NOVELS
OF
SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
THE CAXTON NOVELS
VOL. III.








"MY NOVEL"
VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON
SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON, BART.
NEQUE ENIM NOTARE SINGULOS MENS KEI MIl.
TERAM IPSAM VITAM ET MORES HOMINUM OSTEVDZO
Phaedru
LIBRARY EDITION-IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. I.
PHILADELPH IA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT  & CO.
1865.








MY NOVEL.
BOOK FIRST.
INITIAL CHAPTER.
SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN.
SCENE, The Hall in Uncle Roland's Tower-TIME,
Night — SEASON, Winter.
MR. Caxton is seated before a great geographical
globe, which he is turning round leisurely, and- " for his
own recreation," as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, a
philosopher should turn round the orb of which that
globe professes to be the representation and effigies.
My mother having just adorned a very small frock with a
very smart braid, is holding it out at arm's-length, the
more to admire the effect. Blanche, though leaning both
hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the
-frock, but glances towards PIsIsTRATUS, who, seated near:the fire, leaning back in the chair, and his head bent over
his breast, seems in a very bad humor. Uncle Roland,
1*'                               (5)




6                MY NOVEL; OR,
who has become a great novel-reader, is deep in the
mysteries of some fascinating third volume.  Mr. Squills
has brought The Times in his pocket for his own special
profit and delectation, and is now bending his brows over
"the state of the money market," in great doubt whether
railway shares can possibly fall lower; for Mr. Squills,
happy man! has large savings, and does not know what
to do with his money, or, to use his own phrase, "how
to buy in at the cheapest, in order to sell out at the
dearest."
MR. CAXTON  (musingly). - It must have been a
monstrous long journey. It would be somewhere hereabouts, I take it, that they would split off.
My MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show
Austin that she paid him the compliment of attending to
his remarks).- Who split off, my dear?
"Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration,
"you ask just the question which it is most difficult to
answer. An ingenious speculator on races contends that
the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of our
northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis could
be correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers
of Odin), are of the same origin as the Etrurians. And
why, Kitty - I just ask you, why?"
My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned
the frock to the other side of the light.
"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding"because the Etrurians called their gods' the.Esar,' and
the Scandinavians called theirs the iEsir, or Aser I And




VARIETIES IN ENGLISI  LIFE.
where do you think this adventurous scholar puts their
cradle? "
"Cradle I " said my mother, dreamily -" it must be in
the nursery."
MR. CAXTON. —Exactly -in the nursery of the human
race-just here [and my father pointed to the globe,]
bounded, you see, by the river Halys, and in that region
which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a word designating light or fire,) has been immemorially called
Asia. Now, Kitty, from Ees or As our ethnological
speculator would derive not only Asia, the land, but.Esar,
or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence he supposes
the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But
if we give him so much, we must give him more, and
deduce from the same origin the Es of the Celt and the
Ized of the Persian, and — what will be of more use to
hinm, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put together
-the AEs of the Romans, that is, the God of CopperMoney-a very powerful household god he is to this day I
My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were
taking my father's proposition into serious consideration.' So perhaps," resumed my father, "and not unconformably with sacred records, from one great parent
horde came all those various tribes, carrying with them
the name of their beloved Asia; and, whether they
wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own
emphatic designation of' Children of the Land of Light'
into the title of gods. And to think" (added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck in the globe on




8               MY N.OVEL; OR,
which his forefinger rested),  "to think how little they
changed for the better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the icebergs of the Baltic -so
comfortably off as they were here, if they could but have
stayed quiet."
"And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr.
Squills.
" Pressure of population, and not enough to live upon,
I suppose," said my father.
PISISTRATUS (sulkily).- More probably they did away
with the Corn Laws, sir.
" Pape!" quoth my father; "that throws a new light
on the subject."
PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring
three straws about the origin of the Scandinavians).-I
know that if we are to lose ~500 every year on a farm
which we hold rent-free, and which the best judges allow
to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had
better make haste and turn.Asir, or Aser, or whatever
you call them, and fix a settlement on the property of
other nations- otherwise, I suspect, our probable settlement will be on the parish.,MR. SQUILLS (who, it must be remembered, is an enthusiastic Free-trader). — You have only got to put more
capital on the land.
PISISTRATUS.-Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well
of that investment, put your capital on it. I promise
that you shall have every shilling of profit.
Ma. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind The Times).




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              9
I don't think the Great Western can fall any lower;
though it is hazardous - I can but venture a few
hundreds
PISISTRATUS.- On our land, Squills? Thank you.
MR. SQUILLS.- NO, no   anything but that - on the
Great Western.
Pisistratus relaxes into gloom.  Blanche steals up
coaxingly, and gets snubbed for her pains.
A pause.
MR. CAXTON. -There are two golden rules of life;
one relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets.
The first is —If our thoughts get into a low, nervous,
aguish condition, we should make them change the air;
the second is comprised in the proverb, "It is good to
have two strings to one's bow." Therefore, Pisistratus, I
tell you what you must do - Write a Book I
PISISTRATUS.-Write a Book!-Against the abolition
of the Corn Laws? Faith, sir, the' mischief's done. It
takes a much better pen than mine to write down an Act
of Parliament.
MR. CAXTON. -I only said "Write a book."  All
the rest is the addition of your own headlong imagination.
PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book
rising before him). - Indeed, sir, I should think that that
would just finish us!
MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption).
— A book that will sell. A book that will prop up the
fall of prices! A book that will distract your mind from
its dismal apprehensions, and restore your affection to




10              MY NOVEL; OR,
your species, and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of
sound principles -by the sight of a favorable balance at
the end of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a
differerence that little circumstance makes in our views
of things in general. T remember when the bank in which
Squills had incautiously left ~1,000 broke, one remarkably
healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said
that the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you
see now, when, thanks to a long succession of sickly
seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in the Great
Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never
in so prosperous a condition.
MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly). - Pooh, pooh.
MR. CAXTON.-Write a book, my son -write a book.
Need I tell you that Money or Moneta, according to
Ilyginus, was the mother of the Muses? Write a book.
BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus). -0 yes,
Sisty - a book - a book! you must write a book.
"I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down
the volume he had just concluded, "he could write a
devilish deal better book than'this; and how I come to
read such trash, night after night, is more than I could
possibly explain to the satisfaction of an intelligent jury,
if I were put into a witness-box, and examined in the
mildest manner by my own counsel."
MR. CAXTON. — You see that Roland tells us exactly
what sort of a book it shall be.
PISISTRATUS. - Trash, sir?
MR. CAXTON. - No- that is, not necessarily trash -




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             11
but a book of that class which, whether trash or not,
people can't help reading.  Novels have become a necessity of the age: you must write a novel.
PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious). -A novel! But
every subject on which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels of low life, novels of high
life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical,
novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of
India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian
Pyramids. From what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door
fowl, can I
"Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing?"
MR. CAXTON (after a little thought).-You remember
the story which Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night. That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot-puts you
chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and
furnishes you with characters which have been very
sparingly dealt with since the time of Fielding.  You
can give us the Country Squire, as you remember him in
your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving
-the old idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off,
as the railways bring Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy
reach of the manners of London. You can give us the.
old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may yet be
found; but before, you had to drag him out of the great'rractarian bog; and, for the rest I really think that
while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their
best, especially in Francee, and perhaps a little in England,




12              MIY NOVEL; OR,
to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the
kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his
back, something useful might be done by a few goodhumored sketches of those innocent criminals a little
better off than their neighbors, whom, however we dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure,
in one shape or another, as long as civilisation exists;
and they seem, on the whole, as good in their present
shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice-box of society
how we will.
PISISTRATUS.-Very well said, sir; but this rural country-gentleman life is not so new as you think.  There's
Washington IrvingMR. CAxToN.-Charming; but rather tne manners of
the last century than this. You may as well cite Addison
and Sir Roger de Coverley.
PISISTRATUS.- Tremaine and De Vere.
MR. CAXTON. — Nothing can be more graceful, nor
more unlike what I mean. The Pales and Terminus I
wish you to put up in the fields are familiar images, that
you may cut out of an oak-tree -not beautiful marble
statues, on porphyry pedestals, twenty feet high.
PISISTRATUS -Miss Austin; Mrs. Gore in her masterpiece of.lrs. Armytage; Mrs. Marsh, too; and then
(for Scotch manners) Miss Ferrier!
MR. CAXTON (growing cross).-Oh, if you cannot treat
on bucolics, but what you must hear some Virgil or other
cry " Stop thief," you deserve to be tossed by one of your
own "short-horns."  [Still more contemptuously —1 am




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             13
sure I don't know why we spend so much money on sending our sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anachronism of yours, Mrs. Caxton, can't even construe a
line and a half of Phedrus.  Phsedrus, Mrs. Caxton-a
book which is in Latin what Goody Two-Shoes is in the
vernacular I
Mns. CAXTON (alarmed and indignant). —Fie I Austin!
I am sure you can construe Phaedrus, dear.
Pisistratus prudently preserves silence.
MR. CAXTON. - I'll try him -
"Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio
Colorque propius."
What does that mean?
PISISTRATUS (smiling).- That every man has some
coloring matter within him, to give his own tinge to"-His own novel," interrupted my father.  " Contentus
peragis! "
During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had
sewn together three quires of the best Bath paper, and
she now placed them on a little table before me, with her
own ink-stand and steel pen.
My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, "Hush!"
my father returned to the cradle of the Xsar; Captain
Roland leant his cheek on his hand, and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills fell into a placid doze; and,'ifter three sighs that would have melted a heart of stone,
I rushed into- MY NOVEL.
I.  2




14             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER II.
" THERE has never been occasion to use them since I've
been in the parish," said Parson Dale.
" What does that prove?" quoth the Squire, sharply,
and looking the Parson full in the face.
"Prove I " repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign,
yet too conscious superiority - "What does experience
prove?"
"That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that
their.descendant is not a whit the wiser."
"Squire," replied the Parson, "although that is a
melancholy conclusion, yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the Dales in particular,
it is not one which my candor as a reasoner, and my
humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge."
" I defy you," said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. " But
to stick to the subject (which it is monstrous hard to do
when one talks with a parson), I only just ask you to
look yonder, and tell me, on your conscience —I don't
even say as a parson, but as a parishioner -whether you
ever saw a more disreputable spectacle?"
While he spoke, the Squire, leaning heavily on the
Parson's left shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             15
with the right eye of that disputatious ecclesiastic, so
that he might guide the organ of sight to the object he
had thus unflatteringly described.
"I confess," said the Parson, "that, regarded by the
eye of the senses, it is a thing that in its best day had
small pretensions to beauty, and is not elevated into the
picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my friend,
regarded by the eye of the inner man - of the rural philosopher and parochial legislator - I say it is by neglect
and decay that it is rendered a very pleasing feature in
what I may call' the moral topography of a parish.' "
The Squire looked at the Parson as if he could have
beaten him; and, indeed, regarding the object in dispute
not only with the eye of the outer man, but the eye of
law and order -the eye of a country gentleman and a
justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously disreputable. It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it
was broken right in the middle; through its four socketless eyes, neighbored by the nettle, peered the thistle: —
the thistle! a forest of thistles I — and, to complete the
degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the
donkey of an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal
was in the very act of taking his luncheon out of the eyes
and jaws of — THE PARISH STOCKS.
The Squire looked as if he could have beaten the
Parson; but, as he was not without some slight command
of temper, and a substitute was luckily at hand, he
gulphed down his resentment, and made a rush -at the
donkey 




16               MY NOVEL; OR,
Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore.
feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called
technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of
-escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had
justly provoked. But, the ass turning round with unusual
nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the Squire
caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels
among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and
thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced itself that it had nothing farther to apprehend for
the present, and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, according to the poetical admonition, "Gather
your rosebuds while you may," it cropped a thistle in full
bloom close to the ear of the Squire;  so close, indeed,
that the Parson thought the ear was gone; and with the
more probability, inasmuch as the Squire, feeling the
warm breath of the creature, bellowed out with all the
force of lungs accustomed to give a View-hallo I
"Bless me, is it gone?" said the Parson, thrusting his
person between the ass and the Squire.
"Zounds and the devil!" cried the Squire, rubbing
himself as he rose to his feet.
" Hush," said the Parson, gently.  "What a horrible
oath!"
" Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on," said
the Squire, still rubbing himself, "and had fallen into a
thicket of thistles, with a donkey's teeth within an inch
of your ear!"
" It is not gone, then?" interrupted the Parson.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              1
"No —that is, I think not," said the Squire, dubiously
and he clapped his hand to the organ in question.  " No 
it is not gone I "
"Thank Heauen I" said the good clergyman, kindly.
"Hum," growled the Squire, who was now once more
engaged in rubbing himself.  "Thank heaven indeed,
when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine I I should
like to know what use thistles are in the world."
"For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire,"
answered the Parson.
" Ugh, you beast! " cried Mr. Hazledean, all his wrath
re-awakened, whether by reference to the donkey species,
or his inability to reply to the Parson, or perhaps by
some sudden prick too sharp for humanity - especially
humanity in nankeens —to  endure without kicking;
"Ugh, you beast! " he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the
donkey, which, at the interposition of the Parson, had
respectfully recoiled a few paces, and now stood switching
its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of its fore-legs
- for the flies teased it.
"Poor thing!" said the Parson, pityingly. "See, it
has a raw place on the shoulder, and the flies have found
out the sore."
"I am devilish glad to hear it," said the Squire, vindictively.
"Fie, fie 1"
" It is very well to say'Fie, fie.' It was not you who
fell among the thistles. What's the man about now, I
wonder? "
2*                B




18              MY NOVEL; OR,
T'he parson had walked towards a chestnut-tree that
stood on the village green; he broke off a bough —returned to the donkey - whisked away the flies, and then
tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a protection from the swarms. The donkey turned round its
head, and looked at him with mild wonder.
" I would bet a shilling," said the Parson, softly, " that
this is the first act of kindness thou hast met with this
many a day. And slight enough it is, Heaven knows."
With that the Parson put his hand into his pocket, and
drew out an apple. It was a fine, large, rose-cheeked
apple -one of the last winter's store, from the celebrated
tree in the parsonage garden; and he was taking it as a
present to a little boy in the village, who had notably distinguished himself in the Sunday-school. " Nay, in common justice, Lenny Fairfield should have the preference,"
muttered the Parson. The ass pricked up one of its
ears, and advanced its head timidly.  "But Lenny Fairfield would be as much pleased with twopence; and what
could twopence do to thee? " The ass's nose now touched
the apple. "Take it, in the name of Charity," quoth
the Parson; " Justice is accustomed to be served last: "
and the ass took the apple. " How had you the heart?"
said the Parson, pointing to the Squire's cane.
The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the
Squire.
"Pooh! eat on; he'll not beat thee now."
" No," said the Squire, apologetically. " But, after all,
he is not an Ass of the Parish; he is a vagrant, and he




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             19
ought to be pounded. But the pound is in as bad a
state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned doctrines.'
" New-fashioned! "cried the Parson, almost indignantly,
for he had a great disdain of new fashions - " They are
as old as Christianity; nay, as old as Paradise, which,
you will observe, is derived from a Greek or rather a
Persian word, and means something more than' garden,'
corresponding," pursued the Parson, rather pedantically,
"with the Latin vivarium, viz., grove or park full of
innocent dumb creatures.  Depend on it, donkeys were
allowed to eat thistles there."
"Very possibly," said the Squire, drily. "But Hazeldean, though a very pretty village, is not Paradise. The
stocks shall be mended to-morrow- ay, and the pound
too,- and the next donkey found trespassing shall go
into it, as sure as my name's Hazeldean."
"Then,'" said the Parson, gravely, "I can only hope
that the next parish may not follow your example; or
that you and I may never be caught straying."
CHAPTER III.
PARSON DALE and Squire Hazeldean parted company'
the latter to inspect his sheep, the former to visit some
of his parishioners, including Lenny Fairfield, whom the
donkey had defrauded of his apple.




20              MY NOVEL; OR,
Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his
mother rented a few acres of grass-land from the Squire,
and it was now hay-time. And Leonard, commonly
called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow.
The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one
of the many nooks of the long, green, village lane. And
a thoroughly English cottage it was - three centuries old
at least; with walls of rubble let into oak frames, and
duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small
~panes of glass, an old doorway raised from the ground
by two steps.  There was about this little dwelling all
the homely rustic elegance which peasant life admits of;
a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few flowerpots were placed on the window-sills; the small plot of
ground in front of the house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some large rough stones on either
side the little path having been formed into a sort of
rock-work, with creepers that were now in flower; and
the potato-ground was screened from the eye by sweetpeas and lupine.  Simple elegance, all this, it is true;
but how well it speaks for peasant and landlord, when
you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has some
spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment.
Such a peasant is sure to be a bad customer to the alehouse, and a safe neighbor to the Squire's preserves. All
honor and praise to him, except a small tax upon both,
which is due to the landlord!
Such sights were as pleasant to the Parson as the most
beautiful landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              21
paused a moment at the wicket to look around him, and
distended his nostrils voluptuously to inhale the smell of
the sweet-peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay in
the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He
then moved on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and
well-polished as they were —for Mr. Dale was rather a
beau in his own clerical way, - on the scraper without
the door, and lifted the latch.
Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure
of some nymph painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in
pouring out the juice of the grape from her classic urn.
And the Parson felt as harmless if not as elegant a pleasure in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a
glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of
the thirsty haymakers.
Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with
that alert precision of movement which seems to come
from an active, orderly mind; and as she now turned her
head briskly at the sound of the Parson's footstep, she
showed a countenance prepossessing, though not handsome-a countenance from which a pleasant, hearty smile,
breaking forth at that moment, effaced some lines that in
repose spoke " of sorrows, but of sorrows past;" and her
cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of
the fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have favored the guess that the earlier part
of her life had been spent in the languid air and "withindoors" occupations of a town.
"Never mind me," said the Parson, as Mrs. Fairfield




22              MY NOVEL; OR,
dropped her quick curtsey, and smoothed her apron; "if
you are going into the hay-field, I will go with you; I
have something to say to Lenny  an excellent boy."
WIDow. -Well, sir, and you are kind to say it; but
so he is.
PARSON. - He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best lad in the whole school at his Catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I assure you, when I
see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I fancy
that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a
listener I
WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).
-'Deed, sir, when my poor Mark died, I never thought
I could have lived on as I have done. But that boy is
so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there
in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved
him, aud all he used to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my goodman smiled on me, and would
rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up,
and did not want me any more.
PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).-You never
hear anything of the old folks at Lansmere?
"'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me
nor the boy; but," added the Widow, with' all a peasant's
pride, "it isn't that I wants their money; only it's hard
to feel strange-like to one's own father and mother  "
PARSON. -You must excuse them. Your father, Mr.
Avenel, was never quite the same man after that sad event
which-but you are weeping, my friend; pardon me.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.            23
Your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in
another way.
WIDOW. — I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a
bit o' pride in me I and that's the reason they always
looked down on me.
PARSON. - Your parents must be well off; and I shall
apply to them in a year or two on behalf of Lenny, for
they promised me to provide for him when he grew up,
as they ought.
WIDow (with flashing eyes). -I am sure, sir, I hope
you will do no such thing; for I would not have Lenny
beholden to them as has never-given him a kind word sin'
he was born I
The Parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor
Mrs. Fairfield's hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal
from the charge of pride; but he saw that it was not the
time or moment for effectual peace-making in the most
irritable of all rancors, viz.: that nourished against one's
nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and
said: -"Well, time enough to think of Lenny's future
prospects; meanwhile, we are forgetting the hay-makers.
Come."
The widow opened the back door, which led across a
little apple orchard into the fields.
PARSON. - You have a pleasant place here; and I see
that my friend Lenny should be in no want of apples. I
had brought him one, but I have given it away on the
road.
WIDOW. - Oh, sir, it is not the deed- it is the will;




24              MY NOVEL; OR,
~ I felt when the Squire, God bless him   took two
pounds off the rent the year he - that is, Mark - died.
PARSON.- If Lenny continues to be such a help to you,
it will not be long before the Squire may put the two
pounds on again.
"Yes, sir," said the Widow, simply; "I hope he will."
"Silly woman!" muttered the Parson. "That's not
exactly what the schoolmistress would have said. You
don't read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety."
"You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my. poor,
poor sister; and though I was a sad stupid girl afore I
married, I tried to take after him when we came together."
CHAPTER IV.
THEY were now in the hay-field; and a boy of about
sixteen, but, like most country lads, to appearance much
younger than he was, looked up from his rake, with lively
blue eyes beaming forth under a profusion of brown curly
hair.
Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy —
not so stout nor so ruddy as one would choose for the
ideal of rustic beauty; nor yet so delicate in limb and
keen in expression as are those children of cities, in whom
the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but
still he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            25
was not without the grace of the city in his compact
figure and easy movements.! There was in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character
of innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had
been brought up by a woman, and much apart from
familiar contact with other children; and such intelligence
as was yet developed in him was not ripened by the jokes
and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings
from his elders, and good-little-boy maxims in good-littleboy books.
PARSON.- Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit
of school,.I see: it can teach you nothing better than to
be a support to your mother.
LENNY (looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened
glow over his face). — Please, sir, that may come one of
these days.
PARSON. — That's right, Lenny. Let me see! why,
you must be nearly a man.  How old are you?
Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother.
PARSON. —YOU ought to know, Lenny; speak for
yourself. Hold your tongue, Mrs. Fairfield.
LENNY (twirling his hat, and in great perplexity). —
Well, and there is Flop, neighbor Dutton's old sheep-dog.'He be very old now.
PARSON.- I am not asking Flop's age, but your own.
LENNY. -'Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop
and I were pups together.  That is, I-I.For the Parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield;
and the hay-makers, who have stood still to listen, are
I.-3




26              MY NOVEL; OR,
laughing too. And poor Lenny has quite lost his head,
and looks as if he would like to cry.
PARSON (patting the curly locks, encouragingly).
Never mind; it is not so badly answered, after all. And
how old is Flop?
LENNY. - Why, he must be fifteen year and more.
PARSON. -— How old, then, are you?
LENNY (looking up, with a beam of intelligence). -
Fifteen year and more.
Widow sighs and nods her head.
"That's what we call putting two and two together,"
said the Parson.  "Or, in other words," and here he
raised his eyes majestically towards the hay-makers —" in
other words —thanks to his love for his book - -simple
as he stands here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself
capable of INDUCTIVE RATIOCINATION."'
At those words, delivered ore rotundo, the hay-makers
ceased laughing; for even in lay matters they held the
Parson to be an oracle, and words so long must have a
great deal in them.
Lenny drew up his head proudly.
"You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?"
"'Deed he is," said the Widow, " and of all poor dumb
creatures. "
"Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine
apple, and that you met a friend who wanted it more than
you, what would you do with it?"
"Please you, sir, I would give him half of it."
The Parson's face fell. - "Not the whole, Lenny?"




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             27
Lenny considered. -" If he was a friend, sir, he would
not like me to give him all?"
"Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well
that I must e'en tell the truth. I brought you an apple,
as a prize for good conduct in school; but I met by the
way a poor donkey, and some one beat him for eating a
thistle, so I thought I would make it up by giving him
the apple. Ought I only to have given him the half?"
Lenny's innocent face became all smile; his interest
was aroused. -"And did the donkey like the apple?"
" Very much," said the Parson, fumbling in his pocket,
but thinking of Leonard Fairfield's years and understanding; and moreover, observing, in the pride of his
heart, that there were many spectators to his deed, he
thought the meditated twopence not sufficient, and he
generously produced a silver sixpence.
"There, my man, that will pay for the half-apple which
you would have kept for yourself."  The parson again
patted the curly locks, and, after a hearty word or two
with the other hay-makers, and a friendly " Good-day" to
Mrs. Fairfield, struck into the path that led towards his
own glebe.
He had just crossed the stile, when he heard hasty but
timorous feet behind him. He turned, and saw his friend
Lenny.
LENNY (half-crying, and holding out the sixpence). -
Indeed, sir, I would rather not. I would have given all
to the Neddy.
PARSON. - Why, then, my man, you have a still
greater right to the sixpence.




28               MY NOVEL; OR,
LENNY. - No, sir;'cause you only gave it to make up
for the half-apple. And if I had given the whole, as I
ought to have done, why I should have had no riglht to
the sixpence.  Please, sir, don't be offended; do take it
back, will you?
The Parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as the ass had poked its nose there
before in quest of the apple.
"I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquising, "that if one
don't give Justice the first place at the table, all the
other Virtues eat up her share."
Indeed, the case was perplexing.  Charity, like a
forward, impudent baggage as she is, always thrusting
herself in the way, and taking other people's apples to
make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due;
and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced,
awkward Virtue in her teens —but who, nevertheless, is
always engaged in picking the pockets of her sisters, tried
to filch from him his lawful recompense. The case was
perplexing; for the Parson held Susceptibility in great
honor, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to
give her a slap in the face, which might frighten her away
for ever.  So Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from
the sixpence to Lenny, and from Lenny to the sixpence.
" Buon giorno, Good-day to you," said a voice behind,
in an accent slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a
strange-looking figure presented'itself at the stile
Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in
a rusty suit of black -the pantaloons tight at the calf




VARIETIES IN:ENGLISH  LIFE.              29
and ankle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick
shoes, buckled high at the instep; — an old cloak, lined
with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day
was sultry; -a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a
carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though
the sky was cloudless; - a profusion of raven hair, in
waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the
sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion
sallow and swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the artist, were not
only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen
are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we
are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic -to wit, a
long hooked nose, sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose
piercing brilliancy took something wizard-like and mystical
from the large spectacles through which they shone; a
mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in which
a physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness, and some closeness, complete the picture. Imagine
this figure, grotesque, peregrinate, and to the eye of a
peasant certainly diabolical; then perch it on the stile in
the midst of those green English fields, and in sight of
that primitive English village; there let it sit straddling,
its long legs dangling down, a short German pipe
emitting clouds from one corner of those sardonic lips, its
dark eyes glaring through the spectacles full upon the
Parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny Fairfield looked exceedingly frightened.
"Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca," said Mr. Dale,
3*




30              MY NOVEL; OR,
smiling, "you come in good time to solve a very nice
question in casuistry; "I and herewith the Parson explained the case, and put the question —" Ought Lenny
Fairfield to have the sixpence, or ought he not?"
" Cospelto!" said the Doctor, "if the hen would but
hold her tongue nobody would know that she had laid an
egg."
CHAPTER V.
"GRANTED," said the Parson; "but what follows?
The saying is good, but I don't see the application."
"A thousand pardons! " replied Dr. Riccabocca, with
all the urbanity of an Italian; "but it seems to me that
if you had given the sixpence to the fanciullo - that is,
to this good little boy-without telling him the story
about the donkey, you would never put him and yourself
into this awkward dilemma."
"But, my dear sir," whispered the Parson mildly, as he
inclined his lips to the Doctor's ear, "I should then have
lost the opportunity of inculcating a moral lesson- you
understand."
Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his
pipe to his mouth, and took a long whiff. It was a whiff
eloquent, though cynical- a whiff peculiar to your philosophical smoker-a whiff that implied the most absolute,
but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the
Parson's moral lesson.




VARI.ETIES IN ENGLISHI LIFE.             31
"Still you have not given us your decision," said the
Parson, after a pause.
The Doctor withdrew his pipe.  "Cospetto!" said he
-" He who scrubs the head of an ass wastes his soap."
"If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs of yours," said the Parson, testily, "you
would not make it any the wiser."
" My good sir," said the Doctor, bowing low from his
perch on the stile, "I never presumed to say that there
were more asses than one in the story; but I thought that
I could not better explain my meaning, which is simply
this —you scrubbed the ass's head, and therefore you
must lose the soap. Let the fanciullo have the sixpence;
and a great sum it is too, for a little boy, who may spend
it all as pocket-money!"
"There, Lenny - you hear? " said the Parson, stretching out the sixpence.  But Lenny retreated, and cast on
the umpire a look of great aversion and disgust.
"Please, Master Dale," said he, obstinately, "I'd
rath6r not."
"It is a matter of feeling, you see," said the Parson,
turning to  the umpire; "and I believe the boy is
right."
"If it be a matter of feeling,"' replied Dr. Riccabocca,
"there is no more to be said on it. When Feeling comes
in at the door, Reason has nothing to do but to jump out
of the window."
"Go, my good boy," said the Parson, pocketing the
coin; "but stop I give me your hand first.  There I understand you; -good-bye I"




32              MY NOVEL; oR,
Lenny's eyes glistened as the Parson shook him by the
hand, and, not trusting himself to speak, he walked off
sturdily. The Parson wiped his forehead, and sat himself
down on the stile beside the Italian. The view before
them was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally)
enough to be silent for some moments. On the other side
the lane seen between gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts
that hung over the moss-grown pales of Hazeldean Park,
rose gentle, verdant slopes, dotted with she.ep and herds
of deer; a stately avenue stretched far away to the left,
and ended at the right-hand, within a few yards of a haha that divided the park from a level sward of table-land
gay with shrubs and flower-pots, relieved by the shade of
two mighty cedars. And on this platform, only seen in
part, stood the Squire's old-fashioned house, red-brick,
with stone mullions, gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots.
On this side the road, immediately facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from the
curves in the lane, while, beyond,. the ground declining,
gave an extensive prospect of woods and corn-fields,
spires and farms. - Behind, from a belt of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the parsonage-house, backed
by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in front. The
birds were still in the hedge-rows, - only, as if from the
very heart of the most distant woods, there came now and
then the mellow note of the cuckoo.
"Verily," said Mr. Dale, softly, "my lot has fallen on
a goodly heritage.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHI LIFE.-            3
The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed
almost inaudibly. Perhaps he thought of his own
Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all that fresh verdlure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger.
However, before the Parson could notice the sigh, or
conjecture the cause, Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an
expression almost malignant.
"Per Bacco!" said he; "in every country I observe
that the rocks settle where the trees are the finest.  I am
sure that, when Noah first landed on Ararat, he must
have found some gentleman in black already settled in the
pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth
of the cattle as they came out of the Ark."
The Parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher,
and there was in them something so deprecating, rather
than reproachful, that Dr. Riccabocca turned away his
face, and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred
priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest, that the Italian's heart
smote him for his irreverent jest on the cloth. Luckily
at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward
commencement of conversation, in the appearance of no
less a personage than the donkey himself- I mean the
donkey who ate the apple.




