and there was in them

something so deprecating rather than reproachful that Dr. Riccabocca

turned away his face, and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred

priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at

that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest

that the Italian’s heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the

cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward

commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage

than the donkey himself--I mean the donkey who ate the apple.

CHAPTER VI.

The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for

he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of

each refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The

tinker went behind and sang, the donkey went before and was thwacked.

“Yours is a droll country,” quoth Dr. Riccabocca; “in mine, it is not

the ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows.”

The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the hedge that

divided the field from the road--“Gently, gently,” said he; “the sound

of the stick spoils the singing! Oh, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man

is merciful to his beast.”

The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped

short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. The tinker touched his

hat, and looked up too. “Lord bless your reverence! he does not mind

it,--he likes it. I vould not hurt thee; would I, Neddy?”

The donkey shook his head and shivered; perhaps a fly had settled on the

sore, which the chestnut leaves no longer protected.

“I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott,” said the parson,

more politely I fear than honestly,--for he had seen enough of that

cross-grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of

a country parish, to know that it requires management and coaxing

and flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his own

donkey,--“I am sure you did not mean to hurt him; but he has already got

a sore on his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing!”

“Lord love ‘un! yes; that was done a playing with the manger the day I

gave ‘un oats!” said the tinker.

Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the ass. The ass

pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual

survey of physical qualifications, each being regarded according to the

average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage

was on the side of the philosopher.

The parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his friend in all matters

not purely ecclesiastical.

“Say a good word for the donkey!” whispered he.

“Sir,” said the doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a respectful

salutation, “there’s a great kettle at my house--the Casino--which wants

soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?”

“Why, that’s all in my line,” said Sprott; “and there ben’t a tinker in

the county that I vould recommend like myself, tho’f I say it.”

“You jest, good sir,” said the doctor, smiling pleasantly. “A man who

can’t mend a hole in his own donkey can never demean himself by patching

up my great kettle.”

“Lord, sir!” said the tinker, archly, “if I had known that poor Neddy

had had two sitch friends in court, I’d have seen he vas a gintleman,

and treated him as sitch.”

“Corpo di Bacco!” quoth the doctor, “though that jest’s not new, I think

the tinker comes very well out of it.”

“True; but the donkey!” said the parson; “I’ve a great mind to buy it.”

“Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point,” said Dr. Riccabocca.

“Well?” said the parson, interrogatively.

“Once on a time,” pursued Riccabocca, “the Emperor Adrian, going to the

public baths, saw an old soldier, who had served under him, rubbing his

back against the marble wall. The emperor, who was a wise, and therefore

a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he

resorted to that sort of friction. ‘Because,’ answered the veteran, ‘I

am too poor to have slaves to rub me down.’ The emperor was touched, and

gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the baths,

all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing themselves against

the marble as hard as they could. The emperor sent for them, and asked

them the same question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old

rogues, of course, made the same answer. ‘Friends,’ said Adrian, ‘since

there are so many of you, you will just rub one another!’ Mr. Dale, if

you don’t want to have all the donkeys in the county with holes in their

shoulders, you had better not buy the tinker’s!”

“It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good,”

groaned the parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped

it in two, and flung away the fragments: one of them hit the donkey on

the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin he would have said, “Et tu,

Brute!” As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked on.

“Gee hup,” said the tinker, and he followed the ass. Then stopping, he

looked over his shoulder, and seeing that the parson’s eyes were gazing

mournfully on his protege, “Never fear, your reverence,” cried the

tinker, kindly, “I’ll not spite ‘un.”

CHAPTER VII.

“Four, o’clock,” cried the parson, looking at his watch; “half an hour

after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual,

because of the fine trout the squire sent us. Will you venture on what

our homely language calls ‘pot-luck,’ Doctor?”

Now Riccabocca was a professed philosopher, and valued himself on his

penetration into the motives of human conduct. And when the parson thus

invited him to pot-luck, he smiled with a kind of lofty complacency; for

Mrs. Dale enjoyed the reputation of having what her friends styled

“her little tempers.” And, as well-bred ladies rarely indulge “little

tempers” in the presence of a third person not of the family, so Dr.

Riccabocca instantly concluded that he was invited to stand between the

pot and the luck! Nevertheless--as he was fond of trout, and a much

more good-natured man than he ought to have been according to his

principles--he accepted the hospitality; but he did so with a sly look

from over his spectacles, which brought a blush into the guilty cheeks

of the parson. Certainly Riccabocca had for once guessed right in his

estimate of human motives.

The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned the rill, and

entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs, that seemed to have sat on watch

for their master, sprang towards him, barking; and the sound drew the

notice of Mrs. Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from the

sash window which opened on the lawn. Now, O reader! I know that, in

thy secret heart, thou art chuckling over the want of knowledge in the

sacred arcana of the domestic hearth betrayed by the author; thou art

saying to thyself, “A pretty way to conciliate ‘little tempers’ indeed,

to add to the offence of spoiling the fish the crime of bringing an

unexpected friend to eat it. Pot-luck, quotha, when the pot ‘s boiled

over this half hour!”

But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader! learn that both the

author and Parson Dale knew very well what they were about.

Dr. Riccabocca was the special favourite of Mrs. Dale, and the only

person in the whole county who never put her out, by dropping in. In

fact, strange though it may seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had

that mysterious something about him, which we of his own sex can so

little comprehend, but which always propitiates the other. He owed this,

in part, to his own profound but hypocritical policy; for he looked upon

woman as the natural enemy to man, against whom it was necessary to be

always on the guard; whom it was prudent to disarm by every species of

fawning servility and abject complaisance. He owed it also, in part, to

the compassionate and heavenly nature of the angels whom his thoughts

thus villanously traduced--for women like one whom they can pity without

despising; and there was something in Signor Riccabocca’s poverty,

in his loneliness, in his exile, whether voluntary or compelled, that

excited pity; while, despite his threadbare coat, the red umbrella, and

the wild hair, he had, especially when addressing ladies, that air

of gentleman and cavalier, which is or was more innate in an educated

Italian, of whatever rank, than perhaps in the highest aristocracy of

any other country in Europe. For, though I grant that nothing is more

exquisite than the politeness of your French marquis of the old regime,

nothing more frankly gracious than the cordial address of a high-bred

English gentleman, nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial

good-nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget

his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favour,--yet

these specimens of the suavity of their several nations are rare;

whereas blandness and polish are common attributes with your Italian.

They seem to have been immemorially handed down to him, from ancestors

emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the grace of Horace.

“Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us,” cried the parson, hastily.

“If Madame permit?” said the Italian, bowing over the hand extended to

him, which, however, he forbore to take, seeing it was already full of

the watch.

“I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled,” began Mrs. Dale,

plaintively.

“It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with Mrs. Dale,” said

the infamous dissimulator.

“But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready,” observed the

parson.

“He said that three-quarters of an hour ago, Charles dear,” retorted

Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca.

CHAPTER VIII.

While the parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to

regale the reader with a small treatise a propos of that “Charles dear,”

murmured by Mrs. Dale,--a treatise expressly written for the benefit of

The Domestic Circle.

It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys

so little endearment as the word “dear.” But though the saying itself,

like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains

to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import

comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to

the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much

proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding

indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the

close, as in that “Charles dear” of Mrs. Dale, it has spilled so much of

its natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, “amara

lento temperet risu.” Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch.

For example:--

(Plaintive.) “I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles

dear.”

“Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much without me, Charles

dear.”

“Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles dear,” etc.

(Arch.) “If you could spill the ink anywhere but on the best tablecloth,

Charles dear!”

“But though you must always have your own way, you are not quite

faultless, own, Charles dear,” etc.

When the enemy stops in the middle of the sentence, its venom is

naturally less exhausted. For example:--

“Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most fidgety

person,” etc.

“And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles dear, I should

just like to know whose fault it was--that’s all.”

“But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me and the

children than--” etc.

But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at the head

of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then assumes the majesty

of “my” before it; it is generally more than simple objurgation,--it

prefaces a sermon. My candour obliges me to confess that this is the

mode in which the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed by the

marital part of the one flesh; and has something about it of the

odious assumption of the Petruchian paterfamilias--the head of the

family--boding, not perhaps “peace and love, and quiet life,” but

certainly “awful rule and right supremacy.” For example:--

“My dear Jane, I wish you would just put by that everlasting crochet,

and listen to me for a few moments,” etc. “My dear Jane, I wish you

would understand me for once; don’t think I am angry,--no, but I am

hurt! You must consider,” etc.

“My dear Jane, I don’t know if it is your intention to ruin me; but I

only wish you would do as all other women do who care three straws for

their husband’s property,” etc.

“My dear Jane, I wish you to understand that I am the last person in

the world to be jealous; but I’ll be d---d if that puppy, Captain

Prettyman,” etc.

Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much

surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who

ever expected, before entering that garden, to find himself pricked and

lacerated by an insidious exotical “dear,” which he had been taught to

believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender

and sensitive shrubs which poets appropriate to Venus? Nevertheless

Parson Dale, being a patient man, and a pattern to all husbands, would

have found no fault with his garden, though there had not been a single

specimen of “dear,”--whether the dear humilis or the dear superba; the

dear pallida, rubra, or nigra; the dear suavis or the dear horrida,--no,

not a single “dear” in the whole horticulture of matrimony, which Mrs.

Dale had not brought to perfection. But this was far from being the

case; Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was unaware of the modern

improvements, in variety of colour and sharpness of prickle, which have

rewarded the persevering skill of our female florists.

CHAPTER IX.

In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields.

Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned

back to the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the

tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the

waves of the green corn.

“Poor man!” said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; “and the button was off his

wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very

domestic. Don’t you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we

could get him a good wife?”

“Um,” said the parson; “I doubt if he values the married state as he

ought.”

“What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in

my life.”

“Yes, but--”

“But what? You are always so mysterious, Charles dear.”

“Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the doctor says of

the ladies sometimes.”

“Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know what that means--pretty

things you say of us! But you are all alike; you know you are, love!”

“I am sure,” said the parson, simply, “that I have good cause to speak

well of the sex--when I think of you and my poor mother.”

Mrs. Dale, who, with all her “tempers,” was an excellent woman, and

loved her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched.

She pressed his hand, and did not call him dear all the way home.

Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high road

about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned

solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became

railway hotels,--square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable

and comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm-tree in

front, and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise

or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some

stout farmer, whose rough pony halts of itself at the well-known door.

Opposite this inn, on the other side of the road, stood the habitation

of Dr. Riecabocca.

A few years before the date of these annals, the stage-coach on its way

to London from a seaport town stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a

good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen--not

gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees,

with that cursed railway-whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears!

It was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the

neighbouring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from

Hazeldean Park.

From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers, who, alone

insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine,--two

melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca,

much the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less

threadbare, the tall form less meagre, and he did not then wear

spectacles; and the other was his servant. “They would walk about

while the coach stopped.” Now the Italian’s eye had been caught by

a mouldering, dismantled house on the other side the road, which

nevertheless was well situated; half-way up a green hill, with its

aspect due south, a little cascade falling down artificial rockwork, a

terrace with a balustrade, and a few broken urns and statues before

its Ionic portico, while on the roadside stood a board, with

characters already half effaced, implying that the house was “To be let

unfurnished, with or without land.”

The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long

on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his

grandfather on the female side,--a country gentleman who had actually

been in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and

who, on his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an

Italian villa. He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married

Squire Hazeldean’s father; and since that time, the house, abandoned

by its proprietors for the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had

been uninhabited and neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered

themselves; but your true country squire is slow in admitting upon his

own property a rival neighbour. Some wanted shooting. “That,” said the

Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and strict preservers, “was quite

out of the question.” Others were fine folks from London. “London

servants,” said the Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people,

“would corrupt their own, and bring London prices.” Others, again,

were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned up their

agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others too

vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: “Friends were

best at a distance,” said the Hazeldeans; others because they were not

known at all: “No good comes of strangers,” said the Hazeldeans. And

finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would

take it unless it was put into thorough repair: “As if one was made of

money!” said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied

and ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians,

surveying it with a smile at each other, as for the first time since

they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and

broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery,

something that reminded them of the land they had left behind.

On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from

the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the squire) such particulars

as he could collect; and a few days afterwards Mr. Hazeldean received

a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very

respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump

Lodge, otherwise called the “Casino;” that the said gentleman did not

shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not

care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made

weather-proof,--if the omission of more expensive reparations could

render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited.

The offer came at a fortunate moment, when the steward had just been

representing to the squire the necessity of doing something to keep the

Casino from falling into positive ruin, and the squire was cursing the

fates which had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull

it down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at

the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the

kingdom, catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay,

and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor’s client was a quiet,

respectable man, he did not care for that, but that the gentleman might

have it for the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes,

and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each other, they

could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply,

Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year’s end,

the squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running

lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal,

on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in

repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed

at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a

pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is more astonishing,

how little it had cost him. He had, indeed, painted the walls of the

hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own

hands. His servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two

between them had got the garden into order.

The Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck

it as they would have done some favourite chapel to their Madonna.

It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways

of the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the

exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven,

indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in

the garden, and the fishes in the neighbouring rill; when no trout

could be caught they fried the minnows (and certainly, even in the best

streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trout). The next thing

which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of

the neighbourhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures

gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At

first, indeed, they had no woman-servant at all. But this created

such horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which

Riccabocca took in very good part; and an old woman was forthwith

engaged after some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and

scrub as much as she liked during the daytime. She always returned

to her own cottage to sleep. The man-servant, who was styled in the

neighbourhood “Jackeymo,” did all else for his master,--smoothed his

room, dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed

his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large

collection. But however close a man’s character, it generally creeps out

in driblets; and on many little occasions the Italian had shown acts of

kindness, and, on some more rare occasions, even of generosity,

which had served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had

established a very fair reputation,--suspected, it is true, of being a

little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve

Jackeymo and himself, in other respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the

Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the squire was inclined

to be very friendly to all his neighbours, he was, like most country

gentlemen, rather easily huffed. Riccabocca had, with great politeness,

still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean’s earlier invitations

to dinner; and when the squire found that the Italian rarely declined

to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak

points,--namely, his pride in the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall,--and he

ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as

it was impossible for the squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now

and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and

would have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca

received him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country

gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say that “to call on

Rickeybockey was as bad as going to Court.”

But we have left Dr. Riccabocca on the high road. By this time he has

ascended a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has

passed a trellis-work covered with vines, from which Jackeymo has

positively succeeded in making what he calls wine,--a liquid, indeed,

that if the cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have

soured the mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean,

though a robust man who daily carried off his bottle of port with

impunity, having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till

he had had a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing

this trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone

pavement as smoothed and trimmed as hands could make it. Here, on neat

stands, all his favourite flowers were arranged; here four orange trees

were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house, or belvidere, built

by Jackeymo and himself, made his chosen morning room from May till

October; and from this belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of

prospect as if our English Nature had hospitably spread on her green

board all that she had to offer as a banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was

employed in watering the flowers,--a man with movements so mechanical,

with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues, that he seemed like an

automaton made out of mahogany.

“Giacomo,” said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

“Put by the watering-pot, and come hither,” continued Riccabocca, in

Italian; and, moving towards the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr.

Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques “John James.” Following that

illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo

came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.

“Friend,” said Riccabocca, “enterprises have not always succeeded with

us. Don’t you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent

those fields from the landlord?” Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some

strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring

on his finger.

“If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?” said

Jackeymo, doubtfully.

“Piu vale un presente che dui futuri,”--[“A bird in the hand is worth

two in the bush.”]--said Riccabocca.

“Chi non fa quando pub, non pub, fare quando vuole,”--[“He who will not

when he may, when he wills it shall have nay.”]--answered Jackeymo, as

sententiously as his master. “And the Padrone should think in time that

he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina.”

Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.

“She must be that high now!” said Jackeymo, putting his hand on some

imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca’s eyes, raised

over the spectacles, followed the hand.

“If the Padrone could but see her here--”

“I thought I did,” muttered the Italian.

“He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband’s,”

continued Jackeymo.

“But this climate,--she could never stand it,” said Riccabocca, drawing

his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear.

“The orange trees blossom even here with care,” said Jackeymo, turning

back to draw down an awning where the orange trees faced the north.

“See!” he added, as he returned with a sprig in full bud.

Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom.

“The other one should be there too,” said Jackeymo.

“To die--as this does already!” answered Riccabocca. “Say no more.”

Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, drew

his hand over his eyes.

There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it. “But, whether

here or there, beauty without money is the orange tree without shelter.

If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the

crop to the Madonna.”

“I think I know of such a lad,” said Riccabocca, recovering himself,

and with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corners of his

mouth,--“a lad made for us.”

“Diavolo!”

“No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who--refused

sixpence!”

“Cosa stupenda!” exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall

the watering-pot.

“It is true, my friend.”

“Take him, Padrone, in Heaven’s name, and the fields will grow gold.”

“I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a

boy,” said Riccabocca. “Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlour, and

bring from my bedroom that great folio of Machiavelli.”

CHAPTER X.

In my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in patriarchal

state,--not exactly under the fig-tree he has planted, but before the

stocks he has reconstructed,--Squire Hazeldean and his family on the

village green! The canvas is all ready for the colours.

But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into antecedents as

to let the reader know that there is one member of the family whom he

is not likely to meet at present, if ever, on the village green at

Hazeldean.

Our squire lost his father two years after his birth; his mother

was very handsome--and so was her jointure; she married again at the

expiration of her year of mourning; the object of her second choice was

Colonel Egerton.

In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the lively reign of

Charles II.) there are a few whom some elegant Genius skims off from

the milk of human nature, and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel

Egerton was one of these terque quaterque beati, and dwelt apart on

a top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish--not bestowed upon vulgar

buttermilk--which persons of fashion call The Great World. Mighty was

the marvel of Pall Mall, and profound was the pity of Park Lane,

when this supereminent personage condescended to lower himself into a

husband. But Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly; he had the

provident instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had passed from him, and

carried off much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was

fast coming when a home, with a partner who could help to maintain it,

would be conducive to his comforts, and an occasional hum-drum evening

by the fireside beneficial to his health. In the midst of one season at

Brighton, to which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales,

he saw a widow, who, though in the weeds of mourning, did not appear

inconsolable. Her person pleased his taste; the accounts of her jointure

satisfied his understanding; he contrived an introduction, and brought

a brief wooing to a happy close. The late Mr. Hazeldean had so far

anticipated the chance of the young widow’s second espousals, that, in

case of that event, he transferred, by his testamentary dispositions,

the guardianship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires whom

he had named his executors. This circumstance combined with her new ties

somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from the pledge of her former loves;

and when she had borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child

that her maternal affections gradually concentrated.

William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large provincial

academy, at which his forefathers had received their education time out

of mind. At first he spent his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she

now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to

partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion, so as he grew older, William,

who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners

and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was

openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations

either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small

college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth century by some ancestral

Hazeldean; and left it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A

few years afterwards he married a young lady, country born and bred like

himself.

Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be said to have begun

his initiation into the beau monde before he had well cast aside his

coral and bells; he had been fondled in the lap of duchesses, and

had galloped across the room astride on the canes of ambassadors and

princes. For Colonel Egerton was not only very highly connected, not

only one of the Dii majores of fashion, but he had the still rarer good

fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with all who knew him,--so

popular, that even the fine ladies whom he had adored and abandoned

forgave him for marrying out of “the set,” and continued to be as

friendly as if he had not married at all. People who were commonly

called heartless were never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons.

When the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school at which

his infancy budded forth amongst the stateliest of the little lilies

of the field, and go to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been

canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed

that he inherited his father’s talent for acquiring popularity, and

that to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. Without

achieving any scholastic distinction, he yet contrived to establish at

Eton the most desirable reputation which a boy can obtain,--namely, that

among his own contemporaries, the reputation of a boy who was sure to

do something when he grew to be a man. As a gentleman-commoner at Christ

Church, Oxford, he continued to sustain this high expectation, though he

won no prizes, and took but an ordinary degree; and at Oxford the future

“something” became more defined,--it was “something in public life” that

this young man was to do.

While he was yet at the University, both his parents died, within a few

months of each other. And when Audley Egerton came of age, he succeeded

to a paternal property which was supposed to be large, and indeed had

once been so; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a man to enrich

his heir, and about L1500 a year was all that sales and mortgages left

of an estate that had formerly approached a rental of L10,000.

Still, Audley was considered to be opulent; and he did not dispel that

favourable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony. On entering

the world of London, the Clubs flew open to receive him, and he woke

one morning to find himself, not indeed famous--but the fashion. To this

fashion he at once gave a certain gravity and value, he associated as

much as possible with public men and political ladies, he succeeded in

confirming the notion that he was “born to ruin or to rule the State.”

The dearest and most intimate friend of Audley Egerton was Lord

L’Estrange, from whom he had been inseparable at Eton, and who now, if

Audley Egerton was the fashion, was absolutely the rage in London.

Harley, Lord L’Estrange, was the only son of the Earl of Lansmere, a

nobleman of considerable wealth, and allied, by intermarriages, to

the loftiest and most powerful families in England. Lord Lansmere,

nevertheless, was but little known in the circles of London. He lived

chiefly on his estates, occupying himself with the various duties of a

great proprietor, and when he came to the metropolis, it was rather to

save than to spend; so that he could afford to give his son a very ample

allowance, when Harley, at the age of sixteen (having already attained

to the sixth form at Eton), left school for one of the regiments of the

Guards.

Few knew what to make of Harley L’Estrange,--and that was, perhaps,

the reason why he was so much thought of. He had been by far the

most brilliant boy of his time at Eton,--not only the boast of the

cricket-ground, but the marvel of the schoolroom; yet so full of whims

and oddities, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with so little aid

from steadfast application, that he had not left behind him the same

expectations of solid eminence which his friend and senior, Audley

Egerton, had excited. His eccentricities, his quaint sayings, and

out-of-the-way actions, became as notable in the great world as they had

been in the small one of a public school. That he was very clever there

was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be

surmised, not only from the originality but the independence of his

character. He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its praise

or its censure,--dazzled it, as it were, because he could not help

shining. He had some strange notions, whether political or social, which

rather frightened his father. According to Southey, “A man should be

no more ashamed of having been a republican than of having been young.”

Youth and extravagant opinions naturally go together. I don’t know

whether Harley L’Estrange was a republican at the age of eighteen; but

there was no young man in London who seemed to care less for being heir

to an illustrious name and some forty or fifty thousand pounds a year.

It was a vulgar fashion in that day to play the exclusive, and cut

persons who wore bad neckcloths, and called themselves Smith or Johnson.

Lord L’Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite enough to slight

some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his birth to insure to

the offender the pointed civilities of this eccentric successor to the

Belforts and the Wildairs.

It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as he came of age,

should represent the borough of Lansmere (which said borough was the

single plague of the earl’s life). But this wish was never realized.

Suddenly, when the young idol of London still wanted some two or three

years of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize him. He

withdrew entirely from society; he left unanswered the most pressing

three-cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that ever strewed the

table of a young Guardsman; he was rarely seen anywhere in his former

haunts,--when seen, was either alone or with Egerton; and his gay

spirits seemed wholly to have left him. A profound melancholy was

written in his countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of

his voice. About this time a vacancy happening to occur for the

representation of Lansmere, Harley made it his special request to his

father that the family interest might be given to Audley Egerton,--a

request which was backed by all the influence of his lady mother,

who shared in the esteem which her son felt for his friend. The earl

yielded; and Egerton, accompanied by Harley, went down to Lansmere Park,

which adjoined the borough, in order to be introduced to the electors.

This visit made a notable epoch in the history of many personages who

figure in my narrative; but at present I content myself with saying

that circumstances arose which, just as the canvass for the new election

commenced, caused both L’Estrange and Audley to absent themselves from

the scene of action, and that the last even wrote to Lord Lansmere

expressing his intention of declining to contest the borough.

Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley Egerton, the election

had become to Lord Lansmere not only a matter of public importance, but

of personal feeling. He resolved that the battle should be fought out,

even in the absence of the candidate, and at his own expense. Hitherto

the contest for this distinguished borough had been, to use the language

of Lord Lansmere, “conducted in the spirit of gentlemen,”--that is to

say, the only opponents to the Lansmere interest had been found in one

or the other of the two rival families in the same county; and as the

earl was a hospitable, courteous man, much respected and liked by the

neighbouring gentry, so the hostile candidate had always interlarded his

speeches with profuse compliments to his Lordship’s high character,

and civil expressions as to his Lordship’s candidate. But, thanks to

successive elections, one of these two families had come to an end,

and its actual representative was now residing within the Rules of the

Bench; the head of the other family was the sitting member, and, by an

amicable agreement with the Lansinere interest, he remained as neutral

as it is in the power of any sitting member to be amidst the passions

of an intractable committee. Accordingly it had been hoped that Egerton

would come in without opposition, when, the very day on which he had

abruptly left the place, a handbill, signed “Haverill Dashmore, Captain

R. N., Baker Street, Portman Square,” announced, in very spirited

language, the intention of that gentleman “to emancipate the borough

from the unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical faction, not

with a view to his own political aggrandizement,--indeed at great

personal inconvenience,--but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny,

and patriotic passion for the purity of election.”

This announcement was followed, within two hours, by the arrival of

Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage and four, covered with yellow

favours, and filled, inside and out, with harumscarum-looking friends,

who had come down with him to share the canvass and partake the fun.

Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had, however, conceived a

disgust to the profession from the date in which a minister’s nephew had

been appointed to the command of a ship to which the captain considered

himself unquestionably entitled. It is just to the minister to add that

Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard for orders from a distance

as had immortalized Nelson himself; but then the disobedience had not

achieved the same redeeming success as that of Nelson, and Captain

Dashmore ought to have thought himself fortunate in escaping a severer

treatment than the loss of promotion. But no man knows when he is

well off; and retiring on half pay, just as he came into unexpected

possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed by a

distant relation, Captain Dashmore was seized with a vindictive

desire to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical chastisement on the

Administration.

A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to be a most capital

electioneerer for a popular but not enlightened constituency. It is true

that he talked the saddest nonsense ever heard from an open window; but

then his jokes were so broad, his manner so hearty, his voice so big,

that in those dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would

have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralizing Democrat hollow.

Moreover, he kissed all the women, old and young, with the zest of a

sailor who has known what it is to be three years at sea without

sight of a beardless lip; he threw open all the public-houses, asked a

numerous committee every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up in

the air, declared “he would stick to his guns while there was a shot in

the locker.” Till then, there had been but little political difference

between the candidate supported by Lord Lansmere’s interest and the

opposing parties; for country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty

much of the same way of thinking, and the question had been really

local,--namely, whether the Lansmere interest should or should not

prevail over that of the two squire-archical families who had alone,

hitherto, ventured to oppose it. But though Captain Dashmore was really

a very loyal man, and much too old a sailor to think that the State

(which, according to established metaphor, is a vessel par excellence)

should admit Jack upon quarterdeck, yet, what with talking against lords

and aristocracy, jobs and abuses, and searching through no very refined

vocabulary for the strongest epithets to apply to those irritating

nouns-substantive, his bile had got the better of his understanding,

and he became fuddled, as it were, by his own eloquence. Thus, though

as innocent of Jacobinical designs as he was incapable of setting the

Thames on fire, you would have guessed him, by his speeches, to be one

of the most determined incendiaries that ever applied a match to the

combustible materials of a contested election; while, being by no means

accustomed to respect his adversaries, he could not have treated

the Earl of Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been a

Frenchman. He usually designated that respectable nobleman, who was

still in the prime of life, by the title of “Old Pompous;” and the

mayor, who was never seen abroad but in top-boots, and the solicitor,

who was of a large build, received from his irreverent wit the joint

sobriquet of “Tops and Bottoms”! Hence the election had now become, as I

said before, a personal matter with my Lord, and, indeed, with the great

heads of the Lansmere interest. The earl seemed to consider his very

coronet at stake in the question. “The Man from Baker Street,” with his

preternatural audacity, appeared to him a being ominous and awful--not

so much to be regarded with resentment as with superstitious terror. He

felt as felt the dignified Montezuma, when that ruffianly Cortez, with

his handful of Spanish rapscallions, bearded him in his own capital,

and in the midst of his Mexican splendour. The gods were menaced if

man could be so insolent! wherefore, said my Lord tremulously,

“The Constitution is gone if the Man from Baker Street comes in for

Lansmere!”

But in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election looked extremely

ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained ground hourly, when the Lansmere

solicitor happily bethought him of a notable proxy for the missing

candidate. The Squire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been

invited by the earl in honour of Audley; and in the squire the solicitor

beheld the only mortal who could cope with the sea-captain,--a man with

a voice as burly and a face as bold; a man who, if permitted for the

nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than

the captain kissed them; and who was, moreover, a taller and a handsomer

and a younger man,--all three great recommendations in the kissing

department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the borough, and

to speak from the window, Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly

presentable than the London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton

himself.

The squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first said bluntly

that he would do anything in reason to serve his brother, but that he

did not like, for his own part, appearing, even in proxy, as a lord’s

nominee; and moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why,

he must promise and vow, in his name, to be stanch and true to the land

they lived by! And how could he tell that Audley, when once he got into

the House, would not forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean,

would be made a liar, and look like a turncoat!

But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of the gentlemen

and the entreaties of the ladies, who took in the election that intense

interest which those gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of

strife and contest, the squire at length consented to confront the Man

from Baker Street, and went accordingly into the thing with that good

heart and old English spirit with which he went into everything whereon

he had once made up his mind.

The expectations formed of the squire’s capacities for popular

electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite as much nonsense as

Captain Dashmore on every subject except the landed interest; there he

was great, for he knew the subject well,--knew it by the instinct that

comes with practice, and compared to which all your showy theories are

mere cobwebs and moonshine.

The agricultural outvoters--many of whom, not living under Lord

Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto prided themselves on

their independence, and gone against my Lord--could not in their hearts

go against one who was every inch the farmer’s friend. They began to

share in the earl’s personal interest against the Man from Baker Street;

and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Captain Dashmore’s tight

little body, and huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering

the shops, “intimidating the electors,” as Captain Dashmore indignantly

declared.

These new recruits made a great difference in the musterroll of the

Lansmere books; and when the day for polling arrived, the result was a

fair question for even betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck

contest, Mr. Audley Egerton beat the captain by two votes; and the names

of these voters were John Avenel, resident freeman, and his son-in-law,

Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled

in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head carpenter on

the squire’s estate.

These votes were unexpected; for though Mark Fairfield had come to

Lansmere on purpose to support the squire’s brother, and though the

Avenels had been always stanch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest,

yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to

sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) had befallen

both these persons, and they had left the town on the very day after

Lord L’Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park.

Whatever might have been the gratification of the squire, as a canvasser

and a brother, at Mr. Egerton’s triumph, it was much damped when, on

leaving the dinner given in honour of the victory at the Lansmere Arms,

and about, with no steady step, to enter a carriage which was to convey

him to his Lordship’s house, a letter was put into his hands by one of

the gentlemen who had accompanied the captain to the scene of action;

and the perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from the

bearer thereof, sent the squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much soberer

man than she had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the day of

nomination, the captain having honoured Mr. Hazeldean with many poetical

and figurative appellations,--such as “Prize Ox,” “Tony Lumpkin,”

“Blood-sucking Vampire,” and “Brotherly Warming-Pan,”--the squire had

retorted by a joke about “Saltwater Jack;” and the captain, who like all

satirists was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned, could not consent

to be called “Salt-water Jack” by a “Prize Ox” and a “Bloodsucking

Vampire.”

The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean by a gentleman,

who, being from the Sister Country, was deemed the most fitting

accomplice in the honourable destruction of a brother mortal, contained

nothing more nor less than an invitation to single combat; and the

bearer thereof, with the suave politeness enjoined by etiquette on such

well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested the expediency of appointing

the place of meeting in the neighbourhood of London, in order to prevent

interference from the suspicious authorities of Lansmere.

The natives of some countries--the warlike French in particular--think

little of that formal operation which goes by the name of DUELLING.

Indeed, they seem rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing

your thorough-paced Englishman--a Hazeldean of Hazeldean--considers with

more repugnance and aversion than that same cold-blooded ceremonial. It

is not within the range of an Englishman’s ordinary habits of thinking.

He prefers going to law,--a much more destructive proceeding of the two.

Nevertheless, if an Englishman must fight, why, he will fight. He says

“It is very foolish;” he is sure “it is most unchristianlike;” he agrees

with all that Philosophy, Preacher, and Press have laid down on the

subject; but he makes his will, says his prayers, and goes out--like a

heathen.

It never, therefore, occurred to the squire to show the white feather

upon this unpleasant occasion. The next day, feigning excuse to attend

the sale of a hunting stud at Tattersall’s, he ruefully went up to

London, after taking a peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife.

Indeed, the squire felt convinced that he should never return home

except in a coffin. “It stands to reason,” said he to himself, “that

a man who has been actually paid by the King’s Government for shooting

people ever since he was a little boy in a midshipman’s jacket, must

be a dead hand at the job. I should not mind if it was with

double-barrelled Mantons and small shot; but ball and pistol, they are

n’t human nor sportsmanlike!” However, the squire, after settling his

worldly affairs, and hunting up an old college friend who undertook to

be his second, proceeded to a sequestered corner of Wimbledon Common,

and planted himself, not sideways, as one ought to do in such encounters

(the which posture the squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking),

but full front to the mouth of his adversary’s pistol, with such sturdy

composure that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent shot, was at

bottom as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, testified his admiration

by letting off his gallant opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of

the shoulder, after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied.

The parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and

the squire, much to his astonishment to find himself still alive,

was conveyed to Limmer’s Hotel, where, after a considerable amount of

anguish, the ball was extracted and the wound healed. Now it was all

over, the squire felt very much raised in his own conceit; and when he

was in a humour more than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became

a favourite allusion with him.

He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the

most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley’s return to

parliament, and defended his interests at risk of his own life, he had

an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote,--upon all

matters, at least, connected with the landed interest. And when, not

very long after Audley took his seat in parliament (which he did not

do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a

manner wholly belying the promises the squire had made on his behalf,

Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it could not but produce

an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterwards the squire’s exasperation

reached the culminating point; for, having to pass through Lansmere on

a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to

vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he

never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a

heightened colour and an indignant expletive. M. de Ruqueville--who was

the greatest wit of his day--had, like the squire, a half-brother, with

whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke as

his “frere de loin!” Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean’s

“distant-brother”!

Enough of these explanatory antecedents,--let us return to the stocks.

CHAPTER XI.

The squire’s carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to

work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and coloured them

a beautiful dark blue, with white border--and a white rim round the

holes--with an ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest

public edifice in the whole village, though the village possessed

no less than three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius of the

Hazeldeans,--to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the parish pump.

A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never gladdened the

eye of a justice of the peace.

And Squire Hazeldean’s eye was gladdened. In the pride of his heart he

brought all the family down to look at the stocks. The squire’s family

(omitting the frere de loin) consisted of Mrs. Hazeldean, his wife;

next, of Miss Jemima Hazeldean, his first cousin; thirdly, of Mr.

Francis Hazeldean, his only son; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas

Higginbotham, a distant relation,--who, indeed, strictly speaking,

was not of the family, but only a visitor ten months in the year. Mrs.

Hazeldean was every inch the lady,--the lady of the parish. In her

comely, florid, and somewhat sunburned countenance, there was an equal

expression of majesty and benevolence; she had a blue eye that invited

liking, and an aquiline nose that commanded respect. Mrs. Hazeldean had

no affectation of fine airs, no wish to be greater and handsomer and

cleverer than she was. She knew herself, and her station, and thanked

Heaven for it. There was about her speech and manner something of the

shortness and bluntness which often characterizes royalty; and if the

lady of a parish is not a queen in her own circle, it is never the fault

of a parish. Mrs. Hazeldean dressed her part to perfection. She wore

silks that seemed heirlooms,--so thick were they, so substantial and

imposing; and over these, when she was in her own domain, the whitest

of aprons; while at her waist was seen no fiddle-faddle chatelaine, with

breloques and trumpery, but a good honest gold watch to mark the

time, and a long pair of scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her

flowers,--for she was a great horticulturalist. When occasion needed,

Mrs. Hazeldean could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and imperial

raiment for a stout riding-habit, of blue Saxony, and canter by her

husband’s side to see the hounds throw off. Nay, on the days on which

Mr. Hazeldean drove his famous fast-trotting cob to the market town, it

was rarely that you did not see his wife on the left side of the gig.

She cared as little as her lord did for wind and weather, and in the

midst of some pelting shower her pleasant face peeped over the collar

and capes of a stout dreadnought, expanding into smiles and bloom as

some frank rose, that opens from its petals, and rejoices in the dews.

It was easy to see that the worthy couple had married for love; they

were as little apart as they could help it. And still, on the first

of September, if the house was not full of company which demanded her

cares, Mrs. Hazeldean “stepped out” over the stubbles by her husband’s

side, with as light a tread and as blithe an eye as when, in the first

bridal year, she had enchanted the squire by her genial sympathy with

his sports.

So there now stands Harriet Hazeldean, one hand leaning on the squire’s

broad shoulder, the other thrust into her apron, and trying her best to

share her husband’s enthusiasm for his own public-spirited patriotism,

in the renovation of the parish stocks. A little behind, with two

fingers resting on the thin arm of Captain Barnabas, stood Miss Jemima,

the orphan daughter of the squire’s uncle, by a runaway imprudent

marriage with a young lady who belonged to a family which had been at

war with the Hazeldeans since the reign of Charles the First respecting

a right of way to a small wood (or rather spring) of about an acre,

through a piece of furze land, which was let to a brickmaker at twelve

shillings a year. The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze land

to the Sticktorights (an old Saxon family, if ever there was one). Every

twelfth year, when the fagots and timber were felled, this feud broke

out afresh; for the Sticktorights refused to the Hazeldeans the right to

cart off the said fagots and timber through the only way by which a cart

could possibly pass. It is just to the Hazeldeans to say that they had

offered to buy the land at ten times its value. But the Sticktorights,

with equal magnanimity, had declared that they would not “alienate the

family property for the convenience of the best squire that ever stood

upon shoe leather.” Therefore, every twelfth year, there was always

a great breach of the peace on the part of both Hazeldeans and

Sticktorights, magistrates and deputy-lieutenants though they were.

The question was fairly fought out by their respective dependants,

and followed by various actions for assault and trespass. As the legal

question of right was extremely obscure, it never had been properly

decided; and, indeed, neither party wished it to be decided, each at

heart having some doubt of the propriety of its own claim. A marriage

between a younger son of the Hazeldeans and a younger daughter of the

Sticktorights was viewed with equal indignation by both families;

and the consequence had been that the runaway couple, unblessed and

unforgiven, had scrambled through life as they could, upon the scanty

pay of the husband, who was in a marching regiment, and the interest

of L1000, which was the wife’s fortune independent of her parents. They

died and left an only daughter (upon whom the maternal L1000 had been

settled), about the time that the squire came of age and into possession

of his estates. And though he inherited all the ancestral hostility

towards the Sticktorights, it was not in his nature to be unkind to a

poor orphan, who was, after all, the child of a Hazeldean. Therefore he

had educated and fostered Jemima with as much tenderness as if she had

been his sister; put out her L1000 at nurse, and devoted, from the ready

money which had accrued from the rents during his minority, as much as

made her fortune (with her own accumulated at compound interest) no less

than L4000, the ordinary marriage portion of the daughters of Hazeldean.

On her coming of age, he transferred this sum to her absolute disposal,

in order that she might feel herself independent, see a little more of

the world than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to choose from

if she deigned to marry; or enough to live upon, if she chose to remain

single. Miss Jemima had somewhat availed herself of this liberty, by

occasional visits to Cheltenham and other watering-places. But her

grateful affection to the squire was such that she could never bear to

be long away from the Hall. And this was the more praise to her heart,

inasmuch as she was far from taking kindly to the prospect of being

an old maid; and there were so few bachelors in the neighbourhood of

Hazeldean, that she could not but have that prospect before her eyes

whenever she looked out of the Hall windows. Miss Jemima was indeed

one of the most kindly and affectionate of beings feminine; and if she

disliked the thought of single blessedness, it really was from those

innocent and womanly instincts towards the tender charities of hearth

and home, without which a lady, however otherwise estimable, is little

better than a Minerva in bronze. But, whether or not, despite her

fortune and her face, which last, though not strictly handsome, was

pleasing, and would have been positively pretty if she had laughed more

often (for when she laughed, there appeared three charming dimples,

invisible when she was grave),--whether or not, I say, it was the fault

of our insensibility or her own fastidiousness, Miss Jemima approached

her thirtieth year, and was still Miss Jemima. Now, therefore, that

beautifying laugh of hers was very rarely heard, and she had of late

become confirmed in two opinions, not at all conducive to laughter. One

was a conviction of the general and progressive wickedness of the male

sex, and the other was a decided and lugubrious belief that the world

was coming to an end. Miss Jemima was now accompanied by a small canine

favourite, true Blenheim, with a snub nose. It was advanced in life,

and somewhat obese. It sat on its haunches, with its tongue out of its

mouth, except when it snapped at the flies. There was a strong platonic

friendship between Miss Jemima and Captain Barnabas Higginbotham; for

he, too, was unmarried, and he had the same ill opinion of your sex, my

dear madam, that Miss Jemima had of, ours. The captain was a man of

a slim and elegant figure; the less said about the face the better, a

truth of which the captain himself was sensible, for it was a favourite

maxim of his, “that in a man, everything is a slight, gentlemanlike

figure.” Captain Barnabas did not absolutely deny that the world was

coming to an end, only he thought it would last his time.

Quite apart from all the rest, with the nonchalant survey of virgin

dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one of the high starched

neckcloths which were then the fashion,--a handsome lad, fresh from Eton

for the summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age when one disdains the

sports of the boy, and has not yet arrived at the resources of the man.

“I should be glad, Frank,” said the squire, suddenly turning round to

his son, “to see you take a little more interest in duties which, one

day or other, you may be called upon to discharge. I can’t bear to think

that the property should fall into the hands of a fine gentleman, who

will let things go to rack and ruin, instead of keeping them up as I

do.”

And the squire pointed to the stocks.

Master Frank’s eye followed the direction of the cane, as well as his

cravat would permit; and he said dryly,--

“Yes, sir; but how came the stocks to be so long out of repair?”

“Because one can’t see to everything at once,” retorted the squire,

tartly. “When a man has got eight thousand acres to look after, he must

do a bit at a time.”

“Yes,” said Captain Barnabas. “I know that by experience.”

“The deuce you do!” cried the squire, bluntly. “Experience in eight

thousand acres!”

“No; in my apartments in the Albany,--No. 3 A. I have had them ten

years, and it was only last Christmas that I bought my Japan cat.”

“Dear me,” said Miss Jemima; “a Japan cat! that must be very curious.

What sort of a creature is it?”

“Don’t you know? Bless me, a thing with three legs, and holds toast! I

never thought of it, I assure you, till my friend Cosey said to me one

morning when he was breakfasting at my rooms, ‘Higginbotham, how is it

that you, who like to have things comfortable about you, don’t have

a cat?’ ‘Upon my life,’ said I, ‘one can’t think of everything at a

time,’--just like you, Squire.”

“Pshaw,” said Mr. Hazeldean, gruffly, “not at all like me. And I’ll

thank you another time, Cousin Higginbotham, not to put me out when I’m

speaking on matters of importance; poking your cat into my stocks! They

look something like now, my stocks, don’t they, Harry? I declare that

the whole village seems more respectable. It is astonishing how much a

little improvement adds to the--to the--”

“Charm of the landscape,” put in Miss Jemina, sentimentally.

The squire neither accepted nor rejected the suggested termination; but

leaving his sentence uncompleted, broke suddenly off with--

“And if I had listened to Parson Dale--”

“You would have done a very wise thing,” said a voice behind, as the

parson presented himself in the rear.

“Wise thing? Why, surely, Mr. Dale,” said Mrs. Hazeldean, with spirit,

for she always resented the least contradiction to her lord and

master--perhaps as an interference with her own special right and

prerogative!--“why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is

necessary to repair them.”

“That’s right! go it, Harry!” cried the squire, chuckling, and

rubbing his hands as if he had been setting his terrier at the parson:

“St--St--at him! Well, Master Dale, what do you say to that?”

“My dear ma’am,” said the parson, replying in preference to the lady,

“there are many institutions in the country which are very old, look

very decayed, and don’t seem of much use; but I would not pull them down

for all that.”

“You would reform them, then,” said Mrs. Hazeldean, doubtfully, and

with a look at her husband, as much as to say, “He is on politics

now,--that’s your business.”

“No, I would not, ma’am,” said the parson, stoutly. “What on earth would

you do, then?” quoth the squire. “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. Do

come; that’s a dear good man; and of course poor Mrs. Dale too.” Mrs.

Hazeldean’s favourite epithet for Mrs. Dale was poor, and that for

reasons to be explained hereafter.

“I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but I will give her

your kind message, and at all events you may depend upon me.”

“That’s right,” said the squire; “in half an hour, eh? How d’ ye do, my

little man?” as Lenny Fairfield, on his way home from some errand in the

village, drew aside and pulled off his hat with both hands. “Stop; you

see those stocks, eh? Tell all the bad boys in the parish to take

care how they get into them--a sad disgrace--you’ll never be in such a

quandary?”

“That at least I will answer for,” said the parson.

“And I too,” added Mrs. Hazeldean, patting the boy’s curly head.

“Tell your mother I shall come and have a good chat with her to-morrow

evening.”

And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on the road, staring

hard at the stocks, which stared back at him from its four great eyes.

Put Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the great folks had

fairly disappeared, a large number of small folks emerged timorously

from the neighbouring cottages, and approached the site of the stocks

with much marvel, fear, and curiosity.

In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster a propos de bottes,

as one may say--had already excited considerable sensation among the

population of Hazeldean. And even as when an unexpected owl makes his

appearance in broad daylight all the little birds rise from tree and

hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so now gathered all the

much-excited villagers round the intrusive and portentous phenomenon.

“D’ ye know what the diggins the squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?”

asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three

years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally

holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to

thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned to a

sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning both hands on his

crutch, shook his head bodingly.

“Maw be,” said Gaffer Solomons, “some of the boys ha’ been robbing the

orchards.”

“Orchards!” cried a big lad, who seemed to think himself personally

appealed to; “why, the bud’s scarce off the trees yet!”

“No more it ain’t,” said the dame with many children, and she breathed

more freely.

“Maw be,” said Gaffer Solomons, “some o’ ye has been sitting snares.”

“What for?” said a stout, sullen-looking young fellow, whom conscience

possibly pricked to reply,--“what for, when it bean’t the season? And if

a poor man did find a hear in his pocket i’ the haytime, I should like

to know if ever a squire in the world would let ‘un off with the stocks,

eh?”

This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of Gaffer Solomons

went down fifty per cent in the public opinion of Hazeldean.

“Maw be,” said the gaffer--this time with a thrilling effect, which

restored his reputation,--“maw be some o’ ye ha’ been getting drunk, and

making beestises o’ yoursel’s!”

There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied too generally to

be met with a solitary response. At last one of the women said, with a

meaning glance at her husband,

“God bless the squire; he’ll make some on us happy women if that’s all!”

There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of approbation among the

female part of the audience; and the men looked at each other, and then

at the phenomenon, with a very hang-dog expression of countenance.

“Or, maw be,” resumed Gaffer Solomons, encouraged to a fourth suggestion

by the success of its predecessor,--“maw be some o’ the misseses ha’

been making a rumpus, and scolding their good men. I heard say in

my granfeyther’s time, arter old Mother Bang nigh died o’ the

ducking-stool, them ‘ere stocks were first made for the women, out o’

compassion like! And every one knows the squire is a koind-hearted man,

God bless ‘un!”

“God bless ‘un!” cried the men, heartily; and they gathered lovingly

round the phenomenon, like heathens of old round a tutelary temple. But

then there rose one shrill clamour among the females as they retreated

with involuntary steps towards the verge of the green, whence they

glared at Solomons and the phenomenon with eyes so sparkling, and

pointed at both with gestures so menacing, that Heaven only knows if a

morsel of either would have remained much longer to offend the eyes of

the justly-enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately Master Stirn,

the squire’s right-hand man, had not come up in the nick of time.

Master Stirn was a formidable personage,--more formidable than the

squire himself,--as, indeed, a squire’s right hand is generally more

formidable than the head can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe,

because, like the stocks of which he was deputed guardian, his powers

were undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the

out-of-door establishment. He was not the steward, yet he did much of

what ought to be the steward’s work; he was not the farm-bailiff,

for the squire called himself his own farm-bailiff; nevertheless, Mr.

Hazeldean sowed and ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very

much as Mr. Stirn condescended to advise. He was not the park-keeper,

for he neither shot the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was

he who always found out who had broken a park pale or snared a rabbit.

In short, what may be called all the harsher duties of a large landed

proprietor devolved, by custom and choice, upon Mr. Stirn. If a labourer

was to be discharged or a rent enforced, and the squire knew that he

should be talked over, and that the steward would be as soft as himself,

Mr. Stirn was sure to be the avenging messenger, to pronounce the words

of fate; so that he appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the

poet’s Saeva Necessitas, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed

with whips, nails, and wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of

Mr. Stirn. The calves knew that it was he who singled out which should

be sold to the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating

hearts at his grim footstep; the sow grunted, the duck quacked, the hen

bristled her feathers and called to her chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near.

Nature had set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned whether

the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the brave, had an aspect so

awe-inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn; albeit the face of that hero was so

terrible, that a man who had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after

he had been dead twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf!

“And what the plague are you doing here?” said Mr. Stirn, as he waved

and smacked a great cart-whip which he held in his hand, “making such

a hullabaloo, you women, you! that I suspect the squire will be sending

out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will ye? High time

indeed to have the stocks ready, when you get squalling and conspiring

under the very nose of a justice of the peace, just as the French

revolutioners did afore they cut off their king’s head! My hair stands

on end to look at ye.” But already, before half this address was

delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all directions,--the women still

keeping together, and the men sneaking off towards the ale-house. Such

was the beneficent effect of the fatal stocks on the first day of their

resuscitation. However, in the break up of every crowd there must always

be one who gets off the last; and it so happened that our friend Lenny

Fairfield, who had mechanically approached close to the stocks, the

better to hear the oracular opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less

mechanically, on the abrupt appearance of Mr. Stirn, crept, as he hoped,

out of sight behind the trunk of the elm-tree which partially shaded the

stocks; and there now, as if fascinated, he still cowered, not daring

to emerge in full view of Mr. Stirn, and in immediate reach of the

cartwhip, when the quick eye of the right-hand man detected his retreat.

“Hallo, sir--what the deuce, laying a mine to blow up the stocks! just

like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha’ you got in

your willanous little fist there?”

“Nothing, sir,” said Lenny, opening his palm. “Nothing--um!” said Mr.

Stirn, much dissatisfied; and then, as he gazed more deliberately,

recognizing the pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered

over his brow; for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much on his learning,

and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit than

his neighbours, had attained his present eminent station of life, was

extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar. That

wish--

“The gods dispersed in empty air.”

Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the parson’s school, while Lenny

Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr. Stirn was

naturally, and almost justifiably, ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield,

who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed

for his son.

“Um!” said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, “you

are the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir! then I put

these here stocks under your care, and you’ll keep off the other boys

from sitting on ‘em, and picking off the paint, and playing three-holes

and chuck-farthing, as I declare they’ve been a doing, just in front of

the elewation. Now, you knows your ‘sponsibilities, little boy,--and a

great honour they are too, for the like o’ you.

“If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d’ ye

understand?--and that’s what the squire says to me. So you sees what it

is to be a pattern boy, Master Lenny!” With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud

crack of the cart-whip, by way of military honours, over the head of

the vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two

young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised

their proprietors to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could

be more obnoxious than that of deputy-governor or charge-d’affaires

extraordinaires to the parish stocks, nor one more likely to render

Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been

insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that of the two

sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no special motives

of resentment. To every bad there is a worse; and fortunately for

little boys, and even for grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard

malignly, the majesty and law protect their ears, and the merciful

forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the privilege

of entailing tails upon them. Had it been otherwise--considering what

handles tails would have given to the oppressor, how many traps envy

would have laid for them, how often they must have been scratched and

mutilated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would have been

found for lopping, docking, and trimming them--I fear that only the

lap-dogs of Fortune would have gone to the grave tail-whole.

CHAPTER XII.

The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though

the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large

bay window, which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up

a moderate-sized London parlour) held the great round tea-table, with

all appliances and means to boot,--for the beautiful summer moon shed on

the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow,

and the flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that

to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than

those of heaven would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even

Captain Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the

holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene,

beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the

garden-ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though

a little modernized, still preserve their original character,--the

velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented,

here to the left by lilacs, laburnums, and rich syringas; there, to the

right, giving glimpses, over low clipped yews, of a green bowling-alley,

with the white columns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste,

in the reign of William III.; and in front stealing away under covert

of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded

undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid glimmer of the moon, the

scene was no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which has no

parallel in other lands, and which, alas! is somewhat losing its native

idiosyncrasies in this,--the stout country gentleman, not the fine

gentleman of the country; the country gentleman somewhat softened and

civilized from the mere sportsman or farmer, but still plain and homely;

relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room, and with books not

three months old on his table, instead of Fox’s “Martyrs” and Baker’s

“Chronicle,” yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like

the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the grain

than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite to the window, the

high chimneypiece rose to the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark

panels glistening against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy

chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III. contrasted at

intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation,

when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk-hose seem never to

have indulged in horizontal positions. The walls, of shining wainscot,

were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then

some Dutch fair or battle-piece showed that a former proprietor had been

less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte stood open

near the fireplace; a long dwarf bookcase at the far end added its sober

smile to the room. That bookcase contained what was called “The Lady’s

Library,”--a collection commenced by the squire’s grandmother, of pious

memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter

letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac tendencies

of the present Mrs. Hazeldean, who, being no great reader, contented

herself with subscribing to the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian,

the sermons collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood

cheek-by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean, the

mother,--

“Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho!”

But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory titles, such

as “Fatal Sensibility,” “Errors of the Heart,” etc., were so harmless

that I doubt if the sermons could have had much to say against their

next-door neighbours,--and that is all that can be expected by the best

of us.

A parrot dozing on his perch; some goldfish fast asleep in their glass

bowl; two or three dogs on the rug, and Flimsey, Miss Jemima’s spaniel,

curled into a ball on the softest sofa; Mrs. Hazeldean’s work-table

rather in disorder, as if it had been lately used; the “St. James’s

Chronicle” dangling down from a little tripod near the squire’s

armchair; a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off the

card-table,--all these, dispersed about a room large enough to hold them

all and not seem crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the

eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home of man.

But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of tea, has at

length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs. Hazeldean, “Don’t you think

the parson will be impatient for his rubber?” Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at

the parson and smiled; but she gave the signal to the captain, and the

bell was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down; in a few

moments more, the group had collected round the cardtable. The best of

us are but human--that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people

forget it every day of their lives--and I dare say there are many who

are charitably thinking at this very moment that my parson ought not to

be playing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is,

“Every man has his favourite sin: whist was Parson Dale’s!--ladies and

gentlemen, what is yours?” In truth, I must not set up my poor parson,

nowadays, as a pattern parson,--it is enough to have one pattern in a

village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield

has bespoken that place, and got the patronage of the stocks for his

emoluments! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but

still at a time when Churchmen took it a great deal more easily than

they do now. The elderly parson of that day played his rubber as a

matter of course, the middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to

cover (I knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent

man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families in

England, who hunted regularly three times a week during the season),

and the young parson would often sing a capital song--not composed by

David--and join in those rotatory dances, which certainly David never

danced before the ark.

Does it need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for

turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner?

I must own that nothing which could well add to the parson’s offence was

wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and merely to

oblige other people. He delighted in the game, he rejoiced in the game,

his whole heart was in the game,--neither was he indifferent to the

mammon of the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked

very sad when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceedingly

pleased when he put the shillings that had just before belonged to

other people into it. Finally, by one of those arrangements common with

married people who play at the same table, ‘Mr. and--Mrs. Hazeldean were

invariably partners, and no two people could play worse; while Captain

Barnabas, who had played at Graham’s with honour and profit, necessarily

became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a good steady parsonic

game. So that, in strict truth, it was hardly fair play; it was almost

swindling,--the combination of these two great dons against that

innocent married couple! Mr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this

disproportion of force, and had often proposed either to change partners

or to give odds,--propositions always scornfully scouted by the squire

and his lady, so that the parson was obliged to pocket his conscience,

together with the ten points which made his average winnings.

The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist

affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,--not at

all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and

I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life

bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably

manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall

and the Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as

most in the county, was the best-humoured fellow you could imagine when

you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never

heard one of those incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the

contrary, they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four

by honours in their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a “Well,

Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours. Ho, ho, ho!” or a “Bless me,

Hazeldean--why, they made three tricks in clubs, and you had the ace in

your hand all the time! Ha, ha, ha!”

Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great goodhumour, always

echoed both the squire’s Ho, ho, ho! and Mrs. Hazeldean’s Ha, ha, ha!

Not so the parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the

game, that even his adversaries’ mistakes ruffled him. And you would

hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down

the law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and

common-sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched,--a

waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and Mrs.

Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had come

with her husband despite her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss

Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima’s Flimsey, which had already

secured the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being

disturbed. And Master Frank--at a table by himself--was employed

sometimes in looking at his pumps and sometimes at Gilray’s Caricatures,

which his mother had provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs.

Dale, in her heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of

whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls

together, and occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But

those tender diminutives belonged to the “Dear” genus, and were rarely

employed by the ladies, except at times when, had they been little girls

still, and the governess out of the way, they would have slapped and

pinched each other. Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as

Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in

water-colours, and sang, and made card-racks and penholders, and was

called an “elegant, accomplished woman;” Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the

squire’s accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large

establishment in excellent order, and was called “a clever, sensible

woman.” Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves; Mrs. Hazeldean had neither

nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, “Harry had no real harm in her,

but was certainly very masculine;” Mrs. Hazeldean said, “Carry would

be a good creature but for her airs and graces.” Mrs. Dale said Mrs.

Hazeldean was “just made to be a country squire’s lady;” Mrs. Hazeldean

said, “Mrs. Dale was the last person in the world who ought to have

been a parson’s wife.” Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person,

said, “Dear Mrs. Hazeldean;” Harry, when she referred incidentally

to Carry, said, “Poor Mrs. Dale.” And now the reader knows why Mrs.

Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale “poor,”--at least as well as I do. For, after

all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may

be called “obscure significants,” resembling the Konx Ompax, which hath

so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries: the application

is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.

“That’s really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima,” said Mrs. Dale,

who was embroidering the word CAROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket

handkerchief; but edging a little farther off, as she added, “he’ll not

bite, will he?”

“Dear me, no!” said Miss Jemima; “but” (she added in a confidential

whisper) “don’t say he,--‘t is a lady dog!”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of

the creature’s sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions,--“oh, then,

you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs,--that is

being consistent indeed, Jemima!”

MISS JEMIMA.--“I had a gentleman dog once,--a pug!--pugs are getting

very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me--he snapped at every one

else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe--I had been

staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William

is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick

might do. So, on coming here I left Bluff--that was his name--with Miss

Smilecox.” (A pause.)

MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).--“Well, my love?”

MISS JEMIMA.--“Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to

Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his

affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me

again? A pug, too--yet people say pugs are faithful! I am sure they

ought to be, nasty things! I have never had a gentleman dog since,--they

are all alike, believe me, heartless, selfish creatures.”

MRS. DALE.--“Pugs? I dare say they are!”

MISS JEMIMA (with spirit).-“MEN!--I told you it was a gentleman dog!”

MRS. DALE (apologetically).--“True, my love, but the whole thing was so

mixed up!”

MISS JEMIMA.--“You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of

Marriage in the papers,--an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes

them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is

approaching, and that--”

MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima’s other hobby to

that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the

universe).--“Yes, my love, we’ll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr.

Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson’s

wife” (said smilingly: Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss

Jemima’s, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three), “to

agree with him,--that is, in theology.”

MISS JEMIMA (earnestly).--“But the thing is so clear, if you will but

look into--”

MRS. DALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima’s lips playfully).--“Not a

word more. Pray, what do you think of the squire’s tenant at the Casino,

Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is he not?”

MISS JEMIMA.--“Interesting! not to me. Interesting? Why is he

interesting?”

Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little

white hands, appearing to contemplate the R in Caroline.

MISS JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly).--“Why is he interesting?

I scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly,

too!”

MRS. DALE.--“Ugly,--no. A fine bead,--very like Dante’s; but what is

beauty?”

MISS JEMIMA.--“Very true: what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think

there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that

may be because he is poor.”

MRS. DALE.--“It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one

loves. Charles and I were very poor once,--before the squire--” Mrs.

Dale paused, looked towards the squire, and murmured a blessing, the

warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. “Yes,” she added, after a

pause, “we were very poor, but we were happy even then,--more thanks

to Charles than to me;” and tears from a new source again dimmed those

quick, lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband,

whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand.

MISS JEMIMA.--“It is only those horrid men who think of money as a

source of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman

less because he was poor.”

MRS. DALE.--“I wonder the squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here

more often. Such an acquisition we find him!”

The squire’s voice from the card-table.--“Whom ought I to ask more

often, Mrs. Dale?”

Parson’s voice, impatiently.--“Come, come, come, squire: play to my

queen of diamonds,--do!”

SQUIRE.--“There, I trump it! pick up the trick, Mrs. H.”

PARSON.--“Stop! Stop! trump my diamond?”

THE CAPTAIN (solemnly).--“‘Trick turned; play on, Squire.”

SQUIRE.--“The king of diamonds.”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“Lord! Hazeldean, why, that’s the most barefaced

revoke,--ha, ha, ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king!

well, I never! ha, ha, ha!”

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor).--“Ha, ha, ha!”

SQUIRE.--“Ho, ho, ho! bless my soul! ho, ho, ho!”

CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in bass).--“Ho, ho, ho!”

Parson’s voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries

and the firm, clear tone of Captain Barnabas.--“Three to our

score!--game!”

SQUIRE (wiping his eyes).--“No help for it; Harry, deal for me. Whom

ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale?” (Waxing angry.) “First time I ever heard the

hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!”

MRS. DALE.--“My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners--you

know the proverb.”

SQUIRE (growling like a bear).--“I hear nothing but proverbs ever since

we had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, ma’am.”

Mrs. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly

accosted).--“It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr.

Hazeldean.”

SQUIRE.--“What! Rickeybockey?”

MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).--“Signor

Riccabocca.”

PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).--“Are we playing at

whist, or are we not?”

The squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain

Higginbotham’s lead of the ace of hearts. Now the captain has left

queen, knave, and two other hearts, four trumps to the queen, and

nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is

therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall

of that king of hearts in the adversary’s hand, it becomes a matter of

reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The captain hesitates,

and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their

being trumped by the squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the

other suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his partner,

resolves, as becomes a military man in such dilemma, to make a bold push

and lead out trumps in the chance of finding his partner strong and so

bringing in his long suit.

SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by

the captain).--“Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked

Rickeybockey,--time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for

those foreign chaps. He’ll not come,--that’s all I know.”

PARSON (aghast at seeing the captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr.

Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades, of

which he has only one, the cards all falling in suits, while he has not

a single other chance of a trick in his hand).--“Really, Squire, we had

better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary

way,--jabber, jabber, jabber!”

SQUIRE.--“Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!--trumps, Barney?

Thank ye for that!” And the squire might well be grateful, for the

unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave, with two other

trumps. Squire takes the parson’s ten with his knave, and plays out ace

king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the captain’s queen

and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of

spades of which the parson has only one,--and the captain, indeed, but

two,--forces out the captain’s queen, and wins the game in a canter.

PARSON (with a look at the captain which might have become the awful

brows of Jove, when about to thunder).--“That, I suppose, is the

new-fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, ‘First save the

game, then try to win it.’”

CAPTAIN.--“Could not save it, sir.”

PARSON (exploding)--“Not save it!--two ruffs in my own hand,--two tricks

certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump.”--Seizes

the cards, spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling,

tries to show how five tricks could have been gained,--N.B. It is short

whist which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall,--can’t make out

more than four; Captain smiles triumphantly; Parson in a passion, and

not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling

back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice.--“The cruellest

trump! the most wanton cruelty!”

The Hazeldeans in chorus.--“Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!” The captain, who

does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the

cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and

prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The

squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his

hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife, “Write to

Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend

two or three days here. There, Mrs. Dale, you hear me?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke

at the loudness of the squire’s tone. “My dear sir, do remember that I’m

a sad nervous creature.”

“Beg pardon,” muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his son, who having

got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio

County History, which was the only book in the library that the squire

much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study,

together with the field-books and steward’s accounts, but which he had

reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige

Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams--an old Saxon family, as the

name evidently denotes--had once possessed lands in that very county;

and the captain, during his visits to Hazeldean Hall, was regularly in

the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of

refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity, with

the following paragraph therein:

To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a

hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of

Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the

county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled

itself Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually

assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Botham, and in process of time,

yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham.”

“What, Frank! my County History!” cried the squire. “Mrs. H., he has got

my County History!”

“Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the county.”

“Ay, and history too,” said Mrs. Dale, malevolently, for the little

temper was by no means blown over.

FRANK.--“I’ll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I’m very much

interested just at present.”

THE CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut).--“You’ve got hold of that

passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?”

FRANK.--“No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr. Leslie’s

place, Rood Hall. Do you know, Mother?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“I can’t say I do. The Leslies don’t mix with the

county; and Rood lies very much out of the way.”

FRANK.--“Why don’t they mix with the county?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they

are proud; they are an old family.”

PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience).--“Old

fiddle-dee!--talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled

this half-hour!”

CAPTAIN BARNABAS.--“Will you cut for your partner, ma’am?”

SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank’s inquiries with a musing

air).--“Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?”

FRANK (rather hesitatingly).--“Because Randal Leslie is there for the

holidays, sir.”

PARSON.--“Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean. I don’t think it

was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce,--deuce of hearts.

Please to come and play, if you mean to play.”

The squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is

decided by a dexterous finesse of the captain against the Hazeldeans.

The clock strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the squire counts

up his own and his wife’s losings; and the captain and parson divide

sixteen shillings between them.

SQUIRE.--“There, Parson, I hope you’ll be in a better humour. You win

enough out of us to set up a coach-and-four.”

“Tut!” muttered the parson; “at the end of the year, I’m not a penny the

richer for it all.”

And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true,

for the parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third

he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of

the second third he never owned even to his better half,--but certain

it was, that every time the parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown,

which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the

remaining third, the parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained;

but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year’s end, it got to the

poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box.

The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves

to wine and water, or wine without water,--except Frank, who still

remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head

leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.

“Frank,” said Mrs. Hazeldean, “I never saw you so studious before.”

Frank started up and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too

much study in anything.

SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice).--“Pray, Frank, what

do you know of Randal Leslie?”

“Why, sir, he is at Eton.”

“What sort of a boy is he?” asked Mrs. Hazeldean.

Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered, “They say he is

the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps.”

“In other words,” said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, “he

understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he

learns them. You call that sapping? call it doing his duty. But pray,

who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed,

Squire?”

“Who and what is he?” repeated the squire, in a low growl. “Why, you

know Mr. Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie, the great heiress; and this

boy is a relation of hers. I may say,” added the squire, “that he is a

near relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean; but all I

know about the Leslies is, that Mr. Egerton, as I am told, having no

children of his own, took up young Randal (when his wife died, poor

woman), pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy

as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr. Audley

Egerton, thank Heaven!”

“I can well believe in your brother’s generosity to his wife’s kindred,”

said the parson, sturdily, “for I am sure Mr. Egerton is a man of strong

feeling.”

“What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton? I don’t suppose you could

ever have even spoken to him.”

“Yes,” said the parson, colouring up, and looking confused. “I had some

conversation with him once;” and observing the squire’s surprise, he

added--“when I was curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business

connected with the family of one of my parishioners.”

“Oh, one of your parishioners at Lansmere,--one of the constituents Mr.

Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him

his seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr.

Dale!”

“My dear sir,” said the parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of

conciliatory expostulation, “you are so irritable whenever Mr. Egerton’s

name is mentioned at all.”

“Irritable!” exclaimed the squire, whose wrath had been long simmering,

and now fairly boiled over,--“irritable, sir! I should think so: a man

for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose

sake I was called a ‘prize ox,’ Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in

a market-place, Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood,

by an officer in His Majesty’s service, who lodged a ball in my right

shoulder, Mr. Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this,

to turn his back on the landed interest,--to deny that there was any

agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I

ever had, Mr. Dale!--a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which

was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you

are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must

have of Christianity! Irritable, sir!” now fairly roared the squire,

adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced

a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d’Amboise or

Fighting Fitzgerald. “Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother,

I’d have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had a

ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I’d have called him out.”

“Mr. Hazeldean! Mr. Hazeldean! I’m shocked at you,” cried the parson;

and, putting his lips close to the squire’s ear, he went on in a

whisper, “What an example to your son! You’ll have him fighting duels

one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself.”

This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean; and muttering, “Why the deuce did you

set me off?” he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with

his pocket-handkerchief.

The parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had

gained. “And now that you may have it in your power to show civility and

kindness to a boy whom Mr. Egerton has taken up, out of respect to

his wife’s memory,--a kinsman, you say, of your own, and who has never

offended you,--a boy whose diligence in his studies proves him to be

an excellent companion to your son-Frank” (here the parson raised his

voice), “I suppose you would like to call on young Leslie, as you were

studying the county map so attentively.”

“Yes, yes,” answered Frank, rather timidly, “if my father does not

object to it. Leslie has been very kind tome, though he is in the sixth

form, and, indeed, almost the head of the school.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Hazeldean, “one studious boy has a fellow feeling for

another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read

hard at school.”

Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment.

Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look, with great animation. “Yes, Carry,”

said she, tossing her head, “though you may not think Frank clever,

his masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book,

Frank--hold up your head, my love--what did you get it for?”

FRANK (reluctantly).--“Verses, ma’am.”

MRS. HAZELDEAN (with triumph).--“Verses!--there, Carry, verses!”

FRANK (in a hurried tone).--“Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me.”

MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling).--“O Frank! a prize for what another did for

you--that was mean.”

FRANK (ingenuously).--“You can’t be more ashamed, Mother, than I was

when they gave me the prize.”

MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now

showing the triumph of generosity over temper).--“I beg your pardon,

Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the

prize.”

Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank’s neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs.

Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie.

Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an “aside,” “But we are

forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest

creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people--don’t

you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?”

MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).--“Suppose you

write the note yourself? Meanwhile I shall see him, no doubt.”

PARSON (putting his hand on the squire’s shoulder).--“You forgive my

impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take

strange liberties, when we honour and love folks as I do.”

“Fish,” said the squire; but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite

of himself. “You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride

over and see this pet of my--”

“Brother’s,” quoth the parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which

gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the squire would not

correct the parson, as he had been about to correct himself.

Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant

character of his countenance changed sadly. “The cruellest trump,

Captain Higginbotham!” said he sternly, and stalked by-majestic.

The night was so fine that the parson and his wife, as they walked home,

made a little detour through the shrubbery.

MRS. DALE.--“I think I have done a good piece of work to-night.”

PARSON (rousing himself from a revery).--“Have you, Carry?--it will be a

very pretty handkerchief.”

MRS. DALE.--“Handkerchief?--nonsense, dear. Don’t you think it would

be a very happy thing for both if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be

brought together?”

PARSON.--“Brought together!”

MRS. DALE.--“You do snap up one so, my dear; I mean if I could make a

match of it.”

PARSON.--“I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima,

but yourself into the bargain.”

MRS. DALE (smiling loftily).--“Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima’s

fortune about L4000?”

PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted

revery).--“Ay--ay--I dare say.”

MRS. DALE.--“And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly L6000 by

this time; eh! Charles dear, you really are so--good gracious, what’s

that!”

As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the

shrubbery into the village green.

PARSON.--“What’s what?”

MRS. DALE (pinching her husband’s arm very nippingly). “That

thing--there--there.”

PARSON.--“Only the new stocks, Carry; I don’t wonder they frighten you,

for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the

squire.”

CHAPTER XIII.

[Supposed to be a letter from Mrs. Hazeldean to A. Riccabocca, Esq.,

The Casino; but, edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima

Hazeldean.]

HAZELDEAN HALL.

DEAR SIR,--To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain

to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the

greatest pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little

circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted

with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir, make us the

amende honorable, and give us the pleasure of your company for a few

days at the Hall. May we expect you Saturday next?--our dinner hour is

six o’clock.

With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima Hazeldean, believe me,

my dear sir,

Yours truly, H. H.

Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs. Hazeldean

had very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the

stable-yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for

an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for

riding, with more than his usual dandyism, came into the yard, calling

for his pony in a loud voice; and singling out the very groom whom Miss

Jemima was addressing--for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the

squire’s stables--told him to saddle the gray pad and accompany the

pony.

“No, Frank,” said Miss Jemima, “you can’t have George; your father wants

him to go on a message,--you can take Mat.”

“Mat, indeed!” said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a

surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always

contrived to have a great patch on his boots,--besides, he called Frank

“Master,” and obstinately refused to trot down hill,--“Mat, indeed! let

Mat take the message, and George go with me.”

But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat’s foible

was not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all

houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants’

hall. Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated

altercation ensued, in the midst of which the squire and his wife

entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to

the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both

the contending parties.

The squire looked with great contempt on his son. “And what do you want

a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?”

FRANK.--“No, Sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to

a gentleman!”

SQUIRE (in high wrath).--“You precious puppy! I think I’m as good a

gentleman as you any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw

me ride to call on a neighbour with a fellow jingling at my heels, like

that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton mill. First time I

ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery coat was necessary to prove

his gentility!”

MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank colouring, and about to reply).--“Hush,

Frank, never answer your father,--and you are going to call on Mr.

Leslie?”

“Yes, ma’am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me,”

said Frank, taking the squire’s hand.

“Well, but, Frank,” continued Mrs. Hazeldean, “I think you heard that

the Leslies were very poor.”

FRANK.--“Eh, Mother?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“And would you run the chance of wounding the pride

of a gentleman as well born as yourself by affecting any show of being

richer than he is?”

SQUIRE (with great admiration).--“Harry, I’d give L10 to have said

that!”

FRANK (leaving the squire’s hand to take his mother’s).--“You’re quite

right, Mother; nothing could be more snobbish!”

