FOOTNOTES:[27]Royalty and Republicanism in Italy; or Notes and Documents relating to the Lombard Insurrection, and to the Royal War of 1848. By Joseph Mazzini. Charles Gilpin.
[27]Royalty and Republicanism in Italy; or Notes and Documents relating to the Lombard Insurrection, and to the Royal War of 1848. By Joseph Mazzini. Charles Gilpin.
[27]Royalty and Republicanism in Italy; or Notes and Documents relating to the Lombard Insurrection, and to the Royal War of 1848. By Joseph Mazzini. Charles Gilpin.
Sleep!—the ghostly winds are blowing;No moon's abroad; no star is glowing;The river is deep, and the tide is flowingTo the land where you and I are going!We are going afar,Beyond moon or star,To the land where the sinless angels are!I lost my heart to your heartless sire;('Twas melted away by his looks of fire;)Forgot my God, and my father's ire,All for the sake of a man's desire:—But now we'll goWhere the waters flow,And make us a bed where none shall know.The world is cruel; the world's untrue;Our foes are many; our friends are few;No work, no bread, however we sue!What is there left for us to do—But fly—fly,From the cruel sky,And hide in the deepest deeps—and die!
Sleep!—the ghostly winds are blowing;No moon's abroad; no star is glowing;The river is deep, and the tide is flowingTo the land where you and I are going!We are going afar,Beyond moon or star,To the land where the sinless angels are!
I lost my heart to your heartless sire;('Twas melted away by his looks of fire;)Forgot my God, and my father's ire,All for the sake of a man's desire:—But now we'll goWhere the waters flow,And make us a bed where none shall know.
The world is cruel; the world's untrue;Our foes are many; our friends are few;No work, no bread, however we sue!What is there left for us to do—But fly—fly,From the cruel sky,And hide in the deepest deeps—and die!
If there be one thing more than another in the nice balance of tastes and prejudices (for I do not speak here of principles) which incline us now to the elegance of Charles, now to the strength of Cromwell,—which disgust us alternately with the license of the Cavaliers and the fanaticism of the Roundheads; it would be the melancholy ruin of cast-down castles and plundered shrines, that meet our eyes all over our fair land, and nowhere in greater profusion than in this district, lying as it does in the very midst of some of the most celebrated battles of the Civil Wars. To say nothing of the siege of Reading, which more even than the vandalism of the Reformation completed the destruction of that noble abbey, the third in rank and size in England, with its magnificent church, its cloisters, and its halls, covering thirty acres of buildings,—and such buildings! within the outer courts;—to say nothing of that most reckless barbarity just at our door—we in our little village of Aberleigh lie between Basting-House to the south, whose desperately defended walls offer little more now than a mere site,—and Donnington to the west, where the ruined Gatehouse upon the hill alone remains of that strong fortress, which overlooked the well-contested field of Newbury,—and Chalgrove to the north, where the reaper, as he binds his sheaf, still pauses to tell you the very place where Hampden fell; every spot has a history! Look at a wooden spire, and your companion shakes his head, and says that it has been so ever since the Cavaliers were blown up in the church tower! Ask the history of a crumbling wall, and the answer is pretty sure to be, Cromwell! That his Highness the Lord Protector did leave what an accomplished friend of mine calls "his peculiar impressions" upon a great many places in our neighborhood is pretty certain; on so many, that there is no actual or authentic catalogue of all; and in some cases there is nothing but general tradition, and the nature of the "impressions" in question, to vouch for the fact of their destruction at that period.
Amongst these, one of the edifices that must have been best worth preserving, and is even now most interesting to see, is the grand old castellated mansion, which in the reign of Elizabeth belonged to one of her favorite courtiers, and was known as Master Comptroller's House, at Grays.
The very road to it is singularly interesting. Passing through the town, which increases in growth every day, until one wonders when and where it will stop, and looking with ever fresh admiration at the beautiful lacework window of the old Friary, which I long to see preserved in the fitliest manner, by forming again the chief ornament of a church, and then driving under the arch of the Great Western Railway, and feeling the strange vibration of some monster train passing over our heads,—a proceeding which never fails to make my pony show off his choicest airs and graces, pricking up his pretty ears, tossing his slender head, dancing upon four feet, and sometimes rearing upon two,—we arrive at the long, low, picturesque old bridge, the oldest of all the bridges that cross the Thames, so narrow that no two vehicles can pass at once, and that over every pier triangular spaces have been devised for the safety of foot passengers. On the centre arch is a fisherman's hut, occupying the place once filled by a friar's cell, and covering a still existing chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, now put to secular uses—a dairy or a cellar.
A little way down the river is one of the beautiful islands of the Thames, now a smooth and verdant meadow, edged round with old willow pollards calmly reflected in the bright, clear waters, but giving back in the twelfth century a far different scene. Here was fought a wager of battle between Robert de Montford, appellant, and Henry de Essex, hereditary Standard-bearer of the kings of England, defendant, by command, and in the presence of Henry the Second. The story is told very minutely and graphically by Stowe. Robert de Montford at length struck down his adversary, "who fell," says the old historian, "after receiving many wounds; and the King, at the request of several noblemen, his relations, gave permission to the monks to inter the body, commanding that no further violence should be offered to it. The monks took up the vanquished knight, and carried him into the abbey, where he revived. When he recovered from his wounds, he was received into the community, and assumed the habit of the order, his lands being forfeited to the King." I have always thought that this story would afford excellent scope to some great novelist, who might give a fair and accurate picture of monastic life, and, indeed, of the monastic orders, as landlords, neighbors, teachers, priests, without any mixture of controversial theology, or inventing any predecessors of Luther or Wicliffe. How we should have liked to have heardall about "The Monastery," about the "Abbot" and Father Eustace, untroubled by Henry Warden or John Knox! From the moment that they appear, our comfort in the book vanishes, just as completely as that of the good easy Abbot Boniface himself. There we are in the middle of vexed questions, with the beautiful pile of Melrose threatening every moment to fall about our ears!