34              MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER VI.
THE Tinker was a stout swarthy fellow, jovial and
musical withal, for he was singing a stave as he flourished
his staff, and at the end of each refrain down came the
staff on the quarters of the donkey. The Tinker went
behind and sung, the donkey went before and was
thwacked.
"Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca;
"in mine, it is not the ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows."
The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the
hedge that divided the field from the road-" Gently,
gently," said he; "the sound of the stick spoils the singing! O, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott I a good man is merciful
to his beast."
The donkey seemed to recognise the voice of its friend,
for it stopped short, pricked one ear wistfully, and
looked up.
The Tinker touched his hat, and looked up too.
"Lord bless your reverence I he does not mind it, he
likes it. I vould not hurt thee; vould I, Neddy?"
The donkey shook his head and shivered: perhaps a
fly had settled on the sore, which the chestnut-leaves no
longer protected.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.              35
"I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott,"
said the Parson, more politely I fear than honestly - for
he had seen enough of that cross-grained thing called the
human heart, even in the little world of a country parish,
to know that it requires management, and coaxing, and
flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his
own donkey-" I am sure you did not mean to hurt him;
but he has already got a sore on his shoulder as big as
my hand, poor thing!"
"Lord, love'un! yes; that was done a-playing with
the manger, the day I gave'un oats!'? said the Tinker.
Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed
the ass. The ass pricked up his other ear, and surveyed
Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual survey of physical
qualifications, each being regarded according to the
average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether
the advantage was on the side of the philosopher.
The Parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his
friend, in all matters not purely ecclesiastical:
" Say a good word for the donkey! " whispered he.
" Sir," said the Doctor, addressing Mr.- Sprott, with a
respectful salutation, "there's a great kettle at my house
the Casino — which wants soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?"
"Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott, "and there
ben't a tinker in the country that I vould recommend like
myself, thof I say it."
"You jest, good sir," said the Doctor, smiling pleasantly. " A man who can't mend a hole in his own don



36               MY NOVEL; OR,
key, can never demean himself by patching up my great
kettle."
" Lord, sir! " said the Tinker, archly, "if I had known
that poor Neddy had had two sitch friends in court, I'd
had seen he vas a gintleman, and treated him as sitch."
" Corpo di Bacco!" quoth the Doctor, " though that
jest's not new, I think the Tinker comes very well out
of it."
"True; but the donkey I" said the Parson; "I've a
great mind to buy it."
"Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said
Dr. Riccabocca.
"Well?" said the Parson, interrogatively.
"Once in a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor
~Adrian, going to the public baths, saw an old soldier,
who had served under him, rubbing his back against the
marble wall. The Emperor, who was a wise, and therefore a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and
asked him why he resorted to that sort of friction.'Because,'- answered the veteran,'I am  too poor to have
slaves to rub me down.' The Emperor was touched, and
gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian
went to the baths, all the old men in the city were to be
seen rubbing themselves against the marble as hard as
they could. The Emperor sent for them, and asked them
-the same question which he had put to the soldier: the
cunning old rogues, of course, made the same answer.'Friends,' said Adrian,' since there are so many of you,
you will just rub one another!' Mr. Dale, if you don't




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             37
want to have all the donkeys in the country with holes
in their shoulders, you had better not buy the Tinker's!"
"It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least
bit of good," groaned the Parson, as he broke a twig
off the hedge nervously, snapped it in two, and flung
away the fragments: one of them hit the donkey on the
nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin, he would have
said, "Et tu, Brute!"  As it was, he hung down his
ears, and walked on.
" Gee hup! " said the Tinker; and he followed the ass.
Then stopping, he looked over his shoulder, and seeing
that the Parson's eyes were gazing mournfully on his
protege, "Never fear, your reverence," cried the Tinker,
kindly; "I'll not spite'un."
CHAPTERt VII.
"FouR o'clock," cried the Parson, looking at his watch;
"half an hour after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual, because of the fine trout
the Squire sent us. Will you venture on what our homely
language calls'pot luck,' Doctor?"
Now Riccabocca was a professed philosopher, and
valued himself on his penetration into the motives of
human conduct. And when the Parson thus invited him
to pot luck, he smiled with a kind of lofty complacency;
for Mrs. Dale enjoyed the reputation of having what her
I. -4




38              MY NOVEL; OR,
friends styled, "her little tempers."  And, as well-bred
ladies rarely indulge "little tempers" in the presence of
a third person not of the family, so Dr. Riccabocca instantly concluded that he was invited to stand between
the pot and the luck! Nevertheless - as he was fond of
trout, and a much more good-natured man than he ought
to have been according to his principles -he accepted
the hospitality; but he did so with a sly look from over
his spectacles, which brought a blush into the guilty
cheeks of the Parson.  Certainly Riccabocca had for
once guessed right, in his estimate of human motives.
The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned
the rill, and entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs,
that seemed to have sate on watch for their master, sprang
towards him, barking; and the sound drew the notice of
Mrs. Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from
the sash window which opened on the lawn. Now, O
reader! I know that, in thy secret heart, thou art chuckling over the want of knowledge in the sacred arcana of
the domestic hearth, betrayed by the author; thou art
saying to thyself, "A pretty way to conciliate'little
tempers' indeed, to add to the offence of spoiling the fish
the crime of bringing an unexpected friend to eat it. Pot
luck, quotha, when the pot's boiled over this half hour!"
But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader! learn
that both the author and Parson Dale knew very well
what they were about.
Dr. Riccabocca was the special favorite of Mrs. Dale,
and the only person in the whole county who never put




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            39
her out, by dropping in. In fact, strange though it may
seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had that mysterious
something about him, which we of his own sex can so
little comprehend, but which always propitiates the other..He owed this, in part, to his own profound but hypocritical policy; for he looked upon woman as the natural
enemy to man — against whom it was necessary to be
always on the guard; whom it was prudent to disarm by
every species of fawning servility and abject complaisance.
He owed it also, in part, to the compassionate and
heavenly nature of the angels whom his thoughts thus
villanously traduced —for women like one whom  they
can pity without despising; and there was something in
Signor Riccabocca's poverty, in his loneliness, in his
exile, whether voluntary or compelled, that excited pity;
while, despite the threadbare coat, the red umbrella, and
the wild hair, he had, especially when addressing ladies,
that air of gentleman and cavalier, which is or was more
innate in an educated Italian, of whatever rank, than
perhaps in the highest aristocracy of any other country
in Europe. For, though I grant that nothing is more
exquisite than the politeness of your French marquis of
the old regime - nothing more frankly gracious than the
cordial address of a high-bred English gentleman —
nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial good.
nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend
to forget his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing
you a favor - yet these specimens of the suavity of their
several nations are rare; whereas blandness and polish




40'              MY NOOVEL; oR,
are common attributes with your Italian.  They seem to
have been immemorially handed down to him, from ancestors emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the
grace of Horace.
"Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the
Parson, hastily.
"If Madame permit?" said the Italian, bowing over
the hand extended to him, which, however, he forbore to
take, seeing it was already full of the watch.
" I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled,"
began Mrs. Dale, plaintively.
" It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with
Mrs. Dale," said the infamous dissimulator.
"But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready,"
observed the Parson.
" He said that three quarters of an hour ago, Charles
dear," retorted Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca.
CHAPTE R  VIII.
WHILE the Parson aud his wife are entertaining their
guest, I propose to regale the reader with a small treatise
apropos of that " Charles dear," murmured by Mrs. Dale
-a treatise expressly written for the benefit of THE
DOMESTIC CIRCLE.
It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             41
that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear."
3But though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and
hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the
inquirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign monosyllable.  iFor instance, I
submit to the experienced that the degree of hostility it
betrays is in much proportioned to its collocation in the
sentence. When, gliding indirectly through the rest of
the period, it takes its stand at the close, as in that
" Charles dear" of Mrs. Dale, it has spilt so much of its
natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile,
"amara lento temperet risu."  Sometimes the smile is
plaintive, sometimes arch. Ex. Gr.
(Plaintive.) -"I know very well that whatever I do
is wrong, Charles dear."
"Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much
without me, Charles dear."
"' Not quite so loud I If you had but my poor head,
Charles dear," &c.
(Arch.) -" If you could spill the ink anywhere but on
the best table-cloth, Charles dear I "
"But though you must always have your own way, you
are not quite faultless, own, Charles dear," &c.
When the enemy stops in the middle of the sentence,
its venom is naturally less exhausted. Ex. gr.
"Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the
most fidgety person," &c.
"And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles
4*




42              MY NOVEL; OR,
dear, I should just like to know whose fault it was -
that's all."
"But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more
for me and the children than-" &c.
But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at the head of the sentence, bow your head to the
storm. It then assumes the majesty of "my" before it;
it is generally more than objurgation —it prefaces a
sermon. My candor obliges me to confess that this is the
mode in which the hateful monosyllable is more usually
employed by the marital part of the one flesh; and has
something about it of the odious assumption of the
Petruchian pater-familias -the head of the familyboding, not perhaps "peace and love, and quiet life,"
but certainly " awful rule and right supremacy." Ex. gr.
"My dear Jane   I ~Wish you would just put by that
everlasting crochet, and listen to me for a few moments,"
&c.
" My dear Jane -I wish you would understand me for
once - don't think I am angry -no, but I am hurt. You
must consider, &c.
"My dear Jane -I don't know if it is your intention
to ruin me, but I only wish you would do as all other
women do who care three straws for their husband's property,'" &c.
" My dear Jane - I wish you to understand that I am
the last person in the world to be jealous; but I'll be
d-   d if that puppy, Captain Prettyman," &c.
Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            43
as to feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely
nettle or. two; but who ever expected, before entering
that garden, to find himself pricked and lacerated by an
insidious exotical "dear," which he had been taught to
believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and
other tender and sensitive shrubs, which poets appropriate
to Venus?  Nevertheless Parson Dale, being a patient
man, and a pattern to all husbands, would have found no
fault with his garden, though there had not been a single
specimen of "dear," whether the dear humilis, or the
dear superba; the dear pallida, rubra, or nigra; the dear
suavis, or the dear horrida; -no, not a single " dear "
in the whole horticulture of matrimony, which MIrs. Dale
had not brought to perfection. But this was far from
being the case -Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement,
was unaware of the modern improvements, in variety of
color and sharpness of prickle, which have rewarded the
persevering skill of our female florists.
CHAPTER IX.
IN the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked
I ome across the fields.  Ir. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way; and as they now turned back to
the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of
the tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the
path amidst the waves of the green corn.




44             IMY NOVEL; OR,
"Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale feelingly; "and the
button was off his wristband.  What a pity he has nobody
to take care of him I He seems very domestic. Don't you
think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we could
get him a good wife?"
"Um," said the Parson; "I doubt if he values the
married state as he ought."
"What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man
more polite to ladies in my life."
"Yes, but-"
"But what?  You are always so mysterious, Charles
dear."
" Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what
the Doctor says of the ladies sometimes."
" Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know
what that means —pretty things you say of us. But you
are all alike; you know you are, love 1"
" I am sure," said the Parson simply, "that I have good
cause to speak well of the sex - when I think of you, and
my poor mother."
Mrs. Dale, who, with all her " tempers," was an excellent woman, and loved her husband with the whole of her
little heart, was touched. She pressed his hand, and did
not call him dear all the way home.
Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon
the high-road about two miles from Hazeldean. On one
side stood an old-fashioned solitary inn, such as English
inns used to be before they became railway hotels-square,
solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and comfortable,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.    45
with their great signs swinging from some elm-tree in
front, and the long row of stables standing a little back,
with a chaise or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord
talking of the crops to some stout farmer, whose rough
pony halts of itself at the well-known door. Opposite
this inn, on the other side of the road, stood the habitation
of Dr. Riccabocca.
A few years before the date of these annals, the stagecoach on its way to London from a seaport town stopped
at the inn, as was its wont, for a good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen- not gulp
down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen
Yankees, with that cursed railway whistle shrieking like
a fiend in their ears I It was the best dining-place on
the whole road, for the trout in the neighboring rill were
famous, and so was the mutton which came from Hazeldean Park.
From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers, who, alone insensible to the attractions of mutton
and trout, refused to dine -two melancholy-looking
foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much
the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was
less threadbare, the tall form less meagre, and he did not
then wear spectacles; and the other was his servant.
"They would walk about while the coach stopped."
Now the Italian's eye had been caught by a mouldering,
dismantled house on the other side of the road, which
nevertheless was well situated; half-way up a. green hill,
with its aspect due south, a little cascade falling down




46              MY NOVEL; OR,
artificial rock-work, a terrace with a balustrade, and a
few broken urns and statues before its Ionic portico;
while on the roadside stood a board, with characters
already half-effaced, implying that the house was "' To be
let unfurnished, with or without land."
The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so
evidently hung-long on hand, was the property of Squire
Hazeldean. It had been built by his grandfather on the
female side-a country gentleman who had actually been
in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days),
and who, on his return home, had attempted a miniature
imitatign of an Italian villa. He left an only daughter
and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean's father;
and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had
been uninhabited and neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves; but your true country
squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival
neighbor.  Some wanted shooting.  "That," said the
Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and strict preservers, "was quite out of the question."  Others were
fine folks from London. "London servants," said the
Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people, " would
corrupt their own, and bring London prices."  Others,
again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned up their agricultural noses. In short, some
were too grand, and others too vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends are
best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans.  Others because




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.              47
they were not known at all: "No good comes of
strangers," said the Hazeldeans.  And finally, as the
house fell more and more into decay, no one would take
it unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was
made of money!" said the Hazeldeans.  In short, there
stood the house unoccupied and ruinous; and there, on
its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians, surveying it
with a smile at each other, as for the first time since they
set foot in England, they recognised, in dilapidated pilasters and broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace, and
the remains of an orangery, something that reminded
them of the land they had left behind.
On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant
of the Squire's) such particulars as he could collect; and
a few days afterwards Mr. iazeldean received a letter
from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very
respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to
treat for Clump Lodge, otherwise called the " Casino:"
that the said gentleman did not shoot —lived in great
seclusion —and, having no family, did not care about the
repairs of the place, provided only it were made weatherproof —if the omission of more expensive reparations
could render the rent suitable to his finances, which were
very limited.  The offer came at a fortunate moment —
when the steward had just been representing to the Squire
the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from
falling into positive ruin, and the Squire was cursing the
fates which had put the Casino into an entail-so that he




48              MY NOVEL; OR,
could not pull it down for the building materials. Mr.
Hazeldean therefore caught at the proposal even as a fair
lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom,
catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay,
and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor's client was
a quiet, respectable man, he did not care for that, but
that the gentleman might have it for the first year rentfree, on condition of paying the taxes and putting the
place a little in order.  If they suited each other, they
could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this
gracious reply, Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived;
and, before the year's end, the Squire was so contented
with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven,
fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal,
on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair, barring the roof and fences,
which the Squire generously renewed at his own expense.
It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty place
the Italiaif had made of it, and, what is more astonishing,
how little it had cost him. He had, indeed, painted the
walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated
to himself, with his own hands.  HIis servant had done
the greater part of the upholstery. The two between
them had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed
to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck it as
they would have done some favorite chapel to their
Madonna.
It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to
the odd ways of the foreign settlers-the first thing that




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.               49'
offended them was the exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven, indeed, both
man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables
in the garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill: when
no trout could be caught, they fried the minnows (and
certainly, even in the best streams, minnows are more
frequently caught than trouts).  The next thing, which
angered the natives quite as much, especially the female
part of the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to the sex usually deemed
so indispensable in household matters. At first, indeed,
they had no woman servant at all. But this created such
horror, that Parson Dale ventured to hint upon the matter,
which Riccabocca took in very good part, and an old
woman was forthwith engaged, after some bargaining -
at three shillings a week — to wash and scrub as much as
she liked during the day-time. She always returned to
her own cottage to sleep. The man-servant, who was
styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo," did all else for
his master -smoothed his room, dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes,
and cleaned his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large
collection. But however close a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many little occasions
the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some
more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served
to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair reputation -suspected, it- is true, of
being a little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange
I -5                  D




50              MY NOVEL; OR,
inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself, — in other
respects harmless enough.
Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we
have seen, at the Parsonage. But not so at the hall.
For though the Squire was inclined to be very friendly to
all his neighbors, he was, like most country gentlemen,
rather easily huffed.  Riccabocca had, if with great
politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier invitations to dinner; and when the Squire
found that the Italian rarely declined to dine at the
Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak points —
viz., his pride in the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall - and
he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected.
Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now and then reminded
Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and
would have called on him more often than he did, but that
Riccabocca received him with such excessive politeness,
that the blunt country gentleman felt shy and put out, and
used to say that " to call on Rickeybockey was as bad as,going to Court."
But we have left Dr. Riccabocca on the high-road. By
this time he has ascended a narrow path that winds by
the side of the cascade; he has passed a trellis-work
covered with vines, from the which Jackeymo has positively
succeeded in making what he calls wine -a liquid,
indeed, that if the cholera had been popularly known in
those days, would have soured the mildest member of the
Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a robust




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              51
man, who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity,
having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till
he had had a bill from the apothecary as long as his own
arm. Passing this trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon
the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed and
trimmed as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands,
all his favorite flowers were arranged; here four orange
trees were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house
or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his
chosen morning room from May till October; and from
this Belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of
prospect as if our English Nature-had hospitably spread
on her green board all that she had to offer as a banquet
to the exile.
A man without his coat, which was thrown over the
balustrade, was employed in watering the flowers; a man
with movements so mechanical, with a face so rigidly
grave in its tawny hues, that he seemed like an automaton
made out of mahogany.
"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.
The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.
"Put by the watering-pot, and come hither," continued
Riccabocca, in Italian; and moving towards the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the historian, calls
Jean Jacques "Johni James."  Following that illustrious
example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo.
Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little
behind his master.
"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not




52              AIY NOVEL; OR,
always succeeded with us. Don't you think, after all, it
is tempting our evil star to rent those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange
movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a
ring on his finger.
" If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad
cheap?" said Jackeymo, doubtfully.
"Pii vale un presente che dui futuri," said Riccabocca (" A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.")
"Chi non fa quando pub, non puo fare quando
vuole" —(" He who will not when he may, when he
will it shall have nay "), - answered Jackeymo, as sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should
think in time that he must lay by for the dower of the
poor signorina" (young lady.)
Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply.
"She must be that high now I " said Jackeymo, putting
his hand on some imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised over the spectacles,
followed the hand.
"If the Padrone could but see her here- - "
"I thought I did!" muttered the Italian.
"He would never let her go from his side till she went
to a husband's," continued Jackeymo.
"But this climate —she could never- stand it," said
Riccabacca, drawing his cloak round him, as the north
wind took him in the rear.
"The orange-trees blossom even here with care," said




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE,              53
Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where
the orange-trees faced the north.  "See! " he added, as
he returned with a. sprig in full bud.
Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed
it in his bosom.
"The other one should be there too," said Jackeymo.
" To die-as this does already!" answered Riccabocca.
"Say no more."
Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing
at his master, drew his hand over his eyes.
There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it.' But, whether here or there, beauty without money is
the orange-tree without shelter. If a lad could be got
cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the crop to
the Madonna."
"I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and with his sardonic smile once more
lurking about the corners of his mouth,-" a lad made
for us."
"Diavolo! "
"No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen
a boy who -refused sixpence I"
" Cosa staupenda! "-(Stupendous thing!)-exclaimed
Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall the wateringpot.
"It is true, my friend."
"Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields
will grow gold."
5*




54               MY NOVEL; OR,
"I will think of it, for it must require management to
catch such a boy," said Riccabocca. " Meanwhile, light
a candle in the parlor, and bring from my bed-roomthat great folio of Machiaveli."
CHAPTER X
IN my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean
in patriarchal state -not exactly under the fig-tree he
has planted, but before the stocks he has reconstructedSquire Hazeldean and his family on the village green!
The canvas is all ready for the colors.
But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into
antecedents as to let the reader know that there is one
member of the family whom he is not likely to meet at
present, if ever, on the village green at iHazeldean.
Our Squire lost his father two years after his birth; his
mother was very handsome — and so was her jointure;
she married again at the expiration of her year of mourning; the object of her second choice was Colonel Egerton.
In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the
lively reign of Charles II.) there are a few whom some
elegant genius skims off from the milk of human nature,
and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel Egerton
was one of these ter quaturque beati, and dwelt apart on
a top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish - not bestowed
upon vulgar buttermilk — which persons of fashion call




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             55
The Great World.  Mlighty was the marvel of Pall Mall,
and profound was the pity of Park Lane, when this
super-eminent personage condescended to lower himself
into a husband.  But Colonel Egerton was not a mere
gaudy butterfly; he had the provident instincts ascribed
to the bee. Youth had passed from him, and carried off
much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was
fast coming when a home, with a partner who could help
to maintain it, would be conducive to his comforts, and
an occasional hum-drum evening by the fireside beneficial
to his health. In the midst of one season at Brighton, to
which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales,
he saw a widow who, though in the weeds of mourning,
did not appear inconsolable. Her person pleased his
taste —the accounts of her jointure satisfied his understanding - he contrived an introduction, and brought  a
brief wooing to a happy 5lose. The late Mr. Hazeldean
had so anticipated the chance of the young widow's second
espousals, that, in case of that event, he transferred, by
his testamentary dispositions, the guardianship of his
infant heir from the mother to two squires, whom he had
named his executors.  This circumstance combined with
her new ties somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from
the pledge of her former loves; and when she had borne
a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child that her
maternal affections gradually concentrated.
William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large
provincial academy, at which his forefathers had received
their education time out of mind. At first he spent his




56             MY NOVEL; OR,
holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she now resided either
in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to partake
of the gaieties at the Pavilion — so, as he grew older,
William, who had a hearty affection for country life, and
of whose bluff manners and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton
(having grown exceedingly refined) was openly ashamed,
asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations
either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went
late to a small college at Cambridge, endowed in the
fifteenth century by some ancestral Hazeldean; and left
it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A few
years afterwards he married a young lady, country born
and bred like himself.
Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be
said to have begun his initiation into the beau m onde before he had well cast aside his coral and bells; he had
been fondled in the lap of duchesses, and had galloped
across the room astride on the canes of ambassadors and
princes. For Colonel Egerton was not only very highly
connected -not only one of the Dii majores of fashionbut he had the still rarer good fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with all who knew him; so popular,
that even the fine ladies whom he had adored and abandoned forgave him for marrying out of "the set," and
continued to be as friendly as if he had not married at
all. People who were commonly called heartless were
never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons. When
the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school
at which his infancy budded forth amongst the stateliest




VARIETIES IN ENGLIISII LIFE.            57
of the little lilies of the field, and go to Eton, half the
fifth and sixth forms had been canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed that
he inherited his father's talent for acquiring popularity,
and that to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. Without achieving any scholastic distinction, he yet contrived to establish at Eton the most
desirable reputation which a boy can obtain - namely,
that among his own contemporaries, the reputation of a
boy who was sure to do something when he grew to be a
man. As a gentleman commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, he continued to sustain this high expectation, though
he won no prizes, and took but an ordinary degree; and
at Oxford the future "something" became more defined
-it was "something in public life" that this young man
was to do.
While he was yet at the university, both his parents
died- within a few months of each other. And when
Audley Egerton came of age, he succeeded to a paternal
property which was supposed to be large, and indeed had
once been so; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a
man to enrich his heir, and about ~1,500 a year was all
that sales and mortgages left of an estate that had
formerly approached a rental of ~10,000.
Still, Audley was considered to be opulent, and he did
lnot dispel that favorable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony.  On entering the world of London,
the Clubs flew open to receive him, and he woke one
morning to find himself, not indeed famous-'but the




MY NOVEL; 01R,
fashion. To this fashion he at once gave a certain gravity
and- value- he associated as much as possible with
public men and political ladies - he succeeded in confirming the notion that he was "born to ruin or to rule the
State. "
The dearest and most intimate friend of Audley Egerton was Lord L'Estrange, from whom he had been inseparable at Eton; and who now, if Audley Egerton
was the fashion, was absolutely the rage in London.
Harley, Lord L'Estrange, was the only son of the Earl
of Lansmere, a nobleman of considerable wealth, and
allied, by intermarriages, to the loftiest and most powerful families in England. Lord Lansmere, nevertheless,
was but little known in the circles of London. He lived
chiefly on his estates, occupying himself with the various
duties of a great proprietor, and when he came to the
metropolis, it was rather to save than to spend; so that
he could afford to give his son a very ample allowance,
when Harley, at the age of sixteen (having already
attained to the sixth form at Eton), left school for one
of the regiments of the Guards.
Few knew what to make of Harley L'Estrange - and
that was, perhaps, the reason why he was so much thought
of, He had been by far the most brilliant boy of his
time at Eton -not only the boast of the cricket-ground,
but the marvel of the school-room; yet so full of whims
and oddities, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with
so little aid from steadfast application, that he had not
left behind him the same expectations of solid eminence




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             59
which his friend and senior, Audley Egerton, had excited.
His eccentricities —his quaint sayings, and out-of-theway actions, became as notable in the great world as they
had been in the small one of a public school.  That he
was very clever there was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be surmised, not only
from the originality but the independence of his character.
He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its
praise or its censure - dazzled it, as it were, because he
could not help shining. He had some strange notions,
whether political or social, which rather frightened his
father. According to Southey, "A man should be no
more ashamed of having been a republican than of having
been young." Youth and extravagant opinions naturally
go together. I don't know whether Harley L'Estrange
was a republican at the age of eighteen; but there was
no young man in London who seemed to care less for
being heir to an illustrious name and some forty or fifty
thousand pounds a year. It was a vulgar fashion in that
day to play the exclusive, and cut persons who wore bad
neckeloths, and called themselves Smith or Johnson.
Lord L'Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite
enough to slight some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his birth, to insure to the offender the pointed
civilities of this eccentric successor to the Belforts and
the Wildairs.
It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as
he came of age, should represent the borough of Lansmere (which said borough was the single plague of the




60               MY NOVEL; OR,
Earl's life). But this wish was never realised. Suddenly,
when the young idol of London still wanted some two or
three years of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize
him. He withdrew entirely from society —he left unanswered the most pressing three-cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that ever strewed the table of a
young Guardsman; he was rarely seen anywhere in his
former haunts- when seen, was either alone or with
Egerton; and his gay spirits seemed wholly to have left
him.  A profound melancholy was written in his countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of his voice.
About this time a vacancy happening to occur for the representation of Lansmere, Harley made it his special request to his father that the family interest might be given
to Audley Egerton - a request which was backed by all
the influence of his lady mother, who shared in the esteem
which her son felt for his friend. The Earl yielded; and
Egerton, accompanied by Harley, went down to Lansmere Park, which adjoined the borough, in order to be
introduced to the electors. This visit made a notable
epoch in the history of many personages who figure in
my narrative; but at present I content myself with saying, that circumstances arose which, just as the canvass
for the new election commenced, caused both L'Estrange
and Audley to absent themselves from the scene of action,
and that the last even wrote to Lord Lansmere expressing his intention of declining to contest the borough.
Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley.Egerton, the election had become to Lord Lansmere




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             61
not only a matter of public importance, but of personal
feeling.  lie resolved that the battle should be fought
out, even in the absence of the candidate, and at his own
expense. Hitherto the contest for this distinguished
borough had been, to use the language of Lord LaLnsmere, " conducted in the spirit of gentlemen, "-that is to
say, the only opponents to the Lansmere interest had
been found in one or the other of two rival families in the
same county; and as the Earl was a hospitable, courteous
man, much respected and liked by the neighboring gentry,
so the hostile candidate had always interlarded his speeches
with profuse compliments to his Lordship's high character,
and civil expressions as to his Lordship's candidate. But,
thanks to successive elections, one of these two families
had come to an end, and its actual representative was
now residing within the Rules of the Bench; the head
of the other family was the sitting member, and, by an
amicable agreement with the Lansmere interest, he remained as neutral as it is in the power of any sitting
member to be amidst the passions of an intractable committee. Accordingly, it had been hoped that Egerton
would come in without opposition, when, the very day on
which he had abruptly left the place, a hancldbill, signed
" laverill Dashmore, Captain R..N'., Baker Street, Portman Square," announced, in very spirited language, the
intention of that gentleman "to emancipate the borough
from the unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical
faction, not with a view to his own political aggrandisement — indeed, at great- personal inconvenience —but
I — 6




62              MY NOVEL; OR,
actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny, and patriotic
passion for the purity of election."
This announcement was followed, within two hours, by
the arrival of Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage
and four, covered with yellow favors, and filled, inside
and out, with harum-scarum-looking friends, who had
come- down with him to share the canvass and partake
the fun.
Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had,
however. conceived a disgust to the profession from the
date in which a minister's nephew had been appointed to
the command of a ship to which the Captain considered
himself unquestionably entitled. It is just to the minister
to add, that Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard
for orders from a distance, as had immortalised Nelson
himself; but then the disobedience had not achieved the
same redeeming success as that of Nelson, and Captain
Dashmore ought to have thought himself fortunate in
escaping a severer treatment than the loss of promotion.
But no man knows when he is well off; and retiring on
half-pay, just as he came into unexpected possession of
some forty or fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed by a
distant relation, Captain Daslmore was seized with a
vindictive desire to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical
chastisement on the Administration.
A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to
be a most capital electioneerer for a popular but not
enlightened constituency.  It is true that he talked the
saddest nonsense ever heard from an open window; but




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHI  LIFE.            63
then his jokes were so broad, his manner so hearty, his
voice so big, that in those dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralising Democrat hollow. Moreover, he kissed all the women, old and young, with the
zest of a sailor who has known what it is to be three
years at sea without sight of a beardless lip; he threw
open all the public houses, asked a numerous committee
every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up in the
air, declared "' he would stick to his guns while there was
a shot in his locker." Till then, there had been but little
political difference between the candidate supported by
Lord Lansmere's interest and the opposing parties  for
country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty much of
the same way of thinking, and the question had been
really local -viz.: whether the Lansmere interest should
or should not prevail over that of the two squirearchical
families who had alone, hitherto, ventured to oppose it.
But though Captain Dashmore was really a very loyal
man, and much too old a sailor to think that the State
(which, according to established metaphor, is a vessel par
excellence) should admit Jack upon quarter-deck, yet,
what with talking against lords and aristocracy, jobs and
abuses, and searching through no very refined vocabulary
for the strongest epithets to apply to those irritating
nouns-substantive, his bile had got the better of his understanding, and he became fuddled, as it were, by his own
eloquence.  Thus, though as innocent of Jacobinical
designs as he was incapable of setting the Thames on




64              1MY NOVEL; OR,
fire, you would have guessed him, by his speeches, to be
one of the most determined incendiaries that ever applied
a match to the combustible materials of a contested
election; while, being by no means accustomed to respect
his adversaries, he could not have treated the Earl of
Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been
a Frenchman.  HIe usually designated that respectable
nobleman, who was still in the prime of life, by the title
of " Old Pompous;" and the Mayor, who was'never seen
abroad but in top-boots, and the solicitor, who was of a
large build, received from  his irreverent wit the joint
sobriquet of " Tops and Bottoms!   Hence the election
had now become, as I said before, a personal matter with
my Lord, and, indeed, with the great heads of the Lansmere interest. The Earl seemed to consider his very
coronet at stake in the question. " The Man from Baker
Street,"' with his preternatural audacity, appeared to him
a being ominous and awful-not so much to be regarded
with resentment as with superstitious terror: he felt as
felt the dignified Montezuma, when that ruffianly Cortez,
with his handful of Spanish rapscallions, bearded him in
his own capital, and in the midst of his Mexican splendor.
The gods were menaced if man could be so insolent!
wherefore, said my Lord, tremulously-" The Constitution is gone if the Man from Baker Street comes in for
Lansmere!"
But, in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election
looked extremely ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained
ground hourly, when the Lansmere solicitor happily