SQUIRE. “Give us your fist, too, sir; you’ll be a chip of the old block,

after all.”

Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.

MRS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima).--“Is that the note you were to write

for me?”

MISS JEMIMA.--“Yes; I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I

have sealed it, and given it to George.”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“But Frank will pass close by the Casino on his way to

the Leslies’. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself.”

MISS JEMIMA (hesitatingly).--“Do you think so?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--“Yes, certainly. Frank, Frank, as you pass by the

Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be

heartily glad if he will come.” Frank nods.

“Stop a bit,” cried the squire. “If Rickeybockey is at home, ‘t is ten

to one if he don’t ask you to take a glass of wine! If he does, mind,

‘t is worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you

remember, Harry?--I thought it was all up with me.”

“Yes,” cried Mrs. Hazeldean; “for Heaven’s sake not a drop. Wine,

indeed!”

“Don’t talk of it,” cried the squire, making a wry face.

“I’ll take care, Sir!” said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the

stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him,

and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the

poor foreign gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup, and

the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory

plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard.

BOOK SECOND.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE INITIAL CHAPTERS.

“There can’t be a doubt,” said my father, “that to each of the main

divisions of your work--whether you call them Books or Parts--you should

prefix an Initial or Introductory Chapter.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Can’t be a doubt, sir? Why so?”

MR. CAXTON.--“Fielding lays it down as an indispensable rule, which he

supports by his example; and Fielding was an artistical writer, and knew

what he was about.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Do you remember any of his reasons, sir?”

MR. CAXTON.--“Why, indeed, Fielding says, very justly, that he is not

bound to assign any reason; but he does assign a good many, here and

there,--to find which I refer you to ‘Tom Jones.’ I will only observe,

that one of his reasons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect that

thus, in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of beginning

at the fourth or fifth page instead of the first,--‘a matter by no means

of trivial consequence,’ saith Fielding, ‘to persons who read books with

no other view than to say they have read them,--a more general motive to

reading than is commonly imagined; and from which not only law books and

good books, but the pages of Homer and Virgil, Swift and Cervantes, have

been often turned Over.’ There,” cried my father, triumphantly, “I will

lay a shilling to twopence that I have quoted the very words.”

MRS. CANTON.--“Dear me, that only means skipping; I don’t see any great

advantage in writing a chapter, merely for people to skip it.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Neither do I!”

MR. CANTON (dogmatically).--“It is the repose in the picture,--Fielding

calls it ‘contrast.’--(Still more dogmatically.)--I say there can’t be a

doubt about it. Besides” added my father after a pause,--“besides, this

usage gives you opportunities to explain what has gone before, or to

prepare for what’s coming; or, since Fielding contends, with great

truth, that some learning is necessary for this kind of historical

composition, it allows you, naturally and easily, the introduction

of light and pleasant ornaments of that nature. At each flight in the

terrace you may give the eye the relief of an urn or a statue. Moreover,

when so inclined, you create proper pausing-places for reflection; and

complete by a separate, yet harmonious ethical department, the design of

a work, which is but a mere Mother Goose’s tale if it does not embrace a

general view of the thoughts and actions of mankind.”

PISISTRATUS.--“But then, in these initial chapters, the author thrusts

himself forward; and just when you want to get on with the dramatis

personae, you find yourself face to face with the poet himself.”

MR. CANTON.--“Pooh! you can contrive to prevent that! Imitate the chorus

of the Greek stage, who fill up the intervals between the action by

saying what the author would otherwise say in his own person.”

PISISTRATUS (slyly).--“That’s a good idea, sir,--and I have a chorus,

and a choregus too, already in my eye.”

MR. CANTON (unsuspectingly).--“Aha! you are not so dull a fellow as you

would make yourself out to be; and, even if an author did thrust himself

forward, what objection is there to that? It is a mere affectation to

suppose that a book can come into the world without an author. Every

child has a father,--one father at least,--as the great Conde says very

well in his poem.”

PISISTRATUS.--“The great Conde a poet! I never heard that before.”

MR. CANTON.--“I don’t say he was a poet, but he sent a poem to Madame de

Montansier. Envious critics think that he must have paid somebody else

to write it; but there is no reason why a great captain should not write

a poem,--I don’t say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder, Roland, if the

duke ever tried his hand at ‘Stanzas to Mary,’ or ‘Lines to a Sleeping

Babe.’”

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--“Austin, I’m ashamed of you. Of course the duke could

write poetry if he pleased,--something, I dare say, in the way of the

great Conde; that is, something warlike and heroic, I’ll be bound. Let’s

hear!”

MR. CAXTON (reciting).--

“Telle est du Ciel la loi severe

Qu’il faut qu’un enfant ait un pere;

On dit meme quelquefois

Tel enfant en a jusqu’a trois.”

[“That each child has a father

Is Nature’s decree;

But, to judge by a rumour,

Some children have three.”]

CAPTAIN ROLAND (greatly disgusted).--“Conde write such stuff!--I don’t

believe it.”

PISISTRATUS.--“I do, and accept the quotations; you and Roland shall be

joint fathers to my child as well as myself.

“‘Tel enfant en a jusqu’a trois.’”

MR. CAXTON (solemnly).--“I refuse the proffered paternity; but so far

as administering a little wholesome castigation now and then, I have no

objection to join in the discharge of a father’s duty.”

PISISTRATUS.--“Agreed. Have you anything to say against the infant

hitherto?”

MR. CAXTON.--“He is in long clothes at present; let us wait till he can

walk.”

BLANCHE.--“But pray whom do you mean for a hero? And is Miss Jemima your

heroine?”

CAPTAIN ROLAND.--“There is some mystery about the--”

PISISTRATUS (hastily).-“Hush, Uncle: no letting the cat out of the

bag yet. Listen, all of you! I left Frank Hazeldean on his way to the

Casino.”

CHAPTER II.

“It is a sweet pretty place,” thought Frank, as he opened the gate which

led across the fields to the Casino, that smiled down upon him with

its plaster pilasters. “I wonder, though, that my father, who is so

particular in general, suffers the carriage-road to be so full of holes

and weeds. Mounseer does not receive many visits, I take it.”

But when Frank got into the ground immediately before the house, he saw

no cause of complaint as to want of order and repair. Nothing could be

kept more neatly. Frank was ashamed of the dint made by the pony’s hoofs

on the smooth gravel: he dismounted, tied the animal to the wicket, and

went on foot towards the glass door in front.

He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the old

woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far away in the yard,

searching for any eggs which the hen might have scandalously hidden for

culinary purposes; and Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and

minnows which were, when caught, to assist the eggs, when found, in

keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and his master. The old

woman had been lately put upon board wages. Lucky old woman! Frank rang

a third time, and with the impetuosity of his age. A face peeped from

the belvidere on the terrace. “Diavolo!” said Dr. Riccabocca to himself.

“Young cocks crow hard on their own dunghill; it must be a cock of a

high race to crow so loud at another’s.”

Therewith he shambled out of the summer-house, and appeared suddenly

before Frank, in a very wizard-like dressing-robe of black serge, a red

cap on his head, and a cloud of smoke coming rapidly from his lips, as a

final consolatory whiff, before he removed the pipe from them. Frank had

indeed seen the doctor before, but never in so scholastic a costume, and

he was a little startled by the apparition at his elbow, as he turned

round.

“Signorino,” said the Italian, taking off his cap with his usual

urbanity, “pardon the negligence of my people; I am too happy to receive

your commands in person.”

“Dr. Rickeybockey?” stammered Frank, much confused by this polite

address, and the low, yet stately, bow with which it was accompanied.

“I--I have a note from the Hall. Mamma--that is, my mother--and aunt

Jemima beg their best compliments, and hope you will come, sir.”

The doctor took the note with another bow, and, opening the glass door,

invited Frank to enter.

The young gentleman, with a schoolboy’s usual bluntness, was about to

say that he was in a hurry, and had rather not; but Dr. Riccabocca’s

grand manner awed him, while a glimpse of the hall excited his

curiosity, so he silently obeyed the invitation.

The hall, which was of an octagon shape, had been originally panelled

off into compartments, and in these the Italian had painted landscapes,

rich with the warm sunny light of his native climate. Frank was no

judge of the art displayed; but he was greatly struck with the scenes

depicted: they were all views of some lake, real or imaginary; in all,

dark-blue shining waters reflected dark-blue placid skies. In one, a

flight of steps ascended to the lake, and a gay group was seen feasting

on the margin; in another, sunset threw its rose-hues over a vast villa

or palace, backed by Alpine hills, and flanked by long arcades of vines,

while pleasure-boats skimmed over the waves below. In short, throughout

all the eight compartments, the scene, though it differed in details,

preserved the same general character, as if illustrating some favourite

locality. The Italian did not, however, evince any desire to do the

honours of his own art, but, preceding Frank across the hall, opened the

door of his usual sitting-room, and requested him to enter. Frank did so

rather reluctantly, and seated himself with unwonted bashfulness on the

edge of a chair. But here new specimens of the doctor’s handicraft soon

riveted attention. The room had been originally papered, but Riccabocca

had stretched canvas over the walls, and painted thereon sundry

satirical devices, each separated from the other by scroll-works of

fantastic arabesques. Here a Cupid was trundling a wheelbarrow full of

hearts, which he appeared to be selling to an ugly old fellow, with a

money-bag in his hand--probably Plutus. There Diogenes might be seen

walking through a market-place, with his lantern in his hand, in search

of an honest man, whilst the children jeered at him, and the curs

snapped at his heels. In another place a lion was seen half dressed in a

fox’s hide, while a wolf in a sheep’s mask was conversing very amicably

with a young lamb. Here again might be seen the geese stretching out

their necks from the Roman Capitol in full cackle, while the stout

invaders were beheld in the distance, running off as hard as they

could. In short, in all these quaint entablatures some pithy sarcasm was

symbolically conveyed; only over the mantel piece was the design graver

and more touching. It was the figure of a man in a pilgrim’s garb,

chained to the earth by small but innumerable ligaments, while a phantom

likeness of himself, his shadow, was seen hastening down what seemed an

interminable vista; and underneath were written the pathetic words of

Horace--

“Patriae quis exul

Se quoque fugit?”

[“What exile from his country can also fly from himself?”]

The furniture of the room was extremely simple, and somewhat scanty;

yet it was arranged so as to impart an air of taste and elegance to the

room. Even a few plaster busts and statues, though bought but of some

humble itinerant, had their classical effect, glistening from out

stands of flowers that were grouped around them, or backed by

graceful screen-works formed from twisted osiers, which, by the simple

contrivance of trays at the bottom filled with earth, served for living

parasitical plants, with gay flowers contrasting thick ivy leaves,

and gave to the whole room the aspect of a bower. “May I ask your

permission?” said the Italian, with his finger on the seal of the

letter.

“Oh, yes,” said Frank, with naivete.

Riccabocca broke the seal, and a slight smile stole over his

countenance. Then he turned a little aside from Frank, shaded his face

with his hand, and seemed to muse. “Mrs. Hazeldean,” said he, at last,

“does me very great honour. I hardly recognize her handwriting, or I

should have been more impatient to open the letter.” The dark eyes were

lifted over the spectacles and went right into Frank’s unprotected

and undiplomatic heart. The doctor raised the note, and pointed to the

characters with his forefinger.

“Cousin Jemima’s hand,” said Frank, as directly as if the question had

been put to him.

The Italian smiled. “Mr. Hazeldean has company staying with him?”

“No; that is, only Barney,--the captain. There’s seldom much company

before the shooting season,” added Frank, with a slight sigh; “and then,

you know, the holidays are over. For my part, I think we ought to break

up a month later.”

The doctor seemed reassured by the first sentence in Frank’s reply,

and, seating himself at the table, wrote his answer,--not hastily, as we

English write, but with care and precision, like one accustomed to

weigh the nature of words,--in that stiff Italian hand, which allows

the writer so much time to think while he forms his letters. He did not,

therefore, reply at once to Frank’s remark about the holidays, but was

silent till he had concluded his note, read it three times over, sealed

it by the taper he slowly lighted, and then, giving it to Frank, he

said,

“For your sake, young gentleman, I regret that your holidays are so

early; for mine, I must rejoice, since I accept the kind invitation you

have rendered doubly gratifying by bringing it yourself.”

“Deuce take the fellow and his fine speeches! One don’t know which way

to look,” thought English Frank.

The Italian smiled again, as if this time he had read the boy’s heart,

without need of those piercing black eyes, and said, less ceremoniously

than before, “You don’t care much for compliments, young gentleman?”

“No, I don’t indeed,” said Frank, heartily.

“So much the better for you, since your way in the world is made: it

would be so much the worse if you had to make it!”

Frank looked puzzled: the thought was too deep for him, so he turned to

the pictures.

“Those are very funny,” said he; “they seem capitally done. Who did

‘em?”

“Signoriuo Hazeldean, you are giving me what you refused yourself.”

“Eh?” said Frank, inquiringly.

“Compliments!”

“Oh--I--no; but they are well done: are n’t they, sir?”--

“Not particularly: you speak to the artist.”

“What! you painted them?”

“Yes.”

“And the pictures in the hall?”

“Those too.”

“Taken from nature, eh?”

“Nature,” said the Italian, sententiously, perhaps evasively, “lets

nothing be taken from her.”

“Oh!” said Frank, puzzled again. “Well, I must wish you good morning,

sir; I am very glad you are coming.”

“Without compliment?”

“Without compliment.”

“A rivedersi--good-by for the present, my young signorino. This way,”

observing Frank make a bolt towards the wrong door. “Can I offer you a

glass of wine?--it is pure, of our own making.”

“No, thank you, indeed, sir,” cried Frank, suddenly recollecting his

father’s admonition. “Good-by, don’t trouble yourself, sir; I know any

way now.”

But the bland Italian followed his guest to the wicket, where Frank

had left the pony. The young gentleman, afraid lest so courteous a host

should hold the stirrup for him, twitched off the bridle, and mounted in

haste, not even staying to ask if the Italian could put him in the way

to Rood Hall, of which way he was profoundly ignorant. The Italian’s eye

followed the boy as he rode up the ascent in the lane, and the doctor

sighed heavily. “The wiser we grow,” said he to himself, “the more we

regret the age of our follies: it is better to gallop with a light heart

up the stony hill than sit in the summer-house and cry ‘How true!’ to

the stony truths of Machiavelli!”

With that he turned back into the belvidere; but he could not resume

his studies. He remained some minutes gazing on the prospect, till

the prospect reminded him of the fields which Jackeymo was bent on his

hiring, and the fields reminded him of Lenny Fairfield. He returned to

the house, and in a few moments re-emerged in his out-of-door trim, with

cloak and umbrella, re-lighted his pipe, and strolled towards Hazeldean

village.

Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance, stopped at a

cottage, and there learned that there was a short cut across the fields

to Rood Hall, by which he could save nearly three miles. Frank,

however, missed the short cut, and came out into the high road; a

turnpike-keeper, after first taking his toll, put him back again into

the short cut; and finally, he got into some green lanes, where a

dilapidated finger-post directed him to Rood. Late at noon, having

ridden fifteen miles in the desire to reduce ten to seven, he came

suddenly upon a wild and primitive piece of ground, that seemed half

chase, half common, with crazy tumbledown cottages of villanous aspect

scattered about in odd nooks and corners. Idle, dirty children were

making mud-pies on the road; slovenly-looking women were plaiting straw

at the threshold; a large but forlorn and decayed church, that seemed

to say that the generation which saw it built was more pious than the

generation which now resorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the

roadside.

“Is this the village of Rood?” asked Frank of a stout young man breaking

stones on the road--sad sign that no better labour could be found for

him!

The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. “And where’s the

Hall--Mr. Leslie’s?”

The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time touched his hat.

“Be you going there?”

“Yes, if I can find out where it is.”

“I’ll show your honour,” said the boor, alertly.

Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his side. Frank was

much of his father’s son, despite the difference of age, and that more

fastidious change of manner which characterizes each succeeding race

in the progress of civilization. Despite all his Eton finery, he was

familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to

country matters.

“You don’t seem very well off in this village, my man?” said he,

knowingly.

“Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter time, and summer

too, for that matter; and the parish ben’t much help to a single man.”

“But surely the farmers want work here as well as elsewhere?”

“‘Deed, and there ben’t much farming work here,--most o’ the parish be

all wild ground loike.”

“The poor have a right of common, I suppose,” said Frank, surveying a

large assortment of vagabond birds and quadrupeds.

“Yes; neighbour Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has

a cow, and them be neighbour Jowlas’s pigs. I don’t know if there’s a

right, loike; but the folks at the Hall does all they can to help us,

and that ben’t much: they ben’t as rich as some folks; but,” added the

peasant, proudly, “they be as good blood as any in the shire.”

“I ‘m glad to see you like them, at all events.”

“Oh, yes, I likes them well eno’; mayhap you are at school with the

young gentleman?”

“Yes,” said Frank.

“Ah, I heard the clergyman say as how Master Randal was a mighty clever

lad, and would get rich some day. I ‘se sure I wish he would, for a poor

squire makes a poor parish. There’s the Hall, sir.”

CHAPTER III.

Frank looked right ahead, and saw a square house that, in spite of

modern sash windows, was evidently of remote antiquity. A high conical

roof; a stack of tall quaint chimney-pots of red-baked clay (like

those at Sutton Place in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar

smoke-conductors, of the ignoble fashion of present times; a dilapidated

groin-work, encasing within a Tudor arch a door of the comfortable date

of George III., and the peculiarly dingy and weather-stained appearance

of the small finely-finished bricks, of which the habitation was

built,--all showed the abode of former generations adapted with

tasteless irreverence to the habits of descendants unenlightened by

Pugin, or indifferent to the poetry of the past. The house had emerged

suddenly upon Frank out of the gloomy waste land, for it was placed in

a hollow, and sheltered from sight by a disorderly group of ragged,

dismal, valetudinarian fir-trees, until an abrupt turn of the

road cleared that screen, and left the desolate abode bare to the

discontented eye. Frank dismounted; the man held his pony; and after

smoothing his cravat, the smart Etonian sauntered up to the door, and

startled the solitude of the place with a loud peal from the modern

brass knocker,--a knock which instantly brought forth an astonished

starling who had built under the eaves of the gable roof, and called up

a cloud of sparrows, tomtits, and yellow-hammers, who had been regaling

themselves amongst the litter of a slovenly farmyard that lay in full

sight to the right of the house, fenced off by a primitive paintless

wooden rail. In process of time a sow, accompanied by a thriving and

inquisitive family, strolled up to the gate of the fence, and, leaning

her nose on the lower bar of the gate, contemplated the visitor with

much curiosity and some suspicion.

While Frank is still without, impatiently swingeing his white trousers

with his whip, we will steal a hurried glance towards the respective

members of the family within. Mr. Leslie, the paterfamilias, is in a

little room called his “study,” to which he regularly retires every

morning after breakfast, rarely reappearing till one o’clock, which is

his unfashionable hour for dinner. In what mysterious occupations

Mr. Leslie passes those hours no one ever formed a conjecture. At the

present moment he is seated before a little rickety bureau, one leg of

which being shorter than the other is propped up by sundry old letters

and scraps of newspapers; and the bureau is open, and reveals a great

number of pigeonholes and divisions, filled with various odds and ends,

the collection of many years. In some of these compartments are bundles

of letters, very yellow, and tied in packets with faded tape; in

another, all by itself, is a fragment of plum-pudding stone, which Mr.

Leslie has picked up in his walks, and considered a rare mineral. It

is neatly labelled, “Found in Hollow Lane, May 21st, 1804, by Maunder

Slugge Leslie, Esq.” The next division holds several bits of iron in

the shape of nails, fragments of horse-shoes, etc., which Mr. Leslie

has also met with in his rambles, and, according to a harmless popular

superstition, deemed it highly unlucky not to pick up, and, once picked

up, no less unlucky to throw away. Item, in the adjoining pigeon-hole, a

goodly collection of pebbles with holes in them, preserved for the same

reason, in company with a crooked sixpence; item, neatly arranged in

fanciful mosaics, several periwinkles, Blackamoor’s teeth (I mean the

shell so called), and other specimens of the conchiferous ingenuity of

Nature, partly inherited from some ancestral spinster, partly amassed

by Mr. Leslie himself in a youthful excursion to the seaside. There were

the farm-bailiff’s accounts, several files of bills, an old stirrup,

three sets of knee and shoe buckles which had belonged to Mr. Leslie’s

father, a few seals tied together by a shoe-string, a shagreen toothpick

case, a tortoise shell magnifying-glass to read with, his eldest son’s

first copybooks, his second son’s ditto, his daughter’s ditto, and a

lock of his wife’s hair arranged in a true lover’s knot, framed and

glazed. There were also a small mousetrap; a patent corkscrew too good

to be used in common; fragments of a silver teaspoon, that had, by

natural decay, arrived at a dissolution of its parts; a small brown

holland bag, containing halfpence of various dates, as far back as Queen

Anne, accompanied by two French sous and a German silber gros,--the

which miscellany Mr. Leslie magniloquently called “his coins,” and had

left in his will as a family heirloom. There were many other curiosities

of congenial nature and equal value--quae nunc describere longum est.

Mr. Leslie was engaged at this time in what is termed “putting things

to rights,”--an occupation he performed with exemplary care once a week.

This was his day; and he had just counted his coins, and was slowly

tying them up again in the brown holland bag, when Frank’s knock reached

his ears.

Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie paused, shook his head as if incredulously,

and was about to resume his occupation, when he was seized with a fit of

yawning which prevented the bag being tied for full two minutes.

While such the employment of the study, let us turn to the recreations

in the drawing-room, or rather parlour. A drawing-room there was on the

first floor, with a charming look-out, not on the dreary fir-trees, but

on the romantic undulating forest-land; but the drawing-room had not

been used since the death of the last Mrs. Leslie. It was deemed

too good to sit in, except when there was company: there never being

company, it was never sat in. Indeed, now the paper was falling off

the walls with the damp, and the rats, mice, and moths--those “edaces

rerum”--had eaten, between them, most of the chair-bottoms and a

considerable part of the floor. Therefore, the parlour was the sole

general sitting-room; and being breakfasted in, dined, and supped in,

and, after supper, smoked in by Mr. Leslie to the accompaniment of

rum-and-water, it is impossible to deny that it had what is called “a

smell,”--a comfortable, wholesome family smell, speaking of numbers,

meals, and miscellaneous social habitation. There were two windows: one

looked full on the fir-trees; the other on the farmyard, with the pigsty

closing the view. Near the fir-tree window sat Mrs. Leslie; before her,

on a high stool, was a basket of the children’s clothes that wanted

mending. A work-table of rosewood inlaid with brass, which had been a

wedding-present, and was a costly thing originally, but in that peculiar

taste which is vulgarly called “Brummagem,” stood at hand: the brass

had started in several places, and occasionally made great havoc in

the children’s fingers and in Mrs. Leslie’s gown; in fact it was the

liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to the petulant

brasswork, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a

monkey. Upon the work-table lay a housewife and thimble, and scissors,

and skeins of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and

cloth for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working,--she was

preparing to work; she had been preparing to work for the last hour and

a half. Upon her lap she supported a novel, by a lady who wrote much for

a former generation, under the name of “Mrs. Bridget Blue Mantle.” She

had a small needle in her left hand, and a very thick piece of thread

in her right; occasionally she applied the end of the said thread to her

lips, and then--her eyes fixed on the novel--made a blind, vacillating

attack at the eye of the needle. But a camel would have gone through it

with quite as much ease. Nor did the novel alone engage Mrs. Leslie’s

attention, for ever and anon she interrupted herself to scold the

children, to inquire “what o’clock it was;” to observe that “Sarah

would never suit;” and to wonder “why Mr. Leslie would not see that the

work-table was mended.” Mrs. Leslie has been rather a pretty woman. In

spite of a dress at once slatternly and economical, she has still the

air of a lady,--rather too much so, the hard duties of her situation

considered. She is proud of the antiquity of her family on both sides;

her mother was of the venerable stock of the Daudlers of Daudle Place, a

race that existed before the Conquest. Indeed, one has only to read

our earliest chronicles, and to glance over some of those long-winded

moralizing poems which delighted the thanes and ealdermen of old, in

order to see that the Daudles must have been a very influential family

before William the First turned the country topsy-turvy. While the

mother’s race was thus indubitably Saxon, the father’s had not only

the name but the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the Normans, and went far to

establish that crotchet of the brilliant author of “Sybil; or, The Two

Nations,” as to the continued distinction between the conquering

and conquered populations. Mrs. Leslie’s father boasted the name of

Montfichet,--doubtless of the same kith and kin as those great barons of

Alontfichet, who once owned such broad lands and such turbulent castles.

A high-nosed, thin, nervous, excitable progeny, those same Montfydgets,

as the most troublesome Norman could pretend to be. This fusion of race

was notable to the most ordinary physiognomist in the physique and

in the morale of Mrs. Leslie. She had the speculative blue eye of the

Saxon, and the passionate high nose of the Norman; she had the musing

do-nothingness of the Daudlers, and the reckless have-at-every-thingness

of the Montfydgets. At Mrs. Leslie’s feet, a little girl with her hair

about her ears (and beautiful hair it was too) was amusing herself with

a broken-nosed doll. At the far end of the room, before a high desk,

sat Frank’s Eton schoolfellow, the eldest son. A minute or two before

Frank’s alarum had disturbed the tranquillity of the household, he had

raised his eyes from the books on the desk to glance at a very tattered

copy of the Greek Testament, in which his brother Oliver had found a

difficulty that he came to Randal to solve. As the young Etonian’s face

was turned to the light, your first impression on seeing it would have

been melancholy, but respectful, interest,--for the face had already

lost the joyous character of youth; there was a wrinkle between the

brows; and the lines that speak of fatigue were already visible under

the eyes and about the mouth; the complexion was sallow, the lips were

pale. Years of study had already sown in the delicate organization the

seeds of many an infirmity and many a pain; but if your look had rested

longer on that countenance, gradually your compassion might have given

place to some feeling uneasy and sinister,--a feeling akin to fear.

There was in the whole expression so much of cold calm force, that it

belied the debility of the frame. You saw there the evidence of a mind

that was cultivated, and you felt that in that cultivation there

was something formidable. A notable contrast to this countenance,

prematurely worn and eminently intelligent, was the round healthy face

of Oliver, with slow blue eyes fixed hard on the penetrating orbs of his

brother, as if trying with might and main to catch from them a gleam of

that knowledge with which they shone clear and frigid as a star.

At Frank’s knock, Oliver’s slow blue eyes sparkled into animation, and

he sprang from his brother’s side. The little girl flung back the hair

from her face, and stared at her mother with a look which spoke wonder

and fright.

The young student knit his brows, and then turned wearily back to the

books on his desk.

“Dear me,” cried Mrs. Leslie, “who can that possibly be? Oliver, come

from the window, sir, this instant: you will be seen! Juliet, run, ring

the bell; no, go to the head of the kitchen stairs, and call out to

Jenny ‘Not at home.’ Not at home, on any account,” repeated Mrs. Leslie,

nervously, for the Montfydget blood was now in full flow.

In another minute or so, Frank’s loud boyish voice was distinctly heard

at the outer door.

Randal slightly started.

“Frank Hazeldean’s voice,” said he; “I should like to see him, Mother.”

“See him,” repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze; “see him! and the room in

this state!”

Randal might have replied that the room was in no worse state than

usual; but he said nothing. A slight flush came and went over his pale

face; and then he leaned his check on his hand, and compressed his lips

firmly.

The outer door closed with a sullen, inhospitable jar, and a slip-shod

female servant entered with a card between her finger and thumb.

“Who is that for?--give it to me. Jenny,” cried Mrs. Leslie.

But Jenny shook her head, laid the card on the desk beside Randal, and

vanished without saying a word.

“Oh, look, Randal, look up,” cried Oliver, who had again rushed to the

window; “such a pretty gray pony!”

Randal did look up; nay, he went deliberately to the window, and gazed a

moment on the high-mettled pony and the well-dressed, spirited rider. In

that moment changes passed over Randal’s countenance more rapidly than

clouds over the sky in a gusty day. Now envy and discontent, with the

curled lip and the gloomy scowl; now hope and proud self-esteem, with

the clearing brow and the lofty smile; and then again all became

cold, firm, and close, as he walked back to his books, seated himself

resolutely, and said, half aloud,--“Well, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!”

CHAPTER IV.

Mrs. Leslie came up in fidget and in fuss; she leaned over Randal’s

shoulder and read the card. Written in pen and ink, with an attempt at

imitation of printed Roman character, there appeared first “MR. FRANK

HAZELDEAN;” but just over these letters, and scribbled hastily and less

legibly in pencil, was,--

“DEAR LESLIE,--Sorry you were out; come and see us,--do!”

“You will go, Randal?” said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause.

“I am not sure.”

“Yes, you can go; you have clothes like a gentleman; you can go

anywhere, not like those children;” and Mrs. Leslie glanced almost

spitefully at poor Oliver’s coarse threadbare jacket, and little

Juliet’s torn frock.

“What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and I should consult his

wishes; he is not on good terms with these Hazeldeans.” Then turning

towards his brother, who looked mortified, he added, with a strange sort

of haughty kindness, “What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe to

myself; and then if I rise, I will raise my family.”

“Dear Randal,” said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him on the forehead,

“what a good heart you have!”

“No, Mother; my books don’t tell me that it is a good heart that gets

on in the world: it is a hard head,” replied Randal, with a rude and

scornful candour. “But I can read no more just now: come out, Oliver.”

So saying, he slid from his mother’s hand and left the room. When Oliver

joined him, Randal was already on the common; and, without seeming to

notice his brother, he continued to walk quickly, and with long strides,

in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of an old oak,

that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had escaped the axe.

The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot commanded a view of the decayed

house, the dilapidated church, the dreary village.

“Oliver,” said Randal, between his teeth, so that his voice had the

sound of a hiss, “it was under this tree that I first resolved to--”

He paused.

“What, Randal?”

“Read hard: knowledge is power!”

“But you are so fond of reading.”

“I!” cried Randal. “Do you think, when Wolsey and Thomas-a-Becket became

priests, they were fond of telling their beads and pattering Aves? I

fond of reading!”

Oliver stared; the historical allusions were beyond his comprehension.

“You know,” continued Randal, “that we Leslies were not always the

beggarly poor gentlemen we are now. You know that there is a man who

lives in Grosvenor Square, and is very rich,--very. His riches come to

him from a Leslie; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he--is very good

to me.”

Randal’s smile was withering as he spoke. “Come on,” he said, after

a pause,--“come on.” Again the walk was quick, and the brothers were

silent.

They came at length to a little shallow brook, across which some large

stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over

the ford dryshod. “Will you pull down that bough, Oliver?” said Randal,

abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically; and Randal,

stripping the leaves and snapping off the twigs, left a fork at the end;

with this he began to remove the stepping-stones.

“What are you about, Randal?” asked Oliver, wonderingly.

“We are on the other side of the brook now, and we shall not come back

this way. We don’t want the stepping-stones any more!--away with them!”

CHAPTER V.

The morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean’s to Rood Hall, the

Right Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor,

and minister of a high department in the State,--just below the rank of

the cabinet,--was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the

post, before he walked down to his office. In the mean while he

sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and

half-disdainful eye with which your practical man in public life is wont

to regard the abuse or the eulogium of the Fourth Estate.

There is very little likeness between Mr. Egerton and his half-brother;

none, indeed, except that they are both of tall stature, and strong,

sinewy, English build. But even in this last they do not resemble each

other; for the squire’s athletic shape is already beginning to expand

into that portly embonpoint which seems the natural development of

contented men as they approach middle life. Audley, on the contrary, is

inclined to be spare; and his figure, though the muscles are as firm

as iron, has enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of

elegance. His dress, his look, his tout ensemble, are those of the

London man. In the first, there is more attention to fashion than is

usual amongst the busy members of the House of Commons; but then Audley

Egerton has always been something more than a mere busy member of

the House of Commons. He has always been a person of mark in the

best society; and one secret of his success in life has been his high

reputation as “a gentleman.”

As he now bends over the journals, there is an air of distinction in the

turn of the well-shaped head, with the dark brown hair,--dark in spite

of a reddish tinge,--cut close behind, and worn away a little towards

the crown, so as to give an additional height to a commanding forehead.

His profile is very handsome, and of that kind of beauty which imposes

on men if it pleases women; and is, therefore, unlike that of your mere

pretty fellows, a positive advantage in public life. It is a profile

with large features clearly cut, masculine, and somewhat severe. The

expression of his face is not open, like the squire’s, nor has it the

cold closeness which accompanies the intellectual character of

young Leslie’s; but it is reserved and dignified, and significant of

self-control, as should be the physiognomy of a man accustomed to think

before he speaks. When you look at him, you are not surprised to learn

that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater,--he is a “weighty

speaker.” He is fairly read, but without any great range either of

ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not much humour;

but he has that kind of wit which is essential to grave and serious

irony. He has not much imagination, nor remarkable subtlety in

reasoning; but if he does not dazzle he does not bore,--he is too much

of the man of the world for that. He is considered to have sound sense

and accurate judgment. Withal, as he now lays aside the journals, and

his face relaxes its austerer lines, you will not be astonished to hear

that he is a man who is said to have been greatly beloved by women,

and still to exercise much influence in drawing-rooms and boudoirs. At

least, no one was surprised when the great heiress, Clementina Leslie,

kinswoman and ward to Lord Lansmere,--a young lady who had refused three

earls and the heir apparent to a dukedom,--was declared by her dearest

friends to be dying of love for Audley Egerton. It had been the natural

wish of the Lansmeres that this lady should marry their son, Lord

L’Estrange. But that young gentleman, whose opinions on matrimony

partook of the eccentricity of his general character, could never be

induced to propose, and had, according to the on-dits of town, been the

principal party to make up the match between Clementina and his friend

Audley; for the match required making-up, despite the predilections of

the young heiress. Mr. Egerton had had scruples of delicacy. He avowed,

for the first time, that his fortune was much less than had been

generally supposed, and he did not like the idea of owing all to a wife,

however highly be might esteem and admire her. Now, Lord L’Estrange (not

long after the election at Lansmere, which had given to Audley his first

seat in parliament) had suddenly exchanged from the battalion of the

Guards to which he belonged, and which was detained at home, into a

cavalry regiment on active service in the Peninsula. Nevertheless, even

abroad, and amidst the distractions of war, his interest in all that

could forward Egerton’s career was unabated; and by letters to his

father and to his cousin Clementina, he assisted in the negotiations for

the marriage between Miss Leslie and his friend; and before the year in

which Audley was returned for Lansmere had expired, the young senator

received the hand of the great heiress. The settlement of her fortune,

which was chiefly in the Funds, had been unusually advantageous to the

husband; for though the capital was tied up so long as both survived,

for the benefit of any children they might have, yet in the event of

one of the parties dying without issue by the marriage, the whole

passed without limitation to the survivor. Miss Leslie, in spite of all

remonstrance from her own legal adviser, had settled this clause with

Egerton’s confidential solicitor, one Mr. Levy, of whom we shall see

more hereafter; and Egerton was to be kept in ignorance of it till after

the marriage. If in this Miss Leslie showed a generous trust in Mr.

Egerton, she still inflicted no positive wrong on her relations, for

she had none sufficiently near to her to warrant their claim to the

succession. Her nearest kinsman, and therefore her natural heir, was

Harley L’Estrange; and if he was contented, no one had a right to

complain. The tie of blood between herself and the Leslies of Rood Hall

was, as we shall see presently, extremely distant.

It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took an active

part in the business of the House of Commons. He was then at the most

advantageous starting-point for the career of ambition. His words on the

state of the country took importance from his stake in it. His talents

found accessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the dignity of

a princely establishment, the respectability of one firmly settled in

life, the reputation of a fortune in reality very large, and which

was magnified by popular report into the revenues of a Croesus. Audley

Egerton succeeded in parliament beyond the early expectations formed

of him. He took, from the first, that station in the House which it

requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free

from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once

established, is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence;

that is to say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently

to a party to obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged

from a party to make his vote and word, on certain questions, matter of

anxiety and speculation.

Professing Toryism (the word Conservative, which would have suited

him better, was not then known), he separated himself from the country

party, and always avowed great respect for the opinions of the

large towns. The epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was

“enlightened.” Never too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet

never behind its movement, he had that shrewd calculation of odds

which a consummate mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon

politicians,--perceived the chances for and against a certain question

being carried within a certain time, and nicked the question between

wind and water. He was so good a barometer of that changeful weather

called Public Opinion, that he might have had a hand in the “Times”

newspaper. He soon quarrelled, and purposely, with his Lansmere

constituents; nor had he ever revisited that borough,--perhaps because

it was associated with unpleasant reminiscences in the shape of the

squire’s epistolary trimmer, and in that of his own effigies which

his agricultural constituents had burned in the corn-market. But the

speeches that produced such indignation at Lansmere had delighted one of

the greatest of our commercial towns, which at the next general election

honoured him with its representation. In those days, before the Reform

Bill, great commercial towns chose men of high mark for their member;

and a proud station it was for him who was delegated to speak the voice

of the princely merchants of England.

Mrs. Egerton survived her marriage but a few years. She left no

children; two had been born, but died in their first infancy. The

property of the wife, therefore, passed without control or limit to the

husband.

Whatever might have been the grief of the widower, he disdained to

betray it to the world. Indeed, Audley Egerton was a man who had early

taught himself to conceal emotion. He buried himself in the country,

none knew where, for some months. When he returned, there was a deep

wrinkle on his brow,--but no change in his habits and avocations, except

that, shortly afterwards, he accepted office, and thus became more busy

than ever.