Our business now, however, is to get over the bridge, which after the excitement of one dispute with a pugnacious carrier, and another with a saucy groom, whose caracoling horse had well nigh leaped over the parapets on either side; after some backing of other carriages, and some danger of being forced back to our own, we at last achieve, and enter unscathed, the pleasant village of Caversham.
To the left, through a highly ornamented lodge, lies the road to the ancient seat of the Blounts, another house made famous by Pope, where the fair ladies of his love, the sisters Martha and Teresa, lived and died. A fine old place it is; and a picturesque road leads to it, winding through a tract called the Warren, between the high chalk-cliffs, clothed with trees of all varieties, that for so many miles fence in the northern side of the Thames, and the lordly river itself, now concealed by tall elms, now open and shining in the full light of the summer sun. There is not such a flower bank in Oxfordshire as Caversham Warren.
Our way, however, leads straight on. A few miles further, and a turn to the right conducts us to one of the grand old village churches, which give so much of character to English landscape. A large and beautiful pile it is. The tower half clothed with ivy, standing with its charming vicarage and its pretty vicarage-garden on a high eminence, overhanging one of the finest bends of the great river. A woody lane leads from the church to the bottom of the chalk-cliff, one side of which stands out from the road below, like a promontory, surmounted by the laurel hedges and flowery arbors of the vicarage-garden, and crested by a noble cedar of Lebanon. This is Shiplake church, famed far and near for its magnificent oak carving, and the rich painted glass of its windows, collected, long before such adornments were fashionable, by the fine taste of the late vicar, and therefore filled with the very choicest specimens of mediæval art, chiefly obtained from the remains of the celebrated Abbey of St. Bertin, near St. Omers, sacked during the first French Revolution. In this church Alfred Tennyson was married. Blessings be upon him! I never saw the great Poet in my life, but thousands who never may have seen him either, but who owe to his poetry the purest and richest intellectual enjoyment, will echo and re-echo the benison.
A little way farther, and a turn to the left leads to another spot consecrated by genius,—Woodcot, where Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton passed the earlier years of his married life, and wrote several of his most powerful novels. I have always thought that the scenery of Paul Clifford caught some of its tone from that wild and beautiful country, for wild and beautiful it is. The terrace in the grounds commands a most extensive prospect; and beneath a clump of trees on the common behind the house, is the only spot where on a clear day Windsor may be seen on one side, and Oxford on the other,—looking almost like the domes, and towers, and pinnacles that sometimes appear in the clouds—a fairy picture that the next breeze may waft away! This beautiful residence stands so high, that one of its former possessors, Admiral Fraser (grandfather to that dear friend of mine who is the present owner), could discover Woodcot Clump from the mast of his own ship at Spithead, a distance of sixty miles.
Wyfold's Court, another pretty place a little farther on, which also belonged once to a most dear friend, possesses the finest Wych-elms in England. Artists come from far and near to paint these stately trees, whose down-dropping branches and magnificent height are at once so graceful and so rich. They are said always to indicate ecclesiastical possession, but no trace of such dependency is to be found in the title-deeds, or in the tenure by which in feudal times the lands were held,—that of presenting a rose to the King, should he pass by a certain road on a May-day.
And now we approach Rotherfield Grays,—its bowery lanes, its wild rugged commons, and its vast beech woods, from the edge of which projects every here and there a huge cherry-tree, looking, in the blossoming springtime, as if carved in ivory, so exquisite is the whiteness, casting upon the ferny-turf underneath showers of snowy petals that blanch the very ground, and diffusing around an almond-like odor, that mingles with the springing thyme and the flowering gorse, and loads the very air with heavy balm.
Exquisite is the pleasantness of these beech woods, where the light is green from the silky verdure of the young leaves, and where the mossy wood-paths are embroidered with thousands of flowers, from the earliest violet and primrose, the wood-anemone, the wood-sorrel, the daffodil, and the wild hyacinth of spring, to the wood-vetch, the woodroof, the campanulas, and the orchises of summer;—for all the English orchises are here: that which so curiously imitates the dead oak leaf, that again which imitates the human figure; the commonest but most pretty bee orchis, and the parallel ones which are called after the spider, the frog, and the fly. Strange freak of nature this, in a lower order of creation, to mimic her own handyworks in a higher!—to mimic even our human mimicry!—for that which is called the man orchis is most like the imitation of a human figure that a child might cut from colored paper. Strange, strange mimicry! but full of variety, full of beauty, full of odor. Of all the fragrant blossoms that haunt the woods, I know none so exquisite as that night-scentedorchis which is called indifferently, the butterfly or the lily of the valley. Another glory of these woods, an autumnal glory, is the whole fungus tribe, various and innumerable as the mosses; from the sober drab-colored fungi, spotted with white, which so much resemble a sea-egg, to those whose deep and gorgeous hues would shame the tinting of an Indian shell. Truffles, too, are found beneath the earth; and above it are deposited huge masses of the strange compound called in modern geological phrase Agglomerate. Flint and coral, and gravel, and attrited pebbles enter into the combination of this extraordinary natural conglomeration, which no steel, however hardened, can separate, and which seems to have been imitated very successfully by the old builders in their cements and the substances used in the filling up of their grandest structures, as may be seen in the layers which unite the enormous slabs of granite in the Roman walls at Silchester, as well as in the works of the old monkish architects at Reading Abbey. Another beauty of this country is to be found in the fields,—now of the deep-red clover, with its shining crimson tops, now of the gay and brilliant saintfoin (the holy hay), the bright pink of whose flowery spikes gives to the ground the look of a bed of roses.
