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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/7702.txt b/7702.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49bd193 --- /dev/null +++ b/7702.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3415 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook My Novel, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Vol. 1 +#129 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: My Novel, Volume 1. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7702] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on April 29, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NOVEL, BY LYTTON, V1 *** + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + +"MY NOVEL." + +BOOK FIRST. + +INITIAL CHAPTER. + +SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN. + +Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND'S tower; time, niyht; 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 be 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, thof 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 be 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. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY NOVEL, BY LYTTON, V1 *** + +****** This file should be named 7702.txt or 7702.zip ****** + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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