Mr. Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent in money spatters.

A rich man in public life has many claims on his fortune, and no one

yielded to those claims with in air so regal as Audley Egerton. But

amongst his many liberal actions, there was none which seemed more

worthy of panegyric than the generous favour he extended to the son of

his wife’s poor and distant kinsfolk, the Leslies of Rood Hall.

Some four generations back, there had lived a certain Squire Leslie, a

man of large acres and active mind. He had cause to be displeased with

his elder son, and though he did not disinherit him, he left half his

property to a younger.

The younger had capacity and spirit, which justified the parental

provision. He increased his fortune; lifted himself into notice and

consideration by public services and a noble alliance. His descendants

followed his example, and took rank among the first commoners

in England, till the last male, dying, left his sole heiress and

representative in one daughter, Clementina, afterwards married to Mr.

Egerton.

Meanwhile the elder son of the fore-mentioned squire had muddled and

sotted away much of his share in the Leslie property; and, by low habits

and mean society, lowered in repute his representation of the name.

His successors imitated him, till nothing was left to Randal’s father,

Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie, but the decayed house, which was what the

Germans call the stamm schloss, or “stem hall,” of the race, and the

wretched lands immediately around it.

Still, though all intercourse between the two branches of the family had

ceased, the younger had always felt a respect for the elder, as the head

of the House. And it was supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton

had recommended her impoverished namesakes and kindred to the care of

her husband; for when he returned to town, after Mrs. Egerton’s death,

Audley had sent to Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie the sum of L5000, which

he said his wife, leaving no written will, had orally bequeathed as a

legacy to that gentleman; and he requested permission to charge himself

with the education of the eldest son.

Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie might have done great things for his little

property with those L5000, or even kept in the three-per-cents the

interest would have afforded a material addition to his comforts. But

a neighbouring solicitor, having caught scent of the legacy, hunted

it down into his own hands, on pretence of having found a capital

investment in a canal; and when the solicitor had got possession of the

L5000, he went off with them to America.

Meanwhile Randal, placed by Mr. Egerton at an excellent preparatory

school, at first gave no signs of industry or talent; but just before

he left it, there came to the school, as classical tutor, an ambitious

young Oxford man; and his zeal--for he was a capital teacher--produced

a great effect generally on the pupils, and especially on Randal Leslie.

He talked to them much in private on the advantages of learning, and

shortly afterwards he exhibited those advantages in his own person; for,

having edited a Greek play with much subtle scholarship, his college,

which some slight irregularities of his had displeased, recalled him to

its venerable bosom by the presentation of a fellowship. After this he

took orders, became a college tutor, distinguished himself yet more by

a treatise on the Greek accent, got a capital living, and was considered

on the high road to a bishopric. This young man, then, communicated to

Randal the thirst for knowledge; and when the boy went afterwards to

Eton, he applied with such earnestness and resolve that his fame soon

reached the ears of Audley; and that person, who had the sympathy for

talent, and yet more for purpose, which often characterizes ambitious

men, went to Eton to see him. From that time Audley evinced great and

almost fatherly interest in the brilliant Etonian; and Randal always

spent with him some days in each vacation.

I have said that Egerton’s conduct with respect to this boy was more

praiseworthy than most of those generous actions for which he was

renowned, since to this the world gave no applause. What a man does

within the range of his family connections does not carry with it that

eclat which invests a munificence exhibited on public occasions. Either

people care nothing about it, or tacitly suppose it to be but his duty.

It was true, too, as the squire had observed, that Randal Leslie was

even less distantly related to the Hazeldeans than to Mrs. Egerton,

since Randal’s grandfather had actually married a Miss Hazeldean (the

highest worldly connection that branch of the family had formed since

the great split I have commemorated). But Audley Egerton never appeared

aware of that fact. As he was not himself descended from the Hazeldeans,

he did not trouble himself about their genealogy; and he took care to

impress it upon the Leslies that his generosity on their behalf was

solely to be ascribed to his respect for his wife’s memory and kindred.

Still the squire had felt as if his “distant brother” implied a rebuke

on his own neglect of these poor Leslies, by the liberality Audley

evinced towards them; and this had made him doubly sore when the name of

Randal Leslie was mentioned. But the fact really was, that the Leslies

of Rood had so shrunk out of all notice that the squire had actually

forgotten their existence, until Randal became thus indebted to his

brother; and then he felt a pang of remorse that any one save himself,

the head of the Hazeldeans, should lend a helping hand to the grandson

of a Hazeldean.

But having thus, somewhat too tediously, explained the position of

Audley Egerton, whether in the world or in relation to his young

protege, I may now permit him to receive and to read his letters.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him,

and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the

waste-basket. Public men have such odd, out-of-the-way letters, that

their waste-baskets are never empty,--letters from amateur financiers

proposing new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from America

(never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in

country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in

the king’s service; letters from free-thinkers in reproof of bigotry;

letters from bigots in reproof of free-thinking; letters signed Brutus

Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a

dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted;

letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda

has seen the public man’s portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart

sensible to its attractions may be found at No. -- Piccadilly; letters

from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers,--all food

for the waste-basket.

From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton first selected those

on business, which he put methodically together in one division of

his pocket-book; and secondly, those of a private nature, which he as

carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three,--one

from his steward, one from Harley L’Estrange, one from Randal Leslie.

It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to

his office, a few minutes afterwards, he slowly took his way. Many a

passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite

the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black

frock-coat thus worn well became the erect air and the deep, full chest

of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley

Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the

cares of office.

After a few observations on the last debate this gentleman said,--

“By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He

comes up to town to vote for us on Monday.”

“I had asked some people to dine with me,” answered Egerton, “but I will

put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom to miss any occasion to

meet a man whom I respect so much.”

“So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don’t you go and

see him in the country? Good shooting,--pleasant, old-fashioned house.”

“My dear Westbourne, his house is ‘nimium vicina Cremonae,’ close to a

borough in which I have been burned in effigy.”

“Ha! ha! yes, I remember you first came into parliament for that snug

little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes,

did he?”

“He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me

his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L’Estrange.”

“Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?”

“He comes, generally, every year, for a few days, just to see his father

and mother, and then returns to the Continent.”

“I never meet him.”

“He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town,

and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him.”

“Why does he not go to them?”

“A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do

in London, I suppose.”

“Is he as amusing as ever?” Egerton nodded.

“So distinguished as he might be!” remarked Lord Westbourne.

“So distinguished as he is!” said Egerton, formally; “an officer

selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo;

a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman

matchless!”

“I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured

days,” answered Lord Westbourne. “But still, though L’Estrange is

doubtless all you say, don’t you think he rather wastes his life living

abroad?”

“And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste

our lives? But I can’t stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door

of my prison.”

“On Saturday, then?”

“On Saturday. Good day.”

For the next hour or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the

State. He then snatched an interval of leisure (while awaiting a report,

which he had instructed a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his

letters. Those on public business were soon despatched; and throwing

his replies aside to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the

letters which he had put apart as private.

He attended first to that of his steward: the steward’s letter was long,

the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more

negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton;

yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist.

The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far

from prolix: it ran thus:--

DEAR MR. LESLIE,--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me

whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean’s invitation to call at

the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I

should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and for the

rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own way to

make in life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age

who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits.

As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The

report I receive of your progress at Eton renders it unnecessary, in

my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no

objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing

term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow of

Balliol, to read with you. He is of opinion, judging only by your

high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in

that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life

as assured.

Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, A. E.

The reader will remark that in this letter there is a certain tone of

formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his protege “Dear Randal,” as would

seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, “Dear Mr. Leslie.” He hints, also,

that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard

against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may

have excited? The letter to Lord L’Estrange was of a very different kind

from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and

gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gayly,

and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a

reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was

an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley

Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding,

there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the

fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that abandon, that hearty

self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters

of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which

did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his

correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is

off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate

to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself,--that he

avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling! But

perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you

expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are

spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching

Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an

idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on the banks of Como?

Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the

attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from

a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had

appointed to meet at two o’clock. There was no office in London at which

deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton

presided.

The deputation entered,--some score or so of middle-aged,

comfortable-looking persons, who, nevertheless, had their grievance, and

considered their own interest, and those of the country, menaced by a

certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr. Egerton.

The mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well,--but

in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a

slap-dash style,--unceremonious, free and easy,--an American style. And,

indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of

the mayor which savoured of residence in the Great Republic. He was a

very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering,--the look of

a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed

the liberty to speak his mind and “wallop his own nigger!”

His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr.

Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich

man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions

of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the

self-love of his equals.

Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner;

and though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations

actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much

sense and much justice in Mr. Mayor’s arguments, and the statesman

civilly promised to take them into full consideration.

He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed

before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor presented himself alone, saying

aloud to his companions in the passage, “I forgot something I had to say

to Mr. Egerton; wait below for me.”

“Well, Mr. Mayor,” said Audley, pointing to a seat, “what else would you

suggest?”

The mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then,

drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton’s, laid his forefinger on that

gentleman’s arm, and said, “I think I speak to a man of the world, sir?”

Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his

arm from the touch of the forefinger.

MR. MAYOR.--“You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we

return to parliament to accompany us. Do better without ‘em. You know

they are both in Opposition,--out-and-outers.”

MR. EGERTON.--“It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember

when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be

served or injured.”

MR. MAYOR.--“Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you’d be glad to

have two members to support ministers after the next election.”

MR. EGERTON (smiling).--“Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor.”

MR. MAYOR.--“And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in

my pocket; so I ought,--I spend a great deal of money in it. Now,

you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of

liberty--the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a

man of the world. I’m a man of the world myself, sir. And so, if the

Government will do something for me, why, I’ll do something for the

Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours,--that’s

something, isn’t it?”

MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise).--“Really, I--”

MR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the

official).--“No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact

is, that I’ve taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted.

You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton,--trumpery thing enough, I

dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be

Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name

your two members for the next election,--that is, if they belong to

your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That’s speaking fair and

manful, is n’t it?”

MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up).--“I am at a loss to guess why you

should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition.”

MR. MAYOR (nodding good-humouredly).--“Why, you see, I don’t go along

with the Government; you’re the best of the bunch. And may be you’d

like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you

understand; honour’s a jewel!”

MR. EGERTON (with great gravity).--“Sir, I am obliged by your good

opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that

affect the government of the country, and--”

MR. MAYOR (interrupting him).--“Ah, of course, you must say so; very

right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime

Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my

little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you

only came in by a majority of two, eh?”

MR. EGERTON.--“I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was

not present.”

MR. MAYOR.--“No; but luckily for you, two relations of mine were, and

they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two. Since then, you

have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on

you--”

MR. EGERTON.--“Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger

to Lansmere; and if the electors did me the honour to return me to

parliament, it was in compliment rather to--”

MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official).--“Rather to Lord Lansmere,

you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of

the realm. But never mind, I know the world; and I’d ask Lord Lansmere

to do my affair for me, only he is a pompous sort of man; might be

qualmish: antiquated notions. Not up to snuff like you and me.”

MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers before

him).--“Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty

candidates for the honour of knighthood, and it is still less in my

department to make bargains for seats in parliament.”

MR. MAYOR.--“Oh, if that’s the case, you’ll excuse me; I don’t know much

of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that if I put two

seats in your hands for your own friends, you might contrive to take

the affair into your department, whatever it was. But since you say you

agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you

must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop

my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don’t like the sitting

members; I’m all for progressing, but they go too much ahead for me;

and since the Government is disposed to move a little, why, I’d as

lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see,” added the

mayor, coaxingly, “I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity,

and do credit to his Majesty.”

MR. EGERTON (without looking up from his papers).--“I can only refer

you, sir, to the proper quarter.”

MR. MAYOR (impatiently).--“Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much

humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the

forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to.”

MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indignant).--“If you want

a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want

to give the Government information relative to seats in parliament, you

must introduce yourself to Mr. ------, the Secretary of the Treasury.”

MR. MAYOR.--“And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he’ll say?”

MR. EGERTON (the amusement preponderating over the indignation).--“He

will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in

which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to

have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a

gentleman like you, in the proud position of mayor, may well hope to be

knighted on some fitting occasion; but that you must not talk about the

knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the

unfortunate political opinions of the town.”

MR. MAYOR.--“Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not

quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I’d better go at once to the

fountain-head. How d’ ye think the Premier would take it?”

MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the

amusement).--“Probably just as I am about to do.”

Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared. “Show Mr. Mayor the

way out,” said the minister.

The mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked

straight to the door; but suffering the attendant to precede him along

the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands,

and with a voice thick with passion, cried, “Some day or other I will

make you smart for this, as sure as my name’s Dick Avenel!”

“Avenel!” repeated Egerton, recoiling,--“Avenel!” But the mayor was

gone.

Audley fell into a deep and musing revery, which seemed gloomy, and

lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door.

He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley

L’Estrange open on the table. He drew it towards him, and wrote, “A man

has just left me, who calls himself Aven--” In the middle of the name

his pen stopped. “No, no,” muttered the writer, “what folly to reopen

the old wounds there!” and he carefully erased the words.

Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but

dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse’s head towards Westminster

Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly,

as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He

was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and

fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well.

CHAPTER VII.

In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled

in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though

he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to

her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would

learn to be fit for more than a day-labourer; he would learn gardening,

in all its branches,--rise some day to be a head gardener. “And,”

said Riccabocca, “I will take care of his book-learning, and teach him

whatever he has a head for.”

“He has a head for everything,” said the widow.

“Then,” said the wise man, “everything shall go into it.” The widow was

certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly

distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a

wondrous learned man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist,

and suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the

Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair sex, would

no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny

put a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to

Riccabocca: he was very much frightened by him,--and the spectacles,

the pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so

sturdily, in reply to every overture, “Please, sir, I’d rather not; I’d

rather stay along with Mother,” that Riccabocca was forced to suspend

all further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at

all cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was

one of those men whom opposition stimulates; and what before had been

but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty

of other lads might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny

Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian’s

designs upon him, the special acquisition, of Lenny became of paramount

importance in the eyes of Signor Riccabocca.

Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins

which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more

immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had

accepted an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall.

“There will be no one there but the family,” said Riccabocca. “Poor

Giacomo, a little chat in the servants’ hall will do you good; and the

squire’s beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and

minnows. It will lengthen your life.”

“The padrone jests,” said Jackeymo, statelily; “as if any one could

starve in his service.”

“Um,” said Riccabocca. “At least, faithful friend, you have tried that

experiment as far as human nature will permit;” and he extended his hand

to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant

and master in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear

fell upon the hand he kissed.

“Cospetto!” said Dr. Riccabocca, “a thousand mock pearls do not make up

the cost of a single true one! The tears of women--we know their worth;

but the tears of an honest man--Fie, Giacomo!--at least I can never

repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe.”

So far as his master’s wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing

to Jackeymo; for the doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo

pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed

since they left the tailor’s hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine

the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably

longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his

back,--quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two

suits, complete in three separate members of which man’s raiments are

composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran

stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the

invidious light,--the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down

from Jackeymo’s melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue

could evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts!

For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel, more

profusus sui, than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he

preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner,--it was a respect

due to the padrone,--and that habit had lasted till the two habits on

which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay;

then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard

service they had breathed their last.

The doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from

such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to

Jackeymo than with an eye to that respectability which the costume

of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, “Giacomo, thou

wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!”

And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the donation had been

accepted; but the fact was that that same fitting out was easier said

than done. For though-thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks

and minnows--both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state

which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human

frame,--namely, skin and bone,--yet the bones contained in the skin of

Riccabocca all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of

Jackeymo spread out latitudinally. And you might as well have made

the bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and

pollarded oak--in whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept

at their ease--as have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca.

Moreover, if the skill of the tailor could have accomplished that

undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart

to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of

religious sentiment, too, about those vestments of the padrone. The

ancients, we know, when escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the

votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave.

Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superstition.

“This coat the padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the

very evening the padrone last put on those pantaloons!” And coat and

pantaloons were tenderly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred

rest.

But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud

to exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire’s butler in habiliments

discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity

the bell rang, and he went down into the parlour.

Riccabocca was standing on the hearth under his symbolical

representation of the “Patriae Exul.”

“Giacomo,” quoth he, “I have been thinking that thou hast never done

what I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we

are going now into the great world: visiting once begun, Heaven knows

where it may stop. Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes.

Things are dear in England. Will this suffice?” And Riccabocca extended

a five-pound note.

Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal

English permit our domestics to be with us; but in his familiarity he

was usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him.

“The padrone is mad!” he exclaimed; “he would fling away his whole

fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and

twenty-six pounds Milanese! Santa Maria! unnatural father! And what is

to become of the poor signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in

the foreign land?”

“Giacomo,” said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, “the

signorina to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes,

Giacomo,--miserable man, thy small-clothes!”

“It is just,” said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; “and

the padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is

just,--the padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages,

and he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure.”

“For the board and the lodgment, good,” said Riccabocca. “For the

handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!”

“They are no such thing,” said Jackeymo, “they are only in arrear. As if

the padrone could not pay them some day or other; as if I was demeaning

myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And

can’t I wait? Have I not my savings too? But be cheered, be cheered;

you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was

arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see.”

And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber,

unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed-head, tossed out

a variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a

leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly

Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing

a little image of his patron saint,--San Giacomo,--one solid English

guinea, and somewhat more than a pound’s worth in English silver.

Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, “One will lose on

them here;” he seized the English coins, and counted them out. “But are

you enough, you rascals?” quoth he, angrily, giving them a good shake.

His eye caught sight of the medallion,--he paused; and after eying the

tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in

a sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of

his master,--

“What’s the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the

friend who does not serve me? Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint,

you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag; but if you help me

to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion,

you will be a friend indeed. Alla bisogna, Monsignore.” Then, gravely

kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into

the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering

to himself, “Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all

these savings in his service!” ran downstairs into his pantry, caught

up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to

the neighbouring town of L--------.

Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in

time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master’s supper, with a

suit of black,--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable,--two

shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But out of all this finery,

Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had

cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that

San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more

exclusively directed the saint’s direction. The other habiliments came

to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes

were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!

CHAPTER VIII.

Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do

not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called

“reasoning by illustration.” Amongst other resemblances, there are

moments when, to a quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of

those rotatory entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the

name of “whirligigs,” or “roundabouts,” in which each participator of

the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of

pursuing some one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind.

Man, and woman too, are naturally animals of chase; the greatest still

find something to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an

object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the village of

Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby

after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle,

whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a

conviction of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon

giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes,

I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find

“their only books in woman’s looks.” Perhaps it might be from the

over-tenderness and clemency of Miss Jemima’s nature; perhaps it might

be that as yet she had only experienced the villany of man born and

reared in these cold northern climates, and in the land of Petrarch and

Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that

the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less

obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering further into

these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say that, on Signor Riccabocca’s

appearance in the drawing-room at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than

ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favour her general hostility

to men. In truth, though Frank saw something quizzical in the

old-fashioned and outlandish cut of the Italian’s sober dress; in his

long hair, and the chapeau bras, over which he bowed so gracefully, and

then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm,

after the fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a

roasted pullet,--yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny

to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an

unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation

grew more familiar, and the parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited

to meet their friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though

sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently animated

and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man who, besides the

knowledge which is acquired from books and life, had studied the art

which becomes a gentleman,--that of pleasing in polite society.

The result was that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain

Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time.

The doctor did not play; he thus became the property of the two ladies,

Miss Jemima and Mrs. Dale.

Seated between the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey,

who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent,

the doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, placed between

Friendship and Love.

Friendship, as became her, worked quietly at the embroidered

pocket-handkerchief and left Love to more animated operations.

“You must be very lonely at the Casino,” said Love, in a sympathizing

tone.

“Madam,” replied Riccabocca, gallantly, “I shall think so when I leave

you.”

Friendship cast a sly glance at Love; Love blushed, or looked down

on the carpet,--which comes to the same thing. “Yet,” began Love

again,--“yet solitude to a feeling heart--”

Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and involuntarily buttoned

his coat, as if to protect the individual organ thus alarmingly referred

to.

“Solitude to a feeling heart has its charms. It is so hard even for us

poor ignorant women to find a congenial companion--but for YOU!” Love

stopped short, as if it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its

bouquet.

Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and darted one glance

which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to

envelop and take in, as it were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima’s

personal attractions. Now Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had

a mild and pensive expression of countenance; and she would have been

positively pretty had the mildness looked a little more alert, and the

pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was

constitutionally mild, she was not de natura pensive; she had too much

of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humour

called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really

spoiled her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up

by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might

apply to the figure, which--thanks to the same pensiveness--lost all

the undulating grace which movement and animation bestow on the fluent

curves of the feminine form. The figure was a good figure, examined in

detail,--a little thin, perhaps, but by no means emaciated, with just

and elegant proportions, and naturally light and flexible. But the same

unfortunate pensiveness gave to the whole a character of inertness and

languor; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the sofa, so complete seemed

the relaxation of nerve and muscle that you would have thought she had

lost the use of her limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of

the charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca’s eye glanced

rapidly; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale--“Defend me” (he stopped

a moment, and added) “from the charge of not being able to appreciate

congenial companionship.”

“Oh, I did not say that!” cried Miss Jemima.

“Pardon me,” said the Italian, “if I am so dull as to misunderstand

you. One may well lose one’s head, at least, in such a neighbourhood as

this.” He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank’s shoulder to examine

some views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish,

would have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from the

library in order to gratify the guest.

“Most interesting creature, indeed,” sighed Miss Jemima, “but too--too

flattering.”

“Tell me,” said Mrs. Dale, gravely, “do you think, love, that you could

put off the end of the world a little longer, or must we make haste in

order to be in time?”

“How wicked you are!” said Miss Jemima, turning aside. Some few minutes

afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so that Dr. Riccabocca and herself

were in a farther corner of the room, looking at a picture said to be by

Wouvermans.

MRS. DALE.--“She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?”

RICCABOCCA.--“Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!”

MRS. DALE.--“So kind-hearted.”

RICCABOCCA.--“All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his

desperate cut at the runaway!”

MRS. DALE.--“She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has

something very winning.”

RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--“So winning, that it is strange she is not

won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!”

MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more

effective grape-charge).--“Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have

a very pretty fortune.”

RICCABOCCA.--“Ah!”

MRS. DALE. “Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four.”

RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--“If Mrs.

Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her

portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is

not Miss Jemima’s fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!”

The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the

whist-players.

Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. “It would be

such a good thing for both,” muttered she, almost inaudibly.

“Giacomo,” said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the

large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great

English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks

out of single blessedness, “Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer

of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand.”

“Cosa meravigliosa!”--[“Miraculous thing.”]--exclaimed Jackeymo, and he

crossed himself with great fervour. “Six thousand pounds English!

why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than

L150,000 Milanese!” And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the

squire’s ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the

midst of which he stopped and cried, “But not for nothing?”

“Nothing! no!”

“These mercenary English! the Government wants to bribe you?”

“That’s not it.”

“The priests want you to turn heretic?”

“Worse than that!” said the philosopher.

“Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!”

“Don’t be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear

THESE again!”

“Never to wear what?” exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his

master’s long legs in their linen drawers,--“never to wear--”

“The breeches,” said Riccabocca, laconically.

“The barbarians!” faltered Jackeymo.

“My nightcap! and never to have any comfort in this,” said Riccabocca,

drawing on the cotton head-gear; “and never to have any sound sleep

in that,” pointing to the four-posted bed; “and to be a bondsman and

a slave,” continued Riccabocca, waxing wroth; “and to be wheedled and

purred at, and pawed and clawed, and scolded and fondled, and blinded

and deafened, and bridled and saddled--bedevilled and--married!”

“Married!” said Jackeymo, more dispassionately--“that’s very bad,

certainly; but more than a hundred and fifty thousand lire, and perhaps

a pretty young lady, and--”

“Pretty young lady!” growled Riccabocca, jumping into bed and drawing

the clothes fiercely over him. “Put out the candle, and get along with

you,--do, you villanous old incendiary!”

CHAPTER IX.

It was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks,

and it was evident already, to an ordinary observer, that something

wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of

countenance; when the squire passed, they took off their hats with more

than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad smile to

his quick, hearty “Good-day, my man.” The women peered at him from the

threshold or the casement, but did not, as was their wont (as least the

wont of the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his passing

compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy cottages. And the

children, who used to play after work on the site of the old stocks, now

shunned the place, and, indeed, seemed to cease play altogether.

On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public

work for nothing. Now that the squire had resuscitated the stocks, and

made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish

to put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been

wounded by the parson’s opposition; and it would be a justification to

his own forethought, and a triumph over the parson’s understanding,

if he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the

stocks had not been repaired before they were wanted.

Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was something about the

squire more burly and authoritative and menacing than heretofore. Old

Gaffer Solomons observed, “that they had better moind well what they

were about, for that the squire had a wicked look in the tail of his

eye,--just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbour Barnes’s little

boy.”

For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the

atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive

overt act of tyranny on the one hand or rebellion on the other. But on

the very Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in

the four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution

commenced. In the dead of that night personal outrage was committed on

the stocks. And on the Sunday morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest

riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob

of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off;

that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical

villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll-work,

“Dam the stocks!” Mr. Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much

too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings

with horror and alarm. And when the squire came into his dressing-room

at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet)

informed him, with a mysterious air, that Mr. Stirn had something “very

partikler to communicate about a most howdacious midnight ‘spiracy and

‘sault.”

The squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted.

“Well?” cried the squire, suspending the operation of stropping his

razor.

Mr. Stirn groaned.

“Well, man, what now?”

“I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore,” began Mr.

Stirn; “and I can only ‘count for it by s’posing that them foreign

Papishers have been semminating--”

“Been what?”

“Semminating--”

“Disseminating, you blockhead,--disseminating what?”

“Damn the stocks,” began Mr. Stirn, plunging right in medias res, and by

a fine use of one of the noblest figures in rhetoric.

“Mr. Stirn!” cried the squire, reddening, “did you say, ‘Damn the

stocks’?--damn my new handsome pair of stocks!”

“Lord forbid, sir; that’s what they say: that’s what they have digged on

it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four holes,

and broken the capital of the elewation.”

The squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor;

he seated himself in his armchair majestically, crossed his legs, and,

in a voice that affected tranquillity, said,--

“Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching

an assault upon--can I trust my senses?--upon my new stocks. Compose

yourself; be calm. Now! What the devil is come to the parish?”

“Ah, sir, what indeed?” replied Mr. Stirn: and then laying the

forefinger of the right hand on the palm of the left he narrated the

case.

“And whom do you suspect? Be calm now; don’t speak in a passion. You are

a witness, sir,--a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and

fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical--but whom do you

suspect, I say?” Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked

his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered, “I hear as how the two

Papishers slept at your honour’s last night.”

“What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got out of his warm bed to

bung up the holes in my new stocks?”

“Noa; he’s too cunning to do it himself, but he may have been

semminating. He’s mighty thick with Parson Dale, and your honour knows

as how the parson set his face agin the stocks. Wait a bit, sir,--don’t

fly at me yet. There be a boy in this here parish--”

“A boy! ah, fool, now you are nearer the mark. The parson write ‘Damn

the stocks,’ indeed! What boy do you mean?”

“And that boy be cockered up much by Mr. Dale; and the Papisher went and

sat with him and his mother a whole hour t’ other day; and that boy is

as deep as a well; and I seed him lurking about the place, and hiding

hisself under the tree the day the stocks was put up,--and that ‘ere boy

is Lenny Fairfield.”

“Whew,” said the squire, whistling, “you have not your usual senses

about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield,--pattern boy of the village.

Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish,

after all: some good-for-nothing vagrant--that cursed tinker, who

goes about with a very vicious donkey,--a donkey that I caught picking

thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker

brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday;

worst day of the week, I’m sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and

depredations. Between the services, and after evening church, there are

always idle fellows from all the neighbouring country about, as you know

too well. Depend on it, the real culprits will be found gathering round

the stocks, and will betray themselves; have your eyes, ears, and wits

about you, and I’ve no doubt we shall come to the rights of the matter

before the day’s out. And if we do,” added the squire, “we’ll make an

example of the ruffian!”

“In course,” said Stirn: “and if we don’t find him we must make an

example all the same. That’s what it is, sir. That’s why the stocks

ben’t respected; they has not had an example yet,--we wants an example.”

“On my word I believe that’s very true; and we’ll clap in the first idle

fellow you catch in anything wrong, and keep him there for two hours at

least.”

“With the biggest pleasure, your honour,--that’s what it is.”

And Mr. Stirn having now got what he considered a complete and

unconditional authority over all the legs and wrists of Hazeldean

parish, quoad the stocks, took his departure.

CHAPTER X.

“Randal,” said Mrs. Leslie on this memorable Sunday,--“Randal, do you

think of going to Mr. Hazeldean’s?”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Randal. “Mr. Egerton does not object to it; and

as I do not return to Eton, I may have no other opportunity of seeing

Frank for some time. I ought not to fail in respect to Mr. Egerton’s

natural heir.”

“Gracious me!” cried Mrs. Leslie, who, like many women of her cast and

kind, had a sort of worldliness in her notions, which she never evinced

in her conduct,--“gracious me! natural heir to the old Leslie property!”

“He is Mr. Egerton’s nephew, and,” added Randal, ingenuously letting out

his thoughts, “I am no relation to Mr. Egerton at all.”

“But,” said poor Mrs. Leslie, with tears in her eyes, “it would be a

shame in the man, after paying your schooling and sending you to Oxford,

and having you to stay with him in the holidays, if he did not mean

anything by it.”

“Anything, Mother, yes,--but not the thing you suppose. No matter. It

is enough that he has armed me for life, and I shall use the weapons as

seems to me best.”

Here the dialogue was suspended by the entrance of the other members of

the family, dressed for church.

“It can’t be time for church! No, it can’t,” exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. She

was never in time for anything,

“Last bell ringing,” said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow man, was

methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a frantic rush at the door,

the Montfydget blood being now in a blaze, dashed up the stairs, burst

into her room, tore her best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest

shawl from the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the shawl

on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, in order to

conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her gown, and then flew back

like a whirlwind. Meanwhile the family were already out of doors, in

waiting; and just as the bell ceased, the procession moved from the

shabby house to the dilapidated church.

The church was a large one, but the congregation was small, and so was

the income of the parson. It was a lay rectory, and the great tithes

had belonged to the Leslies, but they had been long since sold. The

vicarage, still in their gift, might be worth a little more than L100 a

year. The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He was a good

man, and not originally a stupid one; but penury and the anxious

cares for wife and family, combined with what may be called solitary

confinement for the cultivated mind, when, amidst the two-legged

creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind with which it can

exchange one extra-parochial thought, had lulled him into a lazy

mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His income

allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or

charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond

the example of his sinless life, and such negative effect as might be

produced by his slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners

troubled him very little; and but for the influence which, in hours

of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over the most

tractable,--that is, the children and the aged,--not half-a-dozen

persons would have known or cared whether he shut up his church or not.

But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr.

Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and

the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet

learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the

choral frogs in Aristophanes; and there was a long sermon a propos to

nothing which could possibly interest the congregation,--being, in fact,

some controversial homily which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached

years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud

universal grunt, as if of relief and thanksgiving, and a great clatter

of shoes, and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, to the church

door.

Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and as soon as dinner

was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.

Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and

quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he

tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as

a guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the

gracious open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his

father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice at war

with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish

pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to

talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged

in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman’s pony, from which he

diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal

drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding

in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish

specimen of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain.

He paused, scratched his head, and, glancing affectionately towards his

companion, exclaimed,--

“But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than that little

pony, Master Randal; and sure I ought, for you be as good a gentleman as

any in the land.”

“Thank you,” said Randal. “But I like walking better than riding,--I am

more used to it.”

“Well, and you walk bra’ly,--there ben’t a better walker in the county.

And very pleasant it is walking; and ‘t is a pretty country afore you,

all the way to the Hall.”

Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to flatter or to

soothe; and coming at length into a broader lane, said, “I think I can

find my way now. Many thanks to you, Tom;” and he forced a shilling into

Tom’s horny palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to

his eye. He felt more grateful for that shilling than he had for Frank’s

liberal half-crown; and he thought of the poor fallen family, and forgot

his own dire wrestle with the wolf at his door.

He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal was out of

sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie continued to walk on at

a quick pace. With all his intellectual culture and his restless

aspirations, his breast afforded him no thought so generous, no

sentiment so poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept

slouchingly homeward.

As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a broad piece of

waste land, he began to feel tired, and his step slackened. Just then

a gig emerged from one of these byroads, and took the same direction as

the pedestrian. The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded

at a foot’s pace; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty well

abreast.

“You seem tired, sir,” said the driver, a stout young farmer of the

higher class of tenants, and he looked down compassionately on the boy’s

pale countenance and weary stride. “Perhaps we are going the same way,

and I can give you a lift?”

It was Randal’s habitual policy to make use of every advantage proffered

to him, and he accepted the proposal frankly enough to please the honest

farmer.

“A nice day, sir,” said the latter, as Randal sat by his side. “Have you

come far?”

“From Rood Hall.”

“Oh, you be young Squire Leslie,” said the farmer, more respectfully,

and lifting his hat.

“Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then?”

“I was brought up on your father’s land, sir. You may have heard of

Farmer Bruce?”

RANDAL.--“I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. Bruce who rented, I

believe, the best part of our land, and who used to bring us cakes when

he called to see my father. He is a relation of yours?”

FARMER BRUCE.--“He was my uncle. He is dead now, poor man.”

RANDAL.-“Dead! I am grieved to hear it. He was very kind to us children.

But it is long since he left my father’s farm.”

FARMER BRUCE (apologetically).--“I am sure he was very sorry to go. But,

you see, he had an unexpected legacy--”

RANDAL.--“And retired from business?”

FARMER BRUCE.--“No. But, having capital, he could afford to pay a good

rent for a real good farm.”

RANDAL (bitterly).--“All capital seems to fly from the lands of Rood.

And whose farm did he take?”

FARMER BRUCE.--“He took Hawleigh, under Squire Hazeldean. I rent it now.

We’ve laid out a power o’ money on it. But I don’t complain. It pays

well.”

RANDAL.--“Would the money have paid as well sunk on my father’s land?”

FARMER BRUCE.--“Perhaps it might, in the long run. But then, sir, we

wanted new premises,--barns and cattlesheds, and a deal more,--which

the landlord should do; but it is not every landlord as can afford that.

Squire Hazeldean’s a rich man.”

RANDAL.--“Ay!”

The road now became pretty good, and the farmer put his horse into a

brisk trot.

“But which way be you going, sir? I don’t care for a few miles more or

less, if I can be of service.”

“I am going to Hazeldean,” said Randal, rousing himself from a revery.

“Don’t let me take you out of your way.”

“O, Hawleigh Farm is on the other side of the village, so it be quite my

way, sir.”

The farmer, then, who was really a smart young fellow,--one of that race

which the application of capital to land has produced, and which,

in point of education and refinement, are at least on a par with the

squires of a former generation,--began to talk about his handsome horse,

about horses in general, about hunting and coursing: he handled all

these subjects with spirit, yet with modesty. Randal pulled his hat

still lower down over his brows, and did not interrupt him till they

passed the Casino, when, struck by the classic air of the place, and

catching a scent from the orange-trees, the boy asked abruptly, “Whose

house is that?”

“Oh, it belongs to Squire Hazeldean, but it is let or lent to a foreign

mounseer. They say he is quite the gentleman, but uncommonly poor.”

“Poor,” said Randal, turning back to gaze on the trim garden, the neat

terrace, the pretty belvidere, and (the door of the house being open)

catching a glimpse of the painted hall within,--“poor? The place seems

well kept. What do you call poor, Mr. Bruce?”

The farmer laughed. “Well, that’s a home question, sir. But I believe

the mounseer is as poor as a man can be who makes no debts and does not

actually starve.”

“As poor as my father?” asked Randal, openly and abruptly.

“Lord, sir! your father be a very rich man compared to him.” Randal

continued to gaze, and his mind’s eye conjured up the contrast of his

slovenly shabby home, with all its neglected appurtenances. No trim

garden at Rood Hall, no scent from odorous orange blossoms. Here poverty

at least was elegant,--there, how squalid! He did not comprehend at

how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful can be effected. They now

approached the extremity of the squire’s park pales; and Randal, seeing

a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy

plunged amidst the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely,

and his mellow merry whistle came to Randal’s moody ear as he glided

quick under the shadow of the trees.

He arrived at the Hall to find that all the family were at church; and,

according to the patriarchal custom, the churchgoing family embraced

nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who

opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid

that Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank’s return. He

therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call

again when church was over.

The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned

round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome

old house.

There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the

spacious lawn, in the numerous parterres of variegated flowers, in the

venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still

shadows over the grass, and in the picturesque building, with its

projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no

poet’s nor painter’s eye that this young old man gazed on the scene

before him.

He beheld the evidence of wealth--and the envy of wealth jaundiced his

soul.

Folding his arms on his breast, he stood a while, looking all around

him, with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his

eyes fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself,--

“The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell

me I have talents and learning, and I have taken to my heart the maxim,

‘Knowledge is power.’ And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge

ever place me on the same level as that on which this dunce is born? I

don’t wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the poor,

who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley

Egerton means me to come into parliament, and be a Tory like himself?

