"My Novel" — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

the grounds and gardens (improvements which, as the squire, who preferred productive labour, justly complained, “would never finish”) for little timely jobs of work to some veteran grandsire, who still liked to earn a penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that “came too fast.” Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the whitest of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths,—with a look of suppressed roguery in his bright hazel eye, that contrasted his assumed stateliness of mien,—without his portion of the silent blessing. Not that he had done anything yet to deserve it; but we all give youth so large a credit in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only rose from too soft and feminine a susceptibility, too ivy-like a yearning for some masculine oak whereon to entwine her tendrils; and so little confined to self was the natural lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped many a village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage gift from her own privy purse; notwithstanding the assurances with which she accompanied the marriage gift,—namely, that “the bridegroom would turn out like the rest of his ungrateful sex; but that it was a comfort to think that it would be all one in the approaching crash!” So that she had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young; while the slim captain, on whose arm she rested her forefinger, was at least a civil-spoken gentleman, who had never done any harm, and who would doubtless do a deal of good if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even the fat footman who came last, with the family Prayer-book, had his due share in the general association of neighbourly kindness between hall and hamlet. Few were there present to whom he had not extended the right-hand of fellowship with a full horn of October in the clasp of it; and he was a Hazeldean man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of the squire’s household (now letting themselves out from their large pew under the gallery) were.

      On his part, too, you could see that the squire “was moved withal,” and a little humbled moreover. Instead of walking erect, and taking bow and courtesy as a matter of course, and of no meaning, he hung his head somewhat, and there was a slight blush on his cheek; and as he glanced upward and round him—shyly, as it were—and his eye met those friendly looks, it returned them with an earnestness that had in it something touching as well as cordial,—an eye that said, as well as eye could say, “I don’t quite deserve it, I fear, neighbours; but I thank you for your good-will with my whole heart.” And so readily was that glance of the eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place out of doors instead of in the church, there would have been a hurrah as the squire passed out of sight.

      Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got clear of the churchyard, ere Mr. Stirn was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, the squire’s face grew long, and his colour rose. The congregation, now flocking out of the church, exchanged looks with each other; that ominous conjunction between squire and man chilled back all the effects of the parson’s sermon. The squire struck his cane violently into the ground. “I would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean; a young gentleman,—‘s death, sir, a relation—his grandmother was a Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima’s right, and the world’s coming to an end! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks! What will the parson say? and after such a sermon! ‘Rich man, respect the poor!’ And the good widow too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms! Stirn, you have a heart of stone! You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of Hazeldean without trial, sentence, or warrant? Run and let the boy out before any one sees him: run, or I shall—”

      The squire elevated the cane, and his eyes shot fire. Mr. Stirn did not run, but he walked off very fast. The squire drew back a few paces, and again took his wife’s arm. “Just wait a bit for the parson, while I talk to the congregation. I want to stop ‘em all, if I can, from going into the village; but how?”

      Frank heard, and replied readily,—“Give ‘em some beer, sir.”

      “Beer! on a Sunday! For shame, Frank!” cried Mrs. Hazeldean.

      “Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you, Frank,” said the squire, and his brow grew as clear as the blue sky above him. I doubt if Riccabocca could have got him out of his dilemma with the same ease as Frank had done.

      “Halt there, my men,—lads and lasses too,—there, halt a bit. Mrs. Fairfield, do you hear?—halt. I think his reverence has given us a capital sermon. Go up to the Great House all of you, and drink a glass to his health. Frank, go with them, and tell Spruce to tap one of the casks kept for the haymakers. Harry” (this in a whisper), “catch the parson, and tell him to come to me instantly.”

      “My dear Hazeldean, what has happened? You are mad.”

      “Don’t bother; do what I tell you.”

      “But where is the parson to find you?”

      “Where? gadzooks, Mrs. H.,—at the stocks, to be sure!”

      CHAPTER XI

      Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humour, the astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted captive whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared speechless and aghast upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the doctor enjoying his pipe, and cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sangfroid that was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that black and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged up, and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant; while to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more and more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers of Darkness, and that he himself, prematurely and in the flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy.

      Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do him justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean’s report of the squire’s urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale’s ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing Stirn’s amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known to display,—except at the whist-table,—

      “Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,—I am shocked at you. I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman’s sermon had been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish! What on earth has come to you all?”

      “That’s the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer,” groaned the squire, quite mildly and pathetically,—“What on earth has come to us all? Ask Stirn:” (then bursting out) “Stirn, you infernal rascal, don’t you hear? What on earth has come to us all?”

      “The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir,” said Stirn, provoked out of all temper. “I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all.”

      “A mortal fiddlestick! Where’s Leonard Fairfield, I say?”

      “Him knows best,” answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety’s sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca.