The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBlackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBlackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851Author: VariousRelease date: August 24, 2014 [eBook #46666]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Brendan OConnor, JonathanIngram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Library of EarlyJournals.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 69, NO. 424, FEBRUARY 1851 ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851Author: VariousRelease date: August 24, 2014 [eBook #46666]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Brendan OConnor, JonathanIngram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Library of EarlyJournals.)

Title: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 424, February 1851

Author: Various

Release date: August 24, 2014 [eBook #46666]Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Richard Tonsing, Brendan OConnor, JonathanIngram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from imagesgenerously made available by The Internet Library of EarlyJournals.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE, VOLUME 69, NO. 424, FEBRUARY 1851 ***

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

BLACKWOOD'SEDINBURGH MAGAZINE.No. CCCCXXIV.FEBRUARY, 1851.Vol. LXIX.CONTENTS.Latimer and Ridley,131My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life. Part VI.,137Additional Chapters from the History of John Bull,164Harry Bolton's Curacy,180The Dangers of the Country,196Curran and his Contemporaries,222Lord Holland's Foreign Reminiscences,234Popery in the Nineteenth Century,246EDINBURGH:WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.

To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed.

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCCCXXIV.FEBRUARY, 1851.Vol. LXIX.

[The fires of Smithfield and the massacre of Bartholomew are truly events of little consequence in history, if they fail to convince us of the aggressive and unscrupulous policy of the Roman Catholic Church. The claim of the Pope, which never has undergone or can undergo any modification whatever, is nothing less than one of universal supremacy. That claim is asserted now as broadly and boldly as it was three hundred years ago; when, at the accession of Mary, Cardinal Pole was sent over as legate to England, for the reduction of that realm to the obedience of the See of Rome, and for the extirpation of heresy.

It matters not what may have been the private character of the Cardinal. He has been represented as a man of mild nature, humane disposition, and averse to the infamous cruelties which were then perpetrated, the odium of which has been commonly thrown upon Bishops Gardiner and Bonner. This much at least is plain, that, whatever may have been his opinion as to the methods which were employed for the suppression of Protestantism, he did not deem it expedient to exercise his great power in mitigating the fury or tempering the cruelty of the persecution. He was a passive witness of the enormities, and allowed the mandates of the Church to supersede the dictates of humanity and the merciful teaching of the Saviour.

The records of the reign of Mary ought, especially at the present time, to be studied by those who, in their zeal for toleration, forget that they have to contend with most bitter and uncompromising enemies. Not only the sufferings and fortitude of the martyrs, (among whom were numbered five bishops, and twenty-one clergymen of the Reformed faith of England,) but the charges on which they were condemned, and the noble testimony which they bore, will be found detailed in John Foxe'sActs and Monuments. Next to that of Archbishop Cranmer, the names of Latimer and Ridley can never be forgotten in this land, so long as the voice of Protestantism is heard against Papal superstition and supremacy. Political and ecclesiastical dominion are things inseparable from each other in the eye of Rome; and wherever she has succeeded in planting her foot, she has attempted to enforce spiritual submission, and to extinguish liberty of conscience, by the power of the secular arm. The following extract, from the work already referred to, narrates the close of the terrible tragedy which consigned two English prelates to the flames at Oxford:—

"Then they brought a faggot, kindled with fire, and laid the same down at Dr Ridley's feet. To whom master Latimer spake in this manner: 'Be of good comfort, master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.'"And so the fire being given unto them, when Dr Ridley saw the fire flaming up towards him, he cried with a wonderful loud voice, 'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum: Domine, recipe spiritum meum.' And after, repeated this latter part often in English, 'Lord, Lord, receive my spirit;" master Latimer crying as vehemently on the other side, 'O Father of heaven, receive my soul!' who received the flame as it were embracing of it. After that he had stroked his face with his hands, and as it were bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died (as it appeareth) with very little pain or none. And thus much concerning the end of this old and blessed servant of God, master Latimer, for whose laborious travails, fruitful life, and constant death, the whole realm hath cause to give great thanks to Almighty God."But master Ridley, by reason of the evil making of the fire unto him, because the wooden faggots were laid about the gorse, and over-high built, the fire burned first beneath, being kept down by the wood; which when he felt, he desired them for Christ's sake to let the fire come unto him. Which when his brother-in-law heard, but not well understood, intending to rid him out of his pain (for the which cause he gave attendance,) as one in such sorrow not well advised what he did, heaped faggots upon him, so that he clean covered him, which made the fire more vehement beneath, that it burned clean all his nether parts, before it once touched the upper; and that made him leap up and down under the faggots, and often desire them to let the fire come unto him, saying, 'I cannot burn.' Which indeed appeared well; for, after his legs were consumed by reason of his struggling through the pain (whereof he had no release, but only his contentation in God,) he showed that side toward us clean, shirt and all untouched with flame. Yet in all this torment he forgot not to call unto God still, having in his mouth, 'Lord, have mercy upon me!' intermingling his cry, 'Let the fire come unto me: I cannot burn.' In which pangs he laboured till one of the standers-by with his bill pulled off the faggots above, and where he saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself unto that side. And when the flame touched the gunpowder, he was seen to stir no more, but burned on the other side, falling down at master Latimer's feet; which, some said, happened by reason that the chain loosed; others said, that he fell over the chain by reason of the poise of his body, and the weakness of the nether limbs."Some said, that before he was like to fall from the stake, he desired them to hold him to it with their bills. However it was, surely it moved hundreds to tears, in beholding the horrible sight; for I think there was none that had not clean exiled all humanity and mercy, which would not have lamented to behold the fury of the fire so to rage upon their bodies."]

"And so the fire being given unto them, when Dr Ridley saw the fire flaming up towards him, he cried with a wonderful loud voice, 'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum: Domine, recipe spiritum meum.' And after, repeated this latter part often in English, 'Lord, Lord, receive my spirit;" master Latimer crying as vehemently on the other side, 'O Father of heaven, receive my soul!' who received the flame as it were embracing of it. After that he had stroked his face with his hands, and as it were bathed them a little in the fire, he soon died (as it appeareth) with very little pain or none. And thus much concerning the end of this old and blessed servant of God, master Latimer, for whose laborious travails, fruitful life, and constant death, the whole realm hath cause to give great thanks to Almighty God.

"But master Ridley, by reason of the evil making of the fire unto him, because the wooden faggots were laid about the gorse, and over-high built, the fire burned first beneath, being kept down by the wood; which when he felt, he desired them for Christ's sake to let the fire come unto him. Which when his brother-in-law heard, but not well understood, intending to rid him out of his pain (for the which cause he gave attendance,) as one in such sorrow not well advised what he did, heaped faggots upon him, so that he clean covered him, which made the fire more vehement beneath, that it burned clean all his nether parts, before it once touched the upper; and that made him leap up and down under the faggots, and often desire them to let the fire come unto him, saying, 'I cannot burn.' Which indeed appeared well; for, after his legs were consumed by reason of his struggling through the pain (whereof he had no release, but only his contentation in God,) he showed that side toward us clean, shirt and all untouched with flame. Yet in all this torment he forgot not to call unto God still, having in his mouth, 'Lord, have mercy upon me!' intermingling his cry, 'Let the fire come unto me: I cannot burn.' In which pangs he laboured till one of the standers-by with his bill pulled off the faggots above, and where he saw the fire flame up, he wrested himself unto that side. And when the flame touched the gunpowder, he was seen to stir no more, but burned on the other side, falling down at master Latimer's feet; which, some said, happened by reason that the chain loosed; others said, that he fell over the chain by reason of the poise of his body, and the weakness of the nether limbs.

"Some said, that before he was like to fall from the stake, he desired them to hold him to it with their bills. However it was, surely it moved hundreds to tears, in beholding the horrible sight; for I think there was none that had not clean exiled all humanity and mercy, which would not have lamented to behold the fury of the fire so to rage upon their bodies."]

'Tis good to sing of champions oldThe honour and renown;To tell how truth and loyaltyHave saved an earthly crown.But shame to us, if on the dayWhen higher themes are given—When man's device and man's decreeUsurp the word of Heaven—We dare forget the nobler namesOf those who vanquished death,To keep unstained, from sire to son,Our freedom and our faith!

II.

We bend the knee and bow the headUpon the Christmas morn,In token that, for sinful men,The Saviour, Christ, was born.Nor less, unto the faithful heart,That time must hallowed be,On which our Lord and Master diedIn anguish on the tree;And Easter brings its holy hymn,Its triumph o'er the grave,When He, the dead, arose in might,Omnipotent to save.

III.

We worship as our fathers did,In this our English home,Not asking grace from mortal manNor craving leave from Rome.Once more the warning note is heard,The hour of strife is near—What seeks he, with his mitred pomp,That rank Italian, here?What sought they in the former days,When last that mission came?The will, the craft, the creed of RomeRemain for aye the same!

IV.

Woe, woe to those who dared to dreamThat England might be free;That Papal power and Papal ruleWere banished o'er the sea;That he who sate in Peter's chair,Had lost the will to harm,Was powerless as a withered croneWho works by spell and charm!Woe, woe to those who dared denyThe Roman Pontiff's sway!His red right arm is bared in wrath,To smite, and burn, and slay!