And now we reach the gate that admits us down a steep descent to the Rectory-house, a large substantial mansion, covered with Banksia roses, and finely placed upon a natural terrace,—a fertile valley below, and its own woods and orchard-trees above.
My friend the rector, raciest of men, is an Oxford divine of the old school; a ripe scholar; one who has travelled wide and far, and is learned in the tongues, the manners, and the literature of many nations; but who is himself English to the backbone in person, thought, and feeling. Orthodox is he, no doubt. Nowhere are church and schools, and parish visitings, better cared for; but he has a knack of attending also to the creature comforts of all about him, of calling beef and blankets in aid of his precepts, which has a wonderful effect in promoting their efficacy. Mansion and man are large alike, and alike overflowing with hospitality and kindliness. His original and poignant conversation is so joyous and good-humored, the making every body happy is so evidently his predominant taste, that the pungency only adds to the flavor of his talk, and never casts a moment's shade over its sunny heartiness.
Right opposite the Rectory terrace, framed like a picture by the rarest and stateliest trees, stands the object of my pilgrimage, Grays' Court, a comparatively modern house, erected amongst the remains of a vast old castellated mansion, belonging first to the noble family of Gray, who gave their name not merely to the manor, but to the district; then to the house of Knollys; and latterly to the Stapletons, two venerable ladies of that name being its present possessors.
All my life I had heard of Grays' Court; of the rich yet wild country in which it is placed; of the park so finely undulated, and so profusely covered by magnificent timber; of the huge old towers which seem to guard and sentinel the present house; of the far extended walls, whose foundations may yet be traced, in dry seasons, among the turf of the lawn; of the traditions which assign the demolition of those ancient walls to the wars of the Commonwealth; and of the strange absence of all documentary evidence upon the subject.
Another cause for my strong desire to see this interesting place, is to be found in its association with one of those historical personages in whom I have always taken the warmest interest. Lord Essex (whose mother was the famous Lettice Knollys, who had had for her second husband another of Queen Elizabeth's favorites, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), when confined in London, a prey to the tyranny of Elizabeth, petitioned, in one of those eloquent letters to the Virgin Queen which will always remain amongst the earliest and finest specimens of English prose, to be allowed to repair, for the benefit of his health, "to Master Comptroller's house at Grays." Ah! we can fancy, when looking over this lovely valley, with its woods, its verdure, its sweep of hills, its feeling of the near river, we can well fancy how the poet-heart of the great Earl must have longed to leave the trial, the turmoil, the jangling, the treachery, the weary fears, the bitter humiliations of his London captivity, and to taste once more the sweet air, the pleasant sights, the calmness and the quiet of the country. Hope and comfort must have come with the thought. One of the prettiest pictures that I know, is an extract from a contemporary letter, in the first volume of Mr. Craik's most interesting book, the "Romance of the Peerage," telling of the Earl and Countess, during one of the daily visits that she was at one time permitted to pay him when he was a prisoner in Essex House, walking together in the garden, "now he, now she, reading one to the other." The whole taste and feeling of the man, the daily habit of his life, is shown in this little circumstance. And this is the brave soldier who, when examined before the Privy Council, a council composed of open enemies and treacherous friends, had been kept nearly all the day kneeling at the bottom of the table. Tyranny drove him into madness, and then exacted the full penalty of the wild acts which that madness prompted. But Essex was a man in advance of his age; the companion as well as the patron of poets; the protector of papist and puritan; the fearless asserter of liberty of conscience! He deserved a truer friend than Bacon, a more merciful judge than Elizabeth.
To the house of Knollys belongs another interesting association, that strangest of genealogical romances, the great case of the Banbury peerage. The cause was decided (if decided it can be called even now) by evidencefound in the parish register of Rotherfield Grays.
The place has yet another attraction in its difficulty of access; the excellent ladies of the Court admitting few beyond their own immediate connections and nearest friends. One class, to be sure, finds its way there as if by instinct—the poor, who, as the birds of the air detect the grain under the surface in the newly sown ground, are sure to find out the soil where charity lies germinating. Few excepting these constant visitors are admitted. But, besides the powerful introduction of our mutual friend the rector, a nephew of theirs, and his most sweet and interesting wife, had for some time inhabited the house which had been the home of my own youth, so that my name was not strange to them; and they had the kindness to allow me to walk over their beautiful grounds and gardens, to see their charming Swiss dairy, with its marbles and its china, and, above all, to satisfy my curiosity by looking over the towers which still remain of the old castle,—piles whose prodigious thickness of wall and distance from each other give token of the immense extent and importance of the place. It is said to have been built round two courts. Alnwick and Windsor rose to my thoughts as I contemplated these gigantic remains, and calculated the space that the original edifice must have covered. One of these towers is still occupied by the well of the castle, a well three hundred feet deep, which supplies the family with water. It will give some idea of the scale of the old mansion, to say that the wheel by which the water is raised, is twenty-five feet in diameter. Two donkeys are employed in the operation. One donkey suffices for the parallel but much smaller well at Carisbrook, where the animal is so accustomed to be put in for the mere purpose of exhibiting the way in which the water is raised to the visitors who go to look at the poor king's last prison, that he just makes the one turn necessary to show the working of the machine, and then stops of his own accord. The donkeys at Grays, kept for use and not for show, have not had a similar opportunity of displaying their sagacity.
