“Perhaps,” said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would permit,—“perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks.”
The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile, as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of extricating him.
“Lord love your reverence, you’d better not!” cried Mr. Stirn. “Don’t be tempted,—he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near him for all the—”
The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to the parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than all present—even than the tall squire—approached Mr. Stirn, with a gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently.
“I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn,” said the Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. “It is certainly a great honour; but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits you to a personal interview in another—and a hotter world.”
CHAPTER XII
“But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?” asked the squire, scratching his head.
“My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna.”
“Did he, and what for?”
“To try what it was like, I suppose,” answered Riccabocca. The squire burst out a laughing.
“And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can’t wonder,—it is a very handsome pair of stocks,” continued the squire, with a loving look at the object of his praise. “Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in those stocks,—I’should not mind it myself.”
“We had better move on,” said the parson, dryly, “or we shall have the whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor. Now, pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can’t understand a word of what has passed. You don’t mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get into disgrace?”
“Yes, he has though,” cried the squire. “Stirn, I say, Stirn!” But Stirn had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of narrative at secondhand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to communicate,—the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from public humiliation.
The parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the beer-drinking, took the squire by the hand. “Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me,” he said repentantly; “I ought to have known at once that it was only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny brawling and fighting on the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Like or unlike,” said the squire, “it has been a gross insult to young Leslie, and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the best friends in the world. I can’t think what it is,” continued Mr. Hazeldean, musingly; “but it seems that there must be always some association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine. There was I, son of his own mother,—who might have been shot through the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder! and now his wife’s kinsman—my kinsman, too—grandmother a Hazeldean,—a hard-reading, sober lad, as I am given to understand, can’t set his foot into the quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that ever was seen makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It is FATALITY!” cried the squire, solemnly.
“Ancient legend records similar instances of fatality in certain houses,” observed Riccabocca. “There was the House of Pelops, and Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of OEdipus.”
“Pshaw!” said the parson; “but what’s to be done?”
“Done?” said the squire; “why, reparation must be made to young Leslie. And though I wished to spare Lenny, the young ruffian, a public disgrace—for your sake, Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield’s—yet a good caning in private—”
“Stop, sir!” said Riccabocca, mildly, “and hear me.” The Italian then, with much feeling and considerable tact, pleaded the cause of his poor protege, and explained how Lenny’s error arose only from mistaken zeal for the squire’s service, and in the execution of the orders received from Mr. Stirn.
“That alters the matter,” said the squire, softened; “and all that is necessary now will be for him to make a proper apology to my kinsman.”
“Yes, that is just,” rejoined the parson; “but I still don’t learn how he got out of the stocks.”
Riccabocca then resumed his tale; and, after confessing his own principal share in Lenny’s escape, drew a moving picture of the boy’s shame and honest mortification. “Let us march against Philip!” cried the Athenians when they heard Demosthenes—
“Let us go at once and comfort the child!” cried the parson, before Riccabocca could finish.
With that benevolent intention all three quickened their pace, and soon arrived at the widow’s cottage. But Lenny had caught sight of their approach through the window; and not doubting that, in spite of Riccabocca’s intercession, the parson was come to upbraid and the squire to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got amongst the woods, and lay there perdu all the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark that his mother—who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen, and trying in vain to listen to the parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother—heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his face, sobbing aloud.
“No harm, my boy,” said the parson, tenderly; “you have nothing to fear,—all is explained and forgiven.”
Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. “Sir,” said he, sturdily, “I don’t want to be forgiven,—I ain’t done no wrong. And—I’ve been disgraced—and I won’t go to school, never no more.”
“Hush, Carry!” said the parson to his wife, who with the usual liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. “Good-night, Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that time you will think better of it.”
The parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to report Lenny’s safe return; for the squire was very uneasy about him, and had even in person shared the search. As soon as he heard Lenny was safe—“Well,” said the squire, “let him go the first thing in the morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie’s pardon, and all will be right and smooth again.”
“A young villain!” cried Frank, with his cheeks the colour of scarlet; “to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call on me! But I wonder Randal let him off so well,—any other boy in the sixth form would have killed him!”
“Frank,” said the parson, sternly, “if we all had our deserts, what should be