Light up, light up the ready fires!Sound trumpet, fife, and drum;Give welcome meet to him who bringsThe sovereign hests of Rome.No humble barefoot messenger—No sandalled monk is he;A stately priest—a Cardinal—Proclaims the Pope's decree.And see! upon her royal kneesThe Queen of England falls,In homage to a mightier Prince,Within her fathers' halls!

VI.

'Tis done. Fair England! bow thy head,And mourn thy grievous sin!What though the Universal ChurchWill gladly let thee in?The stain is still upon thy brow,The guilt is on thy hand;For thou hast dared to worship God,Against the Pope's command.And thou hast scoffed at saint and shrine,Denied the Queen of heaven,And opened up with impious handsThe Holy Book unshriven.

VII.

For this, and for thy stubborn willIn daring to be free,A fearful penance must be doneEre guilt shall pass from thee.The prophets of the new-born faith,The leaders of the blind—Arise, and take them in the midst—Leave not a man behind!In London's streets and Oxford's courtsA solemn fast proclaim,And let the sins of England's ChurchBe purged away by flame!

VIII.

In order long, the monkish throngWind through the Oxford street,With up-drawn cowls, and folded hands,And slow and noiseless feet.Before their train the CrucifixIs borne in state on high,And banners with the Agnus wave,And crosiers glitter by:With spangled image, star-becrowned,And gilded pyx they come,To lay once more on English necksThe hateful yoke of Rome.

IX.

The mail-clad vassels of the ChurchWith men-at-arms are there,And England's banner overheadFloats proudly in the air.And England's bishops walk beneath—Ah me! that sight of woe!An old, old man, with tottering limbsAnd hair as white as snow.Another, yet in manhood's prime,The blameless and the brave—And must they pass, O cruel Rome,To yonder hideous grave?

"Ay—for the Church reclaims her own;To her all power is given—The faggot and the sword on earth—The keys of hell and heaven.To sweep the heretics away,'Tis thus the Church commands—What means that wailing in the crowd?Why wring they so their hands?Why do the idle women shriek—The men, why frown they so?Lift up the Host, and let them kneel,As onwards still we go."

XI.

The Host was raised—they knelt not yet—Nor English knee was bowed,Till Latimer and Ridley came,Each in his penance shroud.Then bent the throng on either side,Then knelt both sire and dame,And thousand voices, choked with sobs,Invoked the martyr's name.No chaunted hymn could drown the cry,No tramp, nor clash of steel—O England! in that piteous hour,Was this thy sole appeal?

XII.

What more? That cry arose on high;'Twas heard, where all is calm,By Him who, for the martyr's pang,Vouchsafes the martyr's palm;By Him who needs no human armTo work his righteous will:—"TheLordis in his holy place,Let all the earth be still."They said it—they who gave the doom,In that most awful name—And if they spoke in blasphemy,So shall they die in shame!

XIII.

To death—to death! The stake is near,The faggots piled around;The men-at-arms have made their ring,The spearmen take their ground;The torches, reeking in the sun,Send up their heavy fume;And by the pile the torturerIs waiting for the doom.With earnest eye and steadfast step,Approach the martyr twain—"Our cross!" they said—then kissed the stake,And bowed them to the chain.

XIV.

Short be the pang!—Not yet, not yet!The Tempter lingers near—Rome parts not with her victims so;A Priest is at their ear."Life—life, and pardon! say the word,Why still so stubborn be?Do homage to our Lord the Pope—One word, and you are free!O brothers! yield ye even now—Speak but a single name—Salvation lies not but with Rome;Why die in raging flame?"

XV.

Then out spoke aged Latimer:—"I tarry by the stake,Not trusting to my own weak heart,But for the Saviour's sake.Why speak of life or death to me,Whose days are but a span?Our crown is yonder—Ridley—see!Be strong, and play the man.God helping, such a torch this dayWe'll light on English land,That Rome and all her CardinalsShall never quench the brand!"

XVI.

They died. O ask not how they died!May never witness tell,That once again on English groundWas wrought that deed of hell!The Consul, mad for Christian blood,Even in his deadliest rage,Was human when he opened upThe famished lion's cage—More human far than they of Rome,Who claimed the Christian name,When those, the ministers of Christ,Were writhing in the flame!

XVII.

Harlot of Rome! and dost thou comeWith bland demeanour now?The bridal-smile upon thy lips,The flush upon thy brow—The cup of sorcery in thy hand,Still in the same array,As when our fathers in their wrathDashed it and thee away?No! by the ashes of the saints,Who died beneath thy hand,Thou shalt not dare to claim as thineOne foot of English land!

XVIII.