VARIETIES IN ENGLISII LIFE.             65
bethought him of a notable proxy for the missing candidate. The Squire of Hazelclean, with his young wife,
had been invited by the earl'in honor of Audley; and
in the Squire, the solicitor beheld the only mortal who
could cope with the sea-captain- a man with a voice as
burly and a face as bold - a man who, if permitted for
the nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women
no less heartily than the captain kissed them; and who
was, moreover, a taller, and a handsomer, and a younger
man — all three great recommendations in the kissing
department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the
borough, and to speak from the windows, Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly presentable than the
London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton himself.
The Squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first
said bluntly, "that he would do anything in reason to
serve his brother, but that he did not like, for his own
part, appearing, even in proxy, as a lord's nominee; and
moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why,
lhe must promise and vow, in his name, to be staunch and
true to the land they lived by'! And how could he tell
that Audley, when once he got into the House, would not
forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean, would
be made a liar, and look like a turncoat!"
But these scruples being overruled by the arguments
of the gentlemen, and the entreaties of the ladies, who
took in the election that intense interest which those
gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of strife
and contest, the Squire at length consented to confront
c~* z~E




66             fMY NOVEL; OR,
the Man from Baker Street, and went accordingly into
the thing with that good heart and old English spirit with
which he went into everything whereon he had once made
up his mind.
The expectations formed of the Squire's capacities for
popular electioneering were fully realised. He talked
quite as much nonsense as Captain Dashmore on every
subject except the landed interest; there he was great,
for he knew the subject well —knew it by the instinct
that comes with practice, and compared to which all your
showy theories are mere cobwebs and moonshine.
The agricultural outvoters - many of whom, not living
under Lord Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had
hitherto prided themselves on their independence, and
gone against my Lord — could not in their hearts go
against one who was every inch the farmer's friend. They
began to share in the Earl's personal interest against the
Man from Baker Street; and big fellows, with legs bigger
round than Captain Dashmore's tight little body, and
huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering the
shops, "intimidating the electors," as Captain Dashmore
indignantly declared.
These new recruits made a great difference in the
muster-roll of the Lansmere books; and when the day
for polling arrived, the result was a fair question for even
betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck contest,
Mr. Audley Egerton beat the Captain by two votes.
And the names of these voters were John Avenel, resident
freeman, and his son-in-law, Mark Fairfield, an outvoter,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              67
who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head
carpenter on the Squire's estate.
These votes were unexpected; for, though Miark Fairfield had come to Lansmere on purpose to support the
Squire's brother, and though the Avenels had been
always staunch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest,
yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not
desiring to sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately- silent) had befallen both these persons, and
they had left the town on the very day after Lord L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park.
Whatever might have been the gratification of the
Squire, as a canvasser and a brother, at Mr. Egerton's
triumph, it was much damped when, on leaving the dinner'
given in honor of the victory at the Lansmere Arms, and
about, with no steady step, to enter the carriage which
was to convey him to his lordship's house, a letter was
put into his hands by one of the gentlemen who had accompanied the Captain to the scene of action; and the
perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from
the bearer thereof, sent the Squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a'much soberer man than she had ventured to hope
for. The fact was, that on the day of nomination, the
Captain having honored  Mr. Itazeldean with many
poetical and figurative appellations-such as "Prize
Ox," "Tony Lumpkin," "Blood-sucking Vampire," and
"Brotherly Warming-pan," the Squire had retorted by a
joke about " Salt-water Jack;" and the Captain, who,




68               MY NOVEL; OR,
like all satirists, was extremely susceptible and thinskinned, could not consent to be called " Salt-water Jack"
by a "Prize Ox" and a "Blood-sucking Vampire."
The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean
by a gentleman, who, being from the Sister Country,
was deemed the most fitting accomplice in the honorable
destruction of a brother mortal, contained nothing more
nor less than an invitation to single combat; and the
bearer thereof, with the suave politeness enjoined by
etiquette on such well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested
the expediency of appointing the place of meeting in the
neighborhood of London, in order to prevent interference
from the suspicious authorities of Lansmere.
The natives of some countries- the warlike French in
particular — think little of that formal operation which
goes by the name of DUELLING. Indeed, they seem
rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing
your thorough-paced  Englishman —a Hazeldean. of
Hazeldean - considers with more repugnance and aversion, than that same cold-blooded ceremonial. It is not
within the range of an Englishman's ordinary habits of
thinking. He prefers going to law —a much more destructive proceeding of the two. Nevertheless, if an
Englishman must fight, why, he will fight. He says "it
is very foolish; " he is sure " it is most unchristianlike;"
he agrees with all that Philosophy, Preacher, and Press
have laid down on the subject; but he makes his will,
says his prayers, and goes out —like a heathen.
It never, therefore, occurred to the Squire to show the




VARIETIES IN  ENGLIS'H  LIFE,            69
white feather upon this unpleasant occasion.  The next
day, feigning excuse to attend the sale of a hunting stud
at Tattersall's, he ruefully went up to London, after
taking a peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife. Indeed,
the Squire felt convinced that he should never return
home except in a coffin. "It stands to reason," said he
to himself, "that a man who has been actually paid by
the King's Government for shooting people ever since he
was a little boy in a midshipman's jacket, must be a dead
hand at the job.  I should not mind if it was with doublebarrelled Mantons and small shot; but, ball and pistol!
they aren't human nor sportsmanlike!"  However, the
Squire, after settling his worldly affairs, and hunting up
an old college friend who undertook to be his second,
proceeded to a sequestered corner of Wimbledon Common, and planted himself, not sideways, as one ought to
do in such encounters (the which posture the Squire
swore was an unmanly way of shirking,) but full front to
the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy composure, that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent
shot, was at bottom as good-natured a fellow as ever
lived, testified his admiration by letting off his gallant
opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of the shoulder,
after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied. The
parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and the Squire, much to his astonishment to find
himself still alive, was conveyed to Limmer's Hotel,
where, after a considerable amount of anguish, the ball
was extracted and the wound healed. Now it was all




70'MY NOVELL; OR,
over, the Squire felt very much raised in his own conceit:
and when he was in a humor more than ordinarily fierce,
that perilous event became a favorite allusion with him.
He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred
at his hand the most lasting obligations; and that, havillg
procured Audley's return to Parliament, and defended his
interests at risk of his own life, he had an absolute right
to dictate to that gentleman how to vote -upon all
matters, at least, connected with the landed interest.
And when, not very long after Audley took his seat in
Parliament (which he did not do for some months,) he
thought proper both to vote and to speak in a manner
wholly belying the promises the Squire had made on his
behalf, Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it
could not but produce an unconciliatory reply.  Shortly
afterwards, the Squire's exasperation reached the culminating point; for having to pass through Lansmere on
a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom
he had induced to vote for his brother; and justly
imputing the disgrace to Audley, he never heard the
name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a
heightened color and an indignant expletive. Monsieur
de Ruqueville -who was the greatest wit of his dayhad, like the Squire, a half-brother, with whom he was
not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke
as his "frere de loin!"  Audley Egerton was thus
Squire iHazeldean's "distant brother! " —Enough of
these explanatory antecedents-let us return to the
Stocks.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             71
C HAPTER XI.
THE Squire's carpenters were taken from the park
pales, and set to work at the Parish Stocks. Then camle
the painter and colored them a beautiful dark blue, with
white border -and a white rim round the holes - with
anl ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest
public edifice in the whole village — though the village
possessed no less than three other monuments of the
Vitruvian genius of the iHazeldeans-to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the parish pump.
A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks
never gladdened the eye of a justice of the- peace.
And Squire Hazeldean's eye was gladdened.  In the
pride of his heart he brought all the family down to look
at the stocks.  The Squire's family (omitting the frere
de loin) consisted of Mlrs. Hazeldean, his wife; next, of
Mliss Jemima Hazeldean, his first-cousin; thirdly, of Mlr.
Francis Iazeldean, his only son; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas iigginbotham, a distant relation -who,
indeed; strictly speaking, was not of the family, but only
a -visitor ten months in the year. Mrs. Hazeldean was
every inch the lady -the lady of the parish. In her
comely, florid, and somewhat sunburnt countenance, there
was an equal expression of majesty and benevolence; she




'a2              WIMY NOVEL; OR,
lhad a blue eye that invited liking, and an aquiline nose
that commanded respect.  MIrs. Hazeldean had no affectation of fine airs -no wish to be greater and handsomer
and cleverer than she was.  She knew herself, and her
station, and thanked heaven for it. There was about her
speech and manner something of the shortness and bluntness which often characterise royalty: and if the lady of
a parish is not a queen in her own circle, it is never the
fault of a parish.  IMrs. Hazeldean dressed her part to
perfection.  She wore silks that seemed heirlooms -so
thick were they, so substantial and imposing.  And over
these, when she was in her own domain, the whitest of
aprons; while at her waist was seen no fiddle-faddle
chatelaine, with breloqutes and trumpery, but a good
honest gold watch to mark the time, and a long pair of
scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her flowers -for
she was a great horticulturist. When occasion needed,
Mrs. Hazeldean, could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and imperial raiment for a stout riding-habit, of
blue Saxony, and canter by her husband's side to see the
hounds throw off. Nay, on the days on which 3Mr. Hazeldean drove his famous fast-trotting cob to the markettown, it was rarely that you did not see his wife on the
left side of the gig.  She cared as little as her lord did
for wind and weather, and in the midst of some pelting
shower, her pleasant face peeped over the collar and
capes of a stout dreadnough, expanding into smiles and
bloom as some frank rose, that opens from its petals, and
rejoices in the dews. It was easy to see that the worthy




VARIETIES IN ENGLI'SH  LIFE.             73
couple had married for love; they were as little apart as
they could help it. And still, on the first of September,
if the house was not full of company which demanded her
cares, Mrs. HIazeldean "stepped out" over the stubbles
by her husband's side, with as light a tread and as blithe
an eye as when, in the first bridal year, she had enchanted
the Squire by her genial sympathy with his sports.
So there now stands Harriet Hazeldean, one hand
leaning on the Squire's broad shoulder, the other thrust
into her apron, and trying her best to share her husband's
enthusiasm for his own public-spirited patriotism, in the
renovation of the parish stocks. A little behind, with
two fingers resting on the thin arm of Captain Barnabas,
stood Miss Jemima, the orphan daughter of the Squire's
uncle, by a runaway imprudent marriage with a young
lady who belonged to a family which had been at war
with the Hazeldeans since the reign of Charles the First,
respecting a right of way to a small wood (or rather
spring) of about an acre, through a piece of furze land,
which was let to a brickmaker at twelve shillings a-year.
The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze land to
the Sticktorights (an old Saxon family, if ever there was
one). Every twelfth year, when the faggots and timber
were felled, this feud broke out afresh; for the Sticktorights refused to the Hazeldeans the right to cart off the
said faggots and timber through the only way by which a
cart could possibly pass. It is just to the Hazeldeans to
say that they had offered to buy the land at ten times its
value. But the Sticktorights, with equal magnanimity,
T   _    r




MY NOVEL; Ol,
had declared that they would not "alienate the family
property for the convenience of the best squire that ever
stood upon shoe-leather." Therefore, every twelfth year,
there was always a great breach of the peace on the part
of both Hazeldeans and Sticktorights, magistrates and
deputy-lieutenants though they were. The question was
fairly fought out by their respective dependants, and
followed by various actions for assault and trespass. As
the legal question of right was extremely obscure, it never
had been properly decided; and, indeed, neither party
wished it to be decided, each at heart having some doubt
of the propriety of its own claim. A marriage beween a
younger son of the IHazeldeans, and a younger daughter
of the Sticktorights, was viewed with equal indignation
by both families; and the consequence had been that the
runaway couple, unblessed and unforgiven, had scrambled
through life as they could, upon the scanty pay of the
husband, who was in a marching regiment, and the interest
of ~1,000, which was the wife's fortune independent of
her parents. They died and left an only daughter (upon
whom the maternal ~1,000 had been settled), about the
time that the Squire came of age and into possession of
his estates. And though he inherited all the ancestral
hostility towards the Sticktorights, it was not in his
nature to be unkind to a poor orphan, who was, after all,
the child of a Hazeldean.  Therefore, he had educated
and fostered Jemima with as much tenderness as if she
had been his sister; put out her ~1,000 at nurse, and
devoted, from the ready money which had accrued from




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    7'5
the rents during his minority, as much as made her fortune
(with her own accumulated at compound interest), no less
than ~4,000, the ordinary marriage portion of the daughters of Htazeldean.  On her coming of age, he transferred
this sum to her absolute disposal, in order that she might
feel herself independent, see a little more of the world
than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to choose
from if she deigned to marry; or enough to live upon, if
she chose to remain single. Miss Jemima had somewhat
availed herself of this liberty, by,: occasional visits to
Cheltenham and other watering-places.  But her grateful
affection to the Squire was such, that she could never
bear to be long away from the Hall.  And this was the
more praise to her heart, inasmuch as she was far from
taking kindly to the prospect of being an old maid. And
there were so few bachelors in the neighborhood of Hazeldean, that she could not but have that prospect before
her eyes whenever she looked out of the Hall windows.
Miss Jemima was indeed one of the most kindly and
affectionate of beings feminine; and if she disliked the
thought of single blessedness, it really was from those
innocent and womanly instincts towards the tender charities of hearth and home, without which a lady, however
otherwise estimable, is little better than a ~M/inerva in
bronze. But whether or not, despite her fortune and her
face, which last, though not strictly handsome, was pleasing, and would have been positively pretty if she had
laughed more often (for when she laughed, there appeared
three charming dimples, invisible when she was grave) —




16              IMY NOVEL; OR,
whether or not, I say, it was the fault of our insensibility
or her own fastidiousness, Miss Jemima approached her
thirtieth year, and was still Miss Jemima.  Now, therefore, that beautifying laugh of hers was very rarely heard,
and she had of late become confirmed in two opinions,
not at all conducive to laughter. One was a conviction
not at all conducive to laughter.  One was a conviction
of the general and progressive wickedness of the male sex,
and the other was a. decided and lugubrious belief that
t'he world was coming to an end.'Miss Jemima was now
accompanied by a small canine favorite, true Blenheim,
with a snub nose. It was advanced in life, and somewhat
obese. It sate on its haunches, with its tongue out of its
mouth, except when it snapped at the flies.  There was a
strong platonic friendship between Miss Jemima and
Captain Barnabas IHigginbotham; for he too was unmarried, and he had the same ill opinion of your sex, my
dear madam, that Miss Jemima had of ours. The Captain was a man of a slim and elegant figure; - the less
said about the face the better, a truth of which the Captain himself was sensible, for it was a favorite maxim of
his - "that in a man, everything is a slight, gentlemanlike figure."  Captain Barnabas did not absolutely deny
that the world was coming to an end, only he thought it
would last his time.:
Quite apart from  all the rest, with the nonchalant
survey of virgin dandyism, Francis Eiazeldean looked
over one of the high starched neckeloths which were then
the fashion- a handsome lad, fresh from Eton for the




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              77
summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age, when one
disdains the sports of the boy, and has not yet arrived at
the resources of the man.
" I should be glad, Frank," said the Squire, suddenly
turning round to his son, "to see you take a little more
interest in duties which, one day or the other, you may
be called upon to discharge.  I can't bear to think that
the property should fall into the hands of a fine gentleman,
who will let things go to rack and ruin, instead of keeping
them up as I do."
And the Squire pointed to the stocks.
vMaster Frank's eye followed the direction of the
cane, as well as his cravat would permit; and he said
drily -
"Yes, sir; but how came the stocks to be so long out
of repair? "
"Because one can't see to everything at once," retorted the Squire, tartly.  "When a man has got eight
thousand acres to look after, he must do a bit at a time."
"Yes," said Captain Barnabas.  "I know that by
experience."
"The deuce you do!" cried the Squire, bluntly.
"Experience in eight thousand acres I'
"No; in my apartments in the Albany — No. 3 A. I
have had them ten years, and it was only last Christmas
that I bought my Japan cat."
"Dear me," said Miss Jemima; "a Japan cat I that
must be very curious. What sort of a creature is it?"
"Don't you know? Bless me, a thing with three legs,




q 8             u~MY NOVEL; OR,
and holds toast!  I never. thought of it, I assure you, till
my friend Cosey said to me, one morning when he was
breakfasting at my rooms —' iigginbotham, how is it
that you, who like to have things comfortable about you,
don't have a cat?''Upon my life,' said I,'one can't
think of everything at a time;' just like you, Squire."'"Pshaw," said Mr. Hazeldean, gruffly-" not at all
like me. And I'll thank you  another time, Cousin
iigginbotham, not to put me out, when I am- speaking
on matters of importance; poking your cat into my
stocks I They look something like now, my stocks - don't
they, Harry? I declare that the whole village seems more
respectable. It is astonishing how much a little improvement adds to the -to the — "
"Charm  of the landscape," put in Miss Jemima,
sentimentally.
The Squire neither aceepted nor rejected the suggested
termination; but, leaving his sentence uncompleted, broke
suddenly off with"And if I had listened to Parson Dale   -"
"You would have done a very wise thing," said a
voice behind, as the Parson presented himself in the
rear.
"Wise thing!  Why, surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs.
iazeldean, with spirit, for she always resented the least
contradiction to her lord and master —perhaps as an
interference with her own special right and prerogative I
— "why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is
necessary to repair them."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             7.t
"That's right - go it, Harry I " cried the Squire,
chuckling, and rubbing his hands as if he had been setting
his terrier at the Parson: "St- St - at him! Well,
Master Dale, what do you say to that?"
" My dear ma'am," said the Parson, replying in preference to the lady, "there are many institutions in the
country which are very old, look very decayed, and don't
seem of much use; but I would not pull them down for
all that."
"You would reform them, then," said Mrs. Hazeldean,
doubtfully, and with a look at her husband, as much as
to say, " Ie is on politics now - that's your business."
"'No, I would not, ma'am," said the Parson, stoutly.
"What on earth would you do, then?" quoth the
Squire.
"Just let'em  alone," said the Parson.  "3Master
Frank, there's a Latin maxim which was often in the
mouth of Sir Robert Walpole, and which they ought to
put into the Eton grammar -'Quieta non mnovere.' If
things are quiet, let them be quiet! I would not destroy
the stocks, because that might seem to the ill-disposed
like a license to offend; and I would not repair the
stocks, because that puts it into people's heads to get into
them."
The Squire was a staunch politician of the old school,
and he did not like to think that, in repairing the stocks,
he had perhaps been conniving at revolutionary principles.
"This constant desire of innovation," sai.d Aliss Jemima,




80               MY NOVEL; OR,
suddenly mounting the more funereal of her two favorite
hobbies, "is one of the great symptoms of the approaching crash.  We are altering, and mending, and reforming,
when in twenty years at the utmost the world itself may
be destroyed! "  The fair speaker paused, and -
Captain Barnabas said thoughtfully-" Twenty years I
-the insurance offices rarely compute the best life at
more than fourteen." He struck-his hand on the stocks
as he spoke, and added, with his usual consolatory conclusion-" The odds are, that it will last our time,
Squire."
But whether Captain Barnabas meant the stocks or
the world, he did not clearly explain, and no one took
the trouble to inquire.
" Sir," said Master Frank to his father, with that furtive
spirit of quizzing, which he had acquired amongst other
polite accomplishments at Eton - " sir, it is no use now
considering whether the stocks should or should not have
been repaired.  The only question is, whom you will get
to put into them?"
" True," said the Squire, with much gravity.
" Yes, there it is!" said the Parson, mournfully.  "If
you would but learn'non quieta movere!'"
" Don't spout your Latin at me, Parson!" cried the
Squire, angrily; "I can give you as good as you bring,
any day.'Propria qum maribus tribuuntur mascula dicas.As in presenti, perfectum format in avi.'




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHI LIFE.             81
There," added the Squire, turning, triumphantly towards
his Harry, who looked with great admiration at this unprecedented burst of learning on the part of Mr. Hazeldean - "there, two can play at that game I And now
that we have all seen the stocks, we may as well go home,
and drink tea. Will you come up and play a rubber,
Dale? No!-hang it, man, I've not offended you-you
know my ways."
"That I do, and they are among the things I would
not have altered," cried the Parson -holding out his
hand cheerfully. The Squire gave it a hearty shake, and
Mrs. Hazeldean hastened to do the same.
"Do come; I am afraid we've been very rude; we are
sad blunt folks. Do come; that's a dear good man; and
of course, poor Mrs. Dale too."  Mrs. Hazeldean's
favorite epithet for Mirs. Dale was poor, and that for
reasons to be explained hereafter.
"I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but
I will give her your kind message, and at all events you
may depend upon me."
"That's right," said the Squire;" in half-an-hour, eh?
-How dy'e do, my little man? " as Lenny Fairfield, on
his way home from some errand in the village, drew aside
and pulled off his hat with both hands. " Stop - you see
those stocks -eh? Tell all the bad boys in the parish to
take care how they get into them —a sad disgraceyou'll never be in such a quandary?"
"That at least I will answer for," said the Parson.
"And I too," added Mrs. Hazeldean, patting the boy's




82             MY NOVEL; OR,
curly head.  "Tell your mother I shall come and have a
good chat with her to-morrow evening."
And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on
the road, staring hard at the stocks, which stared back at
him from its four great eyes.
But Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the
great folks had fairly disappeared, a large number of
small folks emerged timorously from the neighboring
cottages, and approached the site of the stocks with much
marvel, fear, and curiosity.
In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster — -
propos de bottes, as one may say -had already excited
considerable sensation among the population of Hazeldean.
And even as when an unexpected owl makes his appearance in broad daylight, all the little birds rise from tree
and hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so
now gathered all the much-excited villagers round the
intrusive and portentous phenomenon.
" D'ye know what the diggins the Squire did it for,
Gaffer Solomons?" asked one many-childed matron, with
a baby in arms, an urchin of three years old clinging fast
to her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a
more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to
thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes
turned t') a sage old man, the oracle of the village, who,
leaning both hands on his crutch, shook his head
bodingly.
"Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some of the boys
ha' been robbing the orchards."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             83
"Orchards!" cried a big lad, who seemed to think
himself personally appealed to -" why, the bud's scarce
off the trees yet!"
" No more it in't! " said the dame with many children,
and she breathed more freely.
" Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, " some o' ye has been
sitting snares."
" What for?" said a stout, sullen-looking young fellow,
whom conscience possibly pricked to reply -" what for,
when it bean't the season?  And if a poor man did find
a hear in his pocket i' the hay-time, I should like to
know if ever a Squire in the world would let un off with
the'stocks- eh?"
This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of
Gaffer Solomons went down fifty per cent. in the public
opinion of Hazeldean.
"Maw be," said the Gaffer- this time with a thrilling
effect, which restored his reputation -" maw be some o'
ye ha' been getting drunk, and making beestises o' yoursels!"
There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied
too generally to be met with a solitary response. At last
one of the women said, with a meaning glance at her
husband, "God bless the Squire; he'll make some on us
happy women, if that's all!"
There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of
approbation among the female part of the audience; and
the men looked at each other, and then at the phenomenon,
with a very hang-dog expression of countenance.




84              MY NOVEL; OR,
"Or, maw be," resumed Gaffer Solomols, encouraged
to a fourth suggestion by the success of its predecessor" maw be some o' the Misseses ha' been making a rumpus,
and scolding their goodmen. I heard say in my granfeythir's time, that arter old Mother Bang nigh died o'
the ducking-stool, them'ere stocks were first made for the
women, out o' compassion like! And every one knows
the Squire is a koind-hearted man, God bless un!"
"God bless un!" cried, the men heartily; and they
gathered lovingly round the phenomenon, like heathens
of old round a tutelary temple. But then there rose one
shrill clamor among the females, as they retreated with
involuntary steps towards the verge of the green, whence
they glared at Solomons and the phenomenon with eyes
so sparkling, and pointed at both with gestures so
menacing, that Heaven only knows if a morsel of either
would have remained much longer to offend the eyes of
the justly-enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately
nMaster Stirn, the Squire's right-hand man, had not come
up in the nick of time.
Master Stirn was a formidable personage - more formidable than the Squire himself- -as, indeed, a Squire's
right hand is generally more formidable than the head
can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe, because,
like the stocks, of which he was deputed guardian, his
powers were undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the out-of-door establishment.  He was
not the steward, yet he did much of what ought to be the
steward's work; he was not the farm-bailiff, for the Squire




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.              85
called himself his own farm-bailiff; nevertheless, Mr.
iHazeldean sowed and ploughed, cropped and stocked,
bought and sold, very much as Mr. Stirn condescended
to advise.  He was not the park-keeper, for he neither
shot the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was
he who always found out who had broken a park-pale or
snared a rabbit.  In short, what may be called all the
harsher duties of a large landed proprietor, devolved, by
custom and choice, upon Mr. Stirn.  If a laborer was to
be discharged, or a rent enforced, and the Squire knew
that he should be talked over and that the steward would
be as soft as himself, Mr. Stirn was sure to be the avenging.Wyy  o5 or messenger, to pronounce the words of fate; so
that he appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the
Poet's Sceva Necessitas, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed with whips, nails, and wedges.  The
very brute creation stood in awe of Mr. Stirn. The calves
knew that it was he who singled out which should be sold
to the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating
hearts at his grim footstep; the sow grunted, the duck
quacked, the hen bristled her feathers and called to her
chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near.  Nature had set her
stamp upon him.  Indeed, it may be questioned whether
the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the brave,
had an aspect so awe-inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn; albeit
the face of that hero was so terrible, that a man who had
been his lackey, seeing his portrait after he had been dead
twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf!
"And what the plague are you all doing here? " said. — 8




86               MY NOVEL; OR,
Mr. Stirn, as he waved and smacked a great cart-whip
which he held in his hand, "making such a hullabaloo,
you women, you! that I suspect the Squire will be sending out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will
ye?  High time indeed to have the stocks ready, when
you get squalling and conspiring under the very nose of
a justice of the peace, just as the French revolutioners
did afore they cut off their king's head; my hair stands
on end to look at ye." But already, before half this
address was delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all
directions — the women still keeping together, and the
men sneaking off towards the ale-house. Such was the
beneficent effect of the fatal stocks, on the first day of
their resuscitation I
However, in the break-up of every crowd there must
always be one who gets off the last; and it so happened
that our friend Lenny Fairfield, who had mechanically
approached close to the stocks, the better to hear the
oracular opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less mechanically, on the abrupt appearance of Mr. Stirn, crept,
as he hoped, out of sight behind the trunk of the elmtree which partially shaded the stocks; and there now,
as if fascinated, he still cowered, not daring to emerge in
full view of Mr. Stirn, and in immediate reach of the cartwhip-when the quick-eye of the right-hand man detected
his retreat.
"Hallo you, sir — what the deuce, laying a mine to
blow up the stocks! just like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha' you got in your
willanous little fist there?"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISII LIFE.              87
"Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm.
"Nothing- um!" said Mr. Stirn, much dissatisfied;
and then, as he gazed more deliberately, recognising the
pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered
over his brow — for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much
on his learning —and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit-than his neighbors, had attained
his present eminent station of life-was extremely anxious
that his only son should also be a scholar; that wish
"The gods dispersed in empty air."
Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the Parson's school,
while Lenny Fairfield was the pride and boast of it;
therefore Mr. Stirn was naturally, and almost justifiably,
ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield, who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed
for his own son.
"Umrn! " said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny
malignantly, "you are the pattern boy of the village, are
you? Very well, sir-then I put these here stocks under
your care - and you'll keep off the other boys from sitting on'em, and picking off the paint, and playing threeholes and chuck-farthing, as I declare they've been a
doing, just in front of the elewation. -  ow, you knows
your'sponsibilities, little boy — and a great honor they
are too, for the like o' you. If any damage be done, it
is to you I shall look; d'ye understand? -and that's
what the Squire says to me.  So you sees what it is to be
a pattern boy, Master Lenny!"
With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud crack of the cart



IY NO'VEL; OR,
whip, by way of military honors, over the head of the
vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a
visit to two young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and
tails he had graciously promised their proprietor to crop
that evening.  Nor, albeit few charges could be more
obnoxious than that of deputy-governor or charg&
d'affaires extraordinaires to the Parish Stocks, nor one
more likely to render Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been insensible to the signal
advantage of his condition over that of the two sufferers,
against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no special
motives of resentment. To every bad there is a worseand fortunately for little boys, and even for grown men,
whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, the
majesty of law protects their ears, and the merciful forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the
privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it been
otherwise -considering what handles tails would have
given to the oppressor, how many traps envy would have
laid for them, how often they must have been scratched
and mutilated by the briars of life, how many. good excuses would have been found for lopping, docking, and
trimming them-I fear that only the lap-dogs of Fortune
would have gone to the grave tail-whole.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.              89
C HAPTER  XII.
THE card-table was set out in the drawing-room at
Hazeldean Hall; though the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay window - which
(in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up a
moderate-sized London parlor) held the great round teatable, with all appliances and means to boot- for the
beautiful summer moon shed on the sward so silvery a
lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow, and the
flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume,
that, to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for
other lights than those of heaven, would have been an
abuse of the prose of life which even Captain Barnabas,
who regarded whist as the business of town and the
holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moonlight, had the
beauty peculiar to the garden-ground round those oldfashioned country residences which, though a little modernisedcl, still preserve their original character: the velvet
lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and
scented -here, to the left, by lilacs, laburnums, and rich
seringas — there, to the right, giving glimpses, over lowclipped yews, of a green bowling-alley, with the white
columns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste,
8*




90               MY NOVEL; OR,
in the reign of William  III.; and in front -stealing
away under covert of those still cedars, into the wilder
landscape of the well-wooded undulating park. Within,
viewed- by the placid glimmer of the moon, the scene was
no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which
has no parallel in other lands, and which, alas I is somewhat losing its native idiosyncrasies in this -the stout
country gentleman, not the fine gentleman of the country
-the country gentleman somewhat softened and civilised
from the mere' sportsman or farmer, but still plain and
homely, relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room,
and with books not three months old on his table, instead
of.Fox's Martyrs and Balcer's Chronicle - yet still re..
taining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like the knots
in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the
grain than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite
to the window, the high chimney-piece rose to the heavy
cornice of the ceiling, with dark pannels glistening against
the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy chintz
sofas and settees of the reign of George III., contrasted
at intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies. in fardingales and gentlemen
in trunk hose seem never to have indulged in horizontal
positions.  The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly
covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and
then some Dutch fair, or battle-piece, showed that a
former proprietor had been less exclusive in his taste for
the arts. The pianoforte stood open near the fire-place;
a long dwarf bookcase, at the far end, added its sober




VARIETIES IN ENGLISHI LIFE.               91
smile to the room.  That bookcase contained what was
called " The Lady's Library," a collection commenced by
the Squire's grandmother, of pious memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter
letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac
tendencies of the present Mrs. lHazeldean, who, being no
great reader, contented herself with subscribing to the
Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian, the sermons collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood cheekby-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean,
the mother.
"Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho!"
But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory
titles, such as " Fatal Sensibility," " Errors of the Heart,"
&c., were so harmless, that I doubt if the sermons could
have had much to say against their next-door neighbors
-and that is all that can be expected by the best of us.
A parrot dozing on his perch -some gold-fish fast
asleep in their glass bowl-two or three dogs on the rug,
and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel, curled into a ball on
the softest sofa- Mrs. Hazeldean's work-table rather in
disorder, as if it had been lately used- -the St. James's
Chronicle dangling down from a little tripod near the
Squire's arm-chair — a high screen of gilt and stamped
leather fencing off the card-table: all these, dispersed
about a room large enough to hold them all and not seem
crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the
eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home
of man.