What! keep things as they are! No; for me not even Democracy, unless

there first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat,--‘More

blood!’ Marat had lived as a poor man, and cultivated science--in the

sight of a prince’s palace.”

He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old Hall,

which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace;

and, with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if

not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.

“But,” he continued to soliloquize,--“but of revolution there is no

chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions

should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then,

shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him--what from? His

father’s halls? Well, but if he were dead, who would be the heir of

Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to

this squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy’s life is

worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his

Uncle Egerton,--an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least,

is more feasible. ‘Make my way in life,’ sayest thou, Audley Egerton?

Ay,--and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation!

simulation! Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon practised it,

and--”

Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts,

the boy had continued to walk backwards, he had come to the verge where

the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha; and just as he was

fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the

ground went from under him, and--slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie!

It so happened that the squire, whose active genius was always at some

repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and

sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh

and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal,

recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his

clothes covered with mud; while the rudeness of the fall was evinced by

the fantastic and extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed

here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally,

was as little like the hat of a decorous, hard-reading young

gentleman--protege of the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton--as any hat

picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly could be.

Randal was dizzy and stunned and bruised, and it was some moments before

he took heed of his raiment. When he did so his spleen was greatly

aggravated. He was still boy enough not to like the idea of presenting

himself to the unknown squire and the dandy Frank in such a trim: he

resolved incontinently to regain the lane and return home, without

accomplishing the object of his journey; and seeing the footpath right

before him, which led to a gate that he conceived would admit him into

the highway sooner than the path by which he had come, he took it at

once.

It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the warnings of our

good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant power had precipitated

Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all

who choose what is, nowadays; by no means an uncommon step in the march

of intellect,--namely, the walking backwards, in order to gratify a

vindictive view of one’s neighbour’s property! I suspect that, before

this century is out, many a fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha,

and scrambled out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had

on when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good genius for

giving him a premonitory tumble,--and I never yet knew a man who did!

CHAPTER, XI.

The squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too

much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that

he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent

donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his

pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just

after he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation but the

embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence

for the squire to be ruffled as to create any remark. Riccabocca,

indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact

to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the

one was too discreet, and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore,

whatever it might be, and shortly after breakfast the squire retired

into his study, and absented himself from morning service. In his

delightful “Life of Oliver Goldsmith,” Mr. Forster takes care to

touch our hearts by introducing his hero’s excuse for not entering

the priesthood. “He did not feel himself good enough.” Thy Vicar of

Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and

Dr. Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss

Jemima’s fears are realized. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness

of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith’s. There were

occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough--I don’t say for

a priest, but even for one of the congregation,--“days in which,” said

the squire in his own blunt way, “as I have never in my life met a worse

devil than a devil of a temper, I’ll not carry mine into the family

pew. He sha’n’t be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor

grandmother’s prayer-book.” So the squire and his demon stayed at home.

But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over: and on

this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it may be

presumed that the squire had reasoned or fretted himself into a proper

state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forth from the porch of his

hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The

second service was (as is commonly the case in rural districts) more

numerously attended than the first one; and it was our parson’s wont to

devote to this service his most effective discourse.

Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology

nor the archaeological learning that distinguish the rising generation

of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be

called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice

formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a

congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite

in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the

details in the church were purely Gothic or not; crockets and finials,

round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never

troubled his head.

But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal

importance with those subtler mysteries,--he knew how to fill his

church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and at evening

service the church overflowed.

Parson Dale, too, may be considered nowadays to hold but a mean idea

of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known

to dispute on its exact bearing with the State,--whether it was

incorporated with the State or above the State, whether it was

antecedent to the Papacy or formed from the Papacy, etc. According to

his favourite maxim, “Quieta non movere,”--[“Not to disturb things that

are quiet.”]--I have no doubt that he would have thought that the less

discussion is provoked upon such matters the better for both Church and

laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient

custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the

priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson

Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the

gospel,--to advise, to deter, to persuade, to reprove. And it was for

the evening service that he prepared those sermons which may be called

“sermons that preach at you.” He preferred the evening for that salutary

discipline, not only because the congregation was more numerous, but

also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that

people bear better to be preached at after dinner than before; that you

arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach is at peace.

There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale’s way of preaching at you.

It was done in so imperceptible, fatherly, a manner that you never felt

offended. He did it, too, with so much art that nobody but your own

guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did

not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the squire, and that great

fat farmer, Mr. Bullock, the churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the

ploughman and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached at him

more often than at any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the

sense to know it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in

Parson Dale’s sermons something of that boldness of illustration which

would have been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which

is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not

scruple now and then to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow

an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the

attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the

good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly

subordinate to, the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to

knowledge,--but to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes

his references to sources not within the ordinary reading of his

congregation would spirit up some farmer’s son, with an evening’s

leisure on his hands, to ask the parson for further explanation, and so

to be lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction, under a safe

guide.

Now, on the present occasion, the parson, who had always his eye and

heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of

his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent

was already at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and

inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the

squire,--seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the

precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor,

meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon,--a sermon that

should extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for

the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his parish of

Hazeldean.

And thus ran--

THE POLITICAL SERMON OF PARSON DALE.

CHAPTER XII.

For every man shall bear his own burden.--Gal. vi. 5.

“BRETHREN! every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at

the grave, may we not believe that He would have freed an existence so

brief from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the

world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and

have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a divine revelation

that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his

infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life? If I am a rich

man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother to the stern

discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I should not take him with me

to hedge and dig, to scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter’s cold:

why inflict hardships on his childhood for the purpose of fitting him

for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into man? But

if, on the other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable

existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him,

prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that

station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to the

infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man? So it

is with our Father that is in heaven. Viewing this life as our infancy

and the next as our spiritual maturity, where ‘in the ages to come He

may show the exceeding riches of His grace,’ it is in His tenderness,

as in His wisdom; to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking

the powers and developing the virtue of the soul, prepare it for ‘the

earnest of our inheritance.’ Hence it is that every man has his burden.

Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a human

father, you will know that your troubles in life are a proof that you

are reared for an eternity. But each man thinks his own burden the

hardest to bear: the poor-man groans under his poverty, the rich man

under the cares that multiply with wealth. For so far from wealth

freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written in all ages

have repeated, with one voice, the words of the wisest, ‘When goods

increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to

the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?’ And

this is literally true, my brethren: for, let a man be as rich as was

the great King Solomon himself, unless he lock up all his gold in a

chest, it must go abroad to be divided amongst others; yea, though,

like Solomon, he make him great works,--though he build houses and plant

vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards,--still the gold that he

spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and Solomon himself could not

eat with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house,

or the humblest labourer who planted the vineyard. Therefore ‘when goods

increase, they are increased that eat them.’ And this, my brethren, may

teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches,

whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane

history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be

the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid

singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the

inspired writers, represents the man who, by force--and wit, had risen

to be a king sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his

subjects,--all bearing out the words of the son of David, ‘The sleep

of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the

abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.’

“Amongst my brethren now present there is, doubtless, some one who has

been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich.

Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now

disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired? Has he not both

vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when

he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow? But it is

right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care,

to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel

poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and

(to use the language of the world) ‘seek to rise in life,’ their most

valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness

that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in,--namely, the

successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune,--a struggle

in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that

necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are

now as common to us as air and sunshine have come from that law of our

nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches

each successive generation by the labours of the last, and in free

countries often lifts the child of the labourer to a place amongst

the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention,

poverty is the creator of the arts. If there had been no poverty, and no

sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of

a country? Subtract from civilization all that has been produced by

the poor, and what remains?--the state of the savage. Where you now see

labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed,--the equality of

wild men. No; not even equality there! for there brute force becomes

lordship, and woe to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some in

purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stands the palace and

the cot, you would behold but mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant

excels the king among savages, so far does the society exalted and

enriched by the struggles of labour excel the state in which Poverty

feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other hand, if

the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, their hearts

would become hardened in the sensual enjoyments it procures. It is that

feeling, by Divine Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity

and vexation of spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the

rich man sensitive to the instincts of Heaven, and teaches him to seek

for happiness in those beneficent virtues which distribute his wealth to

the profit of others. If you could exclude the air from the rays of the

fire, the fire itself would soon languish and die in the midst of its

fuel; and so a man’s joy in his wealth is kept alive by the air which it

warms; and if pent within itself, is extinguished.

“And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the vast subject

opened to us by the words of the apostle, ‘Every man shall bear his

own burden.’ The worldly conditions of life are unequal. Why are they

unequal? O my brethren, do you not perceive? Think you that, if it had

been better for our spiritual probation that there should be neither

great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would not so have ordered

the dispensations of the world, and so, by its mysterious but merciful

agencies, have influenced the framework and foundations of society? But

if from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless

experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this

inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is

something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality

is necessary and essential? Ask why this inequality? Why?--as well ask

why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues! For if all

men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and

no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half, at least, of

human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what

would become of fortitude; what of patience; what of resignation? If

there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of benevolence,

of charity, of the blessed human pity, of temperance in the midst of

luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question further;

grant all conditions the same,--no reverse, no rise, and no fall,

nothing to hope for, nothing to fear,--what a moral death you would at

once inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link between

the Heart of Man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder!

If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and hope, my

brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be ‘a time to weep and a time

to laugh,’ it is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort,

and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. Ah, my brethren,

were it possible to annihilate the inequalities of human life, it would

be the banishment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual

nature, the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the

world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity and

contrast.

“‘Every man shall bear his own burden.’ True; but now turn to an earlier

verse in the same chapter,--‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so

fulfil the law of Christ.’ Yes, while Heaven ordains to each his

peculiar suffering, it connects the family of man into one household, by

that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes us from

the brute creation,--I mean the feeling to which we give the name of

sympathy,--the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag

that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that

creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself

alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only

for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who

has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman; and do we not call him

who sorrows with the sorrowful humane?

“Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our

Lord is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from

the brute. He seizes, not upon some faculty of genii given but to few,

but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in

saying, ‘Love one another,’ ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens,’ he elevates

the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of His laws.

The lawyer asks our Lord, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Our Lord replies by the

parable of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded

man that fell among the thieves and passed by on the other side. That

priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have

been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite nor

to the doctrine of the priest does our Saviour even deign to allude. He

cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, ‘Which

now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell

among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said

Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.’

“O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan

in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet

now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God’s chosen race though

they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the

sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from

the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother

amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall

meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!

“‘Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.’ Think

not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving, to that relief

of distress which is commonly called charity, to the obvious duty of

devoting from our superfluities something that we scarcely miss to the

wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye,

if the worst burdens are those of the body,--if the kind word and the

tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread

bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown.

Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all,--yea, of the

pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ’s wealth. Sympathy is

brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the

poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the

contrary. But I say also to the poor, ‘In your turn have charity for the

rich;’ and I say to the rich, ‘In your turn respect the poor.’

“‘Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.’

Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion

of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like

thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more;

nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed, ‘How

hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven’?

And what are temptations but trials; what are trials but perils and

sorrows? Think not that you can bestow no charity on the rich man, even

while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer,

often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said,

‘Wherever there is room for a man there is place for a benefit.’

“And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath gone forth

to survey his barns and his granaries, his gardens and orchards, if

suddenly in the vain pride of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow

of the labourer,--if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth,

if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against him with

the hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with the

ingratitude of envy,--I ask, I say, any rich man, whether straightway

all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not fade from his heart,

and whether he does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the

power of the poor man to bestow! For all these things of Mammon pass

away; but there is in the smile of him whom we have served a something

that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another’s

burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors and compassion

for the griefs of the rich. To all men it was said--yes, to Lazarus as

to Dives--‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ But think not, O rich man,

that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty not to grudge thee

thy substance, it is thine to do all that may sweeten their labour.

Remember that when our Lord said, ‘How hardly shall they that have

riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ He replied also to them who

asked, ‘Who then can be saved?’ ‘The things which are impossible with

men are possible with God,’ that is, man left to his own temptations

would fail; but, strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches

are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy

virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender,

temperate and benign, and thy riches themselves may become the evidence

at once of thy faith and of thy works.

“We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, ‘Do unto others as

you would be done by.’ Why do we fail so often in the practice? Because

we neglect to cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an

instinct, and the Saviour exalts as a command. If thou wouldst do unto

thy neighbour as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well how thy neighbour

will regard the action thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his

place. If thou art strong and he is weak, descend from thy strength and

enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle

on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes, thy heart beat as

in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what had seemed

just to thy power will seem harsh to his weakness. For ‘as a zealous man

hath not done his duty when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,’

even so an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes

on the grand column of society only warnings that irritate the bold and

terrify the timid; and a man will be no more in love with law than with

virtue, ‘if he be forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.’ If,

then, ye would bear the burden of the lowly, O ye great, feel not only

for them, but with! Watch that your pride does not chafe them, your

power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of the class

from which the Apostles were chosen, amidst which the Lord of Creation

descended from a throne above the seraphs.”

The parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced towards the pew

near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of Hazeldean. The squire was

leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards,

and the natural glow of his complexion much heightened.

“But,” resumed the parson, softly, without turning to his book, and

rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment--“but he who has

cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them,

hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man that he

obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his

conscience. In this sympathy, behold the bond between rich and poor! By

this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they

were meant to be,--exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each; and

thus, if in the body each man bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship

of the soul all have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other.

This is the law of Christ,--fulfil it, O my flock!”

Here the parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their

heads.

BOOK THIRD.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED “MY NOVEL.”

“I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone,” said my

father, graciously; “though as for the Sermon--” Here I trembled; but

the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special

protection; and observing that my father was puckering up his brows

critically, they rushed forward boldly in defence of The Sermon, and Mr.

Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skilful general, he

renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is

not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity

of cavillers to discover the places at which the Author of “Human Error”

directed his great guns.

“But,” said the captain, “you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus,

to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean,--you

will march us out into open service before you have done with us?”

PISISTRATUS (magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr.

Caxton’s remarks, and he puts on an air of dignity in order to awe away

minor assailants).--“Yes, Captain Roland; not yet a while, but all in

good time. I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground

of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose hereafter to open some

lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life--”

MR. CAXTON.--“Hum!”

BLANCHE (putting her hand on my father’s lip).--“We shall know better

the design, perhaps, when we know the title. Pray, Mr. Author, what is

the title?”

MY MOTHER (with more animation than usual).--“Ay, Sisty, the title!”

PISISTRATUS (startled).--“The title! By the soul of Cervantes! I have

never yet thought of a title!”

CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly).--“There is a great deal in a good title. As a

novel reader, I know that by experience.”

MR. SQUILLS.--“Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but

what goes down, if the title be apt and seductive. Witness ‘Old

Parr’s Life Pills.’ Sell by the thousand, Sir, when my ‘Pills for Weak

Stomachs,’ which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid for

the advertising.”

MR. CAXTON.--“Parr’s Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius. It is not

every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it if he have.

But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?”

PISISTRATUS (stirring the fire in great excitement).--“My title! my

title!--what shall be my title?”

MR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most

didactic of tones).--“From a remote period, the choice of a title has

perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their

invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced.

To begin with the Hebrews. ‘The Lips of the Sleeping’ (Labia

Dormientium)--what book did you suppose that title to designate?--A

Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers! Again, imagine some young lady of

old captivated by the sentimental title of ‘The Pomegranate with its

Flower,’ and opening on a Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us

turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossipping

‘Noctes’ with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance,

‘The Muses’ and ‘The Veil,’ ‘The Cornucopia,’ ‘The Beehive,’ and ‘The

Meadow.’ Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to

those who love to sup upon horrors,--such as ‘The Torch,’ ‘The Poniard,’

‘The Stiletto’--”

PISISTRATUS (impatiently).--“Yes, sir, but to come to My Novel.”

MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interruption).--“You see you have a fine

choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar, to a

classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early dramatic

writers.”

PISISTRATUS (more hopefully).--“Ay, there is something in the Drama akin

to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea.”

MR. CAXTON.--“For instance, the author of the ‘Curiosities of

Literature’ (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing much of the

information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who

wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral

Philosophy.”

PISISTRATUS (eagerly).--“Well, sir?”

MR. CAXTON.--“And called it ‘The Pain of the Sleep of the World.’”

PISISTRATUS.--“Very comic, indeed, sir.”

MR. CAXTON.--“Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are

now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself

at your disposal,--‘Theagenes and Chariclea’ or ‘The Ass’ of Longus, or

‘The Golden Ass’ of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as

‘The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of

Perceforest, King of Great Britain.’” And therewith my father ran over a

list of names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing.

“Well, to my taste,” said my mother, “the novels I used to read when a

girl (for I have not read many since, I am ashamed to say)--”

MR. CAXTON.--“No, you need not be at all ashamed of it, Kitty.”

MY MOTHER (proceeding).--“Were much more inviting than any you mention,

Austin.”

THE CAPTAIN.--“True.”

MR. SQUILLS.--“Certainly. Nothing like them nowadays!”

MY MOTHER.--“‘Says she to her Neighbour, What?’”

THE CAPTAIN.--“‘The Unknown, or the Northern Gallery’--”

MR. SQUILLS.--“‘There is a Secret; Find it out!’”

PISISTRATUS (pushed to the verge of human endurance, and upsetting

tongs, poker, and fire-shovel).--“What nonsense you are talking, all of

you! For Heaven’s sake consider what an important matter we are called

upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works

which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to remember,--it is

to invent a title for mine,--My Novel!”

MR. CAXTON (clapping his hands gently).--“Excellent! capital! Nothing

can be better; simple, natural, pertinent, concise--”

PISISTRATUS.--“What is it, sir, what is it? Have you really thought of a

title to My Novel?”

MR. CAXTON.--“You have hit it yourself,--‘My Novel.’ It is your Novel;

people will know it is your Novel. Turn and twist the English language

as you will, be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Fabulist, or

Puritan, still, after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less

than your Novel.”

PISISTRATUS (thoughtfully, and sounding the words various ways).--“‘My

Novel!’--um-um! ‘My Novel!’ rather bold--and curt, eh?”

MR. CAXTON.--“Add what you say you intend it to depict,--Varieties in

English Life.”

MY MOTHER.--“‘My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life’--I don’t think

it sounds amiss. What say you, Roland? Would it attract you in a

catalogue?”

My uncle hesitates, when Mr. Caxton exclaims imperiously.--“The thing is

settled! Don’t disturb Camarina.”

SQUILLS.--“If it be not too great a liberty, pray who or what is

Camarina?”

MR. CAXTON.--“Camarina, Mr. Squills, was a lake, apt to be low, and then

liable to be muddy; and ‘Don’t disturb Camarina’ was a Greek proverb

derived from an oracle of Apollo; and from that Greek proverb, no doubt,

comes the origin of the injunction, ‘Quieta non movere,’ which became

the favourite maxim of Sir Robert Walpole and Parson Dale. The Greek

line, Mr. Squills” (here my father’s memory began to warm), is preserved

by Stephanus Byzantinus, ‘De Urbibus,’

[Greek proverb]

Zenobius explains it in his proverbs; Suidas repeats Zenobius; Lucian

alludes to it; so does Virgil in the Third Book of the AEneid; and

Silius Italicus imitates Virgil,--

“‘Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri.’

“Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no doubt, these

authorities at his fingers’ end. And I wonder he did not quote them,”

quoth my father; “but to be sure he is represented as a mild man, and

so might not wish to humble the squire over-much in the presence of his

family. Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel; and now that, that matter is

settled, perhaps the tongs, poker, and shovel may be picked up, the

children may go to bed, Blanche and Kitty may speculate apart upon the

future dignities of the Neogilos,--taking care, nevertheless, to finish

the new pinbefores he requires for the present; Roland may cast up his

account book, Mr. Squills have his brandy and water, and all the world

be comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, come away from the

screen, get me my slippers, and leave Pisistratus to himself. [Greek

line]--don’t disturb Camarina. You see, my dear,” added my father

kindly, as, after settling himself into his slippers, he detained

Blanche’s hand in his own,--“you see, my dear, every house has its

Camarina. Alan, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to let it alone;

but woman, being the more active, bustling, curious creature, is always

for giving it a sly stir.”

BLANCHE (with female dignity).--“I assure you, that if Pisistratus had

not called me, I should not have--”

MR. CAXTON (interrupting her, without lifting his eyes from the book he

had already taken).--“Certainly you would not. I am now in the midst of

the great Oxford Controversy. [The same Greek proverb]--don’t disturb

Camarina.”

A dead silence for half-an-hour, at the end of which--

PISISTRATUS (from behind the screen).--“Blanche, my dear, I want to

consult you.”

Blanche does not stir.

PISISTRATUS.--“Blanche, I say.” Blanche glances in triumph towards Mr.

Caxton.

MR. CAXTON (laying down his theological tract, and rubbing his

spectacles mournfully).--“I hear him, child; I hear him. I retract my

vindication of man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on

the other side of the screen, it is all up with Camarina.”

CHAPTER II.

It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not present at the

parson’s Discourse; but that valuable functionary was far otherwise

engaged,--indeed, during the summer months he was rarely seen at the

afternoon service. Not that he cared for being preached at,--not he; Mr.

Stirn would have snapped his fingers at the thunders of the Vatican.

But the fact was, that Mr. Stirn chose to do a great deal of gratuitous

business upon the day of rest. The squire allowed all persons who chose

to walk about the park on a Sunday; and many came from a distance to

stroll by the lake, or recline under the elms. These visitors were

objects of great suspicion, nay, of positive annoyance, to Mr.

Stirn--and, indeed, not altogether without reason, for we English have

a natural love of liberty, which we are even more apt to display in

the grounds of other people than in those which we cultivate ourselves.

Sometimes, to his inexpressible and fierce satisfaction, Mr. Stirn

fell upon a knot of boys pelting the swans; sometimes he missed a

young sapling, and found it in felonious hands, converted into a

walking-stick; sometimes he caught a hulking fellow scrambling up the

ha-ha to gather a nosegay for his sweetheart from one of poor Mrs.

Hazeldean’s pet parterres; not infrequently, indeed, when all the family

were fairly at church, some curious impertinents forced or sneaked their

way into the gardens, in order to peep in at the windows. For these,

and various other offences of like magnitude, Mr. Stirn had long,

but vainly, sought to induce the squire to withdraw a permission so

villanously abused. But though there were times when Mr. Hazeldean

grunted and growled, and swore “that he would shut up the park, and

fill it [illegally] with mantraps and spring-guns,” his anger always

evaporated in words. The park was still open to all the world on a

Sunday; and that blessed day was therefore converted into a day of

travail and wrath to Mr. Stirn. But it was from the last chime of the

afternoon-service bell until dusk that the spirit of this vigilant

functionary was most perturbed; for, amidst the flocks that gathered

from the little hamlets round to the voice of the pastor, there were

always some stray sheep, or rather climbing, desultory, vagabond goats,

who struck off in all perverse directions, as if for the special purpose

of distracting the energetic watchfulness of Mr. Stirn. As soon as

church was over, if the day were fine, the whole park became a scene

animated with red cloaks or lively shawls, Sunday waistcoats and hats

stuck full of wildflowers--which last Mr. Stirn often stoutly

maintained to be Mrs. Hazeldean’s newest geraniums. Now, on this Sunday,

especially, there was an imperative call upon an extra exertion of

vigilance on the part of the superintendent,--he had not only to detect

ordinary depredators and trespassers; but, first, to discover the

authors of the conspiracy against the stocks; and, secondly, to “make an

example.”

He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early morning; and just

as the afternoon bell was sounding its final peal, he emerged upon the

village green from a hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to

observe who had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks. At that

moment the place was deserted. At a distance, the superintendent saw

the fast disappearing forms of some belated groups hastening towards the

church; in front, the stocks stood staring at him mournfully from its

four great eyes, which had been cleansed from the mud, but still looked

bleared and stained with the inarks of the recent outrage. Here Mr.

Stirn paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brows.

“If I had sum ‘un to watch here,” thought he, “while I takes a turn by

the water-side, p’r’aps summat might come out; p’r’aps them as did it

ben’t gone to church, but will come sneaking round to look on their

willany! as they says murderers are always led back to the place where

they ha’ left the body. But in this here willage there ben’t a man,

woman, or child as has any consarn for squire or parish, barring

myself.” It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion

that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own

home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm

akimbo. “Hollo, you, sir,” said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, “where

be you going at that rate?”

“Please, sir, I be going to church.”

“Stop, sir,--stop, Master Lenny. Going to church!--why, the bell’s

done; and you knows the parson is very angry at them as comes in late,

disturbing the congregation. You can’t go to church now!”

“Please, sir--”

“I says you can’t go to church now. You must learn to think a little

of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to serve the squire! and you must

serve him too. Why, your mother’s got the house and premishes almost

rent-free; you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and

feel for his honour! Poor man! his heart is well-nigh bruk, I am sure,

with the goings on.”

Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn dolorously wiped

his own.

“Look at that ‘ere dumb cretur,” said Stirn, suddenly, pointing to the

stocks,--“look at it. If it could speak, what would it say, Leonard

Fairfield? Answer me that! ‘Damn the stocks,’ indeed!”

“It was very bad in them to write such naughty words,” said Lenny,

gravely. “Mother was quite shocked when she heard of it this morning.”

MR. STIRN.--“I dare say she was, considering what she pays for the

premishes;” (insinuatingly) “you does not know who did it,--eh, Lenny?”

LENNY.--“No, sir; indeed I does not!”

MR. STIRN.--“Well, you see, you can’t go to church,--prayers half

over by this time. You recollex that I put them stocks under your

‘sponsibility,’ and see the way you’s done your duty by ‘em! I’ve half a

mind to--”

Mr. Stirn cast his eyes on the eyes of the stocks. “Please, sir,” began

Lenny again, rather frightened.

“No, I won’t please; it ben’t pleasing at all. But I forgives you this

time, only keep a sharp lookout, lad, in future. Now you must stay

here--no, there--under the hedge, and you watches if any persons comes

to loiter about, or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I

go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just arter;

so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. Be sharp, boy, or it

will be worse for you and your mother; I can let the premishes for L4 a

year more to-morrow.”

Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very significant remark, and

not staying for an answer, Mr. Stirn waved his hand and walked off.

Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected, and greatly

disliking the neighbourhood to which the was consigned. At length he

slowly crept off to the hedge, and sat himself down in the place of

espionage pointed out to him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is

called the point of honour is a barbarous feudal prejudice. Amongst

the higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices may be supposed to

prevail, Lenny Fairfield’s occupation would not have been considered

peculiarly honourable; neither would it have seemed so to the more

turbulent spirits among the humbler orders, who have a point of honour

of their own, which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance

of all lawful authority. But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up much apart

from other boys, and with a profound and grateful reverence for the

squire instilled into all his habits of thought, notions of honour

bounded themselves to simple honesty and straightforward truth; and as

he cherished an unquestioning awe of order and constitutional authority,

so it did not appear to him that there was anything derogatory and

debasing in being thus set to watch for an offender. On the contrary, as

he began to reconcile himself to the loss of the church service, and

to enjoy the cool of the summer shade and the occasional chirp of the

birds, he got to look on the bright side of the commission to which he

was deputed. In youth, at least, everything has its bright side,--even

the appointment of Protector to the Parish Stocks. For the stocks itself

Leonard had no affection, it is true; but he had no sympathy with its

aggressors, and he could well conceive that the squire would be very

much hurt at the revolutionary event of the night. “So,” thought poor

Leonard in his simple heart,--“so, if I can serve his honour, by keeping

off mischievous boys, or letting him know who did the thing, I’m sure

it would be a proud day for Mother.” Then he began to consider that,

however ungraciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the appointment,

still it was a compliment to him,--showed trust and confidence in him,

picked him out from his contemporaries as the sober, moral, pattern boy;

and Lenny had a great deal of pride in him, especially in matters of

repute and character.

All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield reclined on his

lurking-place, if not with positive delight and intoxicating rapture, at

least with tolerable content and some complacency.

Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of an hour, when a boy came

through a little gate in the park, just opposite to Lenny’s retreat in

the hedge, and, as if fatigued with walking, or oppressed by the heat of

the day, paused on the green for a moment or so, and then advanced under

the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks.

Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously.

He had never seen the boy before: it was a strange face to him.

Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers; moreover, he had a vague

belief that strangers were at the bottom of that desecration of the

stocks. The boy, then, was a stranger; but what was his rank? Was he

of that grade in society in which the natural offences are or are not

consonant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks? On that Lenny

Fairfield did not feel quite assured. According to all the experience of

the villager, the boy was not dressed like a young gentleman. Leonard’s

notions of such aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the

model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a dazzling vision of

snow-white trousers and beautiful blue coats and incomparable cravats.

Now the dress of this stranger, though not that of a peasant or of a

farmer, did not in any way correspond with Lenny’s notion of the costume

of a young gentleman. It looked to him highly disreputable: the coat

was covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a gap

between the side and crown.

Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate

through which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park

from a small town, the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at

the Hall,--they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to

the preserves, the most troublesome trespassers on the park, the most

unprincipled orchard robbers, and the most disputatious asserters of

various problematical rights of way, which, according to the Town, were

public, and, according to the Hall, had been private since the Conquest.

It was true that the same path led also directly from the squire’s

house, but it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal

had been visiting there. All things considered, Lenny had no doubt in

his mind but that the stranger was a shop-boy or ‘prentice from the town

of Thorndyke; and the notorious repute of that town, coupled with this

presumption, made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of the

midnight desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm the

suspicion, which passed through Lenny’s mind with a rapidity wholly

disproportionate to the number of lines it costs me to convey it, the

boy, now standing right before the stocks, bent down and read that pithy

anathema with which it was defaced. And having read it, he repeated it

aloud, and Lenny actually saw him smile,--such a smile! so disagreeable

and sinister! Lenny had never before seen the smile sardonic.

But what were Lenny’s pious horror and dismay when this ominous stranger

fairly seated himself on the stocks, rested his heels profanely on

the lids of two of the four round eyes, and taking out a pencil and a

pocket-book, began to write.

Was this audacious Unknown taking an inventory of the church and the

Hall for the purposes of conflagration? He looked at one and at the

other, with a strange fixed stare as he wrote,--not keeping his eyes

on the paper, as Lenny had been taught to do when he sat down to his

copy-book. The fact is, that Randal Leslie was tired and faint, and he

felt the shock of his fall the more, after the few paces he had walked,

so that he was glad to rest himself a few moments; and he took that

opportunity to write a line to Frank, to excuse himself for not

calling again, intending to tear the leaf on which he wrote out of

his pocket-book and leave it at the first cottage he passed, with

instructions to take it to the Hall.

While Randal was thus innocently engaged, Lenny came up to him, with the

firm and measured pace of one who has resolved, cost what it may, to do

his duty. And as Lenny, though brave, was not ferocious, so the anger he

felt and the suspicions he entertained only exhibited themselves in the

following solemn appeal to the offender’s sense of propriety,--“Ben’t

you ashamed of yourself? Sitting on the squire’s new stocks! Do get up,

and go along with you!”

Randal turned round sharply; and though, at any other moment, he would

have had sense enough to extricate himself very easily from his false

position, yet Nemo mortalium, etc. No one is always wise. And Randal was

in an exceedingly bad humour. The affability towards his inferiors,

for which I lately praised him, was entirely lost in the contempt for

impertinent snobs natural to an insulted Etonian.

Therefore, eying Lenny with great disdain, Randal answered briefly,--

“You are an insolent young blackguard.”

So curt a rejoinder made Lenny’s blood fly to his face. Persuaded before

that the intruder was some lawless apprentice or shop-lad, he was now

more confirmed in that judgment, not only by language so uncivil, but by

the truculent glance which accompanied it, and which certainly did

not derive any imposing dignity from the mutilated, rakish, hang-dog,

ruinous hat, under which it shot its sullen and menacing fire.

Of all the various articles of which our male attire is composed, there

is perhaps not one which has so much character and expression as the top

covering. A neat, well-brushed, short-napped, gentlemanlike hat, put on

with a certain air, gives a distinction and respectability to the whole

exterior; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-piggledy sort of a hat,

such as Randal Leslie had on, would go far towards transforming the

stateliest gentleman who ever walked down St. James’s Street into the

ideal of a ruffianly scamp.

Now, it is well known that there is nothing more antipathetic to your

peasant-boy than a shop-boy. Even on grand political occasions, the

rural working-class can rarely be coaxed into sympathy with the trading

town class. Your true English peasant is always an aristocrat. Moreover,

and irrespectively of this immemorial grudge of class, there is

something peculiarly hostile in the relationship between boy and boy

when their backs are once up, and they are alone on a quiet bit of

green,--something of the game-cock feeling; something that tends to

keep alive, in the population of this island (otherwise so lamblike and

peaceful), the martial propensity to double the thumb tightly over the

four fingers, and make what is called “a fist of it.” Dangerous symptoms

of these mingled and aggressive sentiments were visible in Lenny

Fairfield at the words and the look of the unprepossessing stranger. And

the stranger seemed aware of them; for his pale face grew more pale, and

his sullen eye more fixed and more vigilant.

“You get off them stocks,” said Lenny, disdaining to reply to the coarse

expressions bestowed on him; and, suiting the action to the word, he

gave the intruder what he meant for a shove, but what Randal took for

a blow. The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided

but by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his balance, and sent

him neck-and-crop over the stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager

rose alertly, and, flying at Randal, struck out right and left.

CHAPTER III.

Aid me, O ye Nine! whom the incomparable Persius satirized his

contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a sudden, invoked on his

own behalf,--aid me to describe that famous battle by the stocks, and

in defence of the stocks, which was waged by the two representatives

of Saxon and Norman England. Here, sober support of law and duty

and delegated trust,--pro aris et focis; there, haughty invasion and

bellicose spirit of knighthood and that respect for name and person

which we call “honour.” Here, too, hardy physical force,--there, skilful

discipline. Here--The Nine are as deaf as a post, and as cold as a

stone! Plague take the jades! I can do better without them.

Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he was not so tall nor so

strong, nor even so active; and after the first blind rush, when the two

boys paused, and drew back to breathe, Lenny, eying the slight form and

hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal’s

lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. “It was

not fair,” he thought, “to fight one whom he could beat so easily.” So,

retreating still farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said

mildly, “There, let’s have no more of it; but go home and be good.”

Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality

called physical courage; but he had some of those moral qualities

which supply its place. He was proud, he was vindictive, he had high

self-esteem, he had the destructive organ more than the combative,--what

had once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away.

Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in

his eyes, he approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and

said between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob of rage

and pain,--

“You have struck me--and you shall not stir from this ground till I have

made you repent it. Put up your hands,--defend yourself.”

Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of the admonition; for

if before he had had the advantage, now that Randal had recovered the

surprise to his nerves, the battle was not to the strong.

Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still his temper had

involved him in some conflicts when he was in the lower forms, and

he had learned something of the art as well as the practice in

pugilism,--an excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and

which I hope will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a

young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a

trader’s son; and many a trader’s son has learned to look a lord more

manfully in the face on the hustings, from the recollection of the sound

thrashing he once gave to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle.

So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear; put aside

those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp,

supplying to the natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of

pugilistic mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble; for

strange is the strength that comes from passion and pluck!

Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations

grew so entangled that he could never recall them distinctly; he had a

dim reminiscence of some breathless impotent rush, of a sudden blindness

followed by quick flashes of intolerable light, of a deadly faintness,

from which he was roused by sharp pangs--here--there--everywhere; and

then all he could remember was, that he was lying on the ground,

huddled up and panting hard, while his adversary bent over him with a

countenance as dark and livid as Lara himself might have bent over the

fallen Otho. For Randal Leslie was not one who, by impulse and nature,

subscribed to the noble English maxim, “Never hit a foe when he is

down;” and it cost him a strong, if brief, self-struggle not to set

his heel on that prostrate form. It was the mind, not the heart,

that subdued the savage within him, as muttering something

inwardly--certainly not Christian forgiveness--the victor turned

gloomily away.

CHAPTER IV.

Just at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. Stirn! For, in

fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped

that he should have found the young villager had shirked the commission

intrusted to him; and the right-hand man had slily come back to see if

that amiable expectation were realized. He now beheld Lenny rising with

some difficulty, still panting hard, and with hysterical sounds akin

to what is vulgarly called blubbering, his fine new waistcoat sprinkled

with his own blood, which flowed from his nose,--nose that seemed

to Lenny Fairfield’s feelings to be a nose no more, but a swollen,

gigantic, mountainous Slawkenbergian excrescence; in fact, he felt all

nose! Turning aghast from this spectacle, Mr. Stirn surveyed, with no

more respect than Lenny had manifested, the stranger boy, who had again

seated himself on the stocks (whether to recover his breath, or whether

to show that his victory was consummated, and that he was in his rights

of possession). “Hollo,” said Mr. Stirn, “what is all this? What’s the

matter, Lenny, you blockhead?”

“He will sit there,” answered Lenny, in broken gasps, “and he has beat

me because I would not let him; but I doesn’t mind that,” added the

villager, trying hard to suppress his tears, “and I am ready again for

him--that I am.”

“And what do you do lollopoping there on them blessed stocks?”

“Looking at the landscape; out of my light, man!”

This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings: it was a tone

so disrespectful to him that he was seized with involuntary respect; who

but a gentleman could speak so to Mr. Stirn?

“And may I ask who you be?” said Stirn, falteringly, and half inclined

to touch his hat. “What Is your name, pray? What’s your bizness?”