The echo of thy tread shall makeThe light still higher burn—A blaze shall rise from Cranmer's graveAnd martyred Ridley's urn!A blaze which they who own thy powerShall stand aghast to see,A blaze that in your infamyShall show both them and thee!Yes! send thy Cardinals again—Once more array thy powers—Their watchword is, The Pope of Rome—The Word of God, be ours!

W. I.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

Whatever may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs upon Dr Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's, charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was bid, he owed an agonising defeat and a shameful incarceration. And, to Mrs Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his lessons at school—nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though sullenly; and the Parson thought it better to temporise as to the more unpalatable demand. Unluckily Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realised. Though Stirn at first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then Stirn told his story, as the Tinker had told his own; both tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out the misdemeanours of his equals: therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded pattern boy and baffled spy, could expect no mercy;—he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and under the eye of Mr Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began.

Some pointed and mowed at him; some cursed him for a sneak, and all shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed through the village at dusk, "Who was put in the stocks?—baa!" "Who got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?—baa!" To resist this species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head and a colder temper than our poor pattern boy's. He took his resolution at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after Dr Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he to the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his red silk umbrella over his head; "Please, sir, if you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I'll work for your honour night and day; and as for the wages, mother says 'just suit yourself, sir.'"

"My child," said the Doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them by-and-by."

Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the vacant chair, where he had so long sate in the place of her beloved Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to itself, that she could bear it no longer.

Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny—perhaps more so; and one morning she hailed the Steward as he was trotting his hog-maned cob beside the door,and bade him tell the Squire that "she would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice for the land and premises she held—there were plenty to step into the place at a much better rent."

"You're a fool," said the good-natured Steward; "and I'm very glad you did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing."

"Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feeling," said the widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I should like to go and live near him."

"Ah yes—I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino—more fool he; but, bless your heart, 'tis no distance—two miles or so. Can't he come home every night after work?"

"No, sir," exclaimed the widow almost fiercely; "he shan't come home here, to be called bad names and jeered at!—he whom my dead goodman was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as I said to Mrs Dale, and as I will say to the Squire hisself. Not that I don't thank him for all favours—he be a good gentleman if let alone; but he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin. Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha' seen his nose, sir—as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! If the Squire had had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been ha' axing. But I let's the passion get the better of me—I humbly beg you'll excuse it, sir. I'm no scollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the Squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o' hay and what's on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no doubt settle that."

The Steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the Squire. Mr Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate refusal to make theamende honorableto Randal Leslie at first only bestowed a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere andbrusqueenough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more successful than the Steward had been. The truth is, that I don't believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors, (though, thank Heaven!thathe rarely meets, with unjustly;) but to be looked down upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equals—his own little world—cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this pride, and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and you have chucked him half way—a stolid, inert, sullen victim—to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship.

Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff plain-spoken one—and, after all, she had some little feeling for the son of a gentleman, and a decayed fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor could she, with her strong common sense, attach all the importance which Mrs Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs, which, she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs Hazeldean departed—with much chagrin and some displeasure.

Mrs Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked—the key left at a neighbour's to be given to the Steward; and, on farther inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been removed by the errand-cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded in finding a cottage, on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast, and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture.

"Parson!" cried the Squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was walking arm in arm with Mr Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in the Alms-house, "this is all your fault. Why did not you go and talk to that brute of a boy, and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang."

"As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the Parson in a tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain! O Squire, if you had taken my advice about the Stocks—quieta non movere!"

"Bother!" said the Squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed!—your friend Rickeybockey said he was never more comfortable in his life—quite enjoyed sitting there. And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master Leonard Fairfield. But 'tis no use talking! What's to be done now? The woman must not starve; and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's wages to Lenny—(by the way, I hope he don't board him upon his and Jackeymo's leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks—faugh!) I'll tell you what, Parson, now I think of it—at the back of the cottage which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just vacant. Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me as to the rent when he was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he must give up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to the widow—just enough for her to manage—and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name—only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent—we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the Squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, and so—I wish you would not stand there staring me out of countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn will have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. And hark-ye, Dale, perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is so cursedly stiff-backed, not to say the land is mine, or that it is any favour I want to do her—or, in short, manage it as you can for the best." Still even this charitable message failed. The widow knew that the land was the Squire's, and worth a good £3 an acre. 'She thanked him humbly for that and all favours; but she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully in the garden way—and she did not doubt she could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she should do nicely, thank their honours.'

Nothing farther could be done in the direct way, but the remark about the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow. And a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate neighbourhood happening to die, a hint from the Squire obtained from the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. Andwhat with Lenny's wages, (whatever that mysterious item might be,) the mother and son contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded to the student in animal anatomy.

Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, wherein so mainly consists the civilisation of our modern world, there is not one which is so carefully weighed—so accurately measured—so plumbed and gauged—so doled and scraped—so poured out inminimaand balanced with scruples—as that necessary of social commerce called "an apology!" If the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, alas, in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for which you want it? Make your will—you are a dead man! A life do I say?—a hecatomb of lives! How many wars would have been prevented, how many thrones would be standing, dynasties flourishing—commonwealths brawling round abema, or fitting out galleys for corn and cotton—if an inch or two more of apology had been added to the proffered ell! But then that plaguy, jealous, suspicious, old vinegar-faced Honour, and her partner Pride—as penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint as herself—have the monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum—considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish—and, finally, the hullabaloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets for his money,—I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses temper and patience, and sends Pride, Honour, and Apology, all to the devil. Aristophanes, in his "Comedy ofPeace," insinuates a beautiful allegory by only suffering that goddess, though in fact she is his heroine, to appear as a mute. She takes care never to open her lips. The shrewd Greek knew very well that she would cease to be Peace, if she once began to chatter. Wherefore, O reader, if ever you find your pump under the iron heel of another man's boot, heaven grant that you may hold your tongue, and not make things past all endurance and forgiveness by bawling out for an apology!

But the Squire and his son, Frank, were large-hearted generous creatures in the article of apology, as in all things less skimpingly dealt out. And seeing that Leonard Fairfield would offer no plaister to Randal Leslie, they made amends for his stinginess by their own prodigality. The Squire accompanied his son to Rood Hall, and none of the family choosing to be at home, the Squire in his own hand, and from his own head, indited and composed an epistle which might have satisfied all the wounds which the dignity of the Leslies had ever received.

This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that Randal would come and spend a few days with his son. Frank's epistle was to the same purport, only more Etonian and less legible.

It was some days before Randal's replies to these epistles were received. The replies bore the address of a village near London, and stated that the writer was now reading with a tutor preparatory to entrance at Oxford, and could not, therefore, accept the invitation extended to him.

For the rest, Randal expressedhimself with good sense, though not with much generosity. He excused his participation in the vulgarity of such a conflict by a bitter but short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance of the village boor; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly would have done under similar circumstances—viz. intercede in behalf of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. Most of us like a foe better after we have fought him—that is, if we are the conquering party; this was not the case with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the Etonian was concerned, the matter rested. And the Squire, irritated that he could not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had sustained, no longer felt a pang of regret as he passed by Mrs Fairfield's deserted cottage.

Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with which he was treated. Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English village boy. On farther acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that required but development and direction. He ascertained that the pattern boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius which converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with the germs of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult to separate, and hard to destroy, often mar the produce of the soil. With a remarkable and generous pride in self-repute, there was some stubbornness; with great sensibility to kindness, there was also strong reluctance to forgive affront.

This mixed nature in an uncultivated peasant's breast interested Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the commerce of mankind, still looked upon man as the most various and entertaining volume which philosophical research can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive; and Lenny's language and ideas became insensibly less rustic and more refined. Then Riccabocca selected from his library, small as it was, books that though elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found within his reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language well, better in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not ill-educated Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with which a scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he had many of the books which had formerly served him for that purpose. These were the first works he had lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo imparted to the boy many secrets in practical gardening and minute husbandry, for at that day farming in England (some favoured counties and estates excepted) was far below the nicety to which the art has been immemorially carried in the north of Italy—where, indeed, you may travel for miles and miles as through a series of market-gardens—so that, all these things considered, Leonard Fairfield might be said to have made a change for the better. Yet in truth, and looking below the surface, that might be fair matter of doubt. For the same reason which had induced the boy to fly his native village, he no longer repaired to the church of Hazeldean. The old intimate intercourse between him and the Parson became necessarily suspended, or bounded to an occasional kindly visit from the latter—visits which grew more rare, and less familiar, as he found his former pupil in no want of his services, and wholly deaf to his mild entreaties to forget and forgive the past, and come atleast to his old seat in the parish church. Lenny still went to church—a church a long way off in another parish—but the sermons did not do him the same good as Parson Dale's had done; and the clergyman, who had his own flock to attend to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale would have done, to explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was profitable, in private talk, with that stray lamb from another's fold.