928             -MNiY NOVEL; OR,
But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup
of tea, has at length summoned courage to whisper to
Mrs. HIazeldean, "Don't you think the Parson will be
impatient for his rubber? "  Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at
the Parson, and smiled; but she gave the signal to the
captain, and the bell was rung, lights were brought in,
the curtains let down; in a few moments more, the group
had collected round the card-table. The best of us are
but human -that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet
people forget it every day of their lives - and I dare say
there are many who are charitably thinking at this very
moment, that my Parson ought not to be playing at
whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is,
"'Every man has his favorite sin: whist was Parson
Dale's! — ladies and gentlemen, what is yours?" In
truth, I must not set up my poor parson now-a-days, as a
pattern parson —it is enough to have one pattern in a
village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that
Lenny Fairfield has bespoken that place, and got the
patronage of the stocks for his emoluments! Parson
Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but still
at a time when churchmen took it a great deal more
easily than they do now. The elderly parson of that day
played his rubber as a matter of course, the middle-aged
parson was sometimes seen riding to cover (I knew a
schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent man,
whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families
in England, who hunted regularly three times a-week
during the season), and the young parson would often




VARIETIES IN  ENGLIS'H  LIFE.           93
sing a capital song- not composed by David - and join
in those rotatory dances, which certainly David never
danced before the ark.
Does it need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor
Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so
triumphant a smile at thy partner?  I must own that
nothing which could well add to the Parson's offence was
wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably,
and merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the
game - he rejoiced in the game - his whole heart was in
the game -neither was he indifferent to the mammon of
the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He
looked very sad when he took his shillings out of his
purse, and exceedingly pleased when he put the shillings
that had just before belonged to other people into it.
Finally, by one of those arrangements common with
married people, who play at the same table, MIr. and
Mrs. Hazeldean were invariably partners, and no two
people could play worse; while Captain Barnabas, who
had played at Graham's with honor and profit, necessarily
became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a
good steady, parsonic game.  So that, in strict truth, it
was hardly fair play- it was almost swindling - the combination of these two great dons against that innocent
married couple I MIr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this
disproportion of force, and had often proposed, either to
change partners or to give odds-propositions always
scornfully scouted by the Squire and his lady, so that the
Parson was obliged to pocket his conscience, together
with the ten points which made his average winnings.




94               MY NOVEL; OR,
The strangest thing in the world is the different way in
which whist affects the temper.  It is no test of temper,
as'some pretend - not at all I The best-tempered people
in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the
most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear
their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was
notably manifested in the contrast between the present
adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory.  The Squire,
who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in the
country, was the best-humored fellow you could imagine
when you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face
of his wife. You never heard one of those incorrigible
blunderers scold each other; on the contrary, they only
laughed when they threw away the game, with four by
honors in their hands.  The utmost that was ever said
was a " Well, Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours.
Ho - ho - ho I " or " Bless me, Hazeldean - why, they
made three tricks in clubs, and you had the ace in your
hand all the time! Ha-ha - ha I "
Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great
good-humor, always echoed both the Squire's Ho-hoho! and Mrs. Hazeldean's Ha - ha - ha.
Not so the Parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the game, that even his adversaries'
mistakes ruffled him. And you would hear him, with
elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the
law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of
memory and common sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched - a waste of eloquence that




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.               95
always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, 3Mrs. Dale,
who had come with her husband despite her headache,
sate on the sofa beside Mliss Jemima, or rather beside
Mliss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured the
centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being
disturbed.  And Master Frank - at a table by himselfwas employed sometimes in looking at his pumps, and
sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, which his mother had
provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in
her heart liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean,
of whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had
been little girls together, and occasionally still called
each other Harry and Carry. But those tender diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the ladies, except at times when - had they
been little girls still, and the governess out of the way,
they would have slapped and pinched each other. lMrs.
Dale was still a very pretty woman, as 3Mrs. Hazeldean
was still a very fine woman.  irs. Dale painted in water
colors, and sang, and made card-racks and pen-holders,
and was called an " elegant, accomplished woman." Mrs.
Hazeldean cast up the Squire's accounts, wrote the best
part of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent
order, and was called "a clever, sensible woman."  Mrs.
Dale had headaches and nerves, Mirs. Hazeldean had
neither nerves nor headaches. ~Mrs. Dale said, " Harry
had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine."
Mrs. HFazeldean said, " Carry would be a good creature




96               MY NOVEL; OR,
but for her airs and graces.  Mrs. Dale said, Mrs. Hazeldean was "just made to be a country squire's lady."
A{rs. Hazeldean said, "Mrs. Dale was the last person in
the world who ought to have been a parson's wife."
Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person, said,
"Dear 3Mrs. HIazeldean."  Harry, when she referred incidentally to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs. Dale."  And now
the reader knows why Mrs. HIazeldean called Mirs. Dale
"poor," at least as well as I do.  For, after all, the word
belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which
may be called "obscure significants," resembling the
Konx Omlpax, which hath so puzzled the inquirers into
the Eleusinian Mysteries; the application is rather to be
illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.
"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima,"
said Mrs. Dale, who was embroidering the word C(AROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket-handkerchief, but
edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not bite,
will he? "-" Dear me, no!" said M~iss Temima; but
(she added in a confidential whisper) "don't say he-'tis a lady dog! "   "Oh," said IMrs. Dale, edging off still
farther, as if that confession of the creature's sex did not
serve to allay her apprehensions —" Oh, then, you carry
your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs -that
is being consistent, indeed, Jemima!"
MIss JE MIJMA.- I had a gentleman dog once - a pug I
- pugs are getting very scarce now.- I thought he was
so fond of me-he snapped at every one else-the
battles. I fought for him! Well, will you believe - I had




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            97
been staying with my friend, Miss Smilecox, at Cheltenham.  Knowing that William is so hasty, and his boots
are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick might do.
So, on coming here, I left Buff-that was his name —
with M'iss Smilecox.  (A pause.)
MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).-Well, my love?
Miss JEMIMA.-Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss
Smilecox had seduced his affections froml me, and the
ungrateful creature did not even know me again.  A
pug, too -yet people say pugs are faithful!! I I am
sure they ought to be, nasty things. I have never had a
gentleman dog since —they are all alike, believe me,
heartless, selfish creatures.
MRs. DALE.- Pugs?  I dare say they are!
Miss JEMIMA (with spirit). —MEN I —I told you it
was a gentleman dog I
MRS. DALE (apologetically).- True, my love, but the
whole thing was so mixed up I
Miss JEMIMA. -You  saw that cold-blooded case of
Breach of Promise of Marriage in the papers —an old
wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes them a bit
better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is
approaching, and thatMRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's
other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing
to precede the bier of the universe).-Yes, my love, we'll
avoid that subject, if you please. Mr. Dale has his own
opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's
I. - 9                 G




98              MY NOVEL; OR,
wife (said smilingly: Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as
any of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than
Miss Jemima of three), to agree with him —that is in
theology.
MIss JEMIMA (earnestly).- But the thing is so clear,
if you will but look into —
MRS. OALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips
playfully).- Not a word more. Pray, what do you think
of the Squire's tenant at the Casino, Signor Riccabocca?
An interesting creature, is not he?
MIss JEMIMA. — Interesting I not to me. Interesting?
Why is he interesting?
MVrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her
pretty little white hands, appearing to contemplate the R.
in Caroline.
Miss JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly).- Why
is he interesting? I scarcely ever looked at him; they
say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly, too I
MRS. DALE. - Ugly - no. A  fine head -- very like
Dante's- but what is beauty?
MIss JEMIMA. — Very true: what is it, indeed? Yes,
as you say, I think there is something interesting about
him; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he
is poor.
MRS. DALE. —It is astonishing how little one feels
poverty when one loves. Charles and I were very poor
once- before the Squire  -  (Mrs. Dale paused, looked
towards the Squire, and murmured a blessing, the warmth
of which brought tears into her eyes). —Yes, (she added,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             99
after a pause), we were very poor, but we were happy
even then —more thanks to Charles than to me (and
tears from a new source again dimmed those quick, lively.
eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband,
whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad
hand).
MISS JEMIMA.- It is only those horrid men who think
of money as a source of happiness. I should be the last
person to esteem a gentleman less because he was poor.
MRS. DALE.- I wonder the Squire does not ask Signor
Eliccabocca here more often.  Such an acquisition we
find him I!
The Squire's voice from  the card-table. -"Whom
ought I to ask more often, Mrs. Dale?"
Parson's voice, impatiently.-" Come - come -come,
Squire: play to my queen of diamonds - do!"
SQUIRE. - There, I trump it — pick up the trick,
Mrs. 1H.
PARSON.- Stop I stop! trump my diamond?
The CAPTAIN (solemnly). - Trick turned; play on,
Squire.
SQUIRE. - The king of diamonds.
MRS. HAZELDEAN. -Lord! Hazeldean; why, that's
the most barefaced revoke - ha- ha - ha! trump the
queen of diamonds and play out the king! well I never -
ha -ha -ha!
CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor). - EIa, ha, ha!
SQUIRE. — HO -ho -ho! bless my soul; ho, ho, ho I
CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in base).- Ho - ho - ho I




100             -MY NOVEL; OR,
Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of
his adversaries and the firm, clear tone of Captain Barnabas -" Three to our score! -game!"
SQUIRE (wiping his eyes). - No help for it, Harry -
deal for me! Whom ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale? (waxing
angry). First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazeldean called in question I
MRS. DALE. - My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons,
but listeners -you know the proverb.
SQUIRE (growling like a bear). - I hear nothing but
proverbs ever since we had that Mounseer among us.
Please to speak plainly, ma'am.
MRS. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus
roughly accosted).-It was of Mounseer, as you call him,
that I spoke, MIr. Hazeldean.
SQUIRE. - What! Rickeybockey?
MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).
-Signor Riccabocca.
PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).
-Are we playing at whist, or are we not?
The Squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to
Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now
the Captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts
— four trumps to the queen and nothing to win a trick
with in the two other suits.  This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of
that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a
matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or
not. The Captain hesitates, and not liking to play out




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    101
his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped
by the Squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the
other suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his
partner, resolves, as becomes a military man, in such
dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps, in
the chance of finding his partner strong, and so bringing
in his long suit.
SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating
pause made by the Captain). -Mrs. Dale, it is not my
fault. I have asked IRickeybockey - time out of mind.
But I suppose I am not fine enough.for those foreign
chaps. He'll not come- that's all I know.
PARSON (aghast at seeing the Captain play out trumps,
of which he, Mr. Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades of which he has only one
-the cards all falling in suits-while he has not a single
other chance of a trick in his hand).- Really, Squire,
we had better give up playing if you put out my partner
in this extraordinary way -jabber -jabber -jabber!
SQUIRE. - Well, we must be good children, Harry.
What! -trumps, Barney?  Thank ye for that! And
the Squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate
adversary has led up to ace king knave -with two other
trumps.  Squire takes the Parson's ten with his knave,
and plays out ace king; then, having cleared all the
trumps except the Captain's queen and his 6wn remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades
of which the Parson has only one-and the Captain, in9*




102             MIY NOVEL; OR,
deed, but two-forces out the Captain's queen, and wils
the game in a canter.
PARSON (with a look at the Captain which might have
become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder).
That, I suppose, is the new-fashioned London play!
In my time the rule was, " First save the game, then try
to will it."
CAPTAIN. — Could not save it, sir.
PARSON (exploding). — Not save it I - two ruffs in my
own hand — two tricks certain till you took them out!
Monstrous! The rashest trump. - Seizes the cards -
spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling
-tries to show how five tricks could have been gained(N. B. It is short whist, which Captain Barnabas had
introduced at the Hall) can't make out more than fourCaptain smiles triumphantly — Parson in a passion, and
not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again,
and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his
voice-" The cruelest trump! the most wanton cruelty!"
The Hazeldeans in chorus. -" Ho - ho -ho! Haha- ha!"
The Captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose
turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering
game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity
as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The
Squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation
against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out
to his wife - " Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three
days here. There, Mrs. Dale, you hear me?"'




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    103
" Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears
in implied rebuke at the loudness of the Squire's tone.
" My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature."
"Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to
his son, who, having got tired of the caricatures, had
fished out for himself the great folio County History,
which was the only book in the library that the Squire
much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and
key, in his study, together with the field-books and
steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken
into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham.  For the Higginbothams -an old
Saxon family, as the name evidently denotes- had once
possessed lands in that very county. And the Captain,
during his visits to Hazeldean Hall, was regularly in the
habit of asking to look into, the County History, for the
purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense
of ancestral dignity, with the following paragraph therein:
-" To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly
situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of
the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and
sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself
Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they
gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Bothanm,
and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the
vulgar, Higginbotham."
"What, Frank! my County History!" cried the
Squire.  "Mrs. H., he has got my County History I"




104             MY NOVEL; OR,
" Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something
about the County."
"Ay, and History too," said Mrs. Dale, malevolently,
for the little temper was by no means blown over.
FRANK. - I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm
very much interested just at present.
The CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut).You've got hold of that passage about Botham Hall,
page 706, eh?
FRANK. -- No; I was trying to make out how far it is
to Mr. Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, mother?
MRS. HAZELDEAN. — I can't say I do. The Leslies
don't mix with the country; and Rood lies very much out
of the way.
FRANK. - Why don't they mix with the country?
MRS. HAZELDEAN. — I believe they are poor, and
therefore I suppose they are proud: they are an old
family.
PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience).- Old fiddledee! —talking of old families when
the cards have been shuffled this half-hour!
CAPTAIN BARNABAS. - Will you cut for your partner,
ma'am?
SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank's inquiries
with a musing air).- Why do you want to know the
distance to Rood Hall?
FRANK (rather hesitatingly).-Because Randal Leslie
is there for the holidays, sir.
PARSON. - Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean.




VARIETIES IN ENGCLISI LIFE.    105
I don't think it was quite fair; and my partner has turned
up a -deuce -deuce of hearts. Please to come and play,
if you mean to play.
The Squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes
the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the Captain
against the iazeldeans. The clock strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the Squire counts up his own
and his wife's losings; and the Captain and Parson divide
sixteen shillings between them.
SQUIRE. - There, Parson, I hope now you'll be in a
better humor. You win enough out of us to set up a
coach-and-four.
"Tut!" muttered the Parson; " at the end of the year,
I'm not a penny the richer for it all."
And indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was
perfectly true, for the Parson portioned out his gains into
three divisions.  One-third he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her
own special pocket-money: what became of the second
third he never owned even to his better half; but certain
it was, that every time the Parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown, which nobody could account for,
found its way to the poor-box; while the remaining third
the Parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained; but
I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got
to the poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the
box.
The party had now gathered round the tray, and were
helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without
water —except Frank, who still remained poring over the




106             MY NOVEL; OR,
map in the County History, with his head leaning on his
hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair.
"Frank," said Mrs. Hazeldean, "I never saw you so
studious before."
Frank started up and colored, as if ashamed of being
accused of too much study in anything.
The SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice).
-Pray, Frank, what do you know of Randal Leslie?
"Wmhy, sir, he is at Eton."
"What sort of a boy is he? " asked Mrs. Hazeldean.
Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered,"They say he is the cleverest boy in the school.  But
then he saps."
" In other words," said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic
gravity, "he understands that he was sent to school to
learn his lessons, and he learns them. You call that sapping,- I call it doing his duty. But, pray, who and
what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed,
Squire?"
"Who and what is he?" repeated the Squire, in a low
growl. "Why, you know, Mr. Audley Egerton married
Miss Leslie, the great heiress; and this boy is a relation
of hers.  I may say," added the Squire, "that he is a
near relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean.  But all I know about the Leslies is, that Mr.
Egerton, as I am told, having no children of his own,
took up young Randal (when his wife died, poor woman),
pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the
boy as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want
nothing from Mr. Audley Egerton, thank Heaven!"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            107
"I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his
wife's kindred," said the Parson, sturdily, "for I am sure
Mr. Egerton is a man of strong feeling."
"What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton?
I don't suppose you could ever have even spoken to him."
"Yes," said the Parson, coloring up, and looking confused, "I had some conversation with him once;" and
observing the Squire's surprise, he added,-" when I was
curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business connected with the family of one of my parishioners."
"Oh! one of your parishioners at Lansmere, - one of
the constituents Mr. Audley Egerton threw over, after
all the pains I had taken to get him his seat. Rather
odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr.
Dale i"
"My dear sir," said the Parson, sinking his voice, and
in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are
so irritable whenever MIr. Egerton's name is mentioned
at all."
"Irritable!" exclaimed the Squire, whose wrath had
long been simmering, and now fairly boiled over. " Irritable, sir I —I should think so: a man for whom I stood
godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! -a man for whose
sake I was called a'prize ox,' Mr. Dale! - a man for
whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr. Dale I -a
man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer
in his Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right
shoulder, Mr. Dale! —a man who had the ingratitude,
after all this, to turn his back on the landed interest,- to




108             MY NOVE]L; OR,
deny that there was any agricultural distress in a year
which broke three of the best farmers I ever had, Air.
Dale! —a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency,
which was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew I Good
Heavens I! a pretty parson you are, to stand up for a
fellow complimented by a Jew'! Nice ideas you must
have of Christianity.  Irritable, sir I" now fairly roared
the Squire, adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud
of a brow which evinced a menacing ferocity that might
have done honor to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own halfbrother, I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground
before now. I have had a ball in my right shoulder.
Sir, I'd have called him out."
" Mr. Hazeldean I - Mr. Hazeldean I I'm shocked at
you," cried the Parson; and, putting his lips close to
the Squire's ear, he went on in a whisper, - "What an
example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels
one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself."
This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean; and muttering,
"Why the deuce did you set me off? " he fell back into
his chair, and began to fan himself with his pocket-handkerchief.
The Parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the
advantage he had gained.  "And now, that you may
have it in your power to show civility and kindness to a
boy whom Mr. Egrerton has taken up, out of respect to
his wife's memory - a kinsman, you say, of your own, -
and who has never offended you, - a boy whose diligence




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    109
in his studies proves him to be an excellent companmon to
your son - Frank (here the Parson raised his voice,) I
suppose you would like to call on young Leslie, as you
were studying the country map so attentively?"
"Why, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my
father does not object to it. Leslie has been very kind
to me, though he is in the sixth form, and, indeed, almost
the head of the school."
"Ah! " said Mrs. Hazeldean, " one studious boy has a
fellow-feeling for another; and though you enjoy your
holidays, Frank, I am sure you read hard at school."
Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in
astonishment.
Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look with great animation.  "Yes, Carry," said she, tossing her head, "though
you may not think Frank clever, his masters find him so.
He got a prize last half. That beautiful book, Frank -
hold up your head, my love,  what did you get it for?"
FRANK (reluctantly). — Verses, ma'am.
MRS. HAZELDEAN (with triumph). - Verses I - there,
Carry, verses!
FRANK (in a hurried tone). -Yes, but Leslie wrote
them for me.
MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling). - 0 Frank! a prize for
what another did for you-that was mean.
FRANK (ingenuously). - You can't be more ashamed,
mother, than I was when they gave me the prize.
MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being
snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity
I. —10




110              MY NOVEL; OR,
over temper). —I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother
must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize.
Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm  round Frank's neck,
smiles beamingly on IMrs. Dale, and converses with her
son in a low tone about Randal Leslie.  Miss Jemima
now approached Carry, and said in an " aside,"    " But
we are forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such
a blunt way of inviting people - don't you think if you
were to say a word to'him, Carry?"
MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).
-Suppose you write the note yourself. Meanwhile, I
shall see him, no doubt.
PARSON (putting his hand on the Squire's shoulder).
— You forgive my' impertinence, my kind friend. We
parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when
we honor and love folks, as I do.
" Pish," said the Squire; but his hearty smile came to
his lips in spite of himself. - "You always get your own
way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet
of my - "
"Brother's," quoth the. Parson, concluding the sentence
in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound
that the Squire would not correct the Parson, as he had
been about to correct himself.
Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas,
the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly.
"The cruelest trump, Captain Higginbotham!" said
he sternly, and stalked by -majestic.
The night was so fine that the Parson and his wife, as




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.    111
they walked home, made a little detour through the
shrubbery.
MRS. DALE. -I think I have done a good piece of
work to-night.
PARSON (rousing himself from a reverie). - Have you,
Carry?- it will be a very pretty handkerchief.
MRS. DALE. - Handkerchief!-nonsense, dear. Don't
you think it would be a very happy thing for both,
if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought
together?
PARSON. — Brought together 
MRS. DALE. -You do snap up one so, my dear —I
mean, if I could make a match of it.
PARSON. -- I think Riccabocca is a match already, not
only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain.
MRS. DALE (smiling loftily). -Well, we shall see.
Was not Jemima's fortune about ~4,000?
PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted reverie). - Ay - ay - I dare say.
MRs. DALE.- And she must have saved! I dare say
it is nearly ~6,000 by this time; - eh I Charles dear, you
really are so — good gracions, what's that!
As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just
emerged from the shrubbery into the village green.
PARSON. - What's what?
MRS. DALE (pinching her husband's arm very nippingly). - That thing - there - there l
PARSON. —Only the new stocks, Carry; I don't wonder
they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I
only wish they would frighten the Squire.




112             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER  XIII
SUPPOSED TO BE A LETTER FROM MRS. HAZELDEAN TO A.
RICCABOCCA, ESQ., THE CASINO; BUT EDITED, AND
INDEED COMPOSED, BY MISS JEMIMA HAZELDEAN.
"DEAR SIR, - To a feeling heart it must always be
painful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure
unconsciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor
Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little circle,
in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do,
pray, dear sir, make us the amende honorable, and give
us the pleasure of your company for a few days at the
Hall! May we expect you Saturday next? - our dinner
hour is six o'clock.
"With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima
Hazeldean,
"Believe me, my dear Sir, yours truly,
"H. H.
"Hazeldean Hall."
nMiss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which
Mrs. Hazeldean had very willingly deputed her to write,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISII LIFE.            113
riding with more than his usual dandyism, came into the
yard, calling for his pony in a loud voice, and singling
out the very groom whom Miss Jemima was addressing
— for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the Squire's
stables —told him to saddle the grey pad, and accompany
the pony.
"No, Frank," said Miss Jemima, "you can't have
George; your father wants him to go on a messageyou can take Mat."
"Mat, indeed!" said Frank, grumbling with some
reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most
indefensible neckeloth, and always contrived to have a
great patch in his boots; —besides, he called Frank
"Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill;-' Mat, indeed! -let Mat take the message, and George
go with me."
But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting
Mat. Mat's foible was not servility, and he always showed
true English independence in all houses where he was not
invited to take his ale in the servants' hall. Mat might
offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated
altercation ensued, in the midst of which the Squire and
his wife entered the yard, with the intention of driving
in the conjugal gig to the market-town. The matter was
referred to the natural umpire by both the contending
parties.
The Squire looked with great contempt on his son.
"And what did you want a groom at all for? Are you
afraid of tumbling off the pony?"
10*               H




114             MY NOVEL; OR,
FRANK. -No, sir; but I like to go as a gentleman,
when I pay a visit to a gentleman!
SQUIRE (in high wrath).-You precious puppy! I think
I'm as good a gentleman as you any day, and I should
like to know when you ever saw me ride to call on a
neighbor with a fellow jingling at my heels, like that
upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton-mill.
First time I ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a liverycoat was necessary to prove his gentility I
MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank coloring, and about
to reply).- Hush, Frank, never answer your father -and
you are going to call on Mr. Leslie?
" Yes, ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father
for letting me," said Frank, taking the Squire's hand.
"Well, but Frank," continued Mrs. Hazeldean, "I
think you heard that the Leslies were very poor."
FRANK.- Eh, mother?
MRS. HAZELDEAN.-And would you run the chance of
wounding the pride of a gentleman, as well born as yourself, by affecting any show of being richer than he is?
SQUIRE (with great admiration).- Harry, I'd give ten
pounds to have said that I
FRANK (leaving the Squire's hand to take his mother's).. You're quite right, mother — nothing could be more
snobbish!
SQUIRE. — Give us your fist, too, sir; you'll be a chip
of the old block, after all.
Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    115
M1PS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima).- Is that the note
you were to write for me?
Miss JEMIMA. —Yes; I supposed you did not care
about seeing it, so I have sealed it, and given it to George.'Ms. 1HAZELDEAN. —But Frank will pass close by the
Casino on his way to the Leslies'. It may be more civil
if he leaves the note himself.
MIss JEMIMA (hesitatingly).- -Do you think so?
MRS. IHAZELDEAN.-Yes, certainly. Frank - Frankas you pass by the Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give
this note, and say we shall be heartily glad if he will come.
Frank nods.
" Stop a bit," cried the Squire.  "If Rickeybockey's
at home,'tis ten to one if he don't ask you to take a glass
of wine I If he does, mind,'tis worse than asking you
to take a turn on the rack.  Faugh  you remember,
Harry? —I thought it was all up with me."
"Yes," cried Mrs. Hazeldean; "for Heaven's sake, not
a drop. Wine, indeed!"
"Don't talk of it," cried the Squire, making a wry face.
"I'll take care, sir! " said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the stable, followed by Miss Jemima,
who now coaxingly makes it up with him, and does not
leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the
poor foreign gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the
stirrup, and the pony, who knows whom he has got to
deal with, gives a preparatory plunge or two, and then
darts out of the yard.




BOOK SECOND.
INITIAL CHAPTER.
INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE
INITIAL CHAPTERS.
"THERE can't be a doubt," said my father, "that to
each of the main divisions of your work -whether you
call them Books or Parts —you should prefix an Initial
or Introductory Chapter."
PISISTRATUS. - Can't be a doubt, sir! Why so?
MR. CAXTON. -Fielding lays it down as an indispensable rule, which he supports by his example; and
Fielding was an artistical writer, and knew what he was
about.
PISISTRATUS. - Do you remember any of his reasons,
sir?
MR. CAXTON.-Why, indeed, Fielding says very justly,
that he is not bound to assign any reason; but he does
assign a good many, here and there —to find which, I
refer you to Tom Jones. I will only observe, that one
of his reasons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect
(1 1 )




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.              117
that thus, in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of beginning at the fourth or fifth page instead
of the first-" a matter by no means of trivial consequence," saith Fielding, " to persons who read books with
no other view than to say they have read them - a more
general motive to reading than is commonly imagined;
and from which not only law books and good books, but
the pages of Homer and Virgil, of Swift and Cervantes,
have been often turned over." There, cried my father
triumphantly, I will lay a shilling to twopence that I have
quoted the very words.
MRS. CAXTON. - Dear me! that only means skipping:
I don't see any great advantage in writing a chapter,
merely for people to skip it.
PISISTRATUS.- Neither do I.
MR. CAXTON (dogmatically).  It is the repose in the
picture- Fielding calls it "contrast" - (still more dogmatically) I say there can't be a doubt about it. Besides
(added my father after a pause), besides, this usage gives
you opportunities to explain what has gone before, or to
prepare for what's coming; or, since Fielding contends,
with great truth, that some learning is necessary for this
kind of historical composition, it allows you, naturally and
easily, the introduction of light and pleasant ornaments
of that nature.  At each flight in the terrace, you may
give the eye the relief of an urn or a statue.  Moreover,
when so inclined, you create proper pausing places for
reflection; and complete by a separate, yet harmonious
ethical department, the design of a work, which is but a




118             MLY NOVEL; OR,
mere Mother Goose's tale if it does not embrace a general
view of the thoughts and actions of mankind.
PISISTRATUS. - But then, in these initial chapters, the
author thrusts himself forward; and just when you want
to get on with the dramatis personce, you find yourself
face to face with the poet himself.
MR. CAXTON. -Pooh I you can contrive to prevent
that I Imitate the chorus of the Greek stage, who fill up
the intervals between the action by saying what the author
would otherwise say in his own person.
PISISTRATUS (slily). - That's a good idea, sir; and I
have a chorus, and a choregus too, already in my eye.
AIR. CAXTON (unsuspectingly).-Aha! you are not so
dull a fellow as you would make yourself out to be; and,
even if an author did thrust himself forward, what objection is there to that? It is a mere affectation to suppose
that a book can come into the world without an author.
Every child has a father —one father at least, as the great
Conde says very well in his poem.
PISISTRATUS. - The great Conde a poet! —I never
heard that before.
MR. CAXTON. - I don't say he was a poet, but he sent
a poem to Madame de Montansier. Envious critics think
that he must have paid somebody else to write it; but
there is no reason why a great captain should not write
a poem; I don't say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder,
Roland, if the Duke ever tried his hand at " Stanzas to
Mary," or "Lines to a sleeping babe."
CAPTAIN ROLAND. - Austin, I'm ashamed of you. Of




VARIETIES  IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.               119
course, the Duke could write poetry if he pleased - something, I dare say, in the way of the great Conde; that
is, something warlike and heroic, I'll be bound. Let's
hear!
naR. CAXTON (reciting) —
"Telle est du Ciel la loi s~vBre
Qu'il faut qu'un enfant ait un p;re;
On dit m~me quelque fois
Tel enfant en a jusqu'A trois." *
CAPTAIN ROLAND (greatly disgusted).  Condd write
such stuff! -I don't believe it.
PISISTRATUS. -I do, and accept the quotation; you
and Roland shall be joint fathers to my child as well as
myself.
"Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois."
MR. CAXTON (solemnly). -I refuse the proffered pa.
ternity; but so far as administering a little wholesome
castigation, now and then, I have no objection to join in
the discharge of a father's duty.
PISISTRATUS. -A greed. Have you anything to say
against the infant hitherto?
MR. CAXTON. —Ie is in long clothes at present; let us
wait till he can walk.
BLANCIHE.-But pray, whom do you mean for a hero?
— and is Miss Jemima your heroine?
* Paraphrase; -
"That each child has a father
Is Nature's decree;
But, to judge by a rumor,
Some children have three."'