One cannot look at the place without a feeling of adaptedness. It is the very spot for a stronghold of the Cavaliers: a spot where Lovelace and Montrose might each have fought and each have sung, defending it to the last loaf of bread and the last charge of powder, and yielding at last to the irresistible force of Cromwell's cannonade.
Come not, when I am dead,To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,To trample round my fallen head,And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.There let the wind sweep, and the plover cry;But go thou by.Child, if it were thine error or thy crimeI care no longer, being all unblest;Wed whom thou wilt; but I am sick of time,And I desire to rest.Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie.Go by—go by!ALFRED TENNYSON.
Come not, when I am dead,To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,To trample round my fallen head,And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.There let the wind sweep, and the plover cry;But go thou by.
Child, if it were thine error or thy crimeI care no longer, being all unblest;Wed whom thou wilt; but I am sick of time,And I desire to rest.Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie.Go by—go by!
ALFRED TENNYSON.
In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would learn to be fit for more than a day-laborer; he would learn gardening, in all its branches—rise some day to be a head gardener. "And," said Riccabocca, "I will take care of his book learning, and teach him whatever he has a head for."
"He has a head for every thing," said the widow.
"Then," said the wise man, "every thing shall go into it."
The widow was certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a wondrous learned man. But still, Riccabocca was said to be a Papist, and suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair sex, would no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny put a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to Riccabocca; he was very much frightened by him—and the spectacles, the pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so sturdily, in reply to every overture, "Please, sir, I'd rather not; I'd rather stay along with mother"—that Riccabocca was forced to suspend all further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at all cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was one of those men whom opposition stimulates. And what before had been but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty of other lads might no doubt be had, on as reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the special acquisition of Lenny became of paramount importance in the eyes of Signor Riccabocca.
Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had accepted an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall.
"There will be no one there but the family," said Riccabocca. "Poor Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good: and the squire's beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and minnows. It will lengthen your life."
"The Padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily, "as if any one could starve in his service."
"Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithfulfriend, you have tried that experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant and master in the usages of the continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear fell upon the hand he kissed.
"Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make up the cost of a single true one! The tears of women, we know their worth; but the tear of an honest man—fie, Giacomo!—at least I can never repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe."
So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing to Jackeymo; for the Doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed since they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his back—quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two suits, complete in the three separate members of which man's raiments are composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the invidious light—thetorsoplaced upon a chair, the limbs dangling down from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue could evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts. For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel—moreprofusus sui—than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner—it was a respect due to the Padrone—and that habit had lasted till the two habits on which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay; then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard service they had breathed their last.
The Doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to Jackeymo, than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!"
And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the donation had been accepted; but the fact was, that that same fitting out was easier said than done. For though—thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks and minnows—both Jackeymo and Riccabocca at that state which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human frame, viz., skin and bone—yet, the bones contained in the skin of Riccabocca all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of Jackeymo spread out latitudinally. And you might as well have made the bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and pollarded oak, in whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept at their ease, as have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca. Moreover, if the skill of the tailor could have accomplished that undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of religious sentiment too, about those vestments of the Padrone. The ancients, we know, when escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave. Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superstition. "This coat the Padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the very evening the Padrone last put on those pantaloons!" And coat and pantaloons were tenderly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred rest.
But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud to exhibit his person, to the eyes of the Squire's butler, in habiliments discreditable to himself and the Padrone. In the midst of his perplexity the bell rang, and he went down into the parlor.
Riccabocca was standing on the hearth, under his symbolical representation of the "Patriæ Exul."
"Giacomo," quoth he, "I have been thinking that thou hast never done what I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we are going now into the great world; visiting once begun, Heaven knows where it may stop! Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes. Things are dear in England. Will this suffice?" And Riccabocca extended a £5 note.
Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal English permit our domestics to be with us. But in his familiarity he was usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him.
"The Padrone is mad!" he exclaimed; "he would fling away his whole fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and twenty-six pounds Milanese![28]Santa Maria! Unnatural Father! And what is to become of the poor Signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in the foreign land?"
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the Signorina to-morrow; to-day, the honor of the house. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo. Miserable man, thy small-clothes!"
"It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "and the Padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is just—the Padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages, and he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure."
"For the board and the lodgment, good," said Riccabocca. "For the handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!"
"They are no such thing," said Jackeymo, "they are only in arrear. As if the Padrone could not pay them some day or other—as ifI was demeaning myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And can't I wait? Have I not my savings, too? But be cheered, be cheered; you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see."
And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber, unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed head, tossed out a variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing a little image of his patron saint—San Giacomo—one solid English guinea, and two or three pounds' worth in English silver. Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on them here;" he seized the English coins and counted them out. "But are you enough, you rascals?" quoth he angrily, giving them a good shake. His eye caught sight of the medallion—he paused; and after eyeing the tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in a sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of his master:
"What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the friend who does not serve me?Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint, you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag. But if you help me to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion, you will be a friend indeed.Alla bisogna, Monsignore." Then, gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and, muttering to himself, "Beast, miser that I am, to disgrace the Padrone, with all these savings in his service!" ran down stairs into his pantry, caught up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to the neighboring town of L——.
Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a suit of black—a little threadbare, but still highly respectable—two shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But, out of all this finery, Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more exclusively directed the saint's attention. The other habiliments came to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo!
Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons: and if we do not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called "reasoning by illustration." Amongst other resemblances, there are moments when, to a quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of those rotatory entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the name of "whirligigs or roundabouts," in which each participator of the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of pursuing some one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind. Man, and woman too, are naturally animals of chase; the greatest still finds something to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the village of Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle, whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a conviction of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes, I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find "their only books in woman's looks." Perhaps it might be from the over-tenderness and clemency of Miss Jemima's nature; perhaps it might be that, as yet, she had only experienced the villany of man born and reared in those cold northern climates; and in the land of Petrarch and Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering farther into these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say, that on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the drawing-room, at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favor her general hostility to man. In truth, though Frank saw something quizzical in the old-fashioned and outlandish cut of the Italian's sober dress; in his long hair, and thechapeau bras, over which he bowed so gracefully, and then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm, after the fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a roasted pullet; yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation grew more familiar, and the Parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited to meet their friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently animated and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man who, besides the knowledge which is acquired from books and life, had studied the art which becomes a gentleman—that of pleasing in polite society. Riccabocca, however, had more than this art—he had one which is often less innocent,—the art of penetrating into the weak side of his associates, and of saying the exact thing which hits it plump in the middle, with the careless air of a random shot.
The result was, that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain Barnabas postponedthe whist-table for a full hour after the usual time. The Doctor did not play—he thus became the property of the two ladies, Miss Jemima and Mrs. Dale.
Seated between the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey, who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent, the Doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, placed between Friendship and Love.
Friendship, as became her, worked quietly at the embroidered pocket-handkerchief, and left Love to its more animated operations. "You must be very lonely at the Casino," said Love, in a sympathizing tone.
"Madam," replied Riccabocca, gallantly, "I shall think so when I leave you."
Friendship cast a sly glance at Love—Love blushed or looked down on the carpet, which comes to the same thing. "Yet," began Love again—"yet solitude, to a feeling heart—"
Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and involuntarily buttoned his coat, as if to protect the individual organ thus alarmingly referred to.
"Solitude, to a feeling heart, has its charms. It is so hard even for us, poor ignorant women, to find a congenial companion—but foryou!" Love stopped short, as if it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its boquet.
Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and darted one glance, which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to envelope and take in it, as it were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima's personal attractions. Now, Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had a mild and pensive expression of countenance, and she would have been positively pretty had the mildness looked a little more alert, and the pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was constitutionally mild, she was notde naturapensive; she had too much of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humor called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really spoilt her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might apply to the figure, which—thanks to the same pensiveness—lost all the undulating grace which movement and animation bestow on the fluent curves of the feminine form. The figure was a good figure, examined in detail—a little thin, perhaps, but by no means emaciated—with just and elegant proportions, and naturally light and flexible. But that same unfortunate pensiveness gave the whole a character of inertness and languor; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the sofa, so complete seemed the relaxation of nerve and muscle, that you would have thought she had lost the use of her limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of the charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca's eye glanced rapidly; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale—"Defend me" (he stopped a moment, and added,) "from the charge of not being able to appreciate congenial companionship."
"Oh, I did not say that!" cried Miss Jemima.
"Pardon me," said the Italian, "if I am so dull as to misunderstand you. One may well lose one's head, at least, in such a neighborhood as this." He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank's shoulder to examine some Views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish, would have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from the library in order to gratify the guest.
"Most interesting creature, indeed," sighed Miss Jemima, "but too—too flattering!"
"Tell me," said Mrs. Dale gravely, "do you think, love, that you could put off the end of the world a little longer, or must we make haste in order to be in time?"
"How wicked you are!" said Miss Jemima, turning aside.
Some few minutes afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so that Dr. Riccabocca and herself were in a farther corner of the room, looking at a picture said to be by Wouvermans.
Mrs. Dale.—"She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?"
Riccabocca.—"Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!"
Mrs. Dale.—"So kind-hearted."
Riccabocca.—"All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!"
Mrs. Dale.—"She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning."
Riccabocca, with a smile.—"So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!"
Mrs. Dale, distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape charge.—"Not won yet; and itisstrange!—she will have a very pretty fortune."
Riccabocca.—"Ah!"
Mrs. Dale.—"Six thousand pounds, I dare say—certainly four."
Riccabocca, suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address.—"If Mrs. Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still—Miss Jemima!"
The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players.
Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended.—"It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly.
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing, that night, in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four-posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single-blessedness—"Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably six thousand pounds—certainly of four thousand."
"Cosa meravigliosa!" exclaimed Jackeymo—"miraculousthing!" and he crossed himself with great fervor. "Six thousand pounds English! why, that must be a hundred thousand—blockhead that I am!—more than a hundred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for nothing?"
"Nothing! no!"
"These mercenary English!—the Government wants to bribe you."
"That's not it."
"The priests want you to turn heretic."
"Worse than that," said the philosopher.
"Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!"
"Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons—they want me never to weartheseagain!"
"Never to wear what!" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers—"never to wear—"
"The breeches," said Riccabocca, laconically.
"The barbarians!" faltered Jackeymo.
"My nightcap!—and never to have any comfort in this," said Riccabocca, drawing the cotton head-gear; "and never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to the four-posted bed. "And to be a bondsmen and a slave," continued Riccabocca, waxing wroth; "and to be wheedled and purred at, and pawed, and clawed, and scolded, and fondled, and blinded, and deafened, and bridled, and saddled—bedevilled and—married."