Now I question much if all Dr Riccabocca's sage maxims, though they were often very moral, and generally very wise, served to expand the peasant boy's native good qualities, and correct his bad, half so well as the few simple words, not at all indebted to Machiavelli, which Leonard had once reverently listened to when he stood by his father's chair, yielded up for the moment to the good Parson, worthy to sit in it; for Mr Dale had a heart in which all the fatherless of the parish found their place. Nor was this loss of tender, intimate, spiritual lore so counterbalanced by the greater facilities for purely intellectual instruction, as modern enlightenment might presume. For, without disputing the advantage of knowledge in a general way, knowledge, in itself, is not friendly to content. Its tendency, of course, is to increase the desires, to dissatisfy us with what is, in order to urge progress to what may be; and, in that progress, what unnoticed martyrs among the many must fall, baffled and crushed by the way! To how large a number will be given desires they will never realise, dissatisfaction of the lot from which they will never rise!Allons!one is viewing the dark side of the question. It is all the fault of that confounded Riccabocca, who has already caused Lenny Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after looking round and seeing no one near him, groan out querulously—

"And am I born to dig a potato ground?"

Pardieu, my friend Lenny, if you live to be seventy, and ride in your carriage;—and by the help of a dinner-pill digest a spoonful of curry, you may sigh to think what a relish there was in potatoes, roasted in ashes after you had digged them out of that ground with your own stout young hands. Dig on, Lenny Fairfield, dig on! Dr Riccabocca will tell you that there was once an illustrious personage[1]who made experience of two very different occupations—one was ruling men, the other was planting cabbages; he thought planting cabbages much the pleasanter of the two!

Dr Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her car, handling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently having got an inch nearer to the flying form of Dr Riccabocca.

Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, with all her experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr Riccabocca took his leave, and once more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the Casino, without having made any formal renunciation of his criminal celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her own chamber, and brooded with more than her usual gloomy satisfaction on the certainty of the approaching crash. Indeed, many signs of that universal calamity which, while the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself to consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. Even the newspaper, which during that credulous and happy period had given half a column to Births and Marriages, now bore an ominously long catalogue of Deaths; so that it seemed as if the whole population had lost heart, andhad no chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading articles spoke, with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impendingCRISIS. Monstrous turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs devoted to General News. Cows bore calves with two heads, whales were stranded in the Humber, showers of frogs descended in the High Street of Cheltenham.

All these symptoms of the world's decrepitude and consummation, which by the side of the fascinating Riccabocca might admit of some doubt as to their origin and cause, now, conjoined with the worst of all, viz.—the frightfully progressive wickedness of man—left to Miss Jemima, no ray of hope save that afforded by the reflection that she could contemplate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of regret.

Mrs Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency of her fair friend, and, having gained access to Miss Jemima's chamber, succeeded, though not without difficulty, in her kindly attempts to cheer the drooping spirits of that female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent desire to speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs Dale so cruel towards her male friend, Dr Riccabocca, as she seemed to her husband. For Mrs Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration, as most quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss Jemima was one of those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a husband in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In fact, my readers of both sexes must often have met, in the course of their experience, with that peculiar sort of feminine disposition, which requires the warmth of the conjugal hearth to develop all its native good qualities; nor is it to be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency in its nature, it turns towards what is best fitted for its growth and improvement, by laws akin to those which make the sunflower turn to the sun, or the willow to the stream. Ladies of this disposition, permanently thwarted in their affectionate bias, gradually languish away into intellectual inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal eccentricities which are classed under the general name of "oddity" or "character." But, once admitted to their proper soil, it is astonishing what healthful improvement takes place—how the poor heart, before starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond mother, with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at their blind hardness of heart.

In all probability, Mrs Dale took this view of the subject; and certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues which would be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs Riccabocca, she counted somewhat upon the mere worldly advantage which such a match would bestow upon the exile. So respectable a connection with one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most popular families in the shire, would in itself give him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the land; and though the interest of Miss Jemima's dowry might not be much, regarded in the light of English pounds, (not Milaneselire,) still it would suffice to prevent that gradual process of dematerialisation which the lengthened diet upon minnows and sticklebacks had already made apparent in the fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher.

Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs Dale saw nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these might be forthcoming, she not only renewed with greater frequency, and more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca to drink tea and spend the evening, but she artfully so chafed the Squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the Doctor received weekly a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall.

At first the Italian pished and grunted, and saidCospetto, andPer Bacco, andDiavolo, and tried to creep out of so much proffered courtesy. But, like all single gentlemen, he was a little under the tyrannical influence of his faithful servant; and Jackeymo, though he could bear starving as wellas his master when necessary, still, when he had the option, preferred roast beef and plum-pudding. Moreover, that vain and incautious confidence of Riccabocca, touching the vast sum at his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so amiable a lady as Miss Jemima—who had already shown him (Jackeymo) many little delicate attentions—had greatly whetted the cupidity which was in the servant's Italian nature: a cupidity the more keen because, long debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, he carried it all to the account of his master's!