“My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to visit your master’s

family,--that is, if you are, as I guess from your manner, Mr.

Hazeldean’s ploughman!”

So saying, Randal rose; and moving on a few paces, turned, and throwing

half-a-crown on the road, said to Lenny, “Let that pay you for your

bruises, and remember another time how you speak to a gentleman. As for

you, fellow,”--and he pointed his scornful hand towards Mr. Stirn, who,

with his mouth open, and his hat now fairly off, stood bowing to the

earth,--“as for you, give my compliments to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that

when he does us the honour to visit us at Rood Hall, I trust that the

manners of our villagers will make him ashamed of Hazeldean.”

Oh, my poor Squire! Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean! If that message had

been delivered to you, you would never have looked up again!

With those bitter words, Randal swung himself over the stile that led

into the parson’s glebe, and left Lenny Fairfield still feeling his

nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing to the earth.

CHAPTER V.

Randal Leslie had a very long walk home; he was bruised and sore from

head to foot, and his mind was still more sore and more bruised than his

body. But if Randal Leslie had rested himself in the squire’s gardens,

without walking backwards and indulging in speculations suggested by

Marat, and warranted by my Lord Bacon, he would have passed a most

agreeable evening, and really availed himself of the squire’s wealth

by going home in the squire’s carriage. But because he chose to take

so intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch; because

he tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes; because he spoiled his

clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into

the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the

air of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks--with

that hat, and a cross face under it--he had been forced into the most

discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home,

at war with gods and men; ergo (this is a moral that will bear

repetition),--ergo, when you walk in a rich man’s grounds, be contented

to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect,--I dare say you will enjoy

it more than he does!

CHAPTER VI.

If, in the simplicity of his heart and the crudity of his experience,

Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable that Mr. Stirn would address

to him some words in approbation of his gallantry and in sympathy for

his bruises, he soon found himself wofully mistaken. That truly

great man, worthy prime minister of Hazeldean, might perhaps pardon a

dereliction from his orders, if such dereliction proved advantageous to

the interests of the service, or redounded to the credit of the

chief; but he was inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offences,--an

ill-timed, stupid, over-zealous obedience to orders, which, if it

established the devotion of the employee, got the employer into what

is popularly called a scrape! And though, by those unversed in the

intricacies of the human heart, and unacquainted with the especial

hearts of prime ministers and right-hand men, it might have seemed

natural that Mr. Stirn, as he stood still, hat in hand, in the middle

of the road, stung, humbled, and exasperated by the mortification he had

received from the lips of Randal Leslie, would have felt that that young

gentleman was the proper object of his resentment, yet such a breach of

all the etiquette of diplomatic life as resentment towards a superior

power was the last idea that would have suggested itself to the profound

intellect of the premier of Hazeldean. Still, as rage, like steam, must

escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on feeling--as he afterwards expressed it

to his wife--that his “buzzom was a burstin’,” turned with the natural

instinct of self-preservation to the safety-valve provided for the

explosion; and the vapours within him rushed into vent upon Lenny

Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely, and thus relieved

his “buzzom.”

“You young willain! you howdaeious wiper! and so all this blessed

Sabbath afternoon, when you ought to have been in church on your

marrow-bones, a praying for your betters, you has been a fitting with a

young gentleman, and a wisiter to your master, on the wery place of the

parridge hinstitution that you was to guard and pertect; and a bloodying

it all over, I declares, with your blaggard little nose!” Thus saying,

and as if to mend the matter, Mr. Stirn aimed an additional stroke at

the offending member; but Lenny mechanically putting up both arms to

defend his face, Mr. Stirn struck his knuckles against the large brass

buttons that adorned the cuff of the boy’s coat-sleeve,--an incident

which considerably aggravated his indignation. And Lenny, whose spirit

was fairly roused at what the narrowness of his education conceived to

be a signal injustice, placing the trunk of the tree between Mr. Stirn

and himself, began that task of self-justification which it was equally

impolitic to conceive and imprudent to execute, since, in such a case,

to justify was to recriminate.

“I wonder at you, Master Stirn,--if Mother could hear you! You know it

was you who would not let me go to church; it was you who told me to--”

“Fit a young gentleman, and break the Sabbath,” said Mr. Stirn,

interrupting him with a withering sneer. “Oh, yes! I told you to

disgrace his honour the squire, and me, and the parridge, and bring

us all into trouble. But the squire told me to make an example, and I

will!” With those words, quick as lightning flashed upon Mr. Stirn’s

mind the luminous idea of setting Lenny in the very stocks which he had

too faithfully guarded. Eureka! the “example” was before him! Here he

could gratify his long grudge against the pattern boy; here, by such

a selection of the very best lad in the parish, he could strike terror

into the worst; here he could appease the offended dignity of Randal

Leslie; here was a practical apology to the squire for the affront put

upon his young visitor; here, too, there was prompt obedience to the

squire’s own wish that the stocks should be provided as soon as possible

with a tenant. Suiting the action to the thought, Mr. Stirn made a rapid

plunge at his victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket; and in a

few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield

was thrust therein,--a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune.

This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied, by the

suddenness of the calamity, for the resistance he might otherwise have

made,--nay, for more than a few inaudible words,--Mr. Stirn hurried from

the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown

designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions,

he had hitherto even almost forgotten. He then made his way towards the

church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, catch

the squire as he came out, whisper to him what had passed, and lead him,

with the whole congregation at his heels, to gaze upon the sacrifice

offered up to the joint powers of Nemesis and Themis.

CHAPTER VII.

Unaffectedly I say it--upon the honour of a gentleman, and the

reputation of an author,--unaffectedly I say it, no words of mine can

do justice to the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat

alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of

his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal

suffering,--an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of

holding.

For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense

of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all

honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission entrusted to

him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had

fought for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now

in Lenny’s mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes

the Anglo Saxon race,--the sense of justice. It was perhaps the

strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had

never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of

oppression and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from

harsh parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the

first time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its

attendant feeling,--the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had

been wronged, and he had no means to right himself. Then came another

sensation, if not so deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the

time,--shame! He, the good boy of all good boys; he, the pattern of the

school, and the pride of the parson; he, whom the squire, in sight of

all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on the back, and

the grand squire’s lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation

on his young and fair repute; he, who had already learned so dearly to

prize the sweets of an honourable name,--he to be made, as it were, in

the twinkling of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer,

and a byword! The streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And

then came a tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be

to her,--she who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and

support; he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down.

Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from

that hateful bondage,--for he heard steps approaching. And he began to

picture to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the

sad gaze of the parson, the bent brow of the squire, the idle,

ill-suppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted

character,--character of which the original whiteness could never, never

be restored!

He would always be the boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words

uttered by the squire came back on his soul, like the voice of

conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth: “A sad disgrace,

Lenny,--you’ll never be in such a quandary.” “Quandary”--the word was

unfamiliar to him; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The

poor boy could have prayed for the earth to swallow him.

CHAPTER VIII.

“Kettles and frying-pans! what has us here?” cried the tinker.

This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it being Sunday, it

is presumed that the donkey was enjoying his Sabbath on the common.

The tinker was in his Sunday’s best, clean and smart, about to take his

lounge in the park.

Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal.

“You in the wood, my baby! Well, that’s the last sight I should

ha’ thought to see. But we all lives to larn,” added the tinker,

sententiously. “Who gave you them leggins? Can’t you speak, lad?”

“Nick Stirn.”

“Nick Stirn! Ay, I’d ha’ ta’en my davy on that: and cos vy?”

“‘Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was trespassing on

these very stocks; and he beat me--but I don’t care for that; and that

boy was a young gentleman, and going to visit the squire; and so Nick

Stirn--” Lenny stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation.

“Augh,” said the tinker, starting, “you fit with a young gentleman, did

you? Sorry to hear you confess that, my lad! Sit there and be thankful

you ha’ got off so cheap. ‘T is salt and battery to fit with your

betters, and a Lunnon justice o’ peace would have given you two months

o’ the treadmill.

“But vy should you fit cos he trespassed on the stocks? It ben’t your

natural side for fitting, I takes it.”

Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable about serving the

squire, and doing as he was bid.

“Oh, I sees, Lenny,” interrupted the tinker, in a tone of great

contempt, “you be one of those who would rayther ‘unt with the ‘ounds

than run with the ‘are! You be’s the good pattern boy, and would peach

agin your own border to curry favour with the grand folks. Fie, lad! you

be sarved right; stick by your border, then you’ll be ‘spected when you

gets into trouble, and not be ‘varsally ‘spised,--as you’ll be arter

church-time! Vell, I can’t be seen ‘sorting with you, now you are in

this d’rogotary fix; it might hurt my c’r’acter, both with them as built

the stocks and them as wants to pull ‘em down. Old kettles to mend! Vy,

you makes me forgit the Sabbath! Sarvent, my lad, and wish you well

out of it; ‘specks to your mother, and say we can deal for the pan and

shovel all the same for your misfortin.”

The tinker went his way. Lenny’s eye followed him with the sullenness

of despair. The tinker, like all the tribe of human comforters, had only

watered the brambles to invigorate the prick of the horns. Yes, if Lenny

had been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have pitied

him; but to be incarcerated for defending them! You might as well have

expected that the widows and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have

pitied Dr. Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his own deadly

machine. And even the tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he was,

felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy! Lenny’s head sank again

on his breast heavily, as if it had been of lead. Some few minutes

thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became aware of the presence of

another spectator to his shame; he heard no step, but he saw a shadow

thrown over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with

some vague idea that if he refused to see he might escape being seen.

CHAPTER IX.

“Per Bacco!” said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny’s shoulder,

and bending down to look into his face,--“per Bacco! my young friend, do

you sit here from choice or necessity?”

Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch of one whom he had

hitherto regarded with a sort of superstitious abhorrence.

“I fear,” resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain for an answer to his

question, “that though the situation is charming, you did not select it

yourself. What is this?”--and the irony of the tone vanished--“what is

this, my poor boy? You have been bleeding, and I see that those tears

which you try to check come from a deep well. Tell me, povero fanciullo

mio” (the sweet Italian vowels, though Lenny did not understand them,

sounded softly and soothingly),--“tell me, my child, how all this

happened. Perhaps I can help you; we have all erred,--we should all help

each other.”

Lenny’s heart, that just before had seemed bound in brass, found itself

a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly, and the tears rushed down; but

he again stopped them, and gulped out sturdily,--

“I have not done no wrong; it ben’t my fault,--and ‘t is that which

kills me!” concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy.

“You have not done wrong? Then,” said the philosopher, drawing out

his pocket-handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the

ground,--“then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over

sin, but I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune.”

Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their

general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the

Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, “I

have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted

in my day; yet I too say with thee, ‘I have not done wrong.’ Cospetto!”

(and here the doctor seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on

the side column of the stocks, in familiar contact with the

captive’s shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene

around)--“Cospetto! my prison, if they had caught me, would not have had

so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one; there are no

ugly loves, and no handsome prisons.”

With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native

Italian, Riccabocca turned round and renewed his soothing invitations to

confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in

the guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny’s ancient dislike to the

foreigner had gone, and he told him his little tale.

Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see exactly the motives

which had induced Mr. Stirn to incarcerate his agent (barring only that

of personal grudge, to which Lenny’s account gave him no clew). That a

man high in office should make a scapegoat of his own watch-dog for an

unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet bark, was nothing strange to the

wisdom of the student of Machiavelli. However, he set himself to the

task of consolation with equal philosophy and tenderness. He began by

reminding, or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances

of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to

his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in

slavery, had a master whose favourite amusement was pinching his leg,

which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the

stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny’s own gallant countryman,

Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire’s celebrated

witticism, “En Angleterre on tue un admiral pour encourager les autres.”

[“In England they execute one admiral in order to encourage the

others.”]

Many other illustrations, still more pertinent to the case in point, his

erudition supplied from the stores of history. But on seeing that

Lenny did not seem in the slightest degree consoled by these memorable

examples, he shifted his ground, and reducing his logic to the strict

argumentum ad rem, began to prove, first, that there was no disgrace

at all in Lenny’s present position, that every equitable person

would recognize the tyranny of Stirn and the innocence of its victim;

secondly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was

not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?--“A breath, a

puff,” cried Dr. Riccabocca, “a thing without matter,--without length,

breadth, or substance,--a shadow, a goblin of our own creating. A man’s

own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that

phantom ‘opinion’ than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the

churchyard at dark.”

Now, as Lenny did very much fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the

churchyard at dark, the simile spoiled the argument, and he shook his

head very mournfully. Dr. Riccabocca, was about to enter into a third

course of reasoning, which, had it come to an end, would doubtless have

settled the matter, and reconciled Lenny to sitting in the stocks till

doomsday, when the captive, with the quick ear and eye of terror and

calamity, became conscious that church was over, that the congregation

in a few seconds more would be flocking thitherwards. He saw visionary

hats and bonnets through the trees, which Riccabocca saw not, despite

all the excellence of his spectacles; heard phantasmal rustlings and

murmurings which Riccabocca heard not, despite all that theoretical

experience in plots, stratagems, and treasons, which should have made

the Italian’s ear as fine as a conspirator’s or a mole’s. And with

another violent but vain effort at escape, the prisoner exclaimed,--

“Oh, if I could but get out before they come! Let me out, let me out!

Oh, kind sir, have pity,--let me out!”

“Diavolo!” said the philosopher, startled, “I wonder that I never

thought of that before. After all, I believe he has hit the right nail

on the head,” and, looking close, he perceived that though the partition

of wood had hitched firmly into a sort of spring-clasp, which defied

Lenny’s unaided struggles, still it was not locked (for, indeed, the

padlock and key were snug in the justice-room of the squire, who never

dreamed that his orders would be executed so literally and summarily

as to dispense with all formal appeal to himself). As soon as Dr.

Riccabocca made that discovery, it occurred to him that all the wisdom

of all the schools that ever existed can’t reconcile man or boy to a bad

position--the moment there is a fair opportunity of letting him out of

it. Accordingly, without more ado, he lifted up the creaking board, and

Lenny Fairfield darted forth like a bird from a cage, halted a moment as

if for breath, or in joy; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled,

as a hare to its form, fast to his mother’s home.

Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its place, picked up

his handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some

curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which

had caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. “Man is a

very irrational animal at best,” quoth the sage, soliloquizing, “and is

frightened by strange buggaboos! ‘T is but a piece of wood! how little

it really injures! And, after all, the holes are but rests to the legs,

and keep the feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon,

under the shade of the elm-tree-verily the position must be more

pleasant than otherwise! I’ve a great mind--” Here the doctor looked

around, and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable

took possession of him; yet, not indeed a notion so odd, considered

philosophically,--for all philosophy is based on practical

experiment,--and Dr. Riccabocca felt an irresistible desire practically

to experience what manner of thing that punishment of the stocks really

was. “I can but try! only for a moment,” said he apologetically to his

own expostulating sense of dignity. “I have time to do it, before any

one comes.” He lifted up the partition again: but stocks are built

on the true principle of English law, and don’t easily allow a man to

criminate himself,--it was hard to get into them without the help of

a friend. However, as we before noticed, obstacles only whetted Dr.

Riccabocca’s invention. He looked round, and saw a withered bit of stick

under the tree; this he inserted in the division of the stocks, somewhat

in the manner in which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose

of ensnaring sparrows; the fatal wood thus propped, Dr. Riceabocca sat

gravely down on the bank, and thrust his feet through the apertures.

“Nothing in it!” cried he, triumphantly, after a moment’s deliberation.

“The evil is only in idea. Such is the boasted reason of mortals!” With

that reflection, nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from

their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way and

the partition fell back into its clasp. Dr. Riceabocca was fairly

caught,--“Facilis descensus--sed revocare gradum!” True, his hands were

at liberty, but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept

the hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca’s form was by no means

supple, and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that firmness

of adhesion which things newly painted possess, so, after some vain

twists and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not without a

stretch of the sinews that made them crack again) in finding the clasp

and breaking his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment

resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riceabocca was one of those men who

never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not

only Christian but philosophical resignation. The position was not quite

so pleasant as, theoretically, he had deemed it; but he resolved to

make himself as comfortable as he could. At first, as is natural in all

troubles to men who have grown familiar with that odoriferous comforter

which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first to have bestowed upon the

Caucasian races, the doctor made use of his hands to extract from his

pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs he

would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for the discovery

that the sun had shifted its place in the heavens, and was no longer

shaded from his face by the elm-tree. The doctor again looked round, and

perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he

had seated himself by Lenny, was within arm’s reach. Possessing himself

of this treasure, he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus, doubly

fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella, and his

pipe composedly between his lips, Dr. Riceabocca gazed on his own

incarcerated legs, even with complacency.

“‘He who can despise all things,’” said he, in one of his native

proverbs, “‘possesses all things!’--if one despises freedom, one is

free! This seat is as soft as a sofa! I am not sure,” he resumed,

soliloquizing, after a pause,--“I am not sure that there is not

something more witty than manly and philosophical in that national

proverb of mine which I quoted to the fanciullo, ‘that there are

no handsome prisons’! Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman,

surnamed Bras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that adversities

are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a

prison is the most pleasant and profitable? But is not this condition of

mine, voluntarily and experimentally incurred, a type of my life? Is

it the first time that I have thrust myself into a hobble? And if in a

hobble of mine own choosing, why should I blame the gods?”

Upon this, Dr. Riceabocca fell into a train of musing so remote from

time and place, that in a few minutes he no more remembered that he was

in the parish stocks than a lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser

that mammon is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is vanity. Dr.

Riccabocca was in the clouds.

CHAPTER X.

The dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, entre nous, reader)--but

let it go no further,--we have a good many dogs among the fraternity

that are not Munitos might have seen with half an eye that the parson’s

discourse had produced a very genial and humanizing effect upon his

audience.

[Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a

dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs nowadays.]

When all was over, and the congregation stood up to let Mr. Hazeldean

and his family walk first down the aisle (for that was the custom at

Hazeldean), moistened eyes glanced at the squire’s sun-burned manly

face, with a kindness that bespoke revived memory of many a generous

benefit and ready service. The head might be wrong now and then,--the

heart was in the right place after all. And the lady leaning on his arm

came in for a large share of that gracious good feeling. True, she now

and then gave a little offence when the cottages were not so clean as

she fancied they ought to be,--and poor folks don’t like a liberty taken

with their houses any more than the rich do; true that she was not quite

so popular with the women as the squire was, for, if the husband went

too often to the ale-house, she always laid the fault on the wife,

and said, “No man would go out of doors for his comforts, if he had

a smiling face and a clean hearth at his home;” whereas the squire

maintained the more gallant opinion that “If Gill was a shrew, it was

because Jack did not, as in duty bound, stop her mouth with a kiss!”

Still, notwithstanding these more obnoxious notions on her part, and a

certain awe inspired by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline

nose, it was impossible, especially in the softened tempers of

that Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, comely, beaming

countenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with comfortable recollections of soups,

jellies, and wine in sickness, loaves and blankets in winter, cheering

words and ready visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded

by improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements which, as the

squire, who preferred productive labour, justly complained, “would never

finish”) for little timely jobs of work to some veteran grandsire, who

still liked to earn a penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that “came

too fast.” Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the whitest

of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths,--with a look of suppressed

roguery in his bright hazel eye, that contrasted his assumed stateliness

of mien,--without his portion of the silent blessing. Not that he had

done anything yet to deserve it; but we all give youth so large a credit

in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only rose from

too soft and feminine a susceptibility, too ivy-like a yearning for some

masculine oak whereon to entwine her tendrils; and so little confined to

self was the natural lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped

many a village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage gift

from her own privy purse; notwithstanding the assurances with which she

accompanied the marriage gift,--namely, that “the bridegroom would turn

out like the rest of his ungrateful sex; but that it was a comfort to

think that it would be all one in the approaching crash!” So that she

had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young; while the

slim captain, on whose arm she rested her forefinger, was at least

a civil-spoken gentleman, who had never done any harm, and who would

doubtless do a deal of good if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even

the fat footman who came last, with the family Prayer-book, had his due

share in the general association of neighbourly kindness between hall

and hamlet. Few were there present to whom he had not extended the

right-hand of fellowship with a full horn of October in the clasp of

it; and he was a Hazeldean man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of

the squire’s household (now letting themselves out from their large pew

under the gallery) were.

On his part, too, you could see that the squire “was moved withal,” and

a little humbled moreover. Instead of walking erect, and taking bow

and courtesy as a matter of course, and of no meaning, he hung his head

somewhat, and there was a slight blush on his cheek; and as he glanced

upward and round him--shyly, as it were--and his eye met those friendly

looks, it returned them with an earnestness that had in it something

touching as well as cordial,--an eye that said, as well as eye could

say, “I don’t quite deserve it, I fear, neighbours; but I thank you for

your good-will with my whole heart.” And so readily was that glance of

the eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place out of

doors instead of in the church, there would have been a hurrah as the

squire passed out of sight.

Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got clear of the churchyard, ere Mr. Stirn

was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, the squire’s face grew

long, and his colour rose. The congregation, now flocking out of the

church, exchanged looks with each other; that ominous conjunction

between squire and man chilled back all the effects of the parson’s

sermon. The squire struck his cane violently into the ground. “I

would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young

gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean;

a young gentleman,--‘s death, sir, a relation--his grandmother was a

Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima’s right, and the world’s coming to an

end! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks! What will the parson say? and

after such a sermon! ‘Rich man, respect the poor!’ And the good widow

too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms! Stirn, you have a heart

of stone! You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce

gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of Hazeldean

without trial, sentence, or warrant? Run and let the boy out before any

one sees him: run, or I shall--”

The squire elevated the cane, and his eyes shot fire. Mr. Stirn did not

run, but he walked off very fast. The squire drew back a few paces, and

again took his wife’s arm. “Just wait a bit for the parson, while I talk

to the congregation. I want to stop ‘em all, if I can, from going into

the village; but how?”

Frank heard, and replied readily,--“Give ‘em some beer, sir.”

“Beer! on a Sunday! For shame, Frank!” cried Mrs. Hazeldean.

“Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you, Frank,” said the squire, and his

brow grew as clear as the blue sky above him. I doubt if Riccabocca

could have got him out of his dilemma with the same ease as Frank had

done.

“Halt there, my men,--lads and lasses too,--there, halt a bit. Mrs.

Fairfield, do you hear?--halt. I think his reverence has given us a

capital sermon. Go up to the Great House all of you, and drink a glass

to his health. Frank, go with them, and tell Spruce to tap one of the

casks kept for the haymakers. Harry” (this in a whisper), “catch the

parson, and tell him to come to me instantly.”

“My dear Hazeldean, what has happened? You are mad.”

“Don’t bother; do what I tell you.”

“But where is the parson to find you?”

“Where? gadzooks, Mrs. H.,--at the stocks, to be sure!”

CHAPTER XI.

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 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 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.”

CHAPTER XII.

“But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?” asked the squire,

scratching his head.

“My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna.”

“Did he, and what for?”

“To try what it was like, I suppose,” answered Riccabocca. The squire

burst out a laughing.

“And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can’t

wonder,--it is a very handsome pair of stocks,” continued the squire,

with a loving look at the object of his praise. “Nobody need be ashamed

of being seen in those stocks,--I’should not mind it myself.”

“We had better move on,” said the parson, dryly, “or we shall have the

whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the

same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor.

Now, pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can’t understand a

word of what has passed. You don’t mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield

(who was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get

into disgrace?”

“Yes, he has though,” cried the squire. “Stirn, I say, Stirn!” But Stirn

had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own

powers of narrative at secondhand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to

communicate,--the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment

inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young

kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from

public humiliation.

The parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the

beer-drinking, took the squire by the hand. “Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive

me,” he said repentantly; “I ought to have known at once that it was

only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of

decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny brawling and fighting on

the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Like or unlike,” said the squire, “it has been a gross insult to young

Leslie, and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the

best friends in the world. I can’t think what it is,” continued Mr.

Hazeldean, musingly; “but it seems that there must be always some

association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine.

There was I, son of his own mother,--who might have been shot through

the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder! and now his wife’s

kinsman--my kinsman, too--grandmother a Hazeldean,--a hard-reading,

sober lad, as I am given to understand, can’t set his foot into the

quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that

ever was seen makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It is FATALITY!”

cried the squire, solemnly.

“Ancient legend records similar instances of fatality in certain

houses,” observed Riccabocca. “There was the House of Pelops, and

Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of OEdipus.”

“Pshaw!” said the parson; “but what’s to be done?”

“Done?” said the squire; “why, reparation must be made to young

Leslie. And though I wished to spare Lenny, the young ruffian, a public

disgrace--for your sake, Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield’s--yet a good

caning in private--”

“Stop, sir!” said Riccabocca, mildly, “and hear me.” The Italian then,

with much feeling and considerable tact, pleaded the cause of his poor

protege, and explained how Lenny’s error arose only from mistaken zeal

for the squire’s service, and in the execution of the orders received

from Mr. Stirn.

“That alters the matter,” said the squire, softened; “and all that is

necessary now will be for him to make a proper apology to my kinsman.”

“Yes, that is just,” rejoined the parson; “but I still don’t learn how

he got out of the stocks.”

Riccabocca then resumed his tale; and, after confessing his own

principal share in Lenny’s escape, drew a moving picture of the boy’s

shame and honest mortification. “Let us march against Philip!” cried the

Athenians when they heard Demosthenes--

“Let us go at once and comfort the child!” cried the parson, before

Riccabocca could finish.

With that benevolent intention all three quickened their pace, and soon

arrived at the widow’s cottage. But Lenny had caught sight of their

approach through the window; and not doubting that, in spite of

Riccabocca’s intercession, the parson was come to upbraid and the squire

to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got amongst the woods,

and lay there perdu all the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark

that his mother--who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen, and

trying in vain to listen to the parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending

in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother--heard

a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started

up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his

face, sobbing aloud.

“No harm, my boy,” said the parson, tenderly; “you have nothing to

fear,--all is explained and forgiven.”

Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. “Sir,”

said he, sturdily, “I don’t want to be forgiven,--I ain’t done no wrong.

And--I’ve been disgraced--and I won’t go to school, never no more.”

“Hush, Carry!” said the parson to his wife, who with the usual

liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. “Good-night,

Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that

time you will think better of it.”

The parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to

report Lenny’s safe return; for the squire was very uneasy about him,

and had even in person shared the search. As soon as he heard Lenny

was safe--“Well,” said the squire, “let him go the first thing in the

morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie’s pardon, and all will be

right and smooth again.”

“A young villain!” cried Frank, with his cheeks the colour of scarlet;

“to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call on me!

But I wonder Randal let him off so well,--any other boy in the sixth

form would have killed him!”

“Frank,” said the parson, sternly, “if we all had our deserts, what

should be done to him who not only lets the sun go down on his own

wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the dying embers of

another’s?”

The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit his lip, and seemed

abashed, while even his mother said not a word in his exculpation; for

when the parson did reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the

Hall stood awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Riccabocca’s

inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to

him his fears that it would be a very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg

Randal Leslie’s pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern-boy

would not digest the stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of

philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss Jemima soon

interrupted by a direct appeal to the doctor respecting the number of

years (even without any previous and more violent incident) that the

world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear.

“Ma’am,” said the doctor, reluctantly summoned away to look at a passage

in some prophetic periodical upon that interesting subject,--“ma’am,

it is very hard that you should make one remember the end of the world,

since, in conversing with you, one’s natural temptation is to forget its

existence.”

Miss Jemima’s cheeks were suffused with a deeper scarlet than Frank’s

had been a few minutes before. Certainly that deceitful, heartless

compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet--such is

human blindness--it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and

too confiding soul.

“He is about to propose,” sighed Miss Jemima.

“Giacomo,” said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped

majestically into the four-posted bed, “I think we shall get that boy

for the garden now!”

Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean

whirligig.

CHAPTER XIII.

Whatever, may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean’s designs

upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian

had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily

and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the parson’s,

charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask

pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was

bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration; and,

to Mrs. Dale’s vexation, the widow took the boy’s part. She was deeply

offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the

stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was

it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his

lessons at school,--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his

mother’s holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though

sullenly; and the parson thought it better to temporize as to the more

unpalatable demand. Unluckily, Lenny’s apprehensions of the mockery that

awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though

Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair.

And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all

attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then

Stirn told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were

very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern-boy had broken the

Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain;

the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out

the misdemeanours of his equals therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both

capacities of degraded pattern-boy and baffled spy, could expect no

mercy,--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster and under the eye

of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the

moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.

Some pointed and mowed at him, some cursed him for a sneak, and all

shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed

through the village at dusk, “Who was put into the stocks?--baa!” “Who

got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!” To resist this

species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head

and a colder temper than our poor pattern-boy’s. He took his resolution

at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after

Dr. Riccabocca’s return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself

on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. “Please, sir,” said he

to the doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his

red silk umbrella over his head,--“please, sir, if you’ll be good enough

to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I’ll work for

your honour night and day; and as for wages, Mother says, ‘just suit

yourself, sir.’”

“My child,” said the doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at

him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, “I knew you would come! and

Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we’ll talk of them by

and by.”

Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the

vacant chair, where he had so long sat in the place of her beloved

Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to

itself, that she could bear it no longer.

Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny,--perhaps

more so; and one morning she hailed the steward as he was trotting his

hog-maued cob beside the door, and bade him tell the squire that “she

would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months’ notice

for the land and premises she held; there were plenty to step into the

place at a much better rent.”

“You’re a fool,” said the good-natured steward; “and I’m very glad you

did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You’ve been doing

extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing.”

“Nothin’ as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feelin’,” said the

widow. “And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I

should like to go and live near him.”

“Ah, yes, I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino, more fool

he; but, bless your heart, ‘t is no distance,--two miles or so. Can’t he

come home every night after work?”

“No, sir,” exclaimed the widow, almost fiercely; “he sha’n’t come home

here, to be called bad names and jeered at!--he whom my dead good man

was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as

I said to Mrs. Dale, and as I will say to the squire hisself. Not that

I don’t thank him for all favours,--he be a good gentleman if let alone;

but he says he won’t come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin.

Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha’

seen his nose, sir,--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! if the squire

had had such a nose as that, I don’t think it’s pardin he’d been ha’

axing. But I let the passion get the better of me,--I humbly beg you’ll

excuse it, sir. I’m no schollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have

been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the

squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o’ hay and

what’s on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no doubt settle

that.”

The steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow

to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the squire. Mr.

Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy’s obstinate refusal

to make the amende honorable to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a

hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son.

It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle,

since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent

his “Harry.” Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and brusque

enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be

transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as

the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and

mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook

this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great

favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam

in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her

frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more

successful than the steward had been. The truth is, that I don’t believe

the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your

plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal

with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own

literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively

alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that

same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is

true, from his superiors (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets

with unjustly); but to be looked down upon and mocked and pointed at by

his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the soul. And if you

can succeed in breaking this pride and destroying this sensitiveness,

then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and

you have chucked him half-way--a stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the

perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the

honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not

have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended.

But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff,

plain-spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son

of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny’s

account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor

could she, with her strong common-sense, attach all the importance which

Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs,

which she said truly, “would soon die away if no notice was taken of

it.” The widow’s mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed,--with

much chagrin and some displeasure.

Mrs. Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had

made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked, the

key left at a neighbour’s to be given to the steward; and, on further

inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been

removed by the errand cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded

in finding a cottage on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and

there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast,

and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture.

“Parson!” cried the squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was

walking arm in arm with Mr. Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in

the Almshouse, “this is all your fault. Why did you not go and talk to

that brute of a boy and that dolt of a woman? You’ve got ‘soft sawder

enough,’ as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang.”

“As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!” said the parson, in a

tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. “But it was in vain!

O Squire, if you had taken my advice about the stocks,--‘quieta non

movere’!”

“Bother!” said the squire. “I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant,

a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having

things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed! Your friend Rickeybockey said he

was never more comfortable in his life,--quite enjoyed sitting there.

And what did not hurt Rickeybockey’s dignity (a very gentlemanlike

man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master

Leonard Fairfield. But ‘t is no use talking! What’s to be done now? The

woman must not starve; and I’m sure she can’t live out of Rickeybockey’s

wages to Lenny,--by the way, I hope he don’t board the boy upon his

and Jackeymo’s leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks,

faugh! I’ll tell you what, Parson, now I think of it, at the back of the

cottage which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just

vacant. Rickeybockey wants to have ‘em, and sounded me as to the rent

when he was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he

must give up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to

the widow--just enough for her to manage--and she can keep a dairy.

If she want capital, I’ll lend her some in your name,--only don’t tell

Stirn; and as for the rent--we’ll talk of that when we see how she gets

on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is! You see,” added the squire,

as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an

object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, “her husband was a

faithful servant, and so--I wish you would not stand there staring me

out of countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn will

have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. And hark ye, Dale,

perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is so cursedly stiffbacked, not

to say the land is mine, or that it is any favour I want to do her--or,

in short, manage it as you can for the best.” Still even this charitable

message failed. The widow knew that the land was the squire’s, and worth

a good L3 an acre. “She thanked him humbly for that and all favours; but

she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden

to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey’s,

and coming on wonderfully in the garden way, and she did not doubt she

could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a

good bit of money, and she should do nicely, thank their honours.”

Nothing further could be done in the direct way, but the remark about

the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow;

and a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate

neighbourhood happening to die, a hint from the squire obtained from

the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to

bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. And what with Lenny’s

wages (whatever that mysterious item might be), the mother and son

contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast

and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded to

the student in animal anatomy.

CHAPTER XIV.

Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, wherein so

mainly consists the civilization of our modern world, there is not one

which is so carefully weighed, so accurately measured, so plumbed and

gauged, so doled and scraped, so poured out in minima and balanced with

scruples,--as that necessary of social commerce called “an apology”! If

the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would

be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and

oxalic acid. But, alas! in the matter of apology, it is not from the

excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which

it is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many

times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it

a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for which you want it? Make

your will,--you are a dead man! A life do I say?--a hecatomb of lives!

How many wars would have been prevented, how many thrones would be

standing, dynasties flourishing, commonwealths brawling round a bema,

or fitting out galleys for corn and cotton, if an inch or two more

of apology had been added to the proffered ell! But then that plaguy,

jealous, suspicious, old vinegar-faced Honour, and her partner Pride--as

penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint as herself--have the

monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting

their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality

demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum,--considering

whether it should be Apothecary’s weight or Avoirdupois, or English

measure or Flemish,--and, finally, the hullabuloo they make if the

customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets

for his money, I don’t wonder, for my part, how one loses temper

and patience, and sends Pride, Honour, and Apology all to the devil.

Aristophanes, in his comedy of “Peace,” insinuates a beautiful allegory

by only suffering that goddess, though in fact she is his heroine, to

appear as a mute. She takes care never to open her lips. The shrewd

Greek knew very well that she would cease to be Peace, if she once began

to chatter. Wherefore, O reader, if ever you find your pump under the

iron heel of another man’s boot, Heaven grant that you may hold your

tongue, and not make things past all endurance and forgiveness by

bawling out for an apology!

CHAPTER XV.

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 XVI.

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!

CHAPTER XVIL

Dr. Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore

be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with

adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her

car, handling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently

having got an inch nearer to the flying form of Dr. Riccabocca.

Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, with all her

experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be

so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr. Riccabocca took

his leave, and once more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the

Casino, and without having made any formal renunciation of his criminal

celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her own chamber, and

brooded with more than her usual gloomy satisfaction on the certainty

of the approaching crash. Indeed, many signs of that universal calamity,

which, while the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself

to consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. Even the

newspaper, which during that credulous and happy period had given half a

column to Births and Marriages, now bore an ominously long catalogue of

Deaths; so that it seemed as if the whole population had lost heart, and

had no chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading article spoke,

with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending CRISIS. Monstrous

turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs devoted to General News. Cows

bore calves with two heads, whales were stranded in the Humber, showers

of frogs descended in the High Street of Cheltenham.

All these symptoms of the world’s decrepitude and consummation, which by

the side of the fascinating Riccabocca might admit of some doubt as to

their origin and cause, now, conjoined with the worst of all, namely,

the frightfully progressive wickedness of man,--left to Miss Jemima

no ray of hope save that afforded by the reflection that she could

contemplate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of regret.

Mrs. Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency of her fair

friend, and having gained access to Miss Jemima’s chamber, succeeded,

though not without difficulty, in her kindly attempts to cheer the

drooping spirits of that female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent

desire to speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs.

Dale so cruel towards her male friend, Dr. Riccabocca, as she seemed to

her husband. For Mrs. Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration, as

most quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss Jemima was one

of those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a husband in

proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In fact, my readers of

both sexes must often have met, in the course of their experience, with

that peculiar sort of feminine disposition, which requires the warmth of

the conjugal hearth to develop all its native good qualities; nor is

it to be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency in

its nature, it turns towards what is best fitted for its growth and

improvement, by laws akin to those which make the sunflower turn to

the sun, or the willow to the stream. Ladies of this disposition,

permanently thwarted in their affectionate bias, gradually languish

away into intellectual inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal

eccentricities which are classed under the general name of “oddity” or

“character.” But once admitted to their proper soil, it is astonishing

what healthful improvement takes place,--how the poor heart, before

starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts

into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have

stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the

asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond mother,

with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at their blind

hardness of heart.