120             MY NOVEL; OR,
CAPTAIN RoLAND. —There is some mystery about thePIsIsITRATus (hastily). Hush, uncle: no letting. the
cat out of the bag yet. Listen all of you I I left Frank
Hazeldean on his way to the Casino.
CHAPTER II.
"IT is a sweet, pretty place," thought Frank, as he
opened the gate which led across the fields to the Casino,
that smiled down upon him with its plaster pilasters.  " I
wonder, though, that my father, who is so particular in
general, suffers the carriage-road to be so full of holes
and weeds. Mounseer does not receive many visits, I
take it."
But when Frank got into the ground immediately before the house, he saw no cause of complaint as to want
of order and repair. Nothing could be kept more neatly.
Frank was ashamed of the dint made by the pony's hoofs
in the smooth gravel: he dismounted, tied the animal to
the wicket, and went on foot towards the glass-door in
front.
He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the
old woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far
away in the yard, searching for any eggs which the hen
might have scandalously hidden from culinary purposes;
and Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and minnows, which were, when caught, to assist the eggs, when




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             121
found, in keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and his master.  The old woman had been lately put
upon board-wages - lucky old woman! Frank rang a
third time, and with the impetuosity of his age. A face
peeped from the Belvidere on the terrace.  " Diavolo!"
said Dr. Riccabocca to himself.  "Young cocks crow
hard on their own dunghill; it must be a cock of a high
race to crow so loud at another's."'
Therewith he shambled out of the summer-house, and
- appeared suddenly before Frank, in a very wizard-like
dressing-robe of black serge, a red cap on his head, and
a cloud of smoke coming rapidly from his lips, as a final
consolatory whiff, before he removed the pipe from them.
Frank had indeed seen the Doctor before, but never in
so scholastic a costume, and he was a little startled by
the apparition at his elbow, as he turned round.
"Signorino" (young gentleman), said the Italian,
taking off his cap with his usual urbanity, "pardon the
negligence of my people —I am too happy to receive your
commands in person."
" Dr. Rickeybockey?" stammered Frank, much confused by this polite address, and the low, yet stately, bow
with which it was accompanied.  "I — I have a note
from the Iall. Mamma - that is, my mother-and aunt
Jemima beg their best compliments, and hope you will
come, sir."
The Doctor took the note with another bow, and, opening the glass door, invited Frank to enter.
The young gentleman, with a schoolboy's usual blunt.
I.- 1i




122              MY NOVEL; OR,
ness, was about to say that he was in a hurry, and had
rather not; but Dr. Riccabocca's grand manner awed
him, while a glimpse of the hall excited his curiosity-so
he silently obeyed the invitation.
The hall, which was of an octagon shape, had been
originally panelled off into compartments, and in these
the Italian had painted landscapes, rich with the warm
sunny light of his native climate.  Frank was no judge
of the art displayed; but he was greatly struck with the
scenes depicted: they were all views of some lake, real
or imaginary —in all, dark-blue shining waters reflected
dark-blue placid skies. In one, a flight of steps descended
to the lake, and a gay group was seen feasting on the
margin; in another, sunset threw its rose-hues over a
vast villa or palace, backed by Alpine hills, and flanked
by long arcades of vines, while pleasure-boats skimmed
over the waves below. In short, throughout all the eight
compartments, the scen, though it differed in details, preserved the same general character, as if illustrating some
favorite locality. The Italian did not, however, evince
any desire to do the honors of his own art, but, preceding
Frank across the hall, opened the door of his usual sitting-room, and requested him to enter.  Frank did so,
rather reluctantly, and seated himself with unwonted
bashfulness on the edge of a chair. But here new specimens of the Doctor's handicraft soon riveted attention.
The room had been originally papered; but I{iccabocca
had stretched canvas over the walls, and painted thereon
sundry satirical devices, each separated from the other by




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISII LIIFE.            123
scroll-works of fantastic arabesques.  Here a Cupid was
trundling a wheel-barrow full of hearts, which he appeared
to be selling to an ugly old fellow, with a money-bag in
his hand- probably Plutus. There Diogenes might be
seen walking through a market-place, with his lantern in
his hand, in search of an honest man, whilst the children
jeered at him, and the curs snapped at his heels. In
another place, a lion was seen half dressed in a fox's hide,
while a Wolf in a sheep's mask was conversing very amicably with a young lamb.  Here again might be seen
the geese stretching out their necks from the Roman
Capitol in full cackle, while the stout invaders were beheld in the distance, running off as hard as they could.
In short, in all these- quaint entablatures some pithy sarcasm was symbolically conveyed; only over the mantelpiece was the design graver and more touching. It was
the figure of a man in a pilgrim's garb, chained to the
earth by small, but innumerable ligaments, while a phantom likeness of himself, his shadow, was seen hastening
down what seemed an interminable vista; and underneath
were written the pathetic words of Horace —
"Patriae quis exul
Se quoque fugit?"
("'What exile from his country can also fly from himself? ") The furniture of the room was extremely simple,
and somewhat scanty; yet it was arranged so as to imipart an air of taste and elegance to the room. Even a
few plaster busts and statues, though bought but of some
humble itinerant, had their classical effect, glistening from




121.             MY NOVEL; OR,
out stands of flowers that were grouped around them, or
backed by graceful screen-works formed from twisted
osiers, which, by the simple contrivance of trays at the
bottom, filled with earth, served for living parasitical
plants, with gay flowers contrasting thick ivy leaves, and
gave to the whole room the aspect of a bower.
"May I ask your permission?" said the Italian, with
his finger on the seal of the letter.
"Oh yes," said Frank with naivete.
Riccabocca broke the seal, and a slight smile stole over
his countenance. Then he turned a little aside from
Frank, shaded his face with his hand, and seemed to muse.
" Mrs. Hazeldean," said he at last, "does me very great
honor.  I hardly recognise her hand-writing, or I should
have been more impatient to open the letter."  The dark
eyes were lifted over the spectacles, and went right into
Frank's unprotected and undiplomatic heart. The doctor
raised the note, and pointed to the characters with his
forefinger.
"' Cousin Jemima's hand," said Frank, as directly as if
the question had been put to him.
The Italian smiled. "Mr. Hazeldean has company
staying with him? "
"No; that is, only Barney —the Captain. There,'s
seldom much company before the shooting season," added
Frank with a slight sigh; "and then, you know, the
holidays are over. For my part, I think we ought to
break up a month later."
The Doctor seemed re-assured by the first sentence in




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.            125
Frank's reply, and, seating himself at the table, wrote his
answer -not hastily, as we English write, but with care
and precision, like one accustomed to weigh the nature
of words-in that stiff Italian hand, which allows the
writer so much time to think while he forms his letters.
He did not, therefore, reply at once to Frank's remark
about the holidays, but was silent till he had concluded
his note, read it three times over, sealed it by the taper
he slowly lighted, and then, giving it to Frank, he said -
" For your sake, young gentleman, I regret that your
holidays are so early; for mine, I must rejoice, since I
accept the kind invitation you have rendered doubly
gratifying by bringing it yourself."
"Deuce take the fellow and his fine speeches! One
don't know which way to look," thought English Frank.
The Italian smiled again, as if this time he had read
the boy's heart, without need of those piercing black eyes,
and said, less ceremoniously than before, " You don't care
much for compliments, young gentleman?"
"No, I don't indeed," said Frank heartily.
" So much the better for you, since your way in the
world is made; it would be so much the worse, if you had
to make it!"
Frank looked puzzled: the thought was too deep for
hiam-so he turned to the pictures.
"Those are very funny," said he: "they seem capitally
done. Who did'em?"
"Signorino Hazeldean, you are giving me what you
refused yourself"
11*




126             MY NOVEL; OR,
"Ell?" said Frank inquiringly.
"Compliments I "
"Oh —I —no; but they are well done: ar'n't they,
sir?"
" Not particularly: you speak to the artist."
"What! you painted them?"
"Yes. "
"And the pictures in the hall?"'
"Those too."
"Taken from nature, eh?"
"Nature," said the Italian sententiously, perhaps
evasively, "lets nothing be taken from her."
"Oh!" said Frank, puzzled again.  "Well, I must
wish you good morning, sir; I am very glad you are
coming."
"Without compliment?"
"Without compliment."
"A rivedersi —good-by for one present, my young
Signorino. This way," observing Frank mkde a bolt
towards the wrong door.
"Can I offer you a glass of wine I —it is pure, of our
own making."
"No, thank you, indeed, sir," cried Frank, suddenly
recollecting, his father's admonition.  "Good-by, don't
trouble yourself, sir; I know my way now."
But the bland Italian followed his guest to the wicket,
where Frank had left the pony. The young gentleman,
afraid lest so courteous a host should hold the stirrup for
him, twitched off the bridle, and mounted in haste, not




VARtETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             127
even staying to ask if the Italian could put him in the
way to Rood Hall, of which way he was profoundly
ignorant.  The Italian's eye followed the boy as he rode
up the ascent in the lane, and the Doctor sighed heavily.
"The wiser we grow," said he to himself, "the more we
regret the age of our follies: it is better to gallop with a
light heart up the stony hill than sit, in the summerhouse and cry'How true' to the stormy truths of
Machiavelli!"
With that he turned back into the Belvidere; but he
could not resume his studies. He remained some minutes
gazing on the prospect, till the prospect reminded him of
the fields which Jackeymo was bent on his hiring, and the
fields reminded him of Lenny Fairfield.  He returned to
the house, and in a few moments re-emerged in his outof-door trim, with cloak and umbrella, re-lighted- his pipe,
and strolled towards Hazeldean village.
Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance,
stopped at a cottage, and there learned that there was a
short cut across the fields to Rood Hall, by which he
could save nearly three miles.  Frank, however, missed
the short cut, and came out into the high road: a turnpike
keeper, after first taking his toll, put him back again into
the short cut; and finally, he got into some green lanes,
where a dilapidated finger-post directed him to Rood.
Late at noon, having ridden fifteen miles in the desire to
reduce ten to seven, he came suddenly upon a wild and
primitive piece of ground, that seemned half chase, half
common, with crazy tumbledown cottages of villanous




128             MIY NOVEL; OR,
aspect scattered about in odd nooks and corners; idle,
dirty children were making mud pies on the road;
slovenly-looking women were plaiting straw at the thresholds; a large but forlorn and decayed church, that
seemed to say that the generation which saw it built was
more pious than the generation which now resorted to it,
stood boldly and nakedly out by the roadside.
"Is this the village of Rood?" asked Frank of a stout
young man breaking stones on the road — sad sign that
no better labor could be found for him!
The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work.
"And where's the Hall -Mr. Leslie's?"
The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time
touched his hat.
"Be you going there?"
"Yes, if I can find out where it is."
"I'll show your honor," said the boor alertly.
Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his
side.
Frank was much of his father's son, despite the difference of age, and that more fastidious change of manner
which characterises each succeeding race in the progress
of civilisation. Despite all his Eton finery, he was
familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one
country-born as to country matters.
"You don't seem very well off in this village, my man?"
said he, knowingly.
"Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter




VARIETIES IN  ENGLIShI  LIFE.    129
time, and summer too, for that matter; and the parish
ben't much help to a single man."
"But, surely, the farmers want work here as well as
elsewhere? "
"'Deed, and there ben't much farming work heremost o' the parish be all wild ground loike."
"The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said
Frank, surveying a large assortment of vagabond birds
and quadrupeds.
"Yes; neighbor Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has a cow- and them be neighbor Jowlas's pigs.  I don't know if there's a right, loike; but the
folks at the Hall does all they can to help us, and that
ben't much: they ben't as rich as some folks; but," added
the peasant proudly, "they be as good blood as any in
the shire."
"I'm glad to see you like them, at all events."' Oh yes, I loikes them well eno'; mayhap you are at
school with the young gentleman?"' Yes," said Frank.
"Ah! I heard the clergyman say as how Master Randal was a mighty clever lad, and would get rich some
day. I'se sure I wish he would, for a poor squire makes
a poor parish. There's the Hall, sir."




130             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER III.
FRANK looked right ahead, and saw a square house
that, in spite of modern sash-windows, was evidently of
remote antiquity; a high conical roof; a stack of tall
quaint chimney-pots of red baked clay (like those at Sutton Place, in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar
smoke-conductors, of the ignoble fashion of present times;
a dilapidated groin-work, encasing within a Tudor arch
a door of the comfortable date of George III., and the
peculiarly dingy and weather-stained appearance of the
small finely-finished bricks, of which the habitation was
built —all showed the abode of former generations
adapted with tasteless irreverence to the habits of descendants unenlightened by Pugin, or indifferent to the
poetry of the past. The house had emerged suddenly
upon Frank out of the gloomy waste land, for it was
placed in a hollow, and sheltered from sight by a disorderly group of ragged, dismal, valetudinarian fir-trees,
until an abrupt turn of the road cleared that screen, and
left the desolate abode bare to the discontented eye.
Frank dismounted; the man held his pony; and after
smoothing his cravat, the smart Etonian sauntered up to
the door, and startled the solitude of the place with a
loud peal from the modern brass knocker —a knock




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             131
which instantly brought forth an astonished starling who
had built under the eaves of the gable roof, and called up
a cloud of sparrows, tomtits, and yellow-hammers, who
had been regaling themselves amongst the litter of a
slovenly farm-yard that lay in full sight to the right of the
house, fenced off by a primitive, paintless wooden rail.
In process of time a sow, accompanied by a thriving and
inquisitive family, strolled up to the gate of the fence,
and, leaning her nose on the lower bar of the gate, contemplated the visitor with much curiosity and some suspicion.
While Frank is still without, impatiently swingeing his
white trousers with his whip, we will steal a hurried glance
towards the respected members of the family within.
Mr. Leslie, the pater-famnilias, is in a little room called
his "study," to which he regularly retires every morning
after breakfast, rarely re-appearing till one o'clock, which
is his unfashionable hour for dinner.  In what mysterious
occupations Mr. Leslie passes those hours, no one ever
formed a conjecture.  At the present moment he is seated
before a little rickety bureau, one leg of which (being
shorter than the other) is propped up by sundry old
letters and scraps of newspapers; and the bureau is open,
and reveals a great number of pigeon-holes and divisions,
filled with various odds and ends, the collection of many
years. In some of these compartments are bundles of
letters, very yellow, and tied in packets with faded tape;
in another, all by itself, is a fragment of plum-pudding
stone, which Mr. Leslie has picked up in his walks, and




132               MY  NOVEL; OR,
considered a rare mineral.  It is neatly labelled, " Found
in Hollow Lane, May 21st, 1804, by Maunder Slugge
Leslie, Esq."  The next division holds several bits of
iron in the shape of nails, fragments of horse-shoes, &c.,
which Mr. Leslie has also met with in his rambles, and
according to a harmless popular superstition, deemed it
highly unlucky not to pick up, and, once picked up, no
less unlucky to throw  away.  Item, in the adjoining
pigeon-hole, a goodly collection of pebbles with holes in
them, preserved for the same reason. In company with
a crooked sixpence: item, neatly arranged in fanciful
mosaics, several periwinkles, Blackamoor's teeth (I mean
the shell so called), and other specimens of the conchiferous ingenuity of Nature, partly inherited from some
ancestral spinster, partly amassed by Mr. Leslie himself
in a youthful excursion to the sea-side. There were the
farm-bailiff's accounts, several files of bills, an old stirrup,
three sets of knee and shoe buckles, which had belonged
to Mr. Leslie's father, a few seals tied together by a shoestring, a shagreen tooth-pick case, a tortoise-shell magnifying-glass to read with, his eldest son's first copybooks,
his second son's ditto, his daughter's ditto, and a lock of
his wife's hair arranged in a true lover's knot, framed and
glazed. There were also a small mouse-trap; a patent
cork-screw, too good to be used in common; fragments
of a silver tea-spoon, that had, by natural decay, arrived
at a dissolution of its parts, a small brown Holland bag,
containing half-pence of various dates, as far back as
Queen Anne, accompanied by two French sous, and a




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    133
German silber gros; —the which miscellany Mr. Leslie
magniloquently called "his coins," and had left in his
will as a family heir-loom. There were many other
curiosities of a congenial nature and equal value - quic
nunc describere longuin est. Mr. Leslie was engaged
at this time in what is termed " putting things to rights"
—..an occupation he performed with exemplary care
once a-week. This was his day; and he had just counted
his coins, and was slowly tying them up again in the
brown HIolland bag, when Frank's knock reached his
ears.
Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie paused, shook his head as
if incredulously, and was about to resume his occupation,
when he was seized with a fit of yawning which prevented
the bag being tied for full two minutes.
While such the employment of the study, let us turn to
the recreations in the drawing-room, or rather parlor. A
drawing-room there was on the first-floor, with a charming look-out, not on the dreary fir-trees, but on the
romantic undulating forest-land; but the drawing-room
had not been used since the death of the last Mrs. Leslie.
It was deemed too good to sit in, except when there was
company: there never being company, it was never sate
in. Indeed, now the paperIwas falling off the walls with
the damp, and the rats, mice, and moths  those " edaces
rerum "- had eaten, between them, most of the chairbottoms and a considerable part of the floor. Therefore,
the parlor was the sole general sitting-room; and being
breakfasted in, dined and supped in, and, after supper,
I.- 12




134              MY NOVEL; OR,
smoked in by Mr. Leslie to the accompaniment of rumand-water, it is impossible to deny that it had what is
called " a smell "-a comfortable, wholesome family smell
-— speaking of numbers, meals, and miscellaneous social
habitation.  There were two windows: one looked full on
the fir-trees; the other on the farm-yard, with the pig-sty
closing the view.  Near the fir-tree window sate Mrs.
Leslie; before her, on a high stool, was a basket of the
children's clothes that wanted mending.  A work-table
of rose-wood inlaid with brass, which had been a weddingpresent, and was a costly thing originally, but in that
peculiar taste which is vulgarly called "Bramagen,"
stood at hand: the brass had started in several places,
and occasionally made great havoc in the children's
fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown; in fact, it was the
liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to that
petulant brass-work, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a monkey.  Upon the work-table
lay a housewife and a thimble, and scissors, and skeins of
Worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and cloth
for patches. But'Mrs. Leslie was not actually working
- she was preparing to work; she had been preparing to
work for the last hour and a half. Upon her lap she
supported a novel, by a lady who wrote much for a
former generation, under the name of " Mrs. Bridget Blue
Mantle." She had a small needle irk her left hand, and a
very thick piece of thread in her right; occasionally she
applied the end of the said thread to her lips, and thenher eyes fixed on the novel — made a blind, vacillating




VARIETIES IN  EN'GLISHI  LIFE.         135
attack at the eye of the needle. But a camel would have
gone through it with quite as much ease. Nor did the
novel alone engage Mrs. Leslie's attention, for ever and
anon she interrupted herself to scold the children, to
inquire "what o'clock it was;" to obssrve that " Sarah
would never suit; " and to wonder " why Mr. Leslie would
n.ot see that the work-table was mended." Mrs. Leslie
has been rather a pretty woman. In spite of a dress at
once slatternly and economical, she has still the air of a
lady -rather too much so, the hard duties of her situation considered.  She is proud of the antiquity of her
family on both sides; her mother was of the venerable
stock of the Daudles of Daudle Place, a race that existed
before the Conquest. Indeed, one has only to read our
earliest chronicles, and to glance over some of those longwinded moralising poems which delighted the thanes and
ealdermen of old, in order to see that the Daudles must
have been a very influential family before William the
First turned the country topsy-turvy. While the mother's
race was thus indubitably Saxon, the father's had not
only the name but the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the
Normans, and went far to establish that crotchet of the
brilliant author of Sibyl, or the Two Nations, as to the
continued distinction between the conquering and conquered populations. Mrs. Leslie's father boasted the
name of Montfydget; doubtless of the same kith and kin
as those great barons Montfichet, who once owned such
broad lands and such turbulent castles. A high-nosed
thin, nervous, excitable progeny, those same Montfydgets,




L36            MY NOVEL; OR,
as the most troublesome Norman could pretend to be.
This fusion of race was notable to the most ordinary
physiognomist in the physique and in the mnorale of Mrs.
Leslie.  She had the speculative blue eye of the Saxon,
and the passionate high nose of the Norman; she had the
musing do-nothingness of the Daudles, and the reckless
have-at-every-thingness of the Montfydgets.  At Mrs.
Leslie's feet, a little girl with her hair about her ears
(and beautiful hair it was too) was amusing herself with a
broken-nosed doll. At the far end of the room, before a
high desk, sate Frank's Eton school-fellow, the eldest
son.  A minute or two before Frank's alarumi had disturbed the tranquillity of the household, he had raised his
eyes from the books on the desk to glance at a very
tattered copy of the Greek Testament, in which his
brother Oliver had found a difficulty that he came to
Randal to solve.  As the young Etonian's face was
turned to the light, your first impression, on seeing it,
would have been melancholy, but respectful, interest -
for the face had already lost the joyous character of youth
-there was a wrinkle between the brows; and the lines
that speak of fatigue were already visible under the eyes
and about the mouth: the complexion was sallow, the
lips were pale.  Years of study had already sown in the
delicate organization the seeds of many an infirmity and
many a pain: but if your look had rested longer on that
countenance, gradually your compassion might have given
place to some feeling uneasy and sinister- a feeling uneasy and sinister -a feeling akin
to fear.  There was in the whole expression so much of




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             137
cold, calm force, that it belied the debility of the frame.
You saw there the evidence of a mind that was cultivated,
and you felt that in that cultivation there was something
formidable. A  notable contrast to this countenance,
prematurely worn, and eminently intelligent, was the
round healthy face of Oliver, with slow blue eyes fixed
hard on the penetrating orbs of his brother, as if trying
with might and main to catch from them a gleam of that
knowledge with which they shone clear and frigid as a
star.
At Frank's knock, Oliver's slow blue eyes sparkled into
animation, and he sprang from his brother's side. The
little girl flung back the hair from her face, and stared at
her mother with a look which spoke wonder and affright.
The young student knit his brows, and then turned
wearily back to the books on his desk.
" Dear me," cried Mrs. Leslie, "who can that possibly
be? Oliver, come from the window, sir, this instant;
you will be seen! Juliet, run- ring the bell - no, go
to the head of the kitchen stairs, and call out to Jenny,'Not at home.' Not at home on any account," repeated
MIrs. Leslie, nervously, for the Montfydget blood was now
in full flow.
In another minute or so, Frank's loud, boyish voice
was distinctly heard at the outer door.
Randal slightly started.
"Frank Hazeldean's voice," said he; "I should like
to see him, mother."
12*




138             MIY NOVEL; OR,
" See him," repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze; " see him I
and the room in this state I"
— Randal might have replied that the room was in no
worse state than usual; but he said nothing. A slight
flush came and went over his pale face; and then he
leaned his cheek on his hand, and compressed his lips
firmly.
The outer door closed with a sullen, inhospitable jar,
and a slip-shod female servant entered with a card between
her finger and thumb.
"Who is that for? - give it to me, Jenny," cried Mrs.
Leslie.
But Jenny shook her head, laid the card on the desk
beside Randal, and vanished without saying a word.
"Oh look, Randal, look up," cried Oliver, who had
again rushed to the window; " such a pretty grey pony! "
Randal did look up; nay, he went deliberately to the
window, and gazed a moment on the high-mettled pony,
and the well-dressed, spirited rider. In that moment
changes passed over Randal's countenance more rapidly
than clouds over the sky in a gusty day. Now envy and
discontent, with the curled lip and the gloomy scowl; now
hope and proud self-esteem, with the clearing brow and
the lofty smile; and then again all became cold, firm, and
close, as he walked back to his books, seated himself
resolutely, and said, half aloud —
" Well, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             139
CHAPTER IV.
MRs. LESLIE came up in fidget and in fuss; she leaned
over Randal's shoulder and read the card. Written in
pen and ink, with an attempt at imitation of printed
Roman character, there appeared first "MR. FRANK
IAZELDEAN;;" but just over these letters, and scribbled
hastily and less legibly in pencil, was"Dear Leslie - sorry you were out —come and see
us -- Do  "
"You will go, Randal?" said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause.
"I'm not sure."
"Yes, you can go; you have clothes like a gentleman:
you can go anywhere, not like those children;" and Mrs.
Leslie glanced almost spitefully at poor Oliver's coarse
threadbare jacket, and little Juliet's torn frock.
" What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and
I should consult his wishes; he is not on good terms
with these Hazeldeans. "  Then turning  towards his
brother, who looked mortified, he added, with a strange
sort of haughty kindness, "What I may have hereafter,
Oliver, I shall owe to myself; and then if I rise, I will
raise my family."
"Dear Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him
on the forehead, "what a good heart you have I "




140-           IMY NOVEL; OR,
"No, mother; my books don't tell me that it is a good
heart that gets on in the world: it is a hard head," replied
IRandal, with a rude and scornful candor.  "But I can
read no more just now; come out, Oliver."
So saying, he slid from his mother's hand, and left the
room.
When Oliver joined him, Randal was already on the
common; and, without seeming to notice his brother, he
continued to walk quickly, and with long strides, in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of
an old oak, that, too old to be of value save for firewood,
had escaped the axe. The tree stood on a knoll, and the
spot commanded a view of the decayed house  the
dilapidated church —the dreary village.
"Oliver," said Randal, between his teeth, so that his
voice had the sound of a hiss, "it was under this tree
that I first resolved to _ "
HIe paused.
"What, Randal?"
"Read hard: knowledge is power "
"But you are so fond of reading."
"I!" cried Randal.  "Do you think, when Wolsey
and Thomas-a-Becket became priests, they were fond
of telling their beads and pattering aves? I fond of
reading! "
Oliver stared; the historical allusions were beyond his
comprehension.
"You know," continued Randal, "that we Leslies were
not always the beggarly poor gentlemen we are now.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE            141
You know that there is a man who lives in Grosvenor
Square, and is very rich —very. His riches come to him
from a Leslie; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he -
is very good to me."
Randal's smile was withering as he spoke. "Come
on," he said, after a pause- "come on."  Again the
walk was quick, and the brothers were silent.
They came at length to a little shallow brook, across
which some large stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over the ford dry-shod.
" Will you pull down that bough, Oliver?" said Randal,
abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically;
and:Randal, stripping the leaves, and snapping off the
twigs, left a fork at the end; with this he began to remove the stepping-stones.
"What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, wonderingly.
"We are on the other side of the brook now, and we
shall not come back this way. We don't want the stepping-stones any more - away with them  "
CHAPTER V.
THE morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean's to
Rood Hall, the Right Honorable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor, and minister of a
high department in the state-just below the rank of the




142            SMY NOVEL; OR,
cabinet - was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery
of the post, before he walked down to his office.  In the
meanwhile, he sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and half-disdainful eye with which
your practical man in public life is wont to regard the
abuse or the eulogium of the Fourth Estate.
There is very little likeness between Mr. Egerton and
his half-brother; none, indeed, except that they are both
of tall stature, and strong, sinewy, English build. But
even in this last they do not resemble each other; for the
Squire's athletic shape is already beginning to expand
into that portly embonpoint which seems the natural development of contented men as they approach middle
life. Audley, on the contrary, is inclined to be spare;
and his figure, though the muscles are as firm as iron, has
enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of
elegance. His dress, his look -his tout ensemble -are
those of the London man.  In the first, there is more
attention to fashion than is usual amongst the busy members of the House of Commons; but then Audley Egerton has always been something more than a mere busy
member of the House of Commons. He has always been
a person of mark in the best society; and one secret of
his success in life has been his high reputation as "a
gentleman."
As he now bends over the journals, there is an air of
distinction in the turn of the well-shaped head, with the
dark brown hair- dark in spite of a reddish tinge- cut
close behind, and worn away a little towards the crown,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             143
so as to give additional height to a commanding forehead.  His profile is very handsome, and of that kind of
beauty which imposes on men if it pleases women; and
is, therefore, unlike that of your mere pretty fellows, a
positive advantage in public life. It is a profile with
large features clearly cut, masculine, and  somewhat
severe.  The expression of his face is not open, like the
Squire's; nor has it the cold closeness which accompanies
the intellectual character of young Leslie's; but it is reserved and dignified, and significant of self-control, as
should be the physiognomy of a man accustomed to think
before he speaks. When you look at him, you are not
surprised to learn that he is not a florid orator nor a
smart debater-he is a " weighty speaker."  He is fairly
read, but without any great range either of ornamental
scholarship or constitutional lore.  He has not much
humor; but he has that:kind of wit which is essential to
grave and serious irony.  He has not much imagination,
nor remarkable subtlety in reasoning; but if he does not
dazzle, he does not bore: he is too much of the man of
the world for that.  He it considered to have sound sense
and accurate judgment.  Witbal, as he now lays aside
the journals, and his face relaxes its austerer lines, you
will not be astonished to hear that he is a man who is
said to have been greatly beloved by women, and still to
exercise much influence in drawing-rooms and boudoirs.
At least, no one wts surprised when the great heiress,
Clementina Leslie, kinswoman and ward to Lord Lansmere-a young lady who had refused three earls and the




144            IMY NOVEL; OR,
heir-apparent to a d-ukedom-was declared by her dearest
friends to be dying of love for Audley Egerton. It had
been the natural wish of the Lansmeres that this lady
should marry their son, Lord L'Estrange.  But that
young gentleman, whose opinions on matrimony partook
of the eccentricity of his general character, could never
be induced to propose, and had, according to the on-dits
of town, been the principal party to make up-the match
between Clementina and his friend Audley; for the match
required making-up, despite the predilections of the
young heiress. Mr. Egerton had had scruples of delicacy.
He avowed, for the first time, that his fortune was much
less than had been generally supposed, and he did not
like the idea of owing all to a wife, however highly he
might esteem and admire her. Now, Lord L'Estrange
(not long after the election at Lansmere, which had given
to Audley his first seat in parliament) had suddenly exchanged from the battalion of the Guards to which he
belonged, and which was detained at home, into a cavalry
regiment on active service in the Peninsula. Nevertheless, even abroad, and amidst the distractions of war, his
interest in all that could forward Egerton's career was
unabated; and, by letters to his father, and to his cousin
Clementina, he assisted in the negotiations for the marriage between Miss Leslie and his friend; and, before the
year in which Audley was returned for Lansmere had
expired, the young senator received the hand of the great
heiress. The settlement of her fortune, which was chiefly
in the funds, had been unusually advantageous to the




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.              145
husband; for though the capital was tied up so long as
both survived - for the benefit of any children they might
have —yet, in the event of one of the parties dying
without issue by the marriage, the whole passed without
limitation to the survivor. Mliss Leslie, in spite of all
remonstrance from her own legal adviser, had settled this
clause with Egerton's confidential solicitor, one Mr. Levy,
of whom we shall see more hereafter; and Egerton was
to be kept in ignorance of it till after the marriage.  If
in this Miss Leslie showed a generous trust in Mr.
Egerton, she still inflicted no positive wrong on her
relations, for she had none sufficiently near to her to
warrant their claim  to  the  succession.  Her nearest
kinsman, and therefore her natural heir, was Harley
L'Estrange; and if he was contented, no one had a right
to complain.  The tie of blood between herself and the
Leslies of Rood Hall was, as we shall see presently,
extremely distant.
It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took
an active part in the business of the House of Commons.
He was then at the most advantageous starting-point forthe career of ambition.  His words on the state of the
country took importance firom his stake in it. His talents
from accessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the
dignity of a princely establishment, the respectability of
one firmly settled in life, the reputation of a fortune in
reality very large, and which was magnified by popular
report into the revenues of a Crcesus. Audley Egerton
succeeded in Parliament beyond the early expectations
I.-13                K




146              MY NOVEL; OR,
formed of him.  Hie took, from the first, that station in
the House which it requires tact to establish, and great
knowledge of the world to free from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once established,
is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence';
that is to say, the station of the moderate man, who belongs sufficiently to a party to obtain its support, but is
yet sufficiently disengaged from a party to make his vote
and word, on certain questions, matter of anxiety and
speculation.
Professing Toryism  (the word Conservative, which
would have suited him better, was not then known), he
separated himself from  the country party, and always
avowed great respect for the opinions of the large towns.
The epithet given to the views of Auclley Egerton was
" enlightened."  Never too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet never behind its movement, he had
that shrewd calculation of odds which a consummate
mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon politicians,
-perceived the chances for and against a certain question
being carried within a certain time, and nicked the question
between wind and water.  He was so good a barometer
of that changeful weather called Public Opinion, that he
might have had a hand in the Times newspaper.  He
soon quarrelled, and purposely, with his Lansmere constituents; nor had he ever revisited that borongh, - perhaps because it was associated with unpleasant reminiscences in the shape of the Squire's epistolary trimmer,
and in that of his own effigies which his agricultural con



VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.              14T
stituents had burned in the corn-market. But the speeches
that produced such indignation at Lansmere had delighted
one of the greatest of our commercial towns, which at the
next general election honored him with its representation.
In those days, before the Reform Bill, great commercial
towns chose men of high mark for their members; and a
proud station it was for him who was delegated to speak
the voice of the princely merchants of England.
Mrs. Egerton survived her marriage but a few years;
she left no children; two had been born, but died in their
first infancy. The property of the wife, therefore, passed
without control or limit to the husband.
Whatever might have been the grief of the widower,
he disdained to betray it to the world.  Indeed, Audley
Egerton was a man who had early taught himself to conceal emotion.  He buried himself in the country, none
knew where, for some months.  When he returned, there
was a deep wrinkle on his brow; but no change in his
habits and avocations, except that shortly afterwards he
accepted office, and thus became more busy than ever.
Mr. Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent
in money matters. A rich man in public life has many
claims on his fortune, and no one yielded to those claims
with an air so regal as Audley Egerton.  But amongst
his many liberal actions there was none which seemed
more worthy of panegyric than the generous favor he extended to the son of his wife's poor and distant kinsfolk,
the Leslies, of Rood Hall.
Some four generations back, there had lived a certain




148              MY NOVEL; OR,
-Squire Leslie, a man of large acres and active mind. He
had cause to be displeased with his eldest son, and
though he did not disinherit him, he left half his property
to a younger.
The younger had capacity and spirit, which justified
the parental provision.  He increased his fortune, lifted
himself into notice and consideration by public services
and a noble alliance. His descendants followed his example, and took rank among the first commoners in Enfgland, till the last male, dying, left his sole heiress and
representative in one daughter, Clementina, afterwards
married to Mr. Egerton.
Meanwhile the elder son of the forementioned squire
had muddled and sotted away much of his share in the
Leslie property, and by low habits and mean society,
lowered in repute his representation of the name.
His successors imitated him, till nothing was left to
Randal's father, Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie, but the
decayed house, which was what the Germans call the
starnm  schloss or "stem  hall" of the race, and the
wretched lands immediately around it.
Still, though all intercourse between the two branches
of the family had ceased, the younger had always felt a
respect for the elder, as the head of the house.  And it
was supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton had
recommended her impoverished namesakes and kindred to
the care of her husband; for, when he returned to town,
after Mrs. Egerton's death, Audley had sent to Mr.
Maunder Slugge Leslie the sum of ~5,000, which he said




VARIETIES I-N ENGLISH  LIFE.            149
his wife, leaving no written will, had orally bequeathed
as a legacy to that gentleman; and he requested permission
to charge himself with the education of the eldest son.
Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie might have done great
things for his little property with those ~5,000, or even
(kept in the Three per Cents) the interest would have
afforded a material addition to his comforts. But a
neighboring solicitor, having caught scent of the legacy,
hunted it down into his own hands, on pretence of having
found a capital investment in a canal. And when the
solicitor had got possession of the ~5,000, he went off
with them to America.
Meanwhile Randal, placed by Mr. Egerton at an excellent preparatory school, at first gave no- signs of
industry or talent; but just before he left it, there came
to the school, as classical tutor, an ambitious young
Oxford man; and his zeal —for he was a capital teacher
produced a great effect generally on the pupils, and
especially on Randal Leslie.  He talked to them much in
private on the advantages of learning, and shortly afterwards he exhibited those advantages in his own person;
for, having edited a Greek play with much subtle scholarship, his college, which some slight irregularities of his
had displeased, recalled him to its venerable bosom by
the presentation of a fellowship. After this he took
orders, became a college, tutor, distinguished himself yet
more by a treatise on the Greek accent, got a capital
living, and was considered on the high road to a bishopric.
This young man, then, communicated to Randal the
13*o




150              MY NOVEL; OR,
thirst for knowledge; and when the boy went afterwards
to Eton, he applied with such earnestness and resolve,
that his fame soon reached the ears of Audley; and that
person, who had the sympathy for talent, and yet more
for purpose, which often characterises ambitious men,
went to Eton to see him. From that time Audley evinced
great and almost fatherly interest in the brilliant Etonian;
and Randal always spent with him some days in each
vacation.
I have said that Egerton's conduct, with respect to this
boy, was more praiseworthy than most of those generous
actions for which he was renowned, since to this the world
gave no applause.  What a man does within the range
of his family connexions does not carry with it that celat
which invests a munificence exhibited on public occasions.
Either people care nothing about it, or tacitly suppose it
to be but his duty.  It was true, too, as the Squire had
observed, that IRandal Leslie was even less distantly
related to the Hazeldeans than to Mrs. Egerton, since
Randal's grandfather had actually married a Miss Hazeldean (the highest worldly connexion that branch of the
family had formed since the great split I have commemorated).' But Audley Egerton never appeared aware of
that fact. As he was not himself descended from the
Hazeldeans, he did not trouble himself about their
genealogy; and he took care to impress it upon the
Leslies that his generosity on their behalf was solely to be
ascribed to his respect for his wife's memory and kindred.
Still the Squire had felt as if his " distant brother" implied




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH! LIFE.    151
a rebuke on his own neglect of these poor Leslies, by the
liberality Audley evinced towards them; and this had
made him doubly sore when the narne of Randal Leslie
was mentioned. But the fact really was, that-the Leslies
of Rood had so shrunk out of all notice that the Squire
had actually forgotten their existence, until Randal became
thus indebted to his brother; and then he felt a pang of
remorse that any one save himself, the head of the Hazeldeans, should lend a helping hand to the grandson of a
Hazeldean.
But having thus, somewhat too tediously, explained
the position of Audley Egerton, whether in the world or
in relation to his young protigg, I may now permit him
to receive and to read his letters.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. EGERTON glanced over the pile of letters placed
beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and
threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such
odd, out-of-the-way letters, that their waste-baskets are
never empty: letters from amateur financiers proposing
new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from
America (never free), asking for autographs; letters from
fond mothers in country villages, recommending some
miracle of a son for a place in the King's service; letters
from free-thinkers in reproof of bigotry; letters from




152              MY NOVEL; OR,
bigots in reproof of free-thinkers; letters signed Brutus
Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the
writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are
not forthwith adjusted; letters signed Matilda or Caroline,
stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's
portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to
its attractions may be found at No. -, Piccadilly; letters
from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers  all food for the waste-basket.
From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton
first selected those on business, which he put methodically
together in one division of his pocket-book; and secondly,
those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into
another.  Of these last there were but three — one from
his steward, one from Harvey L'Estrange, one from
Randal Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to his office, a few minutes
&fterwards, he slowly took his way.  Many a passenger
turned back to look again at the firm figure, which,
despite the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the
throat; and the black frock-coat thus worn well became
the erect air, and the deep, full chest of the handsome
senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley
Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his
way to the cares of office.
After a few observations on the last debate, this
gentleman said"By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to
meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on
Monday."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    153.
"I had asked some people to dine with me," answered
Egerton, " but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere
too seldom to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I
respect so much."
" So seldom I True, he is very little in town; but why
don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting
- pleasant, old-fashioned house."
"My dear Westbourne, his house is' nimium vicina
Cremonce,' close to a borough in which I have been
burned in effigy."
"HIa-ha —yes — I remember you first came into
Parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere
himself never found fault with your votes, did he? "
"He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not
presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I
am so intimate with L'Estrange."
" Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England? "
"He comes, generally, every year, for a few days, just
to see his father and mother, and then returns to the
Continent. "
"I never met him."
"He comes in September or October, when you, of
course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him."
"Why does he not go to them?"
"A man in England but once a year, and for a few
days, has so much to do in London, I suppose?"
"Is he as amusing as ever?"
Egerton nodded.




154              MY NOVEL; OR,
"So distinguished as he might bel" remarked Lord
Westbourne.
"So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton formally;
"an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as
Quatre Bras and Waterloo; a scholar, too, of the finest
taste; and as an accomplished gentleman, matchless!"
"I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in
these ill-natured  days," answered Lord Westbourne.
"But still, though L'Estrange is doubtless all you say,
don't you think he rather wastes his life —living abroad?"
"A'nd trying to be happy, Westbourne?  Are you
sure it is not we who waste our lives? but I can't stay to
hear your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison."'
"On Saturday, then?"
"On Saturday.  Good day."
For the next hour, or more,'Mr. Egerton was engaged
on the affairs of the state.  He then snatched an interval
of leisure (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed
a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his letters.
Those on public business were soon despatched; and
throwing his replies aside, to be sealed by a subordinate
hand, he drew out the letters which he had put apart as
private.
He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's
letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines.
Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private
interests and concerns than Audley Egerton-yet, withal,
Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist.
The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that,
though longer, was far from prolix: it ran thus -




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    155
"Dear Mr. Leslie,- I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's
invitation to call at the Hall.  Since you are asked, I can
see no objection to it. I should be sorry if you appeared
to force yourself there; and for the rest, as a general rule,
I think a young man who has his own way to make in
life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own
age who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits.
"As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to
London.  The report I receive of your progress at Eton
renders it unnecessary, in my judgment, that you should
return there.  If your father has no objection, I propose
that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing term.
Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow
of Baliol, to read with you. He is of opinion, judging
only- by your high repute at Eton, that you may at once
obtain a scholarship in that college. If you do so, I
shall look upon your career in life as assured.
"Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher,
"A. E."
The reader will remark that, in this letter, there is a
certain tone of formality.  Mr. Egerton does not call his
protge " Dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly
and stiffly, " Dear Mr. Leslie.*" He hints, also, that the
boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to
guard against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which
his generosity may have excited?
The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different




156             MY NOVEL; OR,
kind from the others.  It was long, and full of such little
scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a
foreign land; it was written gaily, and as with a wish to
cheer his friend; you could see that it was a reply to a
melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there
was an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who
most liked Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed
him capable. Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of
constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the fine tact
of a woman would detect. It had not the abandon, that
hearty self-outpouring, which you might expect would
characterise the letters of two such friends, who had been
boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in
all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent.
But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton
is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through
paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says
nothing about himself —that he avoids all reference to
the inner world of sentiment and feeling. But perhaps,
after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling I How
can you expect that a steady personage in practical life,
whose mornings are spent in Downing-street, and whose
nights are consumed in watching Government bills through
a committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer
amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on the banks of Como?
Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was,
when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a
deputation from a provincial trading town, the members
of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    157
o'clock. There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which
Mr. Egerton presided.
The deputation entered -some score or so of middleaged, comfortable-looking persons, who, nevertheless, had
their grievance -and considered their own interests, and
those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a
bill brought in by Mr. Egerton.
The Mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and
he spoke well-but in a style to which the dignified
official was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash styleunceremonious, free, and easy-an American style. And,
indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance
and bearing of the Mayor which savored of residence in
the Great Republic.  He was a very handsome man, but
with a look sharp and domineering - the look of a man
who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and
who enjoyed the liberty to speak his mind and "wallop
his own nigger!"
His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great
respect; and Mr. Egerton had penetration enough to
perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich man, as well as
aneloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of
soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to
create to the self-love of his equals.
Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by
mere manner; and, though he stared somewhat haughtily
when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he
was not above being convinced. There was much sense
I. -14




158             MY NOVEL; OR,
and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the
statesman civilly promised to take them into full consideration.
Ite then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had
the door closed before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor
presented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions
in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say to Mr.
Egerton - wait below for me."
"Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat,
" what else would you suggest?"
The Mayor looked round to see that the door was
closed; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and
said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir? "
Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but
he gently removed his arm from the touch of the forefinger.
MR. MAYoR.-You observe, sir, that I did not ask the
members whom we return to Parliament to accompany
us. Do better without'em. You know they are both
in Opposition — out-and-outers.
MR. EGERTON. — It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember, when the question is whether the
trade of the town itself is to be served or injured.
MR. MAYOR.-Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir.
But you'd be glad to have two members to support Ministers after the next election.
MR. EGERTON (smiling).-Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor.
MR. MAYOR. -And I can do it, MIr. Egerton.  I may
say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought-I spend




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    159
a great deal of money in it.  Now, you see, Mr. Egerton,
I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty-the
United States-and I come to the point when I speak to
a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir.
And so, if the Government will do something for me,
why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes
for a free and independent town like ours- that's something, isn't it?
MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise). - Really, IMR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official).-No nonsense, you see, on one side
or the other. The fact is, that I've taken it into my head
that I should like to be knighted. You may well look
surprised, Mr. Egerton - trumpery thing enough, I dare
say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like
to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir
Richard, you may just name your two members for the
next election  that is, if they belong to your own set,
enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair
and manful, isn't it?
MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up).- I am at a loss
to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition.
Mn. MAYOR (nodding good-humoredly). -Why, you
see, I don't go along with. the Government; you're the
best of the bunch. And may be you'd like to strengthen
your own party.  This is quite between you and me, you
understand; honor's a jewel I
MR. EGERTON (with great gravity). —Sir, I am obliged




o60             MY NOVEL; OR
by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues
in all the great questions that affect the government of
the country, andMR. MAYOR (interrupting him). - Ah, of course, you
must say so; very right. But I guess things would go
differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have
another reason for speaking to you about my little job.
You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I
think you only came in by a majority of two, eh?
MR. EGERTON. — I know nothing of the particulars of
that election; I was not present.
MR. MAYOR. - No; but luckily for you, two relations
of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and
you came in by two. Since then, you have got into very
snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on
you.
MR. EGERTON. - Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I
was and am a stranger to Lansmere; and, if the electors
did me the honor to return me to Parliament, it was in
compliment rather to —
MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official).-Rather
to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But
never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only he is a pompous sort
of man; might be qualmish: antiquated notions. Not
up to snuff like you and me.
MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers
before him).- Sir, it is not in my department to recom



VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.            161
mend to his Majesty candidates for the honor of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in Parliament.
MR. MAYOR.-Oh, if that's the case you'll excuse me;
I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters.
But I thought tllat, if I put two seats in your hands, for
your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair
into your department, whatever, it was. But, since you
say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to
the same thing. Now, you must not -suppose I want to
sell the. town, and that I can change and chop my politics
for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the
sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go too
much ahead for me; and, since the Government is. disposed to move a little, why, I'd as lief support them as
not. But, in common gratitude, you see (added the
Mayor, coaxingly), I ought to be knighted! I can keep
up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty.
MMR. EGERTON (without looking up from: his papers).
— I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter.
MR.:MAYOR (impatiently). -Proper quarter I Well,
since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours,
that one must go through all the forms and get at the
job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to.
MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indignant). - If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you
must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the
Government information relative to seats in Parliament,
14*              L




162             MY NOVEL; OR,
you must introduce yourself to Mr. -, the Secretary
of the Treasury.
MR. MAYOR. -And if I go to the last chap, what do
you think he'll say?
MR. EGERTON (the amusement preponderating over the
indignation).-He will say, I suppose, that you must not
put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me;
that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a
gentleman like you, in the proud position of Mayor, may
well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion, but
that you must not talk about the knighthood just at
present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town.
MR. MAYOR. -Well, I guess that chap there would
want to do mel  Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton.
Perhaps I had better go at once to the fountain-head.
How do you think the Premier would take it?
MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the
amusement). - Probably just as I am about to do.
Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared.
"Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the Minister.
The Mayor turned round sharply, and his face was
purple. He walked straight to the door: but suffering
the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came
back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands, and
with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or
other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's
Dick Avenel!"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.             163
"Avenel! "repeated Egerton, recoiling - "Avenel!"
But the Mayor was gone.
Audley fell into a deep and musing reverie, which
seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced
that the horses were at the door.
He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his
letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew
it towards him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who
calls himself Aven-"  In the middle of the name his pen
stopped.  "No, no," muttered the writer, " what folly to
re-open the old wounds there," and he carefully erased
the words.
Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as
was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his
horse's head towards Westminster Bridge, took his
solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly,
as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from
thought. He was later than usual at the House that
evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had
to speak, and he spoke well.
CHAPTER VII.
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




164            MY NOVEL; OR,
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 everything," said the widow.
"Then," said the wise man, "everything 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 conjurer. 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, how-.ever, 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,




VARIETIES IN  ENOLIStI  LIFE.           163
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 stickle-backs 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, faithful friend,
you have tried that experiment as far as human nature
will permit;" and he extended his hand to his fellowexile 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 call 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




166             MY NOVEL; OR,
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 I 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- the torso placed 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 I For,
indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel —
more profusus 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!"




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    167
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 stickle backs and
minnows -both Jaekeymo and Riccabocca had arrived
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. Ile 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




168           ~MY NOVEL; OR,
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 " Patriae 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 I" 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! * Santa Maria! Unnatural father I 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
* By the pounds Milanese, Giacomo means the Milanese lira.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.   169
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 I"
"They are no such things," said Jackeymo, "they are
only in arrear. As if the Padrone could not pay them
some day or other-as if I was demeaning myself by
serving' a master who did not intend to pay his servants I
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 leather
purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were
chiefly Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver
medallion, enclosing a little image of his patron saint —
San Giacomo -one solid English guinea, and somewhat
more than a pound's 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
I. -15




170              IMY NOVEL; OR,
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?
ililonsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint, you are of
very little use to me in the leather 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 satVings in his service!" ran
downstairs 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!




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             171
CHAP TER VIIT.
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 iln 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 find 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 explanatiori 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




172              MY NOVEL; OR,
Jemima's nature; perhaps it might be that, as yet, she
had only experienced the villany of man born and reared
in these 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 further into these hypotheses,
it is sufficient to say, that, on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the drawing-room at iHazeldean, Miss
Jemima felt more than ever rejoiced that she had relaxed
in his'favor her general hostility to men.  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 the chapeau 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 winog 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, aud 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 gentlemanthat of pleasing in polite society.
The result was, that all were charmed with him; and




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    173
that even Captain Barnabas postponed the 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 more
animated operations.  "You must be very lonely at the
Casino," said Love, in a sympathising 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 for you!" Love stopped short, as if
it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its bouquet.
Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and
darted one glance, which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to envelop and take in,
15*




174             MY NOVEL; OR.,
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 not de natur5d pensive; 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 spoiled 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 to 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. "




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              175
" 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,?"
"iHow wicked you are!" said Miss Jemima, turning
aside.
Sbme few minutes afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so
that Dr. Riccabocca and herself were in a further 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 I
MRS. DALE. - SO kind-hearted.
RICCABoCCA. - All ladies are.  How naturally that
warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway I
MPs. 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 niot won.  That grey mare in the fore.
ground stands out very boldly I




16%      ~:MY NOVEL; OR,
MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and
throwing in a more effective grape charge). -Not won
yet; and it is strange! she will have a very pretty fortune.
RICCABOCCA. - Ah I
MRs. DALE. -Six thousand pounds, I dare saycertainly 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 Jemimna's fault that she is still - Miss Jemima I
The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sate 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 audibly.
" Giacomo," said IRiccabocca, 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 singleblessedness —" Giacomo, I have had this evening the
offer of probably six thousand pounds -certainly of four
thousand."
" Cosa meravigliosa!" exclaimed Jackeymo —" miraculous thing I" and he crossed himself with great fervor.
" Six thousand pounds English I why, that must be a
hundred thousand - blockhead that I am I - more than
a hundred and fifty thousand pounds Milanese! " And
Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the Squire's




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    1771
ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in
the midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for
nothing?"
"Nothing I no."
"These mercenary English I -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!  0 Padrone I for shame!"
"Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons -they
want me never to wear these again!"
" Never to wear what?" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring
outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers -
"never to wear    "
"Thlle breeches," said Riccabocca laconically.
"The barbarians I" faltered Jackeymo.
"My nightcap I - and never to have any comfort in
this," said Riccabocca, drawing on the cotton head-gear;
" and never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to
the four-posted bed.  "And to be a bondsman 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 thousand lire, and perhaps a pretty young lady,
and    "




178             MY NOVEL; OR,
"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 villanons
old incendiary I!"
CHAPTER IX.
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 of 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 side 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




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    179
would be a justification to his own forethought, and a
triumph over the Parson's understanding, if le 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
farm-yard, 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-worlk, "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




180             MY NOVEL; OR,
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 partikIer 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 -'
"Disseminating, you blockhead-disseminating what?"
"Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging right
in medias res, and by a fine use of one of the noblest
figures in 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 what they say: 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




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    181
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 I What the devil is come to the parish? "
"Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn: and then
laying the fore-finger 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 the two Papishers slept at your honor's last night."
"What, dolt I do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got
out of his warm bed to bung up the holes in my new
stocks? "
" Noa; he's too 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 ag'in 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 Mr. Dale; and
I. -16




182             MY NOVEL; OR,
the Papisher went and sat with him and his mother awhole 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 - donkey that I
caught picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old
stocks! Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys I!
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 ail example of the
ruffian I "
"In course," said Stirn; "and if we don't find him,
we must make an example all the same.  That's what it
is, sir. That's why the stocks ben't respected; they has
not had an example yet - we wants an example.
"On my word, I believe that's very true; and we'll




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    183
clap in the first idle fellow you catch in anything wrong,
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, quoad the stocks, took
his departure.
CHAPTER X.
"IRANDAL," 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 Eton, 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 I" 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 I "
"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




184        ~    MY NOVEL; OR,
schooling anct sending you to Oxford, and having you to
stay with him in the holidays, if he did not mean anything by it."
"Anything, 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 anything.
"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- dashed up the stairs -burst into
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




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    185
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 called solitary confinement for the cultivated mind, when, amidst the twolegged creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind
with which it can exchange one 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, Airs. 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 sermon Ia propos to 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 relief and
16n*




186             MY NOVEL; OR,
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."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH- LIFE.             187
"Well, and you walk bra'ly-there ben't a better
walker in the country.  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
land, 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




188             MY NOVEL.-  OR,
down compassionately on the boy's pale countenance and
weary stride, - "Perhaps we are going the same way,
and I can gift 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, the best 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 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.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    189
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 cattlesheds, 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




190             MY NOVEL; OR,
modesty. Randal pulled his hat still lower down over
hi~ brows, and did not interrupt him till they passed 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 I your father be a very rich man compared
to him."
Rtandal continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured
up the contrast of his slovenly shabby home, with all its
neglected appurtenances I No trim garden at Rood Hall,
no scent from odorous orange-blossoms. Here poverty
at least was elegant- there; how squalid  I 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.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    191
The boy plunged amidst the thick oak-groves; the farmer
went his way blithely, and his mellow merry whistle came
to Raridal'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 variegated 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 awhile, 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



192             MY NOVEL; ORn,
"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,'IKnowledge 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 arm
still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if not
to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up.
"But," he continued to soliloquise —" 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
]lave no power to oust this blockhead?  Oust himwhat from?  His father's kalls?  Well, but if he were
dead, who would be the heir of Iazeldean?.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?




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    193
At least from the thoughts of his Uncle Egerton - an
uncle who has never even seen him!  TIhat, 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 gentleman-protege' of 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.
I.-17                   N




194             MY NOVEL; OR,
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 incontinently to regain the lane
and turn 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 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 I




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             195
CHAPTER XI.
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 delightful Life of Oliver Goldsmith, Mr. Forster
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 Wakeileld, 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 realised.  lNTow, Squire Hazel.




196             MY NOVEL; OR,
dean had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable
than Goldsmiths'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. - HIe 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 forth fronY
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 archaeological learning that distinguishes the rising generation of the clergy. I must 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




VARIETIES IN  ENG'LISH  LIFE.           197
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 preach at
you." tHe 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
17*




198             MY NOVEL; OR,
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. Ile
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
churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman and
Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached at
him more 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 to be lured on to a little solid
or graceful instruction, under a safe guide.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    199
Now, on the present occasion, the Parson, who had
always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen
with great grief the realisation of his fears at the revival
of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already
at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and
inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the Squire; seen, in short, the signs of a breach
between classes, and the precursors of the ever-inflammable
feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing
less than a great Political Sermon - a sermon that should
extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for
the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his
parish of Hazeldean.
And thus ranTHE POLITICAL SERMON OF PARSON DALE.
CHAPTER XII.
"For every man shall bear his own burden." - GAL. vi. 5.
"BRETHREN, every man has his burden.  If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe
that he would have freed an existence so brief from the
cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the
world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am
a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I
know by a Divine revelation that he will die at the age
of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by




200              MY NOVEL; OR,
needless preparations for the duties of life.  If I am a
rich man, I should not send him from the caresses of his
mother to the stern discipline of school.  If I am a poor
man, I should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to
scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold: why
inflict hardships on his childhood for the purpose of fitting
him for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to
grow into man?  Bnt if, on the other hand, I believe my
child is reserved for a more durable existence, then should
I not, out of the very love I bear to him, prepare his
childhood for the struggle of life, according to that station
in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to
the infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his
duties as man? So it is with our Father that is in heaven.
Viewing this life as our infancy, and the next as our
spiritual maturity, where,'in the ages to come, he may
show the exceeding riches of his grace,' it is in his tenderness, as in his wisdom, to permit the toil and the pain
which, in tasking the powers and developing the virtues
of the soul, prepare it for' the earnest of our inheritance.'
Hence it is that every man has his burden. Brethren, if
you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a
human father, you will know that your troubles in life are
a proof that you are reared for an eternity. But each
man thinks his own burden the hardest to bear; the poor
man groans under his poverty, the rich man under the
cares that multiply with wealth. For, so far from wealth
freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written
in all ages have repeated, with one voice, the words of




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.   20]
the wisest:'When goods increase, they are increased
that eat them; and what good is there to the owners
thereof, saving the beholding them with their eyes?' And
this is literally true, my brethren; for, let a man be as
rich as was the great King Solomon himself, unless he
lock up all his gold in a chest, it must go abroad to be
divided amongst others; yea, though, like Solomon, he
make him great works- though he build houses and plant
vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards, still the
gold that he spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and
Solomon himself could not eat with a better relish than
the poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest
laborer who planted the vineyard. Therefore,'when
goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And
this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion
for the rich. We share their riches, whether they will or
not; we do not share their cares. The profane history
of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to
be the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied
the milk-maid singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom
was only less than that of the inspired writers, represents
the man who by force and wit had risen to be a king,
sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his
subjects-all bearing out the words of the son of David:'The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eatlittle or much; but the abundance of the rich will not
suffer him to sleep.'
"Amongst my brethren now present, there is doubtless
some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has




202             MY NOVEL; OR,
made himself comparatively rich. Let his heart answer
me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired?has he not both vexations to his spirit and trials to his
virtue, which he knew not when he went forth to his labor,
and took no heed of the morrow? But it is right, my
brethren, that to every station there should be its care -
to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel poverty to be a burden as to desire to
better their condition, and (to use the language of the
world)' seek to rise in life,' their most valuable energies
would never be aroused; and we should not witness that
spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in —
namely, the successful struggle of manly labor against
adverse fortune - a struggle in which the triumph of one
gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the
mother of invention; and the social blessings which are
now as common to us as air and sunshine, have come from
that law of our nature which makes us aspire towards
indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labors of the last, and in free countries often
lifts the child of the laborer to a place amongst the rulers
of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention,
poverty is the creator of the arts.  If there had been no
poverty, and no sense of poverty, where would have been
that which we call the wealth of a country? Subtract
from civilisation all that has been produced by the poor,
and what remains?  the state of the savage.  Where
you now see laborer and prince, you would see equality.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    203
indeed-the equality of wild men. No; not even equality
there! for there brute force becomes lordship - and woe
to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some
in purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stand
the palace and the cot, you would behold but mud huts
and caves. As far as the peasant excels the king among
savages, so far does the society exalted and enriched by
the struggles of labor excel the state in which Poverty
feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the
other hand, if the rich were perfectly contented with their
wealth, their hearts would become hardened in the sensual
enjoyments it procures. It is that feeling, by Divine
Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity and
vexation of spirit in the things of Mammom, which still
leaves the rich man sensitive to the instincts of heaven,
and teaches him to seek for happiness in those beneficent
virtues which distribute his wealth to the profit of others.
If you could exclude the air from the rays of the fire,
the fire itself would soon languish and die in the midst
of its fuel; and so a man's joy in his wealth is kept alive
by the air which it warms; and if pent within itself- is
extinguished.
"And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of
the vast subject opened to us by the words of the apostle
-' Every man shall bear his own burden.' The worldly
conditions of life are unequal.  Why are they unequal?
O my brethren, do you not perceive?  Think you that,
if it had been better for our spiritual probation that there
should be neither great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Provi.




204             MY NOVEL; oR,
deuce would not so have ordered the dispensations of the
world,. and so, by its mysterious but merciful agencies,
have influenced the framework and foundations of society?
But if from the remotest period of human annals, and il
all the numberless experiments of government which the
wit of man has devised, still this inequality is ever found
to exist, may we not suspect that there is something in
the very principles of our nature to which that inequality
is necessary and essential?  Ask why this inequality?
Why?- as well ask why life is the sphere of duty and
the nursery of virtues! For if all men were equal, if
there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and no
wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half, at
least, of human virtues from the world? If there were
no penury and no pain, what would become of fortitude?
- what of patience? - what of resignation? If there
were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of
benevolence, of charity, of the blessed human pity, of
temperance in the midst of luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question further; grant all
conditions the same -no reverse, no rise, and no fall —
nothing to hope for, nothing to fear-what a moral death
you would at once inflict upon all the energies of the
soul, and what a link between the Heart of man and the
Providence of God would be snapped asunder! If we
could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and
hope, my brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be'a time to weep and a time to laugh,' it is that he who
mourns may turn to eternity for comfort, and he who re



VARIETIES IN  ENGLISII LIFE.             205
joices may bless God for the happy hour.  Ah! my
brethren, were it possible to annihilate the inequalities
of human life, it would be the banishment of our worthiest
virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, the palsy of
our mental faculties.  The moral world, like the world
without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity
and contrast.
"'Every man shall bear his own burden.' True; but
now turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter,-' Bear
ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.'
Yes; while heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering.
it connects the family of man into one household, by that
feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes
us from the brute creation -I mean the feeling to which
we give the name of sympathy —the feeling for each
other I The flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into
the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him.
He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as
man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for
mankind that he is inhumaln? and do we not call him who
sorrows with the sorrowful, humane?
" Now, brethren, that which especially marked the
divine mission of our Lord, is the direct appeal to this
sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute. Hie
seizes, not upon some faculty of genius given but to few,
but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us
all; and in saying,'Love one another,''Bear ye one
I. -18




206             MY NOVEL; OR,
another's burdens,' he elevates the most delightful of our
emotions into the most sacred of His laws. The lawyer
asks our Lord,' Who is my neighbor?' Our lord replies
by the parable of the good Samaritan.  The priest and
the Levite saw the wounded man that fell among the
thieves, and passed by on the other side. That priest
might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite
might have been learned in the law; but neither to the
learning of the Levite, nor to the doctrine of the priest,
does our Savior even deign to allude.  He cites but the
action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer,' Which
now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him
that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed
mercy unto him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do
thou likewise.'
" O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough
to be born a Samaritan in order to be rejected by the
priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet now, what to us
the priest and the Levite - of God's chosen race though
they were? They passed from the hearts of men when
they passed the sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed
Samaritan, half thrust from the pale of the Hebrew,
becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother amongst
the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and affliction
shall meet in the common thoroughfare of Life!
"' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law
of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies
only to almsgiving - to that relief of distress which is
commonly called charity -to the obvious duty of devot-'




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            207
ing, from our superfluities, something that we scarcely
miss, to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal
to the poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those
of the body - if the kind word and the tender thought
have not often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by
a frown. Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of
us all,-yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy
is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich
are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are
enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to
the contrary. But I say also to the poor,'In your turn
have charity for the rich;' and I say to the rich, In your
turn respect the poor.'
"' Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law
of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy
brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe
that he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and
perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more;
nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath
exclaimed —' How hardly shall they that have riches
enter into the kingdom  of heaven!  And what are
temptations but trials? - what are trials but perils and
sorrows? Think not that you can bestow no charity on
the rich ma'n, even while you take your sustenance from
his hands. A heathen writer, often cited by the earliest
preachers of the gospel, hath truly said -'Wherever
there is room for a man, there is place for a benefit.'
"And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he




208              MY NOVEL; OR,
hath gone forth to survey his barns and his granaries, his
gardens and his orchards, if suddenly, in the vain pride
of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow of the laborer
-if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth -
if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against
him with the hardncss of malice, and his plainest benefits
received with the ingratitude of envy - I ask, I say, any
rich man, whether straightway all pleasure in his worldly
possessions does not fade from his heart, and whether he
does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the power
of the poor man to bestow   For all these things of
Mammon pass away: but there is in the smile of him
whom we have served, a something that we may take
with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another's
burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors,
and compassion for the griefs, of the rich. To all men it
was said, - yes, to Lazarus as to Dives, -' Judge not,
that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich man, that
we preach only to- the poor. If it be their duty not to
grudge thee thy substance, it is thine to do all that may
sweeten their labor. Remember, that when our Lord
said,' How hardly shall they that have riches enter into
the kingdom  of heaven,' he replied also to them  who
asked,' Who then shall be saved?'' The things which
are impossible with men are possible with God:' that is,
man left to his own temptations would fail; but, strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches are the
tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of
thy virtues.  Prove by thy riches that thou art com.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    209
passionate and tender, temperate and benign; and thy
riches themselves may become the evidence at once of thy
faith and of thy works.
"We have constantly on our lips the simple precept,'Do unto others as you would be done by.' Why do we
fail so often in the practice? Because we neglect to
cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an instinct, and the Savior exalts as a command. If thou
wouldst do unto thy neighbor as thou wouldst be done
by, ponder well how thy neighbor will regard the action
thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his place.
If thou art strong and he is weak, descend from thy
strength and enter into his weakness; lay aside thy
burden for the while, and buckle on his own; let thy
sight seoe as through his eyes —thy heart beat as in his
bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what
had seemed just to thy power will seem harsh to his
weakness. For' as a zealous man hath not done his duty
when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,' * even so
an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he
writes on the grand column of society only warnings that
irritate the bold and terrify the timid: and a man will be
no more in love with law than with virtue,'if he be
forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.' t If, then, ye
would bear the burden of the lowly, 0 ye great, feel not
onlyfor them, but with! Watch that your pride does
not chafe them —your power does not wantonly gall.
* JEREMY TAYLOR- Of Christian Prudence. Part II.   t Ibid.
18*              o




210              MY NOVEL; OR,
Your worldly inferior is of the class from which the
Apostles were chosen- amidst which the Lord of Creation descended from a throne above the seraphs."
The Parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced
towards the pew near the pulpit, where sat the magnate
of Hazeldean.  The Squire was leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards, and the
natural glow of his complexion much heightened.
"But," — resumed the Parson softly, without turning
to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion
of the moment — " but he who has cultivated sympathy
commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens
to retract.  So natural is sympathy to the good man,
that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to
be the monitor of his conscience.  In this sympathy
behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become
what they were meant to be — exercises for the virtues
more peculiar to each; and thus, if in the body each man
bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship of the soul all
have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other.
" This is the law of Christ-fulfil it, 0 my flock! "'
Here the Parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their heads.




BOOK THIRD.
INITIAL CHAPTER.
SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED " MY NOVEL. 2t'; I AM not displeased with your novel, so far as it has
gone," said my father graciously; "though as for the
Sermon    "
Here I trembled! but the ladies, Heaven bless them I
had taken Parson Dale under their special protection;
and, observing that my father was puckering up his brows
critically, they rushed boldly forward in defence of The
Sermon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat.
-However, like a skilful general, he renewed the assault
upon outposts less gallantly guarded.  But as it is not
my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the
ingenuity of cavillers to discover the places at which the
author of Human Error directed his great guns.
"But," said the Captain, " you are a lad of too much
spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure
country quarters of Hazeldean —you will march us out
into open service before you have done with us? "
(211)




212             MY NOVEL; OR,
PISISTRATUS (magisterially, for he has been somewhat
nettled by Mr. Caxton's remarks - and he puts on an air
of dignity in order to awe away minor assailants).-Yes,
Captain Roland —not yet awhile, but all in good time.
I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose, hereafter, to open some lengthened perspective of the varieties
of English life  -"
MR. CAXTON. - Hum!
BLANCHE (putting her hand on my father's lip). - We
shall know better the design, perhaps, when we know the
title. Pray, Mr. Author, what is the title?
MY MOTHER (with more animation than usual). - Ay,
Sisty-the title!
PISISTRATUS (startled). — The title I By the soul of
Cervantes! I have never yet thought of a title!
CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly). - There is a great deal
in a good title. As a novel-reader, I know that by experience.
MR. SQUILLS. - Certainly; there is not a catchpenny
in the world but what goes down, if the title be apt and
seducive. Witness " Old Parr's Life Pills."  Sell by the
thousand, sir, when my "Pills for Weak Stomachs,"
which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid
for the advertising.
MR. CAXTON. - Parr's Life Pills  a fine stroke of
genius  It is not every one who has a weak stomach,
or time to attend to it, if he have. But who would not
swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    213
PIsIsTRATUS (stirring the fire in great excitement). -
My title! my title! - what shall be my title?
AIR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat,
and in his most didactic of tones). —From a remote period,
the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion
of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been
racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To
begin with the Hiebrews, "The Lips of the Sleeping"
(Labia Dormientium)- what book do you suppose that
title to designate?-A Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers I
Again, imagine some young lady of old captivated by the
sentimental title of " The Pomegranate with its Flower,"
and opening on a Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials I
Let us turn to the Romans.  Aulus Gellius commences
his pleasant gossiping "Noctes" with a list of the titles
in fashion in his day. For instance, "The Aluses" and
" The Veil," "The Cornucopia," "The Beehive," and
" The Meadow."  Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to those who love to sup upon
horrors-such as " The Torch," " The Poniard," " The
Stiletto -s "
PISISTRATUS (impatiently). - Yes, sir; but to come to
My Novel.
MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interruption). - You see
you have a fine choice here, and of a nature pleasing and
not unfamiliar, to a classical reader; or you may borrow
a hint from the early Dramatic Writers.
PISISTRATUS (more hopefully). -Ay! there is something in the Drama akin to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I
may catch an idea.




214             MY NOVEL; OR,
MR. CAXTON. —FOr instance, the author of the Curiosities of Literature (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarising much of the information I bestow upon you) tells
us of a Spanish gentleman who wrote a Comedy, by
which he intended to serve what he took for Moral Philosophy.
PISISTRATUS (eagerly). —Well, sir?
MR. CAXTON. -And called it " The Pain of the Sleep
of the World."
PISISTRATUS. - Very comic indeed, sir.
MR. CAXTON. - Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are now called Novels. Then there
are all the titles of early Romance itself at your disposal
-" Theagines and Chariclea," or " The Ass" of Longus,
or " The Golden Ass" of Apuleius; or the titles of Gothic
Romance, such as " The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of Perceforest, King of Great
Britain." -And therewith my father ran over a list of
names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing.
"Well, to my taste," said my mother, "the novels I
used to read when a girl (for I have not read many since,
I am ashamed to say,)    "
MIR. CAXTON. - No, you need not be at all ashamed
of it, Kitty.
MY MOTHER (proceeding).-Were much more inviting
than any you mention, Austin.
THE CAPTAIN. - True.
MR. SQUInLm. - Certainly. Nothing like them nowa-days!




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    215
MY MOTHER. -" Says she to her Neighbor, What? "
THE CAPTAIN. — "The Unknown, or the Northern,
Gallery'. —
MR. SQITILLS. - " There is a Secret; find it out!"
PISISTRATUS (pushed to the verge of human endurance,
and upsetting tongs, poker, and fire-shovel). — What
nonsense you are talking, all of you I For heaven's sake,
consider what an important matter we are called upon
to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works which issued from the MIinerva Press
that I ask you to remember —it is to invent a title for
mine — My Novel I
MR. CAXTON (clapping his hands gently). - Excellent
-capital! Nothing can be better; simple, natural,
pertinent, concise -
PISISTRATUS. - What is it, sir — what is it?  Have
you really thought of a title to My Novel?
MR. CAXTON.- You have hit it yourself- "My
Novel."  It is your Novel —people will know it is your
Novel.  Turn and twist the English language as you
will —be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman —
Fabulist or Puritan- still, after all, it is your Novel, and
nothing more nor less than your Novel.
PISISTRATUS (thoughtfully, and sounding the words
various ways). - " My Novel" — um - um! My Novel!"
rather bold — and curt, eh?
MR. CAXTON. — Add what you say you intend to
depict -Varieties in English Life.;MY MOTHER. - "fy VNovel; or, Varieties in English




216             DMY NOVEL; OR,
Life " -I don't think it sounds amiss. What say you,
IRoland? Would it attract you in a catalogue?
My uncle hesitates, when Mr. Caxton exclaims imperiously -" The thing is settled! Don't disturb Camarina. "
SQUILLS.- If it be not too great a liberty, pray who
or what is Camarina?
MR. CAXTON. —Camarina, Mir. Squills, was a lake,
apt to be low, and then liable to be muddy! and "Don't
disturb Camarina," was a Greek proverb derived from an
Oracle of Apollo; and from that Greek proverb, no
doubt, comes the origin of the injunction, "Quieta non
in overe," which became the favorite maxim of Sir Robert
Walpole and Parson Dale.  The Greek line, Mr. Squills
(here my father's memory began to warm), is preserved
by STEPHANUS BYZANTINUS, de Urbibus,' MN X~E& KCuaCpqvuv ax;v( y    vO5  /.tap  E~lvWoV.'
ZENOBIUS explains it in his proverbs; SuIDAs repeats
ZENOBIUS: LUCIAN alludes to it; so does VIRGIL in the
Third Book of the ~INEID; and SILIUs ITALICUS imitates
Virgil",Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri."
Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no
doubt, these authorities at his fingers' end.  "And I
wonder he did not quote them," quoth my father; "but,
to be sure, he is represented as a mild man, and so might
not wish to humble the Squire overmuch in the presence
of his family. Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel; and




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.              217
now that that matter is settled, perhaps the tongs, poker,
and shovel may be picked up, the children may go to
bed, Blanche and Kitty may speculate apart upon the
future dignities of the Neogilos, - taking care, nevertheless, to finish the new pinbefores he requires for the
present; Roland may cast up his account-book, Mr.
Squills have his brandy-and-water, and all the world be
comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, come away
from the screen, get me my slippers, and leave Pisistratus
to himself. MN x'vst Ka,/xptvov - don't disturb Camarina.
You see, my dear," added my father kindly, as, after
settling himself into his slippers, he detained Blanche's
hand in his own -" you see, my dear, every house has
its Camarina. Man, who is a lazy animal, is quite
content to let it alone; but woman, being the more
active, bustling, curious creature, is always for giving it a
sly stir."
BLANCHE (with female dignity). -I assure you, that if
Pisistratus had not called me, I should not have
MR. CAXTON (interrupting her, without lifting his eyes
from the book he has already taken). - Certainly you
would not. I am now in the midst of the great Oxford
Controversy. M? xivsw KatC6p~vav-don't disturb Camarina.
A dead silence for half an hour, at the end of which
PISISTRATUS. (from behind the screen). - Blanche, my
dear, I want to consult you.
Blanche does not stir.
PISISTRATUS. -Blanche, I say.
Blanche glances in triumph towards Mr. Caxton..T -19




218              MY NOVEL; OR,
MR. CAXTON (laying down his theological tract, and
rubbing his spectacles mournfully).- I hear him, child; I
hear him, I retract my vindication of man. Oracles warn
in vain: so long as there is a woman on the other side of
the screen, -it is all up with Camarina.
CHAPTER II.
IT is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not
present at the Parson's Discourse -but that valuable
functionary was far otherwise engaged -indeed, during
the summer months he was rarely seen at the afternoon
service.  Not that he cared for being preached at- not
he: Mr. Stirn would have snapped his fingers at the
thunders of the Vatican. But the fact was, that Mr.
Stirn chose to do a great deal of gratuitous business upon
the day of rest. The Squire allowed all persons who
chose to walk about the park on a Sunday; and many
came from a distance to stroll by the lake, or recline
under the elms.  These visitors were objects of great
suspicion, nay, of positive annoyance, to Mr. Stirn - and,
indeed, not altogether without reason, for we English
have a natural love of liberty, which we are even more
apt to display in the grounds of other people than in
those which we cultivate ourselves. Sometimes, to his
inexpressible and fierce satisfaction, Mr. Stirn fell upon
a lot of boys pelting the swans; sometimes he missad-a




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    219
young sapling, and found it in felonious hands, converted
into a walking-stick; sometimes he caught a hulking
fellow scrambling up the ha-ha, to gather a nosegay for
his sweetheart from one of poor Mrs. Hazeldean's pet
parterres; not unfrequently, indeed, when all the family
were fairly at church, some curious impertinents forced or
sneaked their way into the gardens, in order to peep in
at the windows. For these, and various other offences
of like magnitude, Mr. Stirn had long, but vainly, sought
to induce the Squire to withdraw a permission so villanously abused. -But though there were times when Mr.
Hazeldean grunted and growled, and swore "that he
would shut up the park, and fill it (illegally) with mantraps and spring-guns," his anger always evaporated in
words. The park was still open to all the world on a
Sunday; and that blessed day was therefore converted
into a day of travail and wrath to Mr. Stirn.  But it was;
from the last chime of the afternoon service bell until
dusk, that the spirit of this vigilant functionary was most
perturbed; for, amidst the flocks that gathered from the
little hamlets round to the voice of the Pastor, there were
always some stray sheep, or rather climbing, desultory,
vagabond goats, who struck off in all perverse directions,
as if for the special purpose of distracting the energetic
watchfulness of Mr. Stirn.  As soon as church was over,
if the day were fine, the whole park became a scene
animated with red cloaks, or lively shawls, Sunday waistcoats, and hats stuck full of wild flowers — which last
Mr. Stirn often stoutly maintained to be Mrs. iHazeldean's




220            WMY NOVEL; OR,
newest geraniums. Now, on this Sunday, especially,
there was an imperative call upon an extra exertion of
vigilance on the part of the superintendent -he had not
only to detect ordinary depredators and trespassers; but,
first to discover the authors of the conspiracy against the
stocks; and, secondly, to " make an example."
He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early
morning; and just as the afternoon bell was sounding its
final peal, he emerged upon the village-green from a
hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to observe
who had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks.
At that moment the place was deserted. At a distance,
the superintendent saw the fast disappearing forms of
some belated groups hastening towards the church; in
front, the stocks stood staring at him mournfully from its
four great eyes, which had been cleansed from the mud,
but still looked bleared and stained with the marks of the
recent outrage. Here Mr. Stirn paused, took off his hat,
and wiped his brows.
" If I had sum un to watch here," thought he, " while
I takes a turn by the water-side, p'r'aps summat might
come out; p'r'aps them as did it ben't gone to church,
but will come sneaking round to look on their villany!
as they says murderers are always led back to the place
where they ha' left the body. But in this here'village
there ben't a man, woman, nor child, as has any consarn
for Squire or Parish, barring myself." It was just as he
arrived at that misanthropical conclusion, that IMr. Stirn
beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             221
home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck
his right arm  akimbo.  "Hallo, you sir," said he, as
Lenny now came in hearing, "where be you going at
that rate?"
"Please, sir, I be going to church."
"Stop, sir - stop, Master Lenny. Going to church -
why, the bell's done; and you knows the Parson is very
angry at them as comes in late, disturbing the congregation. You can't go to church now!"
"Please, sir -"
"I-says you can't go to church now.  You must learn
to think a little of others, lad.  You sees how I sweats
to serve the Squire! and you must serve him too. Why,
your mother's got the house and premishes almost rent
free: you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and feel for his honor! Poor man! his heart is
well nigh bruk, I am sure, with the goings on."
Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn
dolorously wiped his own.
"Look at that'ere dumb cretur," said Stirn suddenly,
pointing to the stocks -" look at it. If it could speak,
what would it say, Leonard Fairfield? Answer me that I
-' Damn the stocks,' indeed I'
"It was very bad in them to write such naughty words,"
said Lenny, gravely.  "Mother was quite shocked when
she heard of it this morning."
Mn. STIN. —I dare say she was, considering what she
pays for the premishes: (insinuatingly) you does not know
who did it - eh, Lenny?
19*




222             MY NOVEL; OR,
LENN — NO, sir; indeed I does not!
MR. STIRN. — Well, you see, you can't go to church -
prayers half over by this time. You recollex that I put
them stocks under your "sponsibility," and see the way
you's done your duty by'em. I've half a mind to -
Mr. Stirn cast his eyes on the eyes of the stocks.
"Please, sir," began Lenny again, rather frightened.
" No, I won't please; it ben't pleasing at all. But I
forgives you this time, only keep a sharp look-out, lad, in
future. Now you just stay here - no, there- under the
hedge, and you watches if any person comes to loiter
about, or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I
go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over
or just arter: so you stay till I comes, and give me your
report. Be sharp, boy, or it will be worse for you and
your mother; I can let the premishes for four pounds ayear more to-morrow."
Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very
significant remark, and not staying for an answer, Mr.
Stirn waved his hand, and walked off.
Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected,
and greatly disliking the neighborhood to which he was
consigned. At length he slowly crept off to the hedge,
and sate himself down in the place of espionage pointed
out to him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is called
the point of honor is a barbarous feudal prejudice.
Amongst the higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices may be supposed to prevail, Lenny Fairfield's
occupation would not have been considered peculiarly




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    223
honorable; neither would it have seemed so to the more,
turbulent spirits among the humbler orders, who have a
point of honor of their own, which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance of all lawful authority.
But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up much apart from other
boys, and with a profound and grateful reverence for the
Squire instilled into all his habits of thought, notions of
honor bounded themselves to simple honesty and straightforward truth; and as he cherished an unquestioning awe
of order and constitutional authority, so it did not appear
to him that there was anything derogatory and debasing
in being thus set to watch for an offender.  On the contrary, as he began to reconcile himself to the loss of the
church service, and to enjoy the cool of the summer shade,
and the occasional chirp of the birds, he got to look on
the bright side of the commission to which he was deputed.
In youth, at least, everything has its bright side - even
the appointment of Protector to the Parish Stocks. For
the stocks itself Leonard had no affection, it is true; but
he had no sympathy with its aggressors, and he could
well conceive that the Squire would be very much hurt at
the revolutionary event of the night.  "So," thought
poor Leonard in his simple heart —" so, if I can serve
his honor, by keeping off mischievous boys, or letting him
know who did the thing, I'm sure it would be a proud
day for mother." Then he began to consider that, however ungraciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the
appointment, still it was a compliment to him — showed
trust and confidence in him, picked him out from his con



224             MY NOVEL; OR,
temporaries as the sober moral pattern boy; and Lenny
had a great deal of pride in him, especially in matters of
repute and character.
All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield
reclined on his lurking-place, if not with positive delight
and intoxicating rapture, at least with tolerable content
and some.complacency
Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of an hour,
when a boy came through a little gate in the park, just
opposite to Lenny's retreat in the hedge, and, as if
fatigued with walking, or oppressed by the heat of the
day, paused" on the green for a moment or so, and then
advanced under the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks.
Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously.
He had never seen the boy before: it was a strange
face to him.
Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers; moreover,
he had a vague belief that strangers were at the bottom
of that desecration of the stocks. The boy, then, was a
stranger; but what was his rank? Was he of that grade
in society in which the natural offences are or are not
consonant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks?
On that Lenny-Fairfield did not feel quite assured. According to all the experience of the villager, the boy
was not dressed like a young gentleman.  Leonard's
notions of such aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a dazzling vision of snow-white trowsers,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.            225
and beautiful blue coats, and imcomparable cravats. Now
the dress of this stranger, though not that of a peasant
nor of a farmer, did not in any way correspond with
Lenny's notions of the costume of a young gentleman: it
looked to him highly disreputable; the coat was covered
with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a
gap between the side and crown.
Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him
that the gate through which the boy had passed was il
the direct path across the park from a small town, the
inhabitants of which were in very bad odor at the Hallthey had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to the preserves, the most troublesome trespassers on
the park, the most unprincipled orchard robbers, and the
most disputations asserters of various problematical rights
of way, which, according to the Town, were public, and,
according to the Hall, had been private since the Conquest. It was true that the same path led also directly
from the Squire's house, but it was not probable that the
wearer of attire so equivocal had been visiting there. All
things considered, Lenny had no doubt in his mind but
that the stranger was a shop-boy or'prentice from the
town of Thorndyke; and the notorious repute of that
town, coupled with this presumption, made it probable
that Lenny now saw before him one of the midnight
desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm the suspicion,
which passed through Lenny's mind with a rapidity wholly
disproportionate to the number of lines it costs me to
convey it, the boy, now standing right before the stocks,




226             MY NOVEL; OR,
bent down and read that pithy anathema with which it
was defaced. And having read it he repeated it aloud,
and Lenny actually saw him smile - such a smile! -so
disagreeable and sinister I Lenny had never before seen
the smile Sardonic.
But what were Lenny's pious horror and dismay when
this ominous stranger fairly seated himself on the stocks,
rested his heels profanely on the lids of two of the four
round eyes, and, taking out a pencil and a pocket-book,
began to write. Was this audacious Unknown taking an
inventory of the church and the Hall for the purposes of
conflagration?  He looked at one, and at the other, with
a strange, fixed stare as he wrote - not keeping his eyes
on the paper, as Lenny had been taught to do when he
sat down to his copy-book. The fact is, that Randal
Leslie was tired and faint, and he felt the shock of his
fall the more, after the few paces he had walked, so that
he was glad to rest himself a few moments; and he took
that opportunity to write a line to Frank, to excuse himself for not calling again, intending to tear the leaf on
which he wrote out of his pocket-book and leave it at
the first cottage he passed, with instructions to take it to
the Itall.
While Randal was thus innocently engaged, Lenny
came up to him, with the firm and measured pace of one
who has resolved, cost what it may, to do his duty. And
as Lenny, though brave, was not ferocious, so the anger
he felt, and the suspicions he entertained, only exhibited
themselves in the following solemn appeal to the offender's sense of propriety, —




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             227
"]Ben't you ashamed of yourself?  Sitting on the
Squire's new stocks! Do get up, and go along with you!'
Randal turned round sharply; and though, at any
other moment, he would have had sense enough to extricate himself very easily from his false position, yet, Nenlo
zortaliunn, &c. No one is always wise.  And Randal
was in an exceedingly bad humor.  The affability towards
his inferiors, for which I lately praised him, was entirely
lost in the contempt of impertinent snobs natural to an
insulted Etonian.
Therefore, eyeing Lenny with great disdain, Randal
answered briefly,"You are an insolent young blackguard."
So curt a rejoinder made Lenny's blood fly to his face.
Persuaded before that the intruder was some lawless apprentice or shop-lad, he was now more confirmed in that
judgment, not only by language so uncivil, but by the
truculent glance which accompanied it, and which certainly did not derive any imposing dignity from the mutilated, rakish, hang-dog, ruinous hat, under which it shot
its sullen and menacing fire.
Of all the various articles of which our-male attire is
composed, there is perhaps not one which has so much
character and expression as the top covering. A neat,
well-brushed, short-napped, gentleman-like hat, put on
with a certain air, gives a distinction and respectability
to the whole exterior; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-piggledy sort of a hat, such as Randal Leslie had
on, would go far towards transforming the stateliest gen



228             MY NOVEL; OR,
tleman who ever walked down St. James's Street into the
ideal of a ruffianly scamp.
Now, it is well known that there is nothing more antipathetic to your peasant-boy than a shop-boy. Even on
grand political occasions, the rural working-class can
rarely be coaxed into sympathy with the trading townclass. Your true English peasant is always an aristocrat.  Moreover, and irrespectively of this immemorial
grudge of class, there is something peculiarly hostile in
the relationship between boy and boy when their backs
are once up, and they are alone on a quiet bit of green.
Something of the game-cock feeling -something that
tends to keep alive, in the population of this island (otherwise so lamb-like and peaceful), the martial propensity to
double the thumb tightly over the four fingers, and make
what is called " a fist of it." Dangerous symptoms of
these mingled and aggressive sentiments were visible in
Lenny Fairfield at the words and the look of the unprepossessing stranger.  And the stranger seemed aware of
them; for his pale face grew more pale, and his sullen
eye more fixed and more vigilant.
"You get off them stocks," said Lenny, disdaining to
reply to the coarse expressions bestowed on him; and,
suiting the action to the word, he gave the intruder what
he meant for a shove, but what Randal took for a blow.
The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny
lose his balance, and sent him neck and crop over the
stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager rose
alertly, and flying at Randal, struck out right and left.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    229
CHAPTER III.
AID me, 0 ye Nine I whom the incomparable Persius
satirised his contemporaries for invoking, and. then, all of
a sudden, invoked on his own behalf-aid me to describe
that famous battle by the stocks, and in defence of the
stocks, which was waged by the two representatives of
Saxon and Norman England. Htere, sober support of
law and duty and delegated trust -pro aris et focis;
there, haughty invasion, and bellicose spirit of knighthood, and that respect for name and person, which we
call "honor."  Here, too, hardy physical force - there,
skilful discipline. Here   The Nine are as deaf as a
post, and as cold as a stone I Plague take the jades II can do better without them.
Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he
was not so tall nor so strong, nor even so active; and
after the first blind rush, when the two boys paused, and
drew back to breathe, Lenny, eyeing the slight form and
hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling
from Randal's lip, was seized with an instantaneous and
generous remorse. "It was not fair," he thought, "to
fight one whom he could beat so easily." So, retreating
-i;ill farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said,
I.-20




230             MY NOVEL; OR:
mildly - " There, let's have no more of it; but go home
and be good."
Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality called physical courage; but he had
some of those moral qualities which supply its place.
He was proud- he was vindictive — he had high selfesteem —he had the destructive organ more than the combative;- what had once provoked his wrath it became
his instinct to sweep away. Therefore, though all his
nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in his eyes, he
approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and
said, between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back
the sob of rage and pain"You have struck me - and you shall not stir from
this ground till I have made you repent it. Put up your
hands - defend yourself."
Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of
the admonition; for if before he had had the advantage,
now that Randal had recovered the surprise to his nerves,
the battle was not to the strong.
Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton,
still his temper had involved him in some conflicts when
he was in the lower forms, and he had learned something
of the art as well as the practice in pugilism -an excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and
which I hope will never quite die out of our public
schools. Ah, many a young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a trader's son; and
many a trader's son has learned to look a lord more man.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    231
fully in the face on the hustings, from the recollection of
the sound thrashing he once gave to some little Lord
Leopold Dawdle.
So Randal now brought his experience and art to,bear; put aside those heavy roundabout blows, and
darted in his own, quick and sharp -supplying to the
natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of pugilistic mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer
so feeble: for strange is the strength that comes from
passion and pluck I
Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations grew so entangled that he could
never recall them distinctly; he had a dim reminiscence
of some breathless impotent rush -of a sudden blindness
followed by quick flashes of intolerable light- of a
deadly faintness, from which he was roused by sharp
pangs —here —there — everywhere; and then all he
could remember was, that he was lying on the ground,
huddled up, and panting hard, while his adversary bent
-over him with a countenance as dark and livid as Lara
himself might have bent over the fallen Otho. For
Randal Leslie was not one who, by impulse and nature,
subscribed to the noble English maxim  - " Never hit a,foe when he is down;;" and it cost him a strong if brief
self-struggle, not to set his heel on that prostrate form.
It was the mind, not the heart, that subdued the savage
within him, as muttering something inwardly - certainly
not Christian forgiveness — the victor turned gloomily
away




232             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER IV.
JUST at that precise moment, who should appear but
Mr. Stirn! For, in fact, being extremely anxious to get
Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped that he should have
found the young villager had shirked the commission entrusted to him; and the Right-hand Man had slily come
back, to see if that amiable expectation were realised. He
now beheld Lenny rising with some difficulty — still panting
hard -and with hysterical sounds akin to what is vulgarly
called blubbering - his fine new waistcoat sprinkled with
his own blood, which flowed from his nose —nose that
seemed to Lenny Fairfield's feelings to be a nose no more,
but a swollen, gigantic, mountainous Slawkenbergian excrescence; -in fact, he felt all nose! Turning aghast
from this spectacle, Mr. Stirn surveyed, with no more
respect than Lenny had manifested, the stranger boy,
who had again seated himself on the stocks (whether to
recover his breath, or whether to show that his victory
was consummated, and that he was in his rights of possession).  " Hollo," said Mr. Stirn, " what is all this? --
what's the matter, Lenny, you blockhead?"
"He will sit there," answered Lenny, in broken gasps,
" and he has beat me because I would not let him; but I
doesn't mind that," added the villager, trying hard to




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.           233
suppress his tears, "and I'm ready again for him-that
I am."
"And what do you do lollopoping there on them
blessed stocks?"
" Looking at the landscape; out of my light, man!"
This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings:
it was a tone so disrespectful to him, that he was seized
with involuntary respect; who but a gentleman could
speak so to Mr. Stirn?
"And may I ask who you be?" said Stirn, falteringly,
and half inclined to touch his hat.  "What's your name,
pray? - what's your bizness?"
"My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to
visit your master's family -that is, if you are, as I guess
from your manner, Mr. Hazeldean's ploughman! "
So saying, Randal rose; and moving on a few paces,
turned, and throwing half-a-crown on the road, said to
Lenny, - "Let that pay you for your bruises, and remember another time how you speak to a gentleman. As
for you, fellow," —and he pointed his scornful hand
towards Mr. Stirn, who with his mouth open, and his hat
now fairly off, stood bowing to the earth-" as for you,
give my compliments to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that,
when he does us the honor to visit us at Rood Hall, I
trust that the manners of our villagers will make him
ashamed of Hazeldean."
O my poor Squire I Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean I
If that message had been delivered to you, you would
never have looked up again!
20*




234             IMY NOVEL; OR,
With those bitter words, Randal swung himselh over
the stile that led into the Parson's glebe, and left Lenny
Fairfield still feeling his nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing
to the earth.
CHAPTER V.
RANDAL LESLIE had a very long walk home; he was
bruised and sore from head to foot, and his mind was still
more sore and more bruised than his body. But if Randal
Leslie had rested himself in the Squire's gardens, without
walking backwards, and indulging in speculations suggested by Marat, and warranted by My Lord Bacon, he
would have passed a most agreeable evening, and really
availed himself of the Squire's wealth by going home in
the Squire's carriage. But, because he chose to take so
intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch;
because he tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes;
because he spoiled his clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into the village-green,
and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the air of
a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks
-with that hat, and a cross face under it - he had been
forced into the most discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home, at war with gods and
men; — ergo (this is a moral that will bear repetition) -
ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented
to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect; I dare say
you will enjoy it more than he does 