"Married!" said Jackeymo, more dispassionately—"that's very bad, certainly; but more than a hundred and fifty thousandlire, and perhaps a pretty young lady, and—"
"Pretty young lady!" growled Riccabocca, jumping into bed and drawing the clothes fiercely over him. "Put out the candle, and get along with you—do, you villainous old incendiary!"
It was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the Squire passed, they took off their hats with more than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad smile to his quick, hearty "Good day, my man." The women peered at him from the threshold or the casement, but did not, as was their wont (at least the wont of the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his passing compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy cottages. And the children, who used to play after work on the site of the old stocks, now shunned the place, and, indeed, seemed to cease play altogether.
On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public work for nothing. Now that the Squire had resuscitated the stocks, and made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish to put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been wounded by the Parson's opposition; and it would be a justification to his own forethought, and a triumph over the Parson's understanding, if he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the stocks had not been repaired before they were wanted.
Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was something about the Squire more burly, and authoritative, and menacing, than heretofore. Old Gaffer Solomons observed, "that they had better moind well what they were about, for that the Squire had a wicked look in the tail of his eye—just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbor Barnes's little boy."
For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive overt act of tyranny on the one hand, or rebellion on the other. But on the very Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in the four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution commenced. In the dead of that night, personal outrage was committed on the stocks. And on the Sunday morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off; that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll work, "Dam the stoks!" Mr. Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings with horror and alarm. And when the Squire came into his dressing-room at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet) informed him with a mysterious air, that Mr. Stirn had something "very particular to communicate, about a most howdacious midnight 'spiracy and 'sault."
The Squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted.
"Well!" cried the Squire, suspending the operation of stropping his razor.
Mr. Stirn groaned.
"Well, man, what now!"
"I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore," began Mr. Stirn, "and I can only 'count for it by s'posing that them foreign Papishers have been semminating"—
"Been what?"
"Semminating"—
"Dissemminating, you blockhead—disseminating what?"
"Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging rightin medias res, and by a fine use of one of the noblest figures of rhetoric.
"Mr. Stirn!" cried the Squire, reddening, "did you say 'Damn the stocks?'—damn my new handsome pair of stocks!"
"Lord forbid, sir; that's whattheysay:that's what they have digged on it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four holes, and broken the capital of the elewation."
The Squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor; he seated himself in his arm-chair majestically, crossed his legs, and, in a voice that affected tranquillity, said—
"Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching an assault upon—can I trust my senses?—upon my new stocks. Compose yourself—be calm. NOW! What the devil is come to the parish?"
"Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn: and then laying the forefinger of the right hand on the palm of the left, he narrated the case.
"And whom do you suspect? Be calm now, don't speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir—a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical—but whom do you suspect, I say?"
Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered—"I hear as how two Papishers slept at your honor's last night."
"What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got out of his warm bed to bung up the holes in my new stocks?"
"Noa; he's two cunning to do it himself, but he may have been semminating. He's mighty thick with Parson Dale, and your honor knows as how the Parson set his face agin the stocks. Wait a bit, sir—don't fly at me yet. There be a boy in this here parish"—
"A boy!—ah fool, now you are nearer the mark. The Parson write 'Damn the stocks,' indeed! What boy do you mean?"
"And that boy be cockered up much by Mister Dale; and the Papishers went and sat with him and his mother a whole hour t'other day; and that boy is as deep as a well; and I seed him lurking about the place, and hiding hisself under the tree the day the stocks was put up—and that ere boy is Lenny Fairfield."
"Whew," said the Squire, whistling, "you have not your usual senses about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield—pattern boy of the village. Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish, after all; some good-for-nothing vagrant—that cursed tinker, who goes about with a very vicious donkey—whom, by the way, I caught picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday; worst day of the week, I'm sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and depredations. Between the services, and after evening church, there are always idle fellows from all the neighboring country about, as you know too well. Depend on it, the real culprits will be found gathering round the stocks, and will betray themselves: have your eyes, ears, and wits about you, and I've no doubt we shall come to the rights of the matter before the day's out. And if we do," added the Squire, "we'll make an example of the ruffian!"
"In course," said Stirn; "and if we don't find him, we must make an example all the same. That's where it is, sir. That's why the stock's ben't respected: they has not had an example yet—we wants an example."
"On my word, I believe that's very true; and the first idle fellow you catch in any thing wrong we'll clap in, and keep him there for two hours at least."
"With the biggest pleasure, your honor—that's what it is."
And Mr. Stirn, having now got what he considered a complete and unconditional authority over all the legs and wrists of Hazeldean parish,quoadthe stocks, took his departure.
"Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, on this memorable Sunday—"Randal, do you think of going to Mr. Hazeldean's?"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Randal. "Mr. Egerton does not object to it; and as I do not return to Eaton, I may have no other opportunity of seeing Frank for some time. I ought not to fail in respect to Mr. Egerton's natural heir!"
"Gracious me!" cried Mrs. Leslie, who, like many women of her cast and kind, had a sort of worldliness in her notions, which she never evinced in her conduct—"gracious me!—natural heir to the old Leslie property!"
"He is Mr. Egerton's nephew, and," added Randal, ingenuously letting out his thoughts, "I am no relation to Mr. Egerton at all."
"But," said poor Mrs. Leslie, with tears in her eyes, "it would be a shame in the man, after paying your schooling and sending you to Oxford, and having you to stay with him in the holidays, if he did not mean any thing by it."
"Any thing, mother—yes—but not the thing you suppose. No matter. It is enough that he has armed me for life, and I shall use the weapons as seems to me best."