In all probability Mrs. Dale took this view of the subject; and

certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues which would

be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs. Riccabocca, she counted

somewhat upon the mere worldly advantage which such a match would bestow

upon the exile. So respectable a connection with one of the oldest,

wealthiest, and most popular families in the shire would in itself give

him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the land; and

though the interest of Miss Jemima’s dowry might not be much, regarded

in the light of English pounds (not Milanese lire), still it would

suffice to prevent that gradual process of dematerialization which the

lengthened diet upon minnows and sticklebacks had already made apparent

in the fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher.

Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs. Dale saw

nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these

might be forthcoming she not only renewed with greater frequency, and

more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca

to drink tea and spend the evening, but she so artfully chafed the

squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the doctor received weekly

a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall.

At first the Italian pished and grunted, and said Cospetto, and

Per Bacco, and Diavolo, and tried to creep out of so much proffered

courtesy. But like all single gentlemen, he was a little under the

tyrannical influence of his faithful servant; and Jackeymo, though he

could bear starving as well as his master when necessary, still, when

he had the option, preferred roast beef and plum-pudding. Moreover, that

vain and incautious confidence of Riccabocca touching the vast sum at

his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so amiable a

lady as Miss Jemima--who had already shown him (Jackeymo) many little

delicate attentions--had greatly whetted the cupidity which was in

the servant’s Italian nature,--a cupidity the more keen because, long

debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, he

carried it all to the account of his master’s!

Thus tempted by his enemy and betrayed by his servant, the unfortunate

Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not unblinded, into the hospitable

snares extended for the destruction of his--celibacy! He went often

to the Parsonage, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of

the social domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their

enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now

returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain

Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath with a distant relation, who

had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Creesus, felt

so estranged and solitary in his native isle that, when the captain

“claimed kindred there,” to his own amaze “he had his claims allowed;”

while a very protracted sitting of parliament still delayed in London

the squire’s habitual visitors during the later summer; so that--a

chasm thus made in his society--Mr. Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow

cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner’s

companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to

the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall

rapidly thickened; but still not a word resembling a distinct proposal

did Dr. Riccabocca breathe. And still, if such an idea obtruded itself

on his mind, it was chased therefrom with so determined a Diavolo that

perhaps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss Jemima’s

tenure in it, might have approached and seen her still Miss Jemima, but

for a certain letter with a foreign postmark that reached the doctor one

Tuesday morning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of

syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered

through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocca’s melancholy brows.

The doctor sighed heavily. Nor did he, as was his wont after some such

sigh, mechanically take up that dear comforter the pipe. But though

the tobacco-pouch lay by his side on the balustrade, and the pipe stood

against the wall between his knees, childlike lifting up its lips to the

customary caress, he heeded neither the one nor the other, but laid the

letter silently on his lap, and fixed his eyes upon the ground.

“It must be bad news indeed!” thought Jackeymo, and desisted from his

work. Approaching his master, he took up the pipe and the tobacco-pouch,

and filled the bowl slowly, glancing all the while towards that dark

musing face on which, when abandoned by the expression of intellectual

vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian courtesy, the deep downward

lines revealed the characters of sorrow. Jackeymo did not venture to

speak; but the continued silence of his master disturbed him much. He

laid that peculiar tinder which your smokers use upon the steel, and

struck the spark,--still not a word, nor did Riccabocca stretch forth

his hand.

“I never knew him in this taking before,” thought Jackeymo; and

delicately he insinuated the neck of the pipe into the nerveless fingers

of the band that lay supine on those quiet knees. The pipe fell to the

ground.

Jackeymo crossed himself, and began praying to his sainted namesake with

great fervour.

The doctor rose slowly, and as if with effort; he walked once or twice

to and fro the terrace; and then he halted abruptly and said,--

“Friend!”

“Blessed Monsignore San Giacomo, I knew thou wouldst hear me!” cried

the servant; and he raised his master’s hand to his lips, then abruptly

turned away and wiped his eyes.

“Friend,” repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a tremulous emphasis,

and in the softest tone of a voice never wholly without the music of the

sweet South, “I would talk to thee of my child.”

CHAPTER XIX.

“The letter, then, relates to the signorina. She is well?”

“Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy.” Jackeymo raised

his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and the morning breeze

swept by and bore to him the odour of their blossoms.

“Those are sweet even here, with care,” said he, pointing to the trees.

“I think I have said that before to the padrone.”

But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice

either the gesture or the remark of his servant. “My aunt is no more!”

said he, after a pause.

“We will pray for her soul!” answered Jackeymo, solemnly. “But she was

very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the padrone

too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a

friend.”

“Peace be to her dust!” returned the Italian. “If she had her faults,

be they now forgotten forever; and in the hour of my danger and distress

she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. This letter is from

the priest, her confessor. And the home of which my child is bereaved

falls to the inheritance of my enemy.”

“Traitor!” muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand seemed to feel for

the weapon which the Italians of lower rank often openly wear in their

girdles.

“The priest,” resumed Riccabocca, calmly, “has rightly judged in

removing my child as a guest from the house in which that traitor enters

as lord.”

“And where is the signorina?”

“With the poor priest. See, Giacomo, here, here--this is her handwriting

at the end of the letter,--the first lines she ever yet traced to me.”

Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the large characters

of a child’s writing. But large as they were, they seemed indistinct,

for the paper was blistered with the child’s tears; and on the place

where they had not fallen, there was a round fresh moist stain of the

tear that had dropped from the lids of the father. Riccabocca renewed,

“The priest recommends a convent.”

“To the devil with the priest!” cried the servant; then crossing

himself rapidly, he added, “I did not mean that, Monsignore San

Giacomo,--forgive me! But your Excellency does not think of making a nun

of his only child!”

[The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, necessarily express

any exalted rank, but is often given by servants to their masters.]

“And yet why not?” said Riccabocca, mournfully; “what can I give her in

the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of

peace in her native clime?”

“In the land of the stranger beats her father’s heart!”

“And if that beat were stilled, what then? Ill fares the life that a

single death can bereave of all. In a convent at least (and the priest’s

influence can obtain her that asylum amongst her equals and amidst her

sex) she is safe from trial and from penury--to her grave!”

“Penury! Just see how rich we shall be when we take those fields at

Michaelmas.”

“Pazzie!”--[Follies]--said Riccabocca, listlessly. “Are these suns more

serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith

the proverb, ‘He who sows land reaps more care than corn.’ It were

different,” continued the father, after a pause, and in a more resolute

tone, “if I had some independence, however small, to count on,--nay,

if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one female who

would accompany Violante to the exile’s hearth,--Ishmael had his Hagar.

But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the nameless

wants and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so delicately

reared,--the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender eye of a

woman.”

“And with a word,” said Jackeymo, resolutely, “the padrone might secure

to his child all that he needs to save her from the sepulchre of a

convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his

knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that

you love your child better than all things in the world,--now the Patria

is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers,--and your heart-strings

would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and consign her to a

convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice, never again to see her

face! Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark night,

when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, as you felt their

clasp, ‘Friend, all is not yet lost.’”

“Giacomo!” exclaimed the father, reproachfully, and his voice seemed to

choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and fro

the terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture, as he still

continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, “Yes, Heaven is my

witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a murmur,

had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and privation. Heaven

is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because I would not listen

to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see her again,--my child!

And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O friend, friend!” (and,

stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable emotion, he bowed his

head upon his servant’s shoulder), “thou knowest what I have endured

and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the wrong, the perfidy,

the--the--” His voice again failed him; he clung to his servant’s

breast, and his whole frame shook.

“But your child, the innocent one--think now only of her!” faltered

Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs. “True, only of her,” replied

the exile, raising his face, “only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for

thyself, friend,--counsel me. If I were to send for Violante, and if,

transplanted to these keen airs, she drooped and died--Look, look,

the priest says that she needs such tender care; or if I myself were

summoned from the world, to leave her in it alone, friendless, homeless,

breadless perhaps, at the age of woman’s sharpest trial against

temptation, would she not live to mourn the cruel egotism that closed on

her infant innocence the gates of the House of God?”

Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had

never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of

philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and

superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion

reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only of

his child, spoke and felt with a child’s simple faith.

CHAPTER XX.

“But again I say,” murmured Jackeymo, scarce audibly, and after a long

silence, “if the padrone would make up his mind--to marry!”

He expected that his master would start up in his customary indignation

at such a suggestion,--nay, he might not have been sorry so to have

changed the current of feeling; but the poor Italian only winced

slightly, and mildly withdrawing himself from his servant’s supporting

arm, again paced the terrace, but this time quietly and in silence. A

quarter of an hour thus passed. “Give me the pipe,” said Dr. Riccabocca,

passing into the belvidere.

Jackeymo again struck the spark, and, wonderfully relieved at the

padrone’s return to the habitual adviser, mentally besought his sainted

namesake to bestow a double portion of soothing wisdom on the benignant

influences of the weed.

CHAPTER XXI.

Dr. Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the

belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was

therein, entered to lay down a book which the doctor had lent him, with

injunctions to leave it on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca

looked up at the sound of the young peasant’s step.

“I beg your honour’s pardon, I did not know--”

“Never mind: lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look

well, my child: this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?”

“Oh, yes, Sir!”

“Yet it is higher ground,--more exposed?”

“That can hardly be, sir,” said Lenny; “there are many plants grow here

which don’t flourish at the squire’s. The hill yonder keeps off the east

wind, and the place lays to the south.”

“Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these

parts?”

“Eh, sir?”

“I mean what maladies, what diseases?”

“I never heard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism.”

“No low fevers, no consumption?”

“Never heard of them, sir.”

Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved. “That seems a very kind

family at the Hall.”

“I have nothing to say against it,” answered Lenny, bluntly. “I have not

been treated justly. But as that book says, sir, ‘It is not every one

who comes into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth.’”

Little thought the doctor that those wise maxims may leave sore thoughts

behind them! He was too occupied with the subject most at his own heart

to think then of what was in Lenny Fairfield’s.

“Yes; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see much of Miss

Hazeldean?”

“Not so much as of the Lady.”

“Is she liked in the village, think you?”

“Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once,--she

did not ask me to beg its pardon, she asked mine! She’s a very nice

young lady; the girls say she is very affable; and,” added Lenny, with a

smile, “there are always more weddings going on when she is down at the

Hall.”

“Oh!” said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, “Did you ever see her

play with the little children? Is she fond of children, do you think?”

“Lord, sir, you guess everything! She’s never so pleased as when she’s

playing with the babies.”

“Humph!” grunted Riccabocca. “Babies! well, that’s woman-like. I don’t

mean exactly babies, but when they’re older,--little girls?”

“Indeed, Sir, I dare say; but,” said Lenny, primly, “I never as yet kept

company with the little girls.”

“Quite right, Lenny; be equally discreet all your life. Mrs. Dale is

very intimate with Miss Hazeldean,--more than with the squire’s lady.

Why is that, think you?”

“Well, sir,” said Leonard, shrewdly, “Mrs. Dale has her little tempers,

though she’s a very good lady; and Madame Hazeldean is rather high, and

has a spirit. But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss

Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall.”

“Indeed! get my hat out of the parlour, and--just bring a clothes-brush,

Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk.”

After this most mean and dishonourable inquisition into the character

and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signor Riccabocca seemed as much

cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action;

and he walked forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and

livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace.

“Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe’s, the padrone shall

have his child!” muttered the servant, looking up from the garden.

CHAPTER XXII.

Yet Dr. Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants his wedding-garment

to fit him must allow plenty of time for the measure. But from that day,

the Italian notably changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean. He ceased

that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto carried off

in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the doctor considered that

compliments to a single gentleman were what the inky liquid it dispenses

is to the cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails away from its

enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged conversations with

the young lady, and contrive to escape from all solitary rambles by

her side. On the contrary, he now sought every occasion to be in her

society; and entirely dropping the language of gallantry, he assumed

something of the earnest tone of friendship. He bent down his intellect

to examine and plumb her own. To use a very homely simile, he blew away

that froth which there is on the surface of mere acquaintanceships,

especially with the opposite sex; and which, while it lasts, scarce

allows you to distinguish between small beer and double X. Apparently

Dr. Riccabocca was satisfied with his scrutiny,--at all events under

that froth there was no taste of bitter. The Italian might not find

any great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but he found that,

disentangled from many little whims and foibles,--which he had himself

the sense to perceive were harmless enough if they lasted, and not so

absolutely constitutional but what they might be removed by a tender

hand,--Miss Hazeldean had quite enough sense to comprehend the plain

duties of married life; and if the sense could fail, it found a

substitute in good old homely English principles, and the instincts of

amiable, kindly feelings.

I know not how it is, but your very clever man never seems to care so

much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate. Your

scholars and poets and ministers of state are more often than not found

assorted with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women, and apparently

like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how happily

Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he thought her, and yet

she had never read his plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled the lady

who called him “Mr. Privy Councillor” with whims about “monads,” and

speculations on colour, nor those stiff metaphysical problems on which

one breaks one’s shins in the Second Past of the “Faust.” Probably

it may be that such great geniuses--knowing that, as compared with

themselves, there is little difference between your clever woman and

your humdrum woman--merge at once all minor distinctions, relinquish

all attempts at sympathy in hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite

satisfied to establish that tie which, after all, best resists wear

and tear,--namely, the tough household bond between one human heart and

another.

At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr. Riccabocca,

when one morning, after a long walk with Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to

himself,--

“Duro con duro

Non fete mai buon muro,”--

which may bear the paraphrase, “Bricks without mortar would make a very

bad wall.” There was quite enough in Miss Jemima’s disposition to make

excellent mortar: the doctor took the bricks to himself.

When his examination was concluded, our philosopher symbolically evinced

the result he had arrived at by a very simple proceeding on his

part, which would have puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and

meditated thereon, till you saw all that it implied. Dr. Riccabocca,

took of his spectacles! He wiped them carefully, put them into their

shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau,--that is to say, he left

off wearing his spectacles.

You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of meaning in that

critical symptom, whether it be regarded as a sign outward, positive,

and explicit, or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as

to the last, it denoted that the task of the spectacles was over;

that, when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better

henceforth to be shortsighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to

be always scrutinizing the domestic felicity, to which he is about to

resign himself, through a pair of cold, unillusory barnacles. As for the

things beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is he

not about to ally to his own defective vision a good sharp pair of eyes,

never at fault where his interests are concerned? On the other hand,

regarded positively, categorically, and explicitly, Dr. Roccabocca, by

laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to commence

that happy initiation of courtship when every man, be he ever so much a

philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as time and nature

will allow. Vain task to speed the soft language of the eyes through the

medium of those glassy interpreters! I remember, for my own part, that

once, on a visit to the town of Adelaide, I--Pisistratus Caxton--was in

great danger of falling in love,--with a young lady, too, who would have

brought me a very good fortune,--when she suddenly produced from her

reticule a very neat pair of No. 4, set in tortoiseshell, and fixing

upon me their Gorgon gaze, froze the astonished Cupid into stone! And

I hold it a great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast

experience in mankind, that he was not above the consideration of what

your pseudo-sages would have regarded as foppish and ridiculous trifles.

It argued all the better for that happiness which is our being’s end

and aim that in condescending to play the lover, he put those unbecoming

petrifiers under lock and key.

And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it was impossible to

deny that the Italian had remarkably handsome eyes. Even through the

spectacles, or lifted a little above them, they were always bright and

expressive; but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more

tempered: they had that look which the French call veloute, or velvety;

and he appeared altogether ten years younger. If our Ulysses, thus

rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make

a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than

Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos,--

He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynopophagite!

CHAPTER XXIII.

“And you commission me, then, to speak to our dear Jemima?” said Mrs.

Dale, joyfully, and without any bitterness whatever in that “dear.”

DR. RICCABOCCA.--“Nay, before speaking to Miss Hazeldean, it would

surely be proper to know how far my addresses would be acceptable to the

family.”

MRS. DALE.--“Ah!”

DR. RICCAROCCA.--“The squire is of course the head of the family.”

MRS. DALE (absent and distraite).--“The squire--yes, very true--quite

proper.” (Then, looking up, and with naivete) “Can you believe me? I

never thought of the squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many

English prejudices, that really--dear me, how vexatious that it should

never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the

matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant, it is not like being her

father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and--but, as

you say, it is quite proper that he should be consulted as the head of

the family.”

DR. RICCASOCCA.--“And you think that the Squire of Hazeldean might

reject my alliance! Pshaw! that’s a grand word indeed,--I mean, that he

might object very reasonably to his cousin’s marriage with a foreigner,

of whom he can know nothing, except that which in all countries is

disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal,--poverty.”

MRS. DALE (kindly)--“You misjudge us poor English people, and you wrong

the squire, Heaven bless him! for we were poor enough when he singled

out my husband from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his

neighbour and his friend. I will speak to him fearlessly--”

DR. RICCABOCCA.--“And frankly. And now I have used that word, let me

go on with the confession which your kindly readiness, my fair friend,

somewhat interrupted. I said that if I might presume to think my

addresses would be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I was

too sensible of her amiable qualities not to--not to--”

MRS. DALE (with demure archness).--“Not to be the happiest of

men,--that’s the customary English phrase, Doctor.”

RICCABOCCA (gallantly).--“There cannot be a better. But,” continued he,

seriously, “I wish it first to be understood that I have--been married

before!”

MRS. DALE (astonished).--“Married before!”

RICCABOCCA.--“And that I have an only child, dear to me,--inexpressibly

dear. That child, a daughter, has hitherto lived abroad; circumstances

now render it desirable that she should make her home with me; and I own

fairly that nothing has so attached me to Miss Hazeldean, nor so induced

my desire for our matrimonial connection, as my belief that she has the

heart and the temper to become a kind mother to my little one.”

MRS. DALE (with feeling and warmth).--“You judge her rightly there.”

RICCABOCCA.--“Now, in pecuniary matters, as you may conjecture from my

mode of life, I have nothing to offer to Miss Hazeldean correspondent

with her own fortune, whatever that may be!”

MRS. DALE.--“That difficulty is obviated by settling Miss Hazeldean’s

fortune on herself, which is customary in such cases.”

Dr. Riccabocca’s face lengthened. “And my child, then?” said he,

feelingly. There was something in that appeal so alien from all sordid

and merely personal mercenary motives, that Mrs. Dale could not have had

the heart to make the very rational suggestion, “But that child is not

Jemima’s, and you may have children by her.”

She was touched, and replied hesitatingly, “But from what you and Jemima

may jointly possess you can save something annually,--you can insure

your life for your child. We did so when our poor child whom we lost was

born” (the tears rushed into Mrs. Dale’s eyes); “and I fear that Charles

still insures his life for my sake, though Heaven knows that--that--”

The tears burst out. That little heart, quick and petulant though

it was, had not a fibre of the elastic muscular tissues which are

mercifully bestowed on the hearts of predestined widows. Dr. Riccabocca

could not pursue the subject of life insurances further. But the

idea--which had never occurred to the foreigner before, though

so familiar with us English people when only possessed of a life

income--pleased him greatly. I will do him the justice to say that he

preferred it to the thought of actually appropriating to himself and to

his child a portion of Miss Hazeldean’s dower.

Shortly afterwards he took his leave, and Mrs. Dale hastened to seek

her husband in his study, inform him of the success of her matrimonial

scheme, and consult him as to the chance of the squire’s acquiescence

therein. “You see,” said she, hesitatingly, “though the squire might be

glad to see Jemima married to some Englishman, yet if he asks who and

what is this Dr. Riccabocca, how am I to answer him?”

“You should have thought of that before,” said Mr. Dale, with unwonted

asperity; “and, indeed, if I had ever believed anything serious could

come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have

requested you not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens!” continued

the parson, changing colour, “if we should have assisted, underhand as

it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much

a connection that he would dislike, how base we should be, how

ungrateful!”

Poor Mrs. Dale was frightened by this speech, and still more by her

husband’s consternation and displeasure. To do Mrs. Dale justice,

whenever her mild partner was really either grieved or offended, her

little temper vanished,--she became as meek as a lamb. As soon as she

recovered the first shock she experienced, she hastened to dissipate the

parson’s apprehensions. She assured him that she was convinced that, if

the squire disapproved of Riccabocca’s pretensions, the Italian would

withdraw them at once, and Miss Hazeldean would never know of his

proposals. Therefore, in that case, no harm would be done.

This assurance, coinciding with Mr. Dale’s convictions as to

Riccabocca’s scruples on the point of honour, tended much to compose

the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler sex would

expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima’s affections should have

been irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in jeopardy by

the squire’s refusal, it was not that the parson wanted tenderness of

heart, but experience in womankind; and he believed, very erroneously,

that Miss Jemima Hazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of

that kind would produce a lasting impression. Therefore Mr. Dale, after

a pause of consideration, said kindly,--

“Well, don’t vex yourself,--and I was to blame quite as much as you.

But, indeed, I should have thought it easier for the squire to have

transplanted one of his tall cedars into his kitchen-garden than for you

to inveigle Dr. Riccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man who

could voluntarily put himself into the parish stocks for the sake of

experiment must be capable of anything! However, I think it better that

I, rather than yourself, should speak to the squire, and I will go at

once.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

The parson put on the shovel-hat, which--conjoined with other details in

his dress peculiarly clerical, and already, even then, beginning to be

out of fashion with Churchmen--had served to fix upon him emphatically

the dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of “Parson;” and took

his way towards the Home Farm, at which he expected to find the squire.

But he had scarcely entered upon the village green when he beheld Mr.

Hazeldean, leaning both hands on his stick, and gazing intently upon

the parish stocks. Now, sorry am I to say that, ever since the Hegira

of Lenny and his mother, the Anti-Stockian and Revolutionary spirit in

Hazeldean, which the memorable homily of our parson had a while averted

or suspended, had broken forth afresh. For though while Lenny was

present to be mowed and jeered at, there had been no pity for him,

yet no sooner was he removed from the scene of trial than a universal

compassion for the barbarous usage he had received produced what is

called “the reaction of public opinion.” Not that those who had mowed

and jeered repented them of their mockery, or considered themselves in

the slightest degree the cause of his expatriation. No; they, with the

rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon the stocks. It was not to

be expected that a lad of such exemplary character could be thrust into

that place of ignominy, and not be sensible to the affront. And who, in

the whole village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in were

to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the very best and

quietest lad the village had ever known? Thus, a few days after

the widow’s departure, the stocks was again the object of midnight

desecration: it was bedaubed and bescratched, it was hacked and hewed,

it was scrawled over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic

execrations on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions appeared,

testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive sentiment of the parish.

And perhaps the stocks was only spared from axe and bonfire by the

convenience it afforded to the malice of the disaffected: it became the

Pasquin of Hazeldean.

As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigour in authority,

so affairs had been lately administered with greater severity than had

been hitherto wont in the easy rule of the squire and his predecessors.

Suspected persons were naturally marked out by Mr. Stirn, and reported

to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them openly with

ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his walks with a silent and

stiff inclination of his head; and afterwards, gradually yielding to the

baleful influence of Stirn, the squire grumbled forth “that he did

not see why he should be always putting himself out of his way to show

kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to be a difference

between the good and the bad.” Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had

conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and their whole kith

and kin, with the iron-handed justice that belonged to his character.

For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy and vegetables from

the gardens were surlily suspended; others were informed that their pigs

were always trespassing on the woods in search of acorns, or that they

were violating the Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house,

popular in the neighbourhood, but of late resorted to over-much by the

grievance-mongers (and no wonder, since they had become the popular

party), was threatened with an application to the magistrates for

the withdrawal of its license. Sundry old women, whose grandsons were

notoriously ill-disposed towards the stocks, were interdicted from

gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke

down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger

members of the parish than most other retaliatory measures, three

chestnut-trees, one walnut, and two cherry-trees, standing at the bottom

of the Park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given up to the

youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general defence

of “private property.” And the crier had announced that, henceforth, all

depredators on the fruit trees in Copse Hollow would be punished with

the utmost rigour of the law. Stirn, indeed, recommended much more

stringent proceedings than all these indications of a change of policy,

which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its senses,--such as

discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the

surplus labour of the village. But there the squire, falling into the

department and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not

properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute

quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed

upon him, the milk of human kindness--with which Providence has so

bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the “Bucolic,”

and of which our squire had an extra “yield”--burst forth, and washed

away all the indignation of the harsher Adam.

Still your policy of half-measures, which irritates without crushing

its victims, which flaps an exasperated wasp-nest with a silk

pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing it up with a match and train,

is rarely successful; and after three or four other and much guiltier

victims than Lenny had been incarcerated in the stocks, the parish

of Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent Jacobinical tracts,

conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing towns, found their

way into the popular beer-house,--Heaven knows how, though the tinker

was suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in

a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there appeared amongst

the other graphic embellishments which the poor stocks had received,

the rude gravure of a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots,

suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath, “A warnin to hall

tirans--mind your hi!--sighnde Captin sTraw.”

It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture that the

squire was gazing when the parson joined him. “Well, Parson,” said Mr.

Hazeldean, with a smile which he meant to be pleasant and easy,

but which was exceedingly bitter and grim, “I wish you joy of your

flock,--you see they have just hanged me in effigy!”

The parson stared, and though greatly shocked, smothered his emotion;

and attempted, with the wisdom of the serpent and the mildness of the

dove, to find another original for the effigy.

“It is very bad,” quoth he, “but not so bad as all that, Squire; that’s

not the shape of your bat. It is evidently meant for Mr. Stirn.”

“Do you think so?” said the squire, softened. “Yet the top-boots--Stirn

never wears top-boots.”

“No more do you, except in the hunting-field. If you look again, those

are not tops, they are leggings,--Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that

flourish, which is meant for a nose, is a kind of hook, like Stirn’s;

whereas your nose--though by no means a snub--rather turns up than not,

as the Apollo’s does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca’s

parlour.”

“Poor Stirn!” said the squire, in a tone that evinced complacency, not

unmingled with compassion, “that’s what a man gets in this world by

being a faithful servant, and doing his duty with zeal for his employer.

But you see things have come to a strange pass, and the question now

is, what course to pursue. The miscreants hitherto have defied all

vigilance, and Stirn recommends the employment of a regular nightwatch,

with a lanthorn and bludgeon.”

“That may protect the stocks certainly; but will it keep those

detestable tracts out of the beer-house?”

“We shall shut the beer-house up the next sessions.”

“The tracts will break out elsewhere,--the humour’s in the blood!”

“I’ve half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamingtongood hunting at

Leamington--for a year, just to let the rogues see how they can get on

without me!”

The squire’s lip trembled.

“My dear Mr. Hazeldean,” said the parson, taking his friend’s hand,

“I don’t want to parade my superior wisdom; but, if you had taken my

advice, ‘quieta non movere!’ Was there ever a parish so peaceable

as this, or a country gentleman so beloved as you were, before you

undertook the task which has dethroned kings and ruined States,--that

of wantonly meddling with antiquity, whether for the purpose of

uncalled-for repairs, or the revival of obsolete uses.”

At this rebuke, the squire did not manifest his constitutional

tendencies to choler; but he replied almost meekly, “If it were to do

again, faith, I would leave the parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest

pair of stocks that ever disgraced a village. Certainly I meant it for

the best,--an ornament to the green; however, now the stocks is rebuilt,

the stocks must be supported. Will Hazeldean is not the man to give way

to a set of thankless rapscallions.”

“I think,” said the parson, “that you will allow that the House

of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined, resolute dynasty

enough,--high-hearted and strong-headed. A Tudor would never have fallen

into the same calamities as the poor Stuart did!”

“What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do with my stocks?”

“A great deal. Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it

up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as

he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I

know, is your idol in history--”

“To be sure!--she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort.”

“Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw

it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which

becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace.”

“Ha! and you would have me give up the stocks?”

“I would much rather the stocks had remained as it was before

you touched it; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible

pretext--and there is an excellent one at hand,--the sternest kings open

prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the

royal family is of course a joyful occasion! and so it should be in

that of the King of Hazeldean.” Admire that artful turn in the parson’s

eloquence!--it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had

profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.

“A marriage,--yes; but Frank has only just got into coattails!”

“I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!”

CHAPTER XXV.

The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and,

for want of a better seat, sat down on the stocks. All the female heads

in the neighbouring cottages peered, themselves unseen, through the

casements. What could the squire be about? What new mischief did he

meditate? Did he mean to fortify the stocks? Old Gaffer Solomons, who

had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, and who had been

for the last ten minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and

said, “Them as a cut out the mon a hanging, as a put it in the squire’s

head!”

“Put what?” asked his grand-daughter.

“The gallus!” answered Solomons,--“he be a going to have it hung from

the great elfin-tree. And the parson, good mon, is a quoting Scripter

agin it; you see he’s a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two

han’s together, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany.”

That description of the parson’s mien and manner, which with his usual

niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey

to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the

cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of

propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting that the squire

might be consulted before any formal communication to his cousin; and

he repeated Mrs. Dale’s assurance, that such were Riccabocca’s high

standard of honour and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that,

if the squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the parson

was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now,

considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of

discretion, and the squire had long since placed her property entirely

at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the

parson’s corollary remark, “That this was a delicacy which could not be

expected from every English pretender to the lady’s hand.” Seeing that

he had so far cleared the ground, the parson went on to intimate, though

with great tact, that since Miss Jemima would probably marry sooner or

later (and, indeed, that the squire could not wish to prevent her), it

might be better for all parties concerned that it should be with some

one who, though a foreigner, was settled in the neighbourhood, and of

whose character what was known was certainly favourable, rather than

run the hazard of her being married for her money by some adventurer, or

Irish fortune-hunter, at the watering-places she yearly visited. Then he

touched lightly on Riccabocca’s agreeable and companionable qualities;

and concluded with a skilful peroration upon the excellent occasion the

wedding would afford to reconcile Hall and parish, by making a voluntary

holocaust of the stocks.

As he concluded, the squire’s brow, before thoughtful, though not

sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth, the squire was dying to get

rid of the stocks, if he could but do so handsomely and with dignity;

and had all the stars in the astrological horoscope conjoined together

to give Miss Jemima “assurance of a husband,” they could not so have

served her with the squire as that conjunction between the altar and the

stocks which the parson had effected!

Accordingly, when Mr. Dale had come to an end, the squire replied, with

great placidity and good sense, “That Mr. Rickeybockey had behaved very

much like a gentleman, and that he was very much obliged to him; that he

[the squire] had no right to interfere in the matter, further than with

his advice; that Jemima was old enough to choose for herself, and that,

as the parson had implied, after all she might go farther and fare

worse,--indeed, the farther she went (that is, the longer she waited)

the worse she was likely to fare. I own, for my part,” continued the

squire, “that though I like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected

that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there’s no accounting for

tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for

which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked

queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his

glasses, ha, ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let’s go and talk to

her.”

The parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the matter, hooked his

arm into the squire’s, and they walked amicably towards the Hall. But

on coming first into the gardens they found Mrs. Hazeldean herself,

clipping dead leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The squire

stole slyly behind her, and startled her in her turn by putting his arm

round her waist, and saluting her smooth cheek with one of his hearty

kisses; which, by the way, from some association of ideas, was a

conjugal freedom that he usually indulged whenever a wedding was going

on in the village.

“Fie, William!” said Mrs. Hazeldean, coyly, and blushing as she saw the

parson. “Well, who’s going to be married now?”

“Lord! was there ever such a woman?--she’s guessed it!” cried the

squire, in great admiration. “Tell her all about it, Parson.”

The parson obeyed.

Mrs. Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed much less surprise

than her husband had done; but she took the news graciously, and made

much the same answer as that which had occurred to the squire, only with

somewhat more qualification and reserve. “Signor Riccabocca had behaved

very handsomely; and though a daughter of the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean

might expect a much better marriage in a worldly point of view, yet

as the lady in question had deferred finding one so long, it would be

equally idle and impertinent now to quarrel with her choice,--if indeed

she should decide on accepting Signor Riccabocca. As for fortune, that

was a consideration for the two contracting parties. Still, it ought,

to be pointed out to Miss Jemima that the interest of her fortune would

afford but a very small income. That Dr. Riccabocca was a widower was

another matter for deliberation; and it seemed rather suspicious that he

should have been hitherto so close upon all matters connected with his

former life. Certainly his manners were in his favour, and as long as he

was merely an acquaintance, and at most a tenant, no one had a right to

institute inquiries of a strictly private nature; but that, when he was

about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it became the squire at least

to know a little more about him,--who and what he was. Why did he leave

his own country? English people went abroad to save: no foreigner would

choose England as a country in which to save money! She supposed that

a foreign doctor was no very great things; probably he had been a

professor in some Italian university. At all events, if the squire

interfered at all, it was on such points that he should request

information.”

“My clear madam,” said the parson, “what you say is extremely just. As

to the causes which have induced our friend to expatriate himself, I

think we need not look far for them. He is evidently one of the many

Italian refugees whom political disturbances have driven to a land of

which it is the boast to receive all exiles of whatever party. For his

respectability of birth and family he certainly ought to obtain some

vouchers. And if that be the only objection, I trust we may soon

congratulate Miss Hazeldean on a marriage with a man who, though

certainly very poor, has borne privations without a murmur; has

preferred all hardship to debt; has scorned to attempt betraying the

young lady into any clandestine connection; who, in short, has shown

himself so upright and honest, that I hope my dear Mr. Hazeldean will

forgive him if he is only a doctor--probably of Laws--and not, as most

foreigners pretend to be, a marquis or a baron at least.”

“As to that,” cried the squire, “It is the best thing I know about

Rickeybockey that he don’t attempt to humbug us by any such foreign

trumpery. Thank Heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never

tuft-hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English

lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law

whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was

a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor,

indeed, Harry!--pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married

a Doctor of Divinity--excellent man--wore a wig and was made a dean! So

long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don’t care a button.

If he’s that, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those

foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on

a stage with a Merry-Andrew.”

“Lord! Hazeldean, where on earth did you pick up that idea?” said Harry,

laughing.

“Pick it up!--why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last

year--when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a

cocked hat, a little like the parson’s shovel. He called himself

Dr. Phoscophornio, and sold pills. The Merry-Andrew was the funniest

creature, in salmon-coloured tights, turned head over heels, and said he

came from Timbuctoo. No, no: if Rickeybockey’s a physic Doctor, we

shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress tramping about the country in a

caravan!”

At this notion both the squire and his wife laughed so heartily that the

parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the intention

of making his report to Riccabocca.

CHAPTER XXVI.

It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred

equanimity that the Italian received the information that he need

apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the insular prejudices or the

worldly views of the lady’s family. Not that he was mean and cowardly

enough to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that felicity

which he had left off his glasses to behold with unblinking, naked

eyes,--no, there his mind was made up; but he had met in life with much

that inclines a man towards misanthropy, and he was touched not only by

the interest in his welfare testified by a heretical priest, but by

the generosity with which he was admitted into a well-born and wealthy

family, despite his notorious poverty and his foreign descent. He

conceded the propriety of the only stipulation, which was conveyed

to him by the parson with all the delicacy that became one long

professionally habituated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of

mankind,--namely, that, amongst Riccabocca’s friends or kindred, some

person should be found whose report would confirm the persuasion of his

respectability entertained by his neighbours,--he assented, I say,

to the propriety of this condition; but it was not with alacrity and

eagerness. His brow became clouded. The parson hastened to assure him

that the squire was not a man qui stupet in titulis,--[“Who was besotted

with titles.”]--that he neither expected nor desired to find an

origin and rank for his brother-in-law above that decent mediocrity

of condition to which it was evident from Riccabocca’s breeding and

accomplishments he could easily establish his claim. “And though,” said

he, smiling, “the squire is a warm politician in his own country, and

would never see his sister again, I fear, if she married some convicted

enemy of our happy constitution, yet for foreign politics he does not

care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your exile arises from some

quarrel with your government,--which, being foreign, he takes for

granted must be insupportable,--he would but consider you as he would

a Saxon who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or a

Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our Wars of the Roses.”

The Italian smiled. “Mr. Hazeldean shall be satisfied,” said he, simply.

“I see, by the squire’s newspaper, that an English gentleman who knew me

in my own country has just arrived in London. I will write to him for

a testimonial, at least to my probity and character. Probably he may

be known to you by name,--nay, he must be, for he was a distinguished

officer in the late war. I allude to Lord L’Estrange.”

The parson started.

“You know Lord L’Estrange?--profligate, bad man, I fear.”

“Profligate! bad!” exclaimed Riccabocca. “Well, calumnious as the world

is, I should never have thought that such expressions would be applied

to one who, though I knew him but little,--knew him chiefly by the

service he once rendered to me,--first taught me to love and revere the

English name!”

“He may be changed since--” the parson paused.

“Since when?” asked Riccabocca, with evident curiosity. Mr. Dale seemed

embarrassed. “Excuse me,” said he, “it is many years ago; and in short

the opinion I then formed of the nobleman you named was based upon

circumstances which I cannot communicate.”

The punctilious Italian bowed in silence, but he still looked as if he

should have liked to prosecute inquiry.

After a pause he said, “Whatever your impression respecting Lord

L’Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which would lead you to doubt

his honour, or reject his testimonial in my favour?”

“According to fashionable morality,” said Mr. Dale, rather precisely,

“I know of nothing that could induce me to suppose that Lord L’Estrange

would not, in this instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably

a high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position in the

world.” Therewith the parson took his leave. A few days afterwards, Dr.