Thus tempted by his enemy, and betrayed by his servant, the unfortunate Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not unblinded, into the hospitable snares extended for the destruction of his—celibacy! He went often to the parsonage, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of the social domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath with a distant relation, who had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Crœsus, felt so estranged and solitary in his native isle that, when the Captain "claimed kindred there," to his own amaze "he had his claims allowed;" while a very protracted sitting of Parliament still delayed in London the Squire's habitual visitors in the later summer; so that—a chasm thus made in his society—Mr Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner's companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall rapidly thickened; but still not a word resembling a distinct proposal did Dr Riccabocca breathe. And still, if such an idea obtruded itself on his mind, it was chased therefrom with so determined aDiavolothat perhaps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss Jemima's tenure in it, might have approached, and seen her still Miss Jemima, but for a certain letter with a foreign post-mark that reached the Doctor one Tuesday morning.

The servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocca's melancholy brows.

The Doctor sighed heavily. Nor did he, as was his wont, after some such sigh, mechanically take up that dear comforter, the pipe. But though the tobacco-pouch lay by his side on the balustrade, and the pipe stood against the wall between his knees, childlike lifting up its lips to the customary caress—he heeded neither the one nor the other, but laid the letter silently on his lap, and fixed his eyes upon the ground.

"It must be bad news indeed!" thought Jackeymo, and desisted from his work. Approaching his master, he took up the pipe and the tobacco-pouch, and filled the bowl slowly, glancing all the while to that dark musing face on which, when abandoned by the expression of intellectual vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian courtesy, the deep downward lines revealed the characters of sorrow. Jackeymo did not venture to speak; but the continued silence of his master disturbed him much. He laid that peculiar tinder which your smokers use upon the steel, and struck the spark—still not a word, nor did Riccabocca stretch forth his hand.

"I never knew him in this taking before," thought Jackeymo; and delicately he insinuated the neck of the pipe into the nerveless fingers of the hand that lay supine on those quiet knees—the pipe fell to the ground.

Jackeymo crossed himself, and began praying to his sainted namesake with great fervour.

The Doctor rose slowly, and, as if with effort, he walked once or twice to and fro the terrace; and then he halted abruptly, and said—

"Friend!"

"Blessed Monsignore San Giacomo, I knew thou wouldst hear me!" cried the servant; and he raised his master's hand to his lips, then abruptly turned away and wiped his eyes. "Friend," repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a tremulous emphasis, and in the softest tone of a voice never wholly without the music of the sweet South, "I would talk to thee of my child."—

"The letter, then, relates to the Signorina. She is well?"

"Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy."

Jackeymo raised his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and the morning breeze swept by and bore to him the odour of their blossoms.

"Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, pointing to the trees. "I think I have said that before to the Padrone."

But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice either the gesture or the remark of his servant.

"My aunt is no more!" said he, after a pause.

"We will pray for her soul!" answered Jackeymo solemnly. "But she was very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the Padrone too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a friend."

"Peace be to her dust!" returned the Italian. "If she had her faults, be they now forgotten for ever; and in the hour of my danger and distress, she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. This letter is from the priest, her confessor. You know that she had nothing at her own disposal to bequeath my child, and her property passes to the male heir—mine enemy."

"Traitor!" muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand seemed to feel for the weapon which the Italians of lower rank often openly wear in their girdles.

"The priest," resumed Riccabocca calmly, "has rightly judged in removing my child as a guest from the house in which my enemy enters as lord."

"And where is the Signorina?"

"With that poor priest. See, Giacomo—here, here—this is her handwriting at the end of the letter—the first lines she ever yet traced to me."

Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the large characters of a child's writing. But large as they were, they seemed indistinct, for the paper was blistered with the child's tears; and on the place where they hadnotfallen, there was a round fresh moist stain of the tear that had dropped from the lids of the father. Riccabocca renewed,—"The priest recommends a convent."

"To the devil with the priest!" cried the servant; then crossing himself rapidly, he added, "I did not mean that, Monsignore San Giacomo—forgive me! But your Excellency[2]does not think of making a nun of his only child!"

"And yet why not?" said Riccabocca mournfully; "what can I give her in the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of peace in her native clime?"

"In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart!"

"And if that beat were stilled, what then? Ill fares the life that a single death can bereave of all. In a convent at least (and the priest's influence can obtain her that asylum amongst her equals and amidst her sex) she is safe from trial and from penury—to her grave."

"Penury! Just see how rich we shall be when we take those fields at Michaelmas."

"Pazzie!" (follies) said Riccabocca listlessly. "Are these suns more serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith the proverb, 'he who sows land reapsmore care than corn.' It were different," continued the father after a pause, and in a more irresolute tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on—nay, if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one female who would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth—Ishmael had his Hagar. But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the nameless wants and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so delicately reared—the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender eye of a woman."

"And with a word," said Jackeymo resolutely, "the Padrone might secure to his child all that he needs, to save her from the sepulchre of a convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that you love your child better than all things in the world—now the Patria is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers—and your heart-strings would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and consign her to a convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice—never again to see her face! Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark night, when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, as you felt their clasp, 'Friend, all is not yet lost!'"

"Giacomo!" exclaimed the father reproachfully, and his voice seemed to choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and fro the terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture as he still continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, heaven is my witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a murmur, had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and privation. Heaven is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because I would not listen to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see her again—my child! And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O Friend, friend—" (and, stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable emotion, he bowed his head upon his servant's shoulder;) "thou knowest what I have endured and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the wrong, the perfidy, the—the—" His voice again failed him; he clung to his servant's breast, and his whole frame shook.

"But your child, the innocent one—think now only of her!" faltered Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs.

"True, only of her," replied the exile, raising his face—"only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for myself, friend—counsel me. If I were to send for Violante, and if, transplanted to these keen airs, she drooped and died—look, look—the priest says that she needs such tender care; or if I myself were summoned from the world, to leave her in it alone, friendless, homeless, breadless perhaps, at the age of woman's sharpest trial against temptation, would she not live to mourn the cruel egotism that closed on her infant innocence the gates of the House of God?"

Giacomo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only of his child, spoke and felt with a child's simple faith.

"But again I say," murmured Jackeymo scarce audibly, and after a long silence, "if the Padrone would make up his mind—to marry!"

He expected that his master would start up in his customary indignation at such a suggestion—nay, he might not have been sorry so to have changed the current of feeling; but the poor Italian only winced slightly, and mildly withdrawing himself from his servant's supporting arm, again paced the terrace, but this time quietly and in silence. A quarter of an hour thus passed. "Give me the pipe," said Dr Riccabocca, passing into the Belvidere.

Jackeymo again struck the spark,and, wonderfully relieved at the Padrone's return to his usual adviser, mentally besought his sainted namesake to bestow a double portion of soothing wisdom on the benignant influences of the weed.

Dr Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the Belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was therein, entered to lay down a book which the Doctor had lent him, with injunctions to leave on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca looked up at the sound of the young peasant's step.

"I beg your honour's pardon—I did not know—"

"Never mind; lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look well, my child; this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?"

"Oh yes, sir."

"Yet it is higher ground, more exposed?"

"That can hardly be, sir," said Lenny; "there are many plants grow here which don't flourish at the Squire's. The hill yonder keeps off the east wind, and the place lays to the south."

"Lies, notlays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these parts?"

"Eh, sir?"

"I mean what maladies, what diseases?"

"I never beard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism."

"No low fevers?—no consumption?"

"Never heard of them, sir."

Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved.

"That seems a very kind family at the Hall."

"I have nothing to say against it," answered Lenny bluntly. "I have not been treated justly. But as that book says, sir, 'It is not every one who comes into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth.'"

Little thought the Doctor that those wise maxims may leave sore thoughts behind them. He was too occupied with the subject most at his own heart to think then of what was in Lenny Fairfield's.

"Yes; a kind, English, domestic family. Did you see much of Miss Hazeldean?"

"Not so much as of the Lady."

"Is she liked in the village, think you?"

"Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once—she did not ask me to beg its pardon, she asked mine! She's a very nice young lady; the girls say she's very affable; and," added Lenny with a smile, "there are always more weddings going on when she's down at the Hall."

"Oh!" said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, "Did you ever see her play with the little children? Is she fond of children, do you think?"

"Lord, sir, you guess everything! She's never so pleased as when she's playing with the babies."

"Humph!" grunted Riccabocca. "Babies—well, that's womanlike. I don't mean exactly babies, but when they're older—little girls."

"Indeed, sir, I daresay; but," said Lenny primly, "I never as yet kept company with the little girls."

"Quite right, Lenny; be equally discreet all your life. Mrs Dale is very intimate with Miss Hazeldean—more than with the Squire's lady. Why is that, think you?"

"Well, sir," said Leonard shrewdly, "Mrs Dale has her little tempers, though she's a very good lady; and Madam Hazeldean is rather high, and has a spirit. But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall."

"Indeed! Get my hat out of the parlour, and—just bring a clothesbrush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk."

After this most mean and dishonourable inquisition into the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signore Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action; and he walked forth in thedirection of the Hall with a far lighter and livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace.

"Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe's, the Padrone shall have his child!" muttered the servant, looking up from the garden.

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