Here the dialogue was suspended, by the entrance of the other members of the family, dressed for church.
"It can't be time for church! No! it can't!" exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. She was never in time for any thing.
"Last bell ringing," said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow man, was methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a frantic rush at the door, the Montfydget blood being now in a blaze—whirled up the stairs—gained her room, tore her best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest shawl from the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the shawl on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, in order to conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her gown, and then flew back like a whirlwind. Meanwhile the family were already out of doors, in waiting; and just as the bell ceased, the procession moved from the shabby house to the dilapidated church.
The church was a large one, but the congregation was small, and so was the income of the Parson. It was a lay rectory, and the great tithes had belonged to the Leslies, but they had been long since sold. The vicarage, still in their gift, might be worth a little more than £100 a year. The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He was a good man, and not originally a stupid one; but penury and the anxious cares for wife and family, combined with what may be calledsolitary confinementfor the cultivated mind, when, amidst the two-legged creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind with which it can exchange an extra-parochial thought—had lulled him into a lazy mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His income allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond the example of his sinless life and such negative effect as might be produced by his slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners troubled him very little; and but for the influence which in hours of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over the most tractable—that is, the children and the aged—not half-a-dozen persons would have known or cared whether he shut up his church or not.
But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr. Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the choral frogs in Aristophanes. And there was a long sermonaproposto nothing which could possibly interest the congregation—being, in fact, some controversial homily, which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud universal grunt, as if of release and thanksgiving, and a great clatter of shoes—and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, to the church door.
Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and, as soon as dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall.
Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as a guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the gracious open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice, at war with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish specimen of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain. He paused, scratched his head, and glancing affectionately towards his companion, exclaimed—
"But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than that little pony, Master Randal; and sure I ought, for you be as good a gentleman as any in the land."
"Thank you," said Randal. "But I like walking better than riding—I am more used to it."
"Well, and you walk bra'ly—there ben't a better walker in the county. And very pleasant it is walking; and 'tis a pretty country afore you, all the way to the Hall."
Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to flatter or to soothe; and, coming at length into a broader lane, said—"I think I can find my way now. Many thanks to you, Tom;" and he forced a shilling into Tom's horny palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to his eye. He felt more grateful for that shilling than he had for Frank's liberal half-crown; and he thought of the poor fallen family, and forgot his own dire wrestle with the wolf at his door.
He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal was out of sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie continued to walk on at a quick pace. With all his intellectual culture, and his restless aspirations, his breast afforded him no thought so generous, no sentiment so poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept slouchingly homeward.
As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a broad piece of waste land, he began to feel tired, and his step slackened. Just then a gig emerged from one of these by-roads, and took the same direction as the pedestrian. The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded at a foot's-pace; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty well abreast.
"You seem tired, sir," said the driver, a stout young farmer of the higher class of tenants, and he looked down compassionately on the boy's pale countenance and weary stride. "Perhaps we are going the same way, and I can give you a lift?"
It was Randal's habitual policy to make use of every advantage proffered to him, and he accepted the proposal frankly enough to please the honest farmer.
"A nice day, sir," said the latter, as Randal sat by his side. "Have you come far?"
"From Rood Hall."
"Oh, you be young Squire Leslie," said the farmer, more respectfully, and lifting his hat.
"Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then?"
"I was brought up on your father's land, sir. You may have heard of Farmer Bruce?"
Randal.—"I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. Bruce, who rented, I believe, thebest part of our land, and who used to bring us cakes when he called to see my father. He is a relation of yours?"
Farmer Bruce.—"He was my uncle. He is dead now, poor man."
Randal.—"Dead! I am grieved to hear it. He was very kind to us children. But it is long since he left my father's farm."
Farmer Bruce, apologetically.—"I am sure he was very sorry to go. But, you see, he had an unexpected legacy——"
Randal.—"And retired from business?"
Farmer Bruce.—"No. But, having capital, he could afford to pay a good rent for a real good farm."
Randal, bitterly.—"All capital seems to fly from the lands of Rood. And whose farm did he take?"
Farmer Bruce.—"He took Hawleigh, under Squire Hazeldean. I rent it now. We've laid out a power o' money on it. But I don't complain. It pays well."
Randal.—"Would the money have paid as well, sunk on my father's land?"
Farmer Bruce.—"Perhaps it might, in the long run. But then, sir, we wanted new premises—barns, and cattle-sheds, and a deal more—which the landlord should do; but it is not every landlord as can afford that. Squire Hazeldean's a rich man."
Randal.—"Ay!"
The road now became pretty good, and the farmer put his horse into a brisk trot.
"But which way be you going, sir? I don't care for a few miles more or less, if I can be of service."
"I am going to Hazeldean," said Randal, rousing himself from a reverie. "Don't let me take you out of your way."
"Oh, Hawleigh Farm is on the other side of the village, so it be quite my way, sir."
The farmer then, who was really a smart young fellow—one of that race which the application of capital to land has produced, and which, in point of education and refinement, are at least on a par with the squires of a former generation—began to talk about his handsome horse, about horses in general, about hunting and coursing; he handled all these subjects with spirit, yet with modesty. Randal pulled his hat still lower down over his brows, and did not interrupt him till past the Casino, when, struck by the classic air of the place, and catching a scent from the orange-trees, the boy asked abruptly—"Whose house is that?"
"Oh, it belongs to Squire Hazeldean, but it is let or lent to a foreign Mounseer. They say he is quite the gentleman, but uncommonly poor."
