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.