Riccabocca inclosed to the squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he

had received from Harley L’Estrange. It was evidently intended for

the squire’s eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian’s

respectability; but this object was fulfilled, not in the coarse form of

a direct testimonial, but with a tact and delicacy which seemed to show

more than the fine breeding to be expected from one in Lord L’Estrange’s

station. It evinced that most exquisite of all politeness which comes

from the heart; a certain tone of affectionate respect (which even the

homely sense of the squire felt, intuitively, proved far more in favour

of Riccabocca than the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and

antecedents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in itself to

remove all scruples from a mind much more suspicious and exacting than

that of the Squire of Hazeldean. But, to and behold! an obstacle

now occurred to the parson, of which he ought to have thought long

before,--namely, the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr. Riccabocca

was professedly a Roman Catholic. He so little obtruded that fact--and,

indeed, had assented so readily to any animadversions upon the

superstition and priestcraft which, according to Protestants, are the

essential characteristics of Papistical communities--that it was not

till the hymeneal torch, which brings all faults to light, was fairly

illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so cast into

the shade burst upon the conscience of the parson. The first idea that

then occurred to him was the proper and professional one,--namely, the

conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to his study, took down from

his shelves long neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed

himself with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts; then,

seizing the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full

of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he

went souse upon the astounded Riccabocca--

“Tremendo

Jupiter ipse rueus tumultu.”

The sage--shrinking deeper into his armchair, and drawing his

dressing-robe more closely round him--suffered the parson to talk for

three quarters of an hour, till indeed he had thoroughly proved his

case; and, like Brutus, “paused for a reply.”

Then said Riccabocca mildly: “In much of what you have urged so ably,

and so suddenly, I am inclined to agree. But base is the man who

formally forswears the creed he has inherited from his fathers, and

professed since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change

presents itself in the guise of a bribe; when, for such is human nature,

he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal to his reason

from the lure to his interests,--here a text, and there a dowry!--here

Protestantism, there Jemima! Own, my friend, that the soberest casuist

would see double under the inebriating effects produced by so mixing

his polemical liquors. Appeal, my good Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken to

Philip sober!--from Riccabocca intoxicated with the assurance of

your excellent lady, that he is about to be ‘the happiest of men,’ to

Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying it off with the

seasoned equability of one grown familiar with stimulants,--in a word,

appeal from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be

convertible, but conversion is a slow progress; courtship should be a

quick one,--ask Miss Jemima. Finalmente, marry me first, and convert me

afterwards!”

“You take this too jestingly,” began the parson; “and I don’t see why,

with your excellent understanding, truths so plain and obvious should

not strike you at once.”

“Truths,” interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, “are the slowest growing

things in the world! It took fifteen hundred years from the date of the

Christian era to produce your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at

Satan (I have seen the mark made by the book on the wall of his prison

in Germany), besides running off with a nun, which no Protestant

clergyman would think it proper and right to do nowadays.” Then he

added, with seriousness, “Look you, my dear sir, I should lose my

own esteem if I were even to listen to you now with becoming

attention,--now, I say, when you hint that the creed I have professed

may be in the way of my advantage. If so, I must keep the creed and

resign the advantage. But if, as I trust not only as a Christian but a

man of honour, you will defer this discussion, I will promise to listen

to you hereafter; and though, to say truth, I believe that you will not

convert me, I will promise you faithfully never to interfere with my

wife’s religion.”

“And any children you may have?”

“Children!” said Dr. Riccabocca, recoiling; “you are not contented with

firing your pocket-pistol right in my face! you must also pepper me all

over with small shot. Children! well, if they are girls, let them follow

the faith of their mother; and if boys, while in childhood, let them be

contented with learning to be Christians; and when they grow into men,

let them choose for themselves which is the best form for the practice

of the great principles which all sects have in common.”

“But,” began Mr. Dale again, pulling a large book from his pocket.

Dr. Riccabocca flung open the window, and jumped out of it.

It was the rapidest and most dastardly flight you could possibly

conceive; but it was a great compliment to the argumentative powers of

the parson, and he felt it as such. Nevertheless, Mr. Dale thought it

right to have a long conversation, both with the squire and Miss

Jemima herself, upon the subject which his intended convert had so

ignominiously escaped.

The squire, though a great foe to Popery, politically considered, had

also quite as great a hatred to renegades and apostates. And in his

heart he would have despised Riccabocca if he could have thrown off

his religion as easily as he had done his spectacles. Therefore he said

simply, “Well, it is certainly a great pity that Rickeybockey is not of

the Church of England; though, I take it, that would be unreasonable to

expect in a man born and bred under the nose of the Inquisition” (the

squire firmly believed that the Inquisition was in full force in all

the Italian States, with whips, racks, and thumbscrews; and, indeed, his

chief information of Italy was gathered from a perusal he had given

in early youth to “The One-Handed Monk”); “but I think he speaks very

fairly, on the whole, as to his wife and children. And the thing’s

gone too far now to retract. It’s all your fault for not thinking of

it before; and I’ve now just made up my mind as to the course to pursue

respecting the d---d stocks!”

As for Miss Jemima, the parson left her with a pious thanksgiving that

Riccabocca at least was a Christian, and not a Pagan, Mahometan, or Jew!

CHAPTER XXVIII.

There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No

other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal

sensation amongst the humbler classes.

From the moment the news that Miss Jemima was to be married had spread

throughout the village, all the old affection for the squire and his

House burst forth the stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could

think of the stocks in such a season? The stocks were swept out of

fashion,--hunted from remembrance as completely as the question of

Repeal or the thought of Rebellion from the warm Irish heart, when the

fair young face of the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle.

Again cordial courtesies were dropped at the thresholds by which the

squire passed to his own farm; again the sunburned brows uncovered--no

more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness at

his nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient

rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarized with the phenomenon,

or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will, its powers of

evil were annulled.

The squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is

much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably

deplore,--namely, the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our

goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the

more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the squire enjoyed this

restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence; his stout

heart beat more vigorously; his stalwart step trod more lightly; his

comely English face looked comelier and more English than ever,--you

would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within hearing of

his jovial laugh.

He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of

Providence in this general integratio amoris. To have looked at him,

you would suppose that it was the squire who was going to be married a

second time to his Harry!

One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment

for Parson Dale’s theological scruples to have stopped that marriage,

chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village, seen himself

surrounded again by long sulky visages,--I verily believe, though a

better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that,

rather than court such a revulsion, the squire would have found

jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to

be the Pope in disguise! As for the stocks, its fate was now irrevocably

sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded,--first privately,

according to the bridegrooms creed, by a Roman Catholic clergyman, who

lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the village church

of Hazeldean.

It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on the

way; a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the Park on the

margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the day. Even

Mr. Stirn--no, Mr. Stirn was not present; so much happiness would have

been the death of him! And the Papisher too, who had conjured Lenny

out of the stocks nay, who had himself sat in the stocks for the very

purpose of bringing them into contempt,--the Papisher! he had a lief

Miss Jemima had married the devil! Indeed he was persuaded that, in

point of fact, it was all one and the same. Therefore Mr. Stirn had

asked leave to go and attend his uncle the pawnbroker, about to undergo

a torturing operation for the stone! Frank was there, summoned from Eton

for the occasion--having grown two inches taller since he left--for the

one inch of which nature was to be thanked, for the other a new pair of

resplendent Wellingtons. But the boy’s joy was less apparent than that

of others. For Jemima, was a special favourite with him, as she would

have been with all boys,--for she was always kind and gentle, and made

him many pretty presents whenever she came from the watering-places;

and Frank knew that he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a

very queer choice.

Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but to the astonishment of

Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked

“private and confidential.”

“She must have long known,” said the letter, “of his devoted attachment

to her! motives of delicacy, arising from the narrowness of his income

and the magnanimity of his sentiments, had alone prevented his formal

proposals; but now that he was informed (he could scarcely believe his

senses or command his passions) that her relations wished to force

her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner of MOST FORBIDDING

APPEARANCE, and most abject circumstances, he lost not a moment in

laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did this the more

confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be aware of Miss Jemima’s

SECRET feelings towards him, while he was proud and happy to say, that

his dear and distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had honoured

him with a warmth of regard which justified the most brilliant

EXPECTATIONS,--likely to be soon realized, as his eminent relative had

contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service of his country, and

could not last long!”

In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it

may appear, had never once suspected the captain of any other feelings

to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by

learning her mistake would be to say that she was more than woman.

Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that

she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca by

a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the

rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the captain

evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter,

and did not come to the wedding.

To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain

Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the

offer he had made. The captain was one of that class of gentlemen who

read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o’-the-wisps, called

expectations. Ever since the squire’s grandfather had left him--then in

short clothes--a legacy of L500, the captain had peopled the future with

expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares in

a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little,--be now up and now down,--but

it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should be a

millionnaire one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good

fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good

round sum in the ghostly books of the captain. She was an expectation to

the full amount of her L4000, seeing that Frank was an only child, and

it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to leave him anything.

Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly sponged out of his

visionary ledger, rather than so much money should vanish clean out

of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if

a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his

property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why,

he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself

an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow

was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous,

though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor

Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may

among “the expectations” which gathered round the form of Mr. Sharpe

Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed

at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick

with the captain’s constitutional functions, I return to the wedding

at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly

well on the occasion--hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and

affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty

bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the squire had presented to

them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings

of the assembled crowd.

It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural

spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a

Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner;

but besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the

neighbourhood, and was proverbially “a civil-spoken gentleman,” it is

generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes

interest, curiosity, and admiration that the bridegroom himself goes for

little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair,--the

unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca

himself that they approved and blessed,--it was the gentleman in the

white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey!

Leaning on his wife’s arm (for it was a habit of the squire to lean on

his wife’s arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased;

and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy

frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the

frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife’s arm, the squire,

about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake.

All the parish-young and old, man, woman, and child, were assembled

there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common

emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank, fatherly smile.

Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn

with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked round,

and lifted his hand to request silence; and ascending the chair, rose

in full view of all. Every one felt that the squire was about to make

a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the

rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory

of the hustings) only thrice before had the squire made what could

fairly be called “a speech” to the villagers of Hazeldean,--once on a

kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride;

once in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than

ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have

been; once in a time of great agricultural distress, when in spite of

reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large

number of their customary labourers, and when the squire had said, “I

have given up keeping the hounds because I want to make a fine piece of

water (that was the origin of the lake), and to drain all the low lands

round the Park. Let every man who wants work come to me!” And that sad

year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the heavier.

Now, for the fourth time, the squire rose, and thus he spoke,--at his

right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank; at the bottom of the table, as

vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely

seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her

eyes.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE SQUIRE’S SPEECH.

“Friends and neighbours, I thank you kindly for coming round me this

day, and for showing so much interest in me and mine. My cousin was not

born amongst you as I was, but you have known her from a child. It is a

familiar face, and one that never frowned, which you will miss at your

cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it long in the old Hall--”

Here there was a sob from some of the women, and nothing was seen of

Mrs. Dale but the white handkerchief. The squire himself paused, and

brushed away a tear with the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a

sudden change of voice that was electrical,--

“For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost it! Now, friends

and neighbours, a little time ago, it seemed as if some ill-will had

crept into the village,--ill-will between you and me, neighbours!--why,

that is not like Hazeldean!”

The audience hung their heads! You never saw people look so thoroughly

ashamed of themselves. The squire proceeded,--

“I don’t say it was all your fault; perhaps it was mine.”

“Noa, noa, noa,” burst forth in a general chorus.

“Nay, friends,” continued the squire, humbly, and in one of those

illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle than Riccabocca’s, were

more within reach of the popular comprehension,--“nay, we are all human,

and every man has his hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and

sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth, breaks in him.

One man’s hobby has an ill habit of always stopping at the public house!

[Laughter.] Another man’s hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door

where some buxom lass patted its neck the week before,--a hobby I rode

pretty often when I went courting my good wife here! [Much laughter and

applause.] Others have a lazy hobby that there’s no getting on; others,

a runaway hobby that there’s no stopping: but to cut the matter short,

my favourite hobby, as you well know, is always trotted out to any place

on my property which seems to want the eye and hand of the master. I

hate,” cried the squire, warming, “to see things neglected and decayed,

and going to the dogs! This land we live in is a good mother to us, and

we can’t do too much for her. It is very true, neighbours, that I owe

her a good many acres, and ought to speak well of her; but what then? I

live amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one hand, I divide

amongst you with the other. [Low but assenting murmurs.] Now the more I

improve my property, the more mouths it feeds. My great-grandfather kept

a Field-book in which were entered not only the names of all the farmers

and the quantity of land they held, but the average number of the

labourers each employed. My grandfather and father followed his example:

I have done the same. I find, neighbours, that our rents have doubled

since my great-grandfather began to make the book. Ay,--but there are

more than four times the number of labourers employed on the estate, and

at much better wages too! Well, my men, that says a great deal in favour

of improving property, and not letting it go to the dogs. [Applause.]

And therefore, neighbours, you will kindly excuse my bobby: it carries

grist to your mill. [Reiterated applause.] Well, but you will say,

‘What’s the squire driving at?’ Why this, my friends: There was only one

worn-out, dilapidated, tumble-down thing in the parish of Hazeldean, and

it became an eyesore to me; so I saddled my hobby, and rode at it. Oh,

ho! you know what I mean now! Yes, but, neighbours, you need not have

taken it so to heart. That was a scurvy trick of some of you to hang me

in effigy, as they call it.”

“It warn’t you,” cried a voice in the crowd, “it war Nick Stirn.”

The squire recognized the voice of the tinker; but though he now guessed

at the ringleader, on that day of general amnesty he had the prudence

and magnanimity not to say, “Stand forth, Sprott: thou art the man.”

Yet his gallant English spirit would not suffer him to come off at the

expense of his servant.

“If it was Nick Stirn you meant,” said he, gravely, “more shame for you.

It showed some pluck to hang the master; but to hang the poor servant,

who only thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought

upon him, was a shabby trick,--so little like the lads of Hazeldean,

that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the

parish. But let bygones be bygones. One thing is clear,--you don’t take

kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block

and a grievance, and there’s no denying that we went on very pleasantly

without it. I may also say that, in spite of it, we have been coming

together again lately. And I can’t tell you what good it did me to see

your children playing again on the green, and your honest faces, in

spite of the stocks, and those diabolical tracts you’ve been reading

lately, lighted up at the thought that something pleasant was going on

at the Hall. Do you know, neighbours, you put me in mind of an old story

which, besides applying to the parish, all who are married, and all who

intend to marry, will do well to recollect. A worthy couple, named John

and Joan, had lived happily together many a long year, till one unlucky

day they bought a new bolster. Joan said the bolster was too hard, and

John that it was too soft. So, of course, they quarrelled. After sulking

all day, they agreed to put the bolster between them at night.” (Roars

of laughter amongst the men; the women did not know which way to look,

except, indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean, who, though she was more than usually

rosy, maintained her innocent genial smile, as much as to say, “There

is no harm in the squire’s jests.”) The orator resumed, “After they had

thus lain apart for a little time, very silent and sullen, John sneezed.

‘God bless you!’ says Joan, over the bolster. ‘Did you say God bless

me?’ cries John, ‘then here goes the bolster!’”

Prolonged laughter and tumultuous applause.

“Friends and neighbours,” said the squire, when silence was restored,

and lifting the horn of ale, “I have the pleasure to inform you that I

have ordered the stocks to be taken down, and made into a bench for

the chimney-nook of our old friend Gaffer Solomons yonder. But mind me,

lads, if ever you make the parish regret the loss of the stocks, and

the overseers come to me with long faces, and say, ‘The stocks must

be rebuilded,’ why--” Here from all the youth of the village rose so

deprecating a clamour, that the squire would have been the most burgling

orator in the world, if he said a word further on the subject. He

elevated the horn over his head--“Why, that’s my old Hazeldean again!

Health and long life to you all!”

The tinker had sneaked out of the assembly, and did not show his face in

the village for the next six months. And as to those poisonous tracts,

in spite of their salubrious labels, “The Poor Man’s Friend,” or “The

Rights of Labour,” you could no more have found one of them lurking in

the drawers of the kitchen dressers in Hazeldean than you would have

found the deadly nightshade on the flower-stands in the drawing-room of

the Hall. As for the revolutionary beerhouse, there was no need to apply

to the magistrates to shut it up,--it shut itself up before the week was

out.

O young head of the great House of Hapsburg, what a Hazeldean you might

have made of Hungary! What a “Moriamur pro rege nostro!” would have rung

in your infant reign,--if you had made such a speech as the squire’s!

BOOK FOURTH.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

COMPRISING MR. CAXTON’S OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIAL STATE, SUPPORTED BY

LEARNED AUTHORITIES.

“It was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus,” said my father, graciously,

“to depict the heightened affections and the serious intention of Signor

Riccabocca by a single stroke,--He left of his spectacles! Good.”

“Yet,” quoth my uncle, “I think Shakspeare represents a lover as falling

into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, and suffering his hose to

be ungartered, rather than paying that attention to his outer man which

induces Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as

handsome as nature will permit him.”

“There are different degrees and many phases of the passion,” replied

my father. “Shakspeare is speaking of an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone

lover, much aggrieved by the cruelty of his mistress,--a lover who has

found it of no avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen despondently

into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor Riccabocca has nothing to

complain of in the barbarity of Miss Jemima.”

“Indeed he has not!” cried Blanche, tossing her head,--“forward

creature!”

“Yes, my dear,” said my mother, trying her best to look stately, “I am

decidedly of opinion that, in that respect, Pisistratus has lowered the

dignity of the sex. Not intentionally,” added my mother, mildly, and

afraid she had said something too bitter; “but it is very hard for a man

to describe us women.”

The captain nodded approvingly; Mr. Squills smiled; my father quietly

resumed the thread of his discourse.

“To continue,” quoth he. “Riccabocca has no reason to despair of success

in his suit, nor any object in moving his mistress to compassion. He

may, therefore, very properly tie up his garters and leave off his

spectacles. What do you say, Mr. Squills?--for, after all, since

love-making cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the

experience of a medical man must be the best to consult.”

“Mr. Caxton,” replied Squills, obviously flattered, “you are quite

right: when a man makes love, the organs of self-esteem and desire

of applause are greatly stimulated, and therefore, of course, he sets

himself off to the best advantage. It is only, as you observe, when,

like Shakspeare’s lover, he has given up making love as a bad job, and

has received that severe hit on the ganglions which the cruelty of a

mistress inflicts, that he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects

it, not because he is in love, but because his nervous system is

depressed. That was the cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim.

He wore his wig all awry when Susan Smart jilted him; but I set it right

for him.”

“By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him a new

sweetheart?” asked my uncle.

“Pooh!” answered Squills, “by quinine and cold bathing.”

“We may therefore grant,” renewed my father, “that, as a general rule,

the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of

the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily

proved somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion that the

lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person even after

marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun’s ‘History of New Spain,’ the

advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says,

‘That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash

yourself, and let your garments be clean.’ It is true that the good lady

adds, ‘Do it in moderation; since if every day you are washing yourself

and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and

particular people will call you--TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!’ What those words

precisely mean,” added my father, modestly, “I cannot say, since I

never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,--but

something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt.”

“I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca,” said my uncle, “was

not himself very tapetzon tine--what d’ ye call it?--and a good healthy

English wife, that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him.”

“Roland,” said my father, “you don’t like foreigners; a respectable

prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to

hew them in pieces and blow them up into splinters. But you don’t like

philosophers either,--and for that dislike you have no equally good

reason.”

“I only implied that they are not much addicted to soap and water,” said

my uncle.

“A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux.

Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles

when he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first.

Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and

Horace--who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans

produced--takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper

little gentleman he was. But I don’t think you ever read the ‘Apology’

of Apuleius?”

“Not I; what is it about?” asked the captain.

“About a great many things. It is that Sage’s vindication from several

malignant charges,--amongst others, and principally indeed, that of

being much too refined and effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing

can exceed the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for

using--tooth-powder. ‘Ought a philosopher,’ he exclaims, ‘to allow

anything unclean about him, especially in the mouth,--the mouth, which

is the vestibule of the soul, the gate of discourse, the portico of

thought! Ah, but AEmilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens

his mouth but for slander and calumny,--tooth-powder would indeed be

unbecoming to him! Or, if he use any, it will not be my good Arabian

tooth powder, but charcoal and cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul

as his language! And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth

cleaned; insects get into them, and, horrible reptile though he be,

he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who

volunteers his beak for a toothpick.’”

My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared

miles away from Riccabocca and “My Novel.” “And observe,” he

exclaimed,--“observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads

guilty to the charge of having a mirror. ‘Why, what,’ he exclaims, ‘more

worthy of the regards of a human creature than his own image’ nihil

respectabilius homini quam formam suam! Is not that one of our children

the most dear to us who is called ‘the picture of his father’? But take

what pains you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as

the face in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper

attention on one’s self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such

attention to his disciples,--did he not make a great moral agent of

the speculum? The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were

admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and the more the ugly

stared at themselves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the

disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not

Demosthenes always at his speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes

before it as before a master in the art? He learned his eloquence from

Plato, his dialectics from Eubulides; but as for his delivery--there, he

came to the mirror!

“Therefore,” concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the

subject,--“therefore, it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca

is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person because he is a

philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a

philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best.”

“Well,” said my mother, kindly, “I only hope it may turn out happily.

But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr.

Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer.”

“Very true,” said the captain; “the Italian does not shine as a lover.

Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,--something gallant and

chivalrous.”

“Fire! gallantry! chivalry!” cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca

under his special protection; “why, don’t you see that the man

is described as a philosopher?--and I should like to know when a

philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings

and cold shivers! Indeed, it seems that--perhaps before he was a

philosopher--Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it

was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus

Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor,

thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate

matrimony: ‘If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all

dispense with that subject of care _ea molestia careremus;_ but since

nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women comfortably, nor

without them at all, let us rather provide for the human race than our

own temporary felicity.’”

Here the ladies set up such a cry of indignation, that both Roland and

myself endeavoured to appease their wrath by hasty assurances that we

utterly repudiated the damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus.

My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence was established,

recommenced. “Do not think, ladies,” said he, “that you were without

advocates at that day: there were many Romans gallant enough to blame

the censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held to be

equally impolite and injudicious. ‘Surely,’ said they, with some

plausibility, if Numidicus wished men to marry, he need not have

referred so peremptorily to the disquietudes of the connection, and thus

have made them more inclined to turn away from matrimony than give them

a relish for it.’ But against these critics one honest man (whose name

of Titus Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained

that Metellus Numidicus could not have spoken more properly; ‘For

remark,’ said he, ‘that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It

becomes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise and make the best of things;

but Metellus, sanctus vir,--a holy and blameless man, grave and sincere

to wit, and addressing the Roman people in the solemn capacity of

Censor,--was bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he was

treating of a subject on which the observation of every day, and the

experience of every life, could not leave the least doubt upon the mind

of his audience.’ Still, Riccabocca, having decided to marry, has no

doubt prepared himself to bear all the concomitant evils--as becomes a

professed sage; and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has

drawn the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher--”

Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two

very peevish and discontented faces feminine.

MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).--“Not only as regards mildness

of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the

very person of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember,

Pisistratus, the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage:

[Long sentence in Greek]”

Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and

nods acquiescingly.

MR. CAXTON.--“That is, my dears, ‘The woman you would marry is either

handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,--namely, you don’t have

her to yourself; if ugly, she is poine,--that is, a fury.’ But, as it

is observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a

wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy

of ‘Menalippus,’ uses an admirable expression to designate women of the

proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would

select. He calls this degree stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of

beauty, which is not liable to be either koine or poine. And Favorinus,

who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence--the male

inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their

knowledge of love and ladies--calls this said stata forma the beauty of

wives,--the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a stata forma are

almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is described as

possessing this stata forma; and it is the nicety of your observation in

this respect, which I like the most in the whole of your description of

a philosopher’s matrimonial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the

stroke of the spectacles), for it shows that you had properly considered

the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter logic suggested in

Book v., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius.”

“For all that,” said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile

in the eye and a pout of the lip, “I don’t remember that Pisistratus, in

the days when he wished to be most complimentary, ever assured me that I

had a stata forma,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty.”

“And I think,” observed my uncle, “that when he comes to his real

heroine, whoever she may be, he will not trouble his head much about

either Bias or Aulus Gellius.”

CHAPTER II.

Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to

find a notable alteration in one’s friend, even if he or she have been

only wedded a week. In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the

change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in

chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy

which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay,

and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not

scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion

that the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the

meanwhile, she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had

abandoned serves to inculcate,--“She set her house in order.” The cold

and penurious elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared

like enchantment,--that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and

penury fled before the smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after

the nuptials of his master, Jackeymo only now caught minnows and

sticklebacks for his own amusement. Jackeymo looked much plumper, and

so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair Jemima became an excellent wife.

Riccabocca secretly thought her extravagant, but, like a wise man,

declined to look at the house bills, and ate his joint in unreproachful

silence.

Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs.

Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially

the heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable

anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily

boast of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it

insultingly under the nimis unctis naribus,--the turned-up noses of

your surly old married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on

the envious eyes of the single, you might still see that he was a more

cheerful and light-hearted man than before. His smile was less

ironical, his politeness less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so

intensely,--and he did not return to the spectacles; which last was an

excellent sign. Moreover, the humanizing influence of the tidy English

wife might be seen in the improvement of his outward or artificial man.

His clothes seemed to fit him better; indeed, the clothes were new. Mrs.

Dale no longer remarked that the buttons were off the wristbands, which

was a great satisfaction to her. But the sage still remained faithful to

the pipe, the cloak, and the red silk umbrella. Mrs. Riccabocca had (to

her credit be it spoken) used all becoming and wife-like arts against

these three remnants of the old bachelor, Adam, but in vain. “Anima

mia,” [Soul of mine]--said the doctor, tenderly, “I hold the cloak, the

umbrella, and the pipe as the sole relics that remain to me of my native

country. Respect and spare them.”

Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense to perceive that

man, let him be ever so much married, retains certain signs of his

ancient independence,--certain tokens of his old identity, which a wife,

the most despotic, will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak,

she submitted to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of the pipe.

After all, considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to

herself that she might have been worse off. But through all the calm

and cheerfulness of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently

perceptible; it commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on

increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his

terrace, gazing down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, lo, a

stage-coach stopped! The doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his

heart as if he had been shot; he then leaped over the balustrade, and

his wife from her window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long

hair streaming in the wind, till the trees hid him from her sight.

“Ah,” thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal jealousy, “henceforth

I am only second in his home. He has gone to welcome his child!” And at

that reflection Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears.

But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion,

and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother’s grief. When

this was done, and a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the

good woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her best

smiles, emerged on the terrace.

She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two

little arms were thrown around her, and the sweetest voice that ever

came from a child’s lips sighed out in broken English, “Good mamma, love

me a little.”

“Love you? with my whole heart!” cried the stepmother, with all a

mother’s honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast.

“God bless you, my wife!” said Riccabocca, in a husky tone.

“Please take this too,” added Jackeymo, in Italian, as well as his sobs

would let him, and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his

favourite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress’s hand. She had

not the slightest notion what he meant by it!

CHAPTER III.

Violante was indeed a bewitching child,--a child to whom I defy Mrs.

Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!) to have been a harsh stepmother.

Look at her now, as released from those kindly arms, she stands, still

clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to

Riccabocca, with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a

lovely smile! what an ingenuous, candid brow! She looks delicate, she

evidently requires care, she wants the mother. And rare is the woman

who would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent,

infantine bloom in those clear, smooth cheeks! and in that slight frame,

what exquisite natural grace!

“And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling?” said Mrs. Riccabocca,

observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely,

without cap or bonnet, but a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a

filigree chain or necklace resting upon her kerchief.

“Ah, good Annetta,” said Violante, in Italian. “Papa, she says she is to

go back; but she is not to go back, is she?”

Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, started at that

question, exchanged a rapid glance with Jackeymo, and then, muttering

some inaudible excuse, approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to

follow him, went away into the grounds. He did not return for more than

an hour, nor did the woman then accompany him home. He said briefly to

his wife that the nurse was obliged to return at once to Italy, and that

she would stay in the village to catch the mail; that indeed she would

be of no use in their establishment, as she could not speak a word

of English; that he was sadly afraid Violante would pine for her. And

Violante did pine at first. But still, to a child it is so great a thing

to find a parent, to be at home, that, tender and grateful as Violante

was, she could not be inconsolable while her father was there to

comfort.

For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted any one to be with

his daughter but himself. He would not even leave her alone with

his Jemima. They walked out together,--sat together for hours in the

belvidere. Then by degrees he began to resign her more and more to

Jemima’s care and tuition, especially in English, of which language at

present she spoke only a few sentences (previously, perhaps, learned by

heart) so as to be clearly intelligible.

CHAPTER IV.

There was one person in the establishment of Dr. Riccabocca who was

satisfied neither with the marriage of his master nor the arrival of

Violante,--and that was our friend Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the

all-absorbing duties of courtship, the young peasant had secured a very

large share of Riccabocca’s attention. The sage had felt interest in the

growth of this rude intelligence struggling up to light. But what with

the wooing and what with the wedding, Lenny Fairfield had sunk very

much out of his artificial position as pupil into his natural station

of under-gardener. And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural

bitterness, that he was clean forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, but

almost by Jackeymo. It was true that the master still lent him books,

and the servant still gave him lectures on horticulture. But Riccabocca

had no time nor inclination now to amuse himself with enlightening that

tumult of conjecture which the books created. And if Jackeymo had been

covetous of those mines of gold buried beneath the acres now fairly

taken from the squire (and good-naturedly added rent-free, as an aid to

Jemima’s dower), before the advent of the young lady whose future dowry

the produce was to swell, now that she was actually under the eyes of

the faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his industry that he

could think of nothing else but the land, and the revolution he designed

to effect in its natural English crops. The garden, save only the

orangetrees, was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional labourers

were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part

of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He

had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax;

but against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately.

That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was

formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since

you will find few old leases do not contain a clause prohibitory of

flax as an impoverishment of the land. And though Jackeymo learnedly

endeavoured to prove to the squire that the flax itself contained

particles which, if returned to the soil, repaid all that the crop took

away, Mr. Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter,

which were insuperable. “My forefathers,” quoth he, “did not put that

clause in their leases without good cause; and as the Casino lands are

entailed on Frank, I have no right to gratify your foreign whims at his

expense.”

To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved to convert a very

nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, which he calculated would bring

in L10 net per acre by the time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this

the squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear that the land

would be all the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he

consented to permit the “grass-land” to be thus partially broken up.

All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much to himself,--at

a time when the new and strange devices which the initiation into

book knowledge creates made it most desirable that he should have the

constant guidance of a superior mind.

One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to his mother’s

cottage, very sullen and very moody, he suddenly came in contact with

Sprott the tinker.

CHAPTER V.

The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle,

with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by,

indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed, nodded

kindly, and said,--

“Good evenin’, Lenny: glad to hear you be so ‘spectably sitivated with

Mounseer.”

“Ay,” answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancour in his recollections,

“you’re not ashamed to speak to me now that I am not in disgrace. But

it was in disgrace, when it wasn’t my fault, that the real gentleman was

most kind to me.”

“Ar-r, Lenny,” said the tinker, with a prolonged rattle in that said

Ar-r, which was not without great significance. “But you sees the real

gentleman, who han’t got his bread to get, can hafford to ‘spise his

c’racter in the world. A poor tinker must be timbersome and nice in his

‘sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny; I’ve summat to say to ye!”

“To me?”

“To ye. Give the neddy a shove out i’ the vay, and sit down, I say.”

Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, accepted this

invitation.

“I hears,” said the tinker, in a voice made rather indistinct by a

couple of nails, which he had inserted between his teeth,--“I hears as

how you be unkimmon fond of reading. I ha’ sum nice cheap books in my

bag yonder,--sum as low as a penny.”

“I should like to see them,” said Lenny, his eyes sparkling.

The tinker rose, opened one of the panniers on the ass’s back, took out

a bag, which he placed before Lenny, and told him to suit himself. The

young peasant desired no better. He spread all the contents of the

bag on the sward, and a motley collection of food for the mind was

there,--food and poison, serpentes avibus good and evil. Here Milton’s

Paradise Lost, there “The Age of Reason;” here Methodist Tracts, there

“True Principles of Socialism,”--Treatises on Useful Knowledge by sound

learning actuated by pure benevolence, Appeals to Operatives by the

shallowest reasoners, instigated by the same ambition that had moved

Eratosthenes to the conflagration of a temple; works of fiction

admirable as “Robinson Crusoe,” or innocent as “The Old English Baron,”

beside coarse translations of such garbage as had rotted away the youth

of France under Louis Quinze. This miscellany was an epitome, in short,

of the mixed World of Books, of that vast city of the Press, with its

palaces and hovels, its aqueducts and sewers, which opens all alike

to the naked eye and the curious mind of him to whom you say, in the

tinker’s careless phrase, “Suit yourself.”

But it is not the first impulse of a nature healthful and still pure

to settle in the hovel and lose itself amidst the sewers; and Lenny

Fairfield turned innocently over the bad books, and selecting two or

three of the best, brought them to the tinker, and asked the price.

“Why,” said Mr. Sprott, putting on his spectacles, “you has taken the

werry dearest: them ‘ere be much cheaper, and more hinterestin’.”

“But I don’t fancy them,” answered Lenny; “I don’t understand what they

are about, and this seems to tell one how the steam-engine is made, and

has nice plates; and this is ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ which Parson Dale once

said he would give me--I’d rather buy it out of my own money.”

“Well, please yourself,” quoth the tinker; “you shall have the books for

four bob, and you can pay me next month.”

“Four bobs, four shillings? it is a great sum,” said Lenny; “but I will

lay by, as you are kind enough to trust me: good-evening, Mr. Sprott.”

“Stay a bit,” said the tinker; “I’ll just throw you these two little

tracts into the bargain; they be only a shilling a dozen, so ‘t is

but tuppence,--and ven you has read those, vy, you’ll be a regular

customer.”

The tinker tossed to Lenny Nos. 1 and 2 of “Appeals to Operatives,” and

the peasant took them up gratefully.

The young knowledge-seeker went his way across the green fields, and

under the still autumn foliage of the hedgerows. He looked first at one

book, then at another; he did not know on which to settle.

The tinker rose, and made a fire with leaves and furze and sticks, some

dry and some green.

Lenny has now opened No. 1 of the tracts: they are the shortest to read,

and don’t require so much effort of the mind as the explanation of the

steam-engine.

The tinker has set on his grimy glue-pot, and the glue simmers.

CHAPTER VI.

As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around

her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain

stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently

natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of

a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among

children of the loftiest pretensions. It was with the air of a little

princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or

submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was

so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating,

that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs. And, indeed, she

deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale

could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism,--and that is a pride

by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought for others: you

could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism, abnegation

of self; and though she was an original child, and often grave and

musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her character,

still she was not above the happy genial merriment of childhood,--only

her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures more composed, than

those of children habituated to many play-fellows usually are. Mrs.

Hazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said “she would become

a very sensible woman.” Mrs. Dale liked her best when she was gay, and

said “she was born to make many a heart ache;” for which Mrs. Dale was

properly reproved by the parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave her a little set of

garden tools; Mrs. Dale a picture-book and a beautiful doll. For a long

time the book and the doll had the preference. But Mrs. Hazeldean having

observed to Riccabocca that the poor child looked pale, and ought to be

a good deal in the open air, the wise father ingeniously pretended

to Violante that Mrs. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the

picture-book, and that he should be very glad to have the doll, upon

which Violante hastened to give them both away, and was never so

happy as when Mamma (as she called Mrs. Riccabocca) was admiring the

picture-book, and Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll.

Then Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in

the garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her spade, hoe, and

wheelbarrow.

This last occupation brought her into immediate contact with Mr. Leonard

Fairfield; and that personage one morning, to his great horror, found

Miss Violante had nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had

ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds.

Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe, and said angrily,

“You must not do that, Miss. I’ll tell your papa if you--”

Violante drew herself up, and never having been so spoken to before,

at least since her arrival in England, there was something comic in the

surprise of her large eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity

of her offended mien. “It is very naughty of you, Miss,” continued

Leonard, in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes and awed

by the mien, “and I trust you will not do it again.”

“Non capisco,” murmured Violante, and the dark eyes filled with tears.

At that moment up came Jackeymo: and Violante, pointing to Leonard,

said, with an effort not to betray her emotion, “Il fanciullo e molto

grossolano.”--[“He is a very rude boy.”]

Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger. “How you

dare, scum of de earth that you are,” cried he, “how you dare make cry

the signorina?” And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives

sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of Italian

abuse, that the boy turned red and white, in a breath, with rage and

perplexity.

Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and with

true feminine caprice now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger, and,

finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a

kindness at once childlike and queenly, and in the prettiest imaginable

mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I cannot pretend

to do justice, and shall therefore translate: “Don’t mind him. I dare

say it was all my fault, only I did not understand you: are not these

things weeds?”

“No, my darling signorina,” said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully

at the celery-bed, “they are not weeds, and they sell very well at this

time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should

like to see who’s to prevent it.”

Lenny walked away. He had been called “the scum of the earth,”--by a

foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he conceived

his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor,

and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for

he had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which

the tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry

disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant’s hand,

the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half

ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.

Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away, and sat down at a

distance: “I don’t see,” thought he, “why there should be rich and poor,

master and servant.” Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson’s

Political Sermon.

An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work.