"Poor," said Randal, turning back to gaze on the trim garden, the neat terrace, the pretty belvidere, and (the door of the house being open) catching a glimpse of the painted hall within—"poor; the place seems well kept. What do you call poor, Mr. Bruce?"
The farmer laughed. "Well, that's a home question, sir. But I believe the Mounseer is as poor as a man can be who makes no debts and does not actually starve."
"As poor as my father?" asked Randal, openly and abruptly.
"Lord, sir! your father be a very rich man compared to him."
Randal continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured up the contrast of his slovenly, shabby home, with all its neglected appurtenances! No trim garden at Rood Hall, no scent from odorous orange blossoms. Here poverty at least was elegant—there, how squalid! He did not comprehend at how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful can be effected. They now approached the extremity of the Squire's park pales! and Randal, seeing a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy plunged amid the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely, and his mellow merry whistle came to Randal's moody ear as he glided quick under the shadow of the trees.
He arrived at the Hall, to find that all the family were at church; and, according to the patriarchal custom, the church-going family embraced nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid that Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's return. He therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call again when church was over.
The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome old house.
There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the spacious lawn—in the numerous parterres of varying flowers—in the venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still shadows over the grass—and in the picturesque building, with its projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on the scene before him.
He beheld the evidence of wealth—and the envy of wealth jaundiced his soul.
Folding his arms on his breast, he stood a while, looking all around him with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his eyes fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself——
"The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell me I have talents and learning, and I have taken to my heart the maxim, 'Knowledge is power.' And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge ever place me on the same level as that on which this dunce is born? I don't wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the poor, who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley Egerton means me to come into Parliament, and be a Tory like himself. What! keep things as they are!No; for me not even Democracy, unless there first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat—'More blood!' Marat had lived as a poor man, and cultivated science—in the sight of a prince's palace."
He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old hall, which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace; and with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backwards, as if not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.
"But," he continued to soliloquize—"but of revolution there is no chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then, shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him—what from? His father's halls? Well, but if he were dead, who would be the heir of Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to this Squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his uncle Egerton—an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least, is more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton? Ay—and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation—simulation. Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon practised it—and—"
Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts, the boy had continued to walk backwards, he had come to the verge where the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha—and, just as he was fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the ground went from under him, and slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie!
It so happened that the Squire, whose active genius was always at some repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal, recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his clothes covered with mud; while the rudeness of the fall was evinced by the fantastic and extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally, was as little like the hat of a decorous hard-reading young gentlemen—protegéof the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton—as any hat picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly could be.
Randal was dizzy, and stunned, and bruised, and it was some moments before he took heed of his raiment. When he did so, his spleen was greatly aggravated. He was still boy enough not to like the idea of presenting himself to the unknown Squire, and the dandy Frank, in such a trim: he resolved at once to regain the lane and return home, without accomplishing the object of his journey; and seeing the footpath right before him, which led to a gate that he conceived would admit him into the highway sooner than the path by which he had come, he took it at once.
It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the warnings of our good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant power had precipitated Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all who choose what is, now-a-days, by no means an uncommon step in the march of intellect—viz., the walking backwards, in order to gratify a vindictive view of one's neighbor's property! I suspect that, before this century is out, many a fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha, and scrambled out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had on when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good genius for giving him a premonitory tumble;—and I never yet knew a man who did!
The Squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt, as well as his pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just after he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation, but the embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the Squire to be ruffled, as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be; and shortly after breakfast the Squire retired into his study, and absented himself from morning service.
In his delightfulLife of Oliver Goldsmith, Mr. Foster takes care to touch our hearts by introducing his hero's excuse for not entering the priesthood. He did not feel himself good enough. Thy Vicar of Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and Dr. Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss Jemima's fears are realized. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough—I don't say for a priest, but even for one of the congregation—"days in which (said the Squire in his own blunt way), as I have never in my life met a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the family pew. He shan't be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor grandmother's prayer-book." So the Squire and his demon stayed at home. But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over; and, on this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it may be presumed that the Squire had reasoned or fretted himself into a proper state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forthfrom the porch of his hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The second service was (as is commonly the case, in rural districts) more numerously attended than the first one; and it was our Parson's wont to devote to this service his most effective discourse.
Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology nor the archæological learning that distinguish the rising generation of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the details in the church were purely gothic or not: crockets and finials, round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never troubled his head. But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal importance with those subtler mysteries—he knew how to fill his church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and at evening service the church overflowed.
Parson Dale, too, may be considered, now-a-days, to hold but a mean idea of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known to dispute on its exact bearing with the State—whether it was incorporated with the State, or above the State—whether it was antecedent to the Papacy, or formed from the Papacy, &c., &c. According to his favorite maxim,Quieta non movere(not to disturb things that are quiet), I have no doubt that he would have thought that the less discussion is provoked upon such matters, the better for both church and laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the gospel—to advise—to deter—to persuade—to reprove. And it was for the evening service that he prepared those sermons, which may be called "sermons that preachatyou." He preferred the evening for that salutary discipline, not only because the congregation was more numerous, but also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that people bear better to be preached at after dinner than before; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach is at peace. There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale's way of preaching at you. It was done in so imperceptible fatherly a manner, that you never felt offended. He did it, too, with so much art, that nobody but your own guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the Squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr. Bullock the church-warden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman, and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached athimmore often than at any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the sense to know it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's sermons, something of that boldness of illustration which would have been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple, now and then, to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to knowledge—but to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes his references to sources not within the ordinary reading of his congregation would spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's leisure on his hands, to ask the Parson for farther explanation, and so he lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction under a safe guide.