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    235
C HAP TEI  VI.
IF, in the simplicity of his heart, and the crudity of his
experience, Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable
that Mr. Stirn would address to him  some words in
approbation of his gallantry, and in sympathy for his
bruises, he soon found himself wofully mistaken. That
truly great man, worthy prime-minister of Hazeldean,
might, perhaps, pardon a dereliction from his orders, if
such dereliction proved advantageous to the interests of
the service, or redounded to the credit of the chief: but
he was inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offencesan ill-timed, stupid, over-zealous obedience to orders,
which, if it established the devotion of the employS, got
the employer into what is popularly called a scrape!
And though, by those unversed in the intricacies of the
human heart, and unacquainted with the especial hearts
of prime-ministers and right-hand men, it might have
seemed natural that AMr. Stirn, as he stood still, hat in
hand, in the middle of the road, stung, humbled, and exasperated by the mortification he had received from the
lips of Randal Leslie, would have felt that that young
gentleman was the proper object of his resentment; yet
such a breach of all the etiquette of diplomatic life as
resentment towards a superior power, was the last idea




236              MY NOVEL; OR,
that would have suggested itself to the profound intellect
of the Premier of Hazeldean.  Still, as rage, like steam,
must escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on feeling —as he
afterwards expressed it to his wife —that his "buzzorm
was a burstin," turned with the natural instinct of selfpreservation to the safety-valve provided for the explosion; and the vapors within him rushed into vent upon
Lenny Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely,
and thus relieved his "buzzom."
"You young willain I you howdacious wiper I and so
all this blessed Sabbath afternoon, when you ought to
have been in church on your marrow-bones, a praying for
your betters, you has been a-fitting with a young gentleman, and a wisiter to your master, on the wery place of
the parridge hinstitution that you was to guard and pertect; and a-bloodying it all over, I declares, with your
blackguard little nose I "  Thus saying, and as if to mend
the matter, Mr. Stirn aimed an additional stroke at the
offending member; but, Lenny mechanically putting up
both arms to defend his face, Mr. Stirn struck his knuckles
against the large brass buttons that adorned the cuff of
the boy's coat-sleeve - an incident which considerably
aggravated his indignation.  And Lenny, whose spirit
was fairly roused at what the narrowness of his education
conceived to be a signal injustice, placing the trunk of
the tree between Mr. Stirn and himself, began that task
of self-justification which it was equally impolitic to con.
ceive and imprudent to execute, since, in such a case, to
justify was to recriminate.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISHI  LIFE.    237
"1 wonder at you, Master Stirn, - if mother could
hear you I You know it was you who would not let me
go to church; it was you who told me to -"
"Fit a young gentleman, and break the Sabbath," said
Mr. Stirn, interrupting him with a withering sneer.  " 0
yes I I told you to disgrace his honor the Squire, and me,
and the parridge, and bring us all into trouble. But the
Squire told me to make an example, and I will!"  With
those words, quick as lightning flashed upon Mr. Stirn's
mind the luminous idea of setting Lenny in the very
stocks which he had too faithfully guarded. Eureka I
the "example" was before him I! Here, he could gratify
his long grudge against the pattern boy; here by such a
selection of the very best lad in the parish, he could strike
terror into the worst; here he could appease the offended
dignity of Randal Leslie; here was a practical apology
to the Squire for the affront put upon his young visitor;
here, too, there was prompt obedience to the Squire's
own wish that the stocks should be provided as soon as
possible with a tenant. Suiting the action to the thought,
Mr. Stirn made a rapid plunge at his victim, caught him
by the skirt of his jacket, and, in a few seconds more,, the
jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield was
thrust thereint- a sad spectacle of the reverse of fortune.
This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too
stupefied by the suddenness of the calamity for the resistance he might otherwise have made - nay, for more than
a few inaudible words - Mr. Stirn hurried from the spot;
but not without first picking up and pocketing the half



238              MY NOVEL; OR,
crown designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been
his first emotions, he had hitherto even almost forgotten.
He then made his way towards the church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, catch the
Squire as he came out, whisper to him what had passed,
and lead him, with the whole congregation at his heels,
to gaze upon the sacrifice offered up to the joint Powers
of Nemesis and Themis.
CHAPTER VII.
IUNAFFECTEDLY I say it —upon the honor of a gentleman, and the reputation of an author, unaffectedly I say
it —no words of mine can do justice to the sensations
experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as he sat alone in that
place of penance.  He felt no more the physical pain of
his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore
all corporeal suffering -an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of holding. For first and deepest
of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense of injustice.
He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all
honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission
intrusted.to him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge
of his duty; he had fought for it, suffered for it, bled for
it. This was his reward! Now, in Lenny's mind there
was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes the
Anglo-Saxon race - the sense of justice.  It was perhaps




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.   239
the strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the
principle'had never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by
any of the minor acts of oppression and iniquity which
boys of higher birth often suffer from harsh parents, or
in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the first time
that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its
attendant feeling - the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had been wronged, and he had no means to
right himself. Then came another sensation, if not so
deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the time -
shame! He, the good boy of all good boys-he, the
pattern of the school, and the pride of the Parson- he,
whom the Squire, in sight of all his contemporaries, had
often singled out to slap on the back, and the grand
Squire's lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation on his young and fair repute- he, who had already
learned so dearly to prize the sweets of an honorable
name - he, to be made, as it were, in the twinkling of an
eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer, and a
by-word I The streams of his life were poisoned at the
fountain. And then came a tenderer thought of his
mother! of the shock this would be to her -she who had
already begun to look up to him as her stay and support:
he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled
down.
Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench
his limbs from that hateful bondage;- for he heard
steps approaching. And he began to picture to himself
the arrival of all the villagers from church, the sad gaze




240             MY N-OVEL; OR,
of the Parson, the bent brow of the Squire, the idle, illsuppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted
character —a character of which the original whiteness
could never, never be restored!  ie would always be the
boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words uttered
by the. Squire came back on his soul, like the voice of
conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth. "A sad
disgrace, Lenny -you'll never be in such a quandary."' Quandary," the word was unfamiliar to him; it must
mean something awfully discreditable.  The poor boy
could have prayed for the earth to swallow him.
C HAPTEIR  VIII.
" IKETTLES and frying-pans I what has us here?" cried
the Tinker.
This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it
being Sunday, it is to be presumed that the donkey was
enjoying his Sabbath on the Common. The Tinker was
in his Sunday's best, clean and smart, about to take his
lounge in the park.
Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal.
"You in the wood, my baby! Well, that's the last
sight I should ha' thought to see. But, we all lives to
larn," added the Tinker, sententiously. "Who gave you
them leggings? Can't you speak, lad?"
"Nick Stirn."                  -




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    241' Nick Stirn! Ay, I'd ha' ta'en my davy on that: and
cos vy? "
"'Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was
trespassing on these very stocks; and he beat me -but
I don't care for that; and that boy was a young gentleman, and going to visit the Squire; and so Nick Stirn-"
Lenny stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation.
"Augh," said the Tinker, staring, "you fit with a
young gentleman, did you?  Sorry to hear you confess
that, my lad! Sit there, and be thankful you ha' got off
so cheap.'Tis salt and battery to fit with your betters,
and a Lunnoil justice o' peace would have given you two
months o' the treadmill. But vy should you fit cos he
trespassed on the stocks? It ben't your natural side for
fitting, I takes it."
Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable
about serving the Squire, and doing as he was bid.
" Oh, I sees, Lenny," interrupted the Tinker, in a tone
of great contempt, "you be one of those who would rayther'unt with the'ounds than run with the'are! You
be's the good pattern boy, and would peach agin your
own horder to curry favor with the grand folks. Fie,
lad! you be sarved right; stick by your horder, then
you'll be'spected when you gets into trouble, and not be'varsally'spised -as you'll be arter church-time! Vell,
I can't be seen'sorting with you, now you are in this
drogotary fix; it might hurt my cracter, both with them
as built the stocks, and them as wants to pull'em down.
Old kettles to mend! Vy, you makes me forgit the Sab1. - 21               q




242             MY NOVEL; OR,
bath. Sarvent, my lad, and wish you well out of it;'specks to your mother, and say we can deal for the pan
and shovel all the same for your misfortin. "
The Tinker went his way. Lenny's eye followed him
with the sullenness of despair. The Tinker, like all the
tribe of human comforters, had only watered the bhambles
to invigorate the prick of the thorns. Yes, if Lenny had
been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would
have pitied him; but to be incarcerated for defending
them, you might as well have expected that the widows
and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have pitied
Dr. Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his
own deadly machine. And even the Tinker, itinerant,
ragamuffin vagabond as he was, felt ashamed to be found
with the pattern boy I Lenny's head sank again on his
breast heavily, as if it had been of lead. Some few
minutes thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became
aware of the presence of another spectator to his shame:
he heard no step, but he saw a shadow thrown over the
sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with
some vague idea that if he refused to see him, he might
escape being seen.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    243
CRHPTER IX.
"Per Bacco!" said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand
on Lenny's shoulder, and bending down to look into his
face - "Per Bacco! my young friend; do you sit here
from choice, or necessity?"
Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch
of one whom he had hitherto regarded with a sort of
superstitious abhorrence.
"I fear," resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain
for an answer to his question, " that, though the situation
is charming,. you did not select it yourself. What is
this? "- and the irony of the tone vanished - " what is
this, my poor boy? You have been bleeding, and I see
that those tears which you try to check come from a deep
well. Of~ell me, povero fanciullo mio (the sweet Italian
vowels, though Lenny did not understand them, sounded
softly and soothingly) — tell me, my child, how all this
happened. Perhaps I can help you - we have all erred;
we should all help each other."
Lenny's heart, that just before had seemed bound in
brass, found itself a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly,
and the tears rushed down; but he again stopped them,
and gulped out sturdily"I have not done no wrong; it ben't my fault- and




244              MY NOVEL; OR,'tis that which kills me! " concluded Lenny, with a burst
of energy.
" You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief with great
composure, and spreading it on the ground-" then I may
sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over sin, but
I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune."
Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words,
but enough of their general meaning was apparent to
make him cast a grateful glance on the Italian.  Ricca.
bocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief,
"I have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have
been afflicted in my day; yet I too say with thee,' I have
not done wrong.' Cospetto!" and here the Doctor seated
himself deliberately, resting one arm on the side-columnn
of the stocks, in familiar contact with the captive's shoulder,
while his eye wandered over the lovely scene around —
"Cospetto! my prison, if they had caught me, would not
have had so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is
all one; there are no ugly loves, and no handsome prisons."
With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered
in his native Italian, Riccabocca turned round, and renewedl
his soothing invitations to confidence. A friend in need
is a friend indeed, even if he come in the guise of a Papist
and wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the foreigner
had gone, and he told him his little tale.
Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see
exactly the motives which had induced Mr. Stirn to incar.
cerate his agent (barring only that of personal grudge,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            245
to which Lenny's account gave him no clue).  That a
man high in office should make a scape-goat of his own
watch-dog for an unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet
bark, was nothing strange to the wisdom of the student
of Machiavelli.  However, he set himself to the task of
consolation with equal philosophy and tenderness.  He
began by reminding, or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances of illustrious men afflicted by the
injustice of others that occurred to his own excellent
memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in
slavery, had a master whose favorite amusement was
pinching his leg, which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the stocks. Hle also told
him the anecdote of Lenny's own gallant countryman,
Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire's
celebrated witticism, " Ez Angleterre on tue un amniral
pour encourager les autres" ("In England.they execute
one admiral in order to encourage the others").  Many
other illustrations, still more pertinent to the case in point,
his erudition supplied from the stores of history. But
on- seeing that Lenny did not seem in the slightest degree
consoled by these memorable examples, he shifted his
ground, and reducing his logic to the strict argumenturn
ad rem, began to prove, 1st, that there was no disgrace
at all in Lenny's present position -that every equitable
person would recognise the tyranny of Stirn, and the
innocence of its victim; 2dly, that if even here he were
mistaken -for public opinion was not always righteouswhat was public opinion, after all? -"A breath - a puff,"
21*




246             MY NOVEL; OR,
cried Dr. Riccabocca -" a thing without matter - without length, breadth, or substance; a shadow - a goblin
of our own creating. A_ man's own conscience is his sole
tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom' opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross
the church-yard at dark."
Now, as Lenny did very much fear meeting a ghost if
he crossed the church-yard at dark, the simile spoiled the
argument, and he shook his head very mournfully. Dr.
Riccabocca was about to enter into a third course of
reasoning, which, had it come to an end, would doubtless
have settled the matter, and reconciled Lenny to sitting
in the stocks till doomsday, when the captive, with the
quick ear and eye of terror and calamity, became conscious
that church was over, that the congregation in a few
seconds more would be flocking thitherwards. Hie saw
visionary hats and bonnets through the trees, which IRiccabocca saw not, despite all the excellence of his spectacles
- heard phantasmal rustlings and murmurings which
Riccabocca heard not, despite all that theoretical experience in plots, stratagems, and treasons, which should
have made the Italian's ear as fine as a conspirator's or a
mole's. And, with another violent but vain effort at
escape, the prisoner exclaimed"Oh, if I could but get out before they come! Let me
out —let me out. O, kind sir, have pity —let me out!"
"Diavolo " said the philosopher, startled, "I wonder
that I never thought of that before. After all, I believe
he has hit the right nail on the head," and, looking close,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLTISH  LIFE.            247
he perceived that though the partition of wood had hitched
firmly into a sort of spring-clasp, which defied Lenny's
unaided struggles, still it was not locked (for, indeed, the
padlock and key were snug in the justice-room of the
Squire, who never dreamt that his orders would be executed so literally and summarily as to dispense with all
formal appeal to himself). As soon as Dr. Riccabocca
made that discovery, it occurred to him that all the
wisdom of all the schools that ever existed can't reconcile
man or boy to a bad position — the moment there is a
fair opportunity of letting him out of it. Accordingly,
without more ado, he lifted up the creaking board, and
Lenny Fairfield darted forth like a bird from a cage -
halted a moment as if for breath, or in joy; and then,
taking at once to his heels, fled, as a hare to its form —
fast to his mother's home.
Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its
place, picked up his handkerchief and restored it to his
pocket; and then, with some curiosity, began to examine
the nature of that place of duresse which had caused so
much painful emotion to its rescued victim.  "Man is a
very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquising, "and is frightened by strange buggabooes!'Tis
but a piece of wood! how little it really injures! -And,
after all, the holes are but rests to the legs, and keep the
feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon -
under the shade of the elm-tree —verily the position
must be more pleasant than otherwise I I've a great
mind -"   Here the Doctor looked around, and seeing




248              MY NOVEL; OR,
the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable tookl
possession of him; yet not indeed a notion so odd, considered philosophically- for all philosophy is based on
practical experiment — and Dr. Riccabocca felt an irresistible desire practically to experience what  manner of
thing that punishment of the stocks really was.  "I can
but try I only for a moment," said he, apologetically to
his own expostulating sense of dignity.  "I have time to
do it before any one comes."  He lifted up the partition
again: but stocks are built on the true principle of English
law, and don't easily allow a man to criminate himselfit was hard to get into them without the help of a friend.
However, as we before noticed, obstacles only whetted
Dr. Ricabocca's invention.  He looked round, and saw
a withered bit of stick under the tree -this he inserted
in the division of the stocks, somewhat in the manner in
which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose of
ensnaring sparrows: the fatal wood thus propped, Dr.
Riccabocca sat gravely down on the bank, and thrust his
feet through the apertures.
"Nothing in it! " cried he triumphantly, after a moment's deliberation.  "The evil is only in idea.  Such
is the boasted reason of mortals!" With that reflection,
nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from
their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly
gave way, and the partition fell back into its clasp. Dr.
Riccabocca was fairly caught-" Facilis descensus —sed
revocare gradurn!"  True, his hands were at liberty,
but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    249
the hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca's
form was by no means supple, and the twin parts of the
wood stuck together with that firmness of adhesion which
things newly-painted possess, so, after some vain twists
and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not
without a stretch of the sinews that made them crack
again) in finding the clasp and breaking his nails thereon,
the victim of his own rash experiment resigned himself
to his fate.  Dr. Riccabocca was one of those men wh3
never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not only Christian but philosophical resignation.  The position was not quite so pleasant as,
theoretically, he had deemed'it; but he resolved to make
himself as comfortable as he could.  At first, as is
natural in all troubles to men who have grown familiar
with that odoriferous comforter which Sir Walter Raleigh
is said first to have bestowed upon the Caucasian races,
the Doctor made use of his hand to extract from his
pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch.  After a
few whiffs, he would have been quite reconciled to his
situation, but for the discovery that the sun had shifted
its place in the heavens, and was no longer shaded from
his face by the elm-tree.  The Doctor again looked
round, and perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he
had laid aside when he had seated himself by Lenny, was
within arm's reach.  Possessing himself of this treasure,
he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus, doubly
fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella,
and his pipe composedly between his lips, Dr. Riccabocca




250               MY NOVEL; OR,
gazed on his own incarcerated legs, even with corm
placency.
"'IHe who can despise all things,' " said he, in one of
his native proverbs, "'possesses all things I'- if one
despises freedom, one is free! This seat is as soft as a
sofa I I am not sure," he resumed, soliloquising, after a
pause-" I am not sure that there is not something more
witty than manly and philosophical in that national proverb of mine which I quoted to the fanciullo,'that
there are no handsome prisons!' Did not the son of
that celebrated Frenchman, surnamed Bras de Fer, write
a book not only to prove that adversities are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a
prison is the most pleasant and profitable? *  But is not
this condition of mine, voluntarily and experimentally
incurred, a type of my life?  Is it the first time that I
have thrust myself into a hobble? —and if in a hobble of
mine own choosing, why should I blame the gods? "'Upon this, Dr. Riccabocca fell into a train of musing
so remote from time and place, that in a few minutes he
no more remembered that he was in the parish stocks
than a lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser that
mammon is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is
vanity. Dr. Riccabocca was in the clouds.
* " Eiltre tout, l'etat d'une prison est leypzhsa doux, est le plus profitable!"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISE LIFE.    251
CHAPTER X.
THE dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, entre
nous, reader -but let it go no farther-we have a good
many dogs among the fraternity that are not Munitos *)
might have seen with half an eye that the Parson's discourse had produced a very genial and humanizing effect
upon his audience. When all was over, and the congregation stood up to let Mr. ilazeldean and his family walk
first down the aisle (for that was the custom at Hazeldean), IMoistened eyes glanced at the Squire's sun-burned
manly face, with a kindness that bespoke revived memory
of many a generous benefit and ready service. The head
might be wrong now and then-the heart was in the right
place after all. And the lady, leaning on his arm, came
in for a large share of that gracious good feeling. True,
she now and then gave a little offence when the cottages
were not so clean as she fancied they ought to be - and
poor folks don't like a liberty taken with their houses any
more than the rich do; true that she was not quite so
popular with the women as the Squire was, for, if the
husband went too often to the ale-house, she always laid
* Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a
Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such
dogs now-a-days.




252              MY NOVEL; OR,
the fault on the wife, and said, "No man would go out
of doors for his comforts, if he had a smiling face and a
clean hearth at his home; " whereas the Squire maintained
the more gallant opinion, that "if Gill was a shrew, it
was because Jack did not, as in duty bound, stop her
mouth with a kiss I "  Still, notwithstanding these more
obnoxious notions on her part, and a certain awe inspired
by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline nose, it
was impossible, especially in the softened tempers of that
Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, comely,
beaming counitenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with comfortable recollections of soups, jellies, and wine in sickness,
loaves and blankets in winter, cheering words and ready
visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded by improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements
which, as the Squire, who preferred productive labor,
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




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    253
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, —viz., that
"the bridegroom would turn out like the rest of his ullgrateful 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 Prayerbook, had his due share in the general association of
neighborly kindness between hall and hamlet. Few were
there present to whom he had not extended the righthand 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 curtsey 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
1.-22




254             MY NOVEL; OR,
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, neighbors; 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 color 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 -'sdeath, 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 I What will the Parson say, and after
such a sermon I'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 lIazeldean without trial, sentence, or warrant?  Rtun
and let the boy out before any one sees him: run, or I




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    255
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 I For shame, Frank 1" cried Mrs.
Hlazeldean.
" 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, gad zooks, Mrs. H., -at the Stocks, to be
sure I"




2566             MY NOVErL; OR,
CHAPTER XI,
Da. RICCABOCCA, awakened out of his reverie by the
sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and
with allithe malice of his natural humor, 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 sang-froid 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,
eldritch, and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person
of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISIE  LIFE.    257
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 parishoners, 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 Doctor Riccabocca, under
the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of
the only being his mind could indentify with the tenancy
of the stocks, Mr. Dale catching him by the arm, and
panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never
before known to display   except at the whist-table, -
"Mr. Eazeldean, Mr. Hiazeldean, I am scandalised —
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
22'              R




258             MY NOVEL; OR,
of you, and of the parish I 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 I 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. Hitherto, though both the Squire and
Parson had indeed recognised the Italian, they had merely
supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered
into their heads that so respectable and dignified a man
could by any possibility be an inmate, compelled or
voluntary, of the Parish Stocks. No, not even though,
as I before said, the Squire had seen, just under his nose,
a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures - that
sight had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought to have been, with the trunk and face of
Lenny Fairfield.  Those soles seemed to him optical delusions, phantoms of the over-heated brain; but now,
catching hold of Stirn, while the Parson in equal astonishment caught hold of him-the Squire faltered out,
Well, this beats cock-fighting! The man's as mad as a




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.    259
March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for little
Lenny I"
"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 his 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 branches 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 honor: 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. "




2 O             -_MY NOVEL;  nR,
CIIAPTER XlI.
" BUTr how on earth did you get into my new stocks? "9
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 IRiccabocca.
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."
"WVe had better move on," said the Parson, dryly, " or
we shall have thile 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-bye) cal have done anything to get into
disgrace? "
"Yes, he has though," cried the Squire.  "Stirn, I




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    261
say Stirn"  But Stirn had forced his way through the
hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of
narrative at second-hand, 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. iHazeldean, 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, tooI 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. iHazeldean,
musingly; "but it seems that there must be always some
association of fighting connected with that prim halfbrother 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 hardreading, 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




262              MIY NOVEL; OR,
rush at him like a mad bull.  It is FATALITY I " cried the
Squire, solemnly.
"Ancient legends record similar instances of fatality in
certain houses," observed Riccabocca.  "There was the
House of Pelops —and Polynices and Eteocles —the
sons of (Edipus "
" Pshaw I " said the parsoh; "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 IRiccabocca, 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 iu 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 I " cried the
Parson, before Riccabocca could finish.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHI LIFE.    263
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 perdut 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 loud.
"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 aint 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 littie 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 slarcd




264            iMY NOVEL; OR,
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
color 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 I "
"Frank," said the Parson, sternly, "if we all had our
deserts, what should be done to him who not only lets the
sun go down on his own wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the deying embers of another's?"
The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit
his lip, and seemed abashed -while even his mother said
not a word in his exculpation; for when the Parson did
reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the Hall stood
awed before the rebuke of the Church.  Catching Riccabocca's inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to him his fears that it would be a
very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg Randal Leslie's
pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern boy
would not digest the stocks with as mucii ease as a long
regimen of philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This
conference Miss Jemima soon interrupted by a direct ap
peal to the Doctor respecting the number of years (even
without any previous and more violent incident) that the
world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear.
" Ma'am," said the Doctor, reluctantly summoned away,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    265
to look at a passage in some prophetic periodical upon
that interesting subject  "ma'am, it is very hard that
you should make one remember the end of the world,
since, in conversing with you, one's natural temptation is
to forget its existence."
Miss Jemimna's cheeks were suffused with a deeper scarlet
than Frank's had been a few minutes before.  Certainly
that deceitful, heartless compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet - such is human blindness - it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous
and too confiding soul.
" He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima.
"Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed,
" I think we shall get that boy for the garden now!"
Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round
the Hazeldean whirligig
CHAPTER XIII.
WHATEVER may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima
Hazeldean's designs upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian had counted Upol
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 gentleI.- 23




266              MY NOVEL; OR,
man, 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 attempts 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 unfavorable 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 misdemeanors 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




VARIETIES I-N ENGLISH  LIFE.    267
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 I " "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 Fair-'field 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 honor 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 I and Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them
by-and-bye. "
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.




268              MY NOVEL; OR,
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 feelin',"
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 hear;, tls 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 good-man 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 favors-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




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    269
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 the passion get the better of me —I humbly beg you'll excuse
it, sir. I'm no scholard as poor Miark 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. Ilazeldean, who was indeed really
offended at the boy's obstinate refusal to make the amende
honorable to 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
and brusque enough 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 favorites 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
23 *




270              MY NOVEL; OR,
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 I
that he rarely meets with unjustly); but to be looked down
upon, and mocked, and pointed at by his own equalshis 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 halfway - 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 im



VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            2,1
pertinence 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. iazeldean
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 neighbor's
to be given to the Steward: and, on further 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 roadside, 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 newfashioned 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 I 0 Squire, if you had
taken my advice about the stocks - quieta non movere "
"Bother I "'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




279              MY NOVEL; OR
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
4ignity (a very gentleman-like 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 Rickeyboclkey's wages to Lenny — (by
the way, I hope he don't board the boy 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 harkye,
Dale, perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is so




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHE  LIFE.    2713
cursedly stiff-backed, not to say the land is mine, or that
it is any favor 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 favors; 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
MIr. 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
honors."
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 neighborhood
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 inconsider.
able. And what 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.




27T4            MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER  XIV.
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 in minimza and.
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 I Is it a hair-breadth too short to cover
the scratch for which you want it? Make your willyou are a dead man! A life, do I say? - a hecatomb
of lives I How many wars would have been prevented,
how many thrones would be standing, dynasties flourishing - commonwealths brawling round a bema, or fitting
out galleys for corn and cotton- if an inch or two more
of apology had been added to the proffered ell I But




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    2'5
then that plaguy, jealous, suspicious, old vinegar-faced
Honor, and her partner Pride - as penny-wise and poundfoolish 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 hullabuloo 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, Honor,
and Apology, all to the devil. Aristophanes, in his
" Comedy of Peace," insinuates a beautiful allegory by
only suffering that goddess, though in fact she is, his
heroine, to appear as a mnte. 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 I




276              MY NOVEL; OR,
C HAPTER XV.
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 plaster 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 expressed himself with good sense,
though not with much generosity.  He excused his participation in the' vulgarity of such a conflict by a bitter




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    277
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.
CHAP T E R XVI.
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
I. - 24




278             MY NOVEL; OR,
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
mostvarious 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 class than Lenny could have found within
his reach at Ilazeldean. 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 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 favored counties and




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    279
estates excepted) was far below the nicety to which the
art has been immemorially carried in the north of Italywhere, 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
IHazeldean. 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
at least 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 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




280             MY NOVEL; OR,
by Mark's elbow-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 I To how large a number will be
given desires they will never realise, dissatisfaction of the
lot from which they will never rise I 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 crrriage, 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 I Dr.
Riccabocca will tell you that there was once an illustrious




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    281
personage* who made experience of two very diffxrent
occupations - one was ruling men, the other was planting
cabbages; he thought planting cabbages much the
pleasanter of the two I
CHAPTER XVII.
DR. RICCABOOCA 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
* The Emperor Diocletian.
24*




t82:             MY NOVEL; OR,
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, and had no chance of repairing
its daily losses. The leading articles spoke, with the
obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending cRIsIs. 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 Iigh-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.
IEiccabocca, as she seemed to her husband.  For Airs.
Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration, as most
quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            283,3
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 sun-flower
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 toolk 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




284              MY NOVEL; OR,
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
in Miss Jemima's dowry might not be much, regarded in
the light of English pounds (not Milanese lire), 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
so artfully 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 said Cospetto, and Per Bacco, and Diavolo, 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 well as 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




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    285
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 blinded, into the hospitable snares extended for the
destruction of his - celibacy I 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 Croesus, 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
during 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




-26             MY NOVEL; OR,
obtruded itself on his mind, it was chased therefrom with
so determined a Diavolo, that 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.
CH:APTER XVIII.
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 I" 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 towards that dark
musing face, on which, when. abandoned by the expression
of intellectual vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.   287
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 fervor.
The Doctor rose slowly, and as if with an effort; he
walked once.or twice to and fro the terrace; and then he
halted abruptly, and said —
"Friend!"
"Blessed JIonsignore San  Giacono, 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."




288              MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER XIX.
"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 odor of their blossoms.
"Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, poin;ing 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 I " 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




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             289
the priest, her confessor. And the home of which my
child is bereaved falls to the inheritance of my enemy."
"' Traitor! " muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand
seemed to feel for the weapon which the Italians of the
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 that traitor enters as lord.;'
"And where is the Signorina?"
" With the poor priest.  See, Giacomo -here, herethis 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 had
not fallen, 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 * does not think of making a nun of his only
child I!'
"And yet why not?" said Riccabocca mournfully;
"what can I give her in the world? Is the land of the
* The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, necessarily express
any exalted rank; but is often given by servants to their masters.'25                   T




290    -         MY NOVEL; OR,
stranger a better refuge than the home of peace in her
native clime? "
"In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart I "
"And if that beat wqe stilled, what then? 111 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 reaps more care than corn.' It were different," continued the father, after a pause, and in a more resolute
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 Hiagar.  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




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            291
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 I" 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 I " faltered Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs.
"True, only of her," replied the exile, raising his face




292             MY NOVEL; OR,
"only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for thyself,
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, breudless 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?"
Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed
Riccabocca had never before thus revererently 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.
CHAPTER XX.
"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




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.            293
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 the habitual adviser,
mentally besought his sainted namesake to bestow a
double portion of soothing wisdom on- the benignant
influences of the weed.
CHAPTER XXI.
Dr. RICCABOCCA had been some 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
it on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca looked
up at the sound of tihe young peasant's step.
"I beg your honor'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 1"
"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.
25*




294             MY NOVEL; OR,
The hill yender keeps off the east wind, and the place
lays' to the south."
"Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these parts?"
" Eh, sir? "
"I mean what maladies, what diseases?"
" 1 never heard 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 I She's a very nice young lady;
the girls say she is very affable; and," added Lenny with
a smile, "there are always more weddings going on when
she is down at the Hall
"Oh 1" said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            295
"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 woman-like. I don't mean exactly babies, but
when they're older -little girls? "
"Indeed, sir, I dare say; 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 I"
"Indeed I Get my hat out of the parlor, and -just
bring a clothes-brush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a
walk."
After this most mean and dishonorable inquisition into
the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean,
Signior Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and
elated as if he had committed some very noble action;
and he walked forth in the direction 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 I" muttered the
servant, looking up from the garden.




296             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER XXII.
YET Dr. Riccabocca was not rash.  The man who
wants his wedding-garment to fit him must allow plenty
of time for the measure. But, from that day, the Italian
notably changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean.
He ceased that profhsion of compliment in which he had
hitherto carried off in safety all serious meaning.  For
indeed the Doctor considered that compliments to a single
gentleman were what the inky liquid it dispenses is to the
cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails away from
its enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged
conversations with the young lady, and contrive to escape
from all solitary rambles by her side. On the contrary,
he now sought every occasion to be in her society; and,
entirely dropping the language of gallantry, he assumed
something of the earnest tone of friendship. He bent
down his intellect to examine and plumb her own. To
use a very homely simile, he blew away that froth which
there is on the surface of mere acquaintanceships, especially with the opposite sex; and which, while it lasts,
scarce allows you to distinguish between small beer and
double X. Apparently Dr. Riccabocca was satisfied
with his scrutiny - at all events, under that froth there
was no taste of bitter. The Italian might not find any




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    297
great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but he found
that, disentangled from many little whims and foibles —
which he had himself the sense to perceive were harmless
enough if they lasted, and not so absolutely constitutional
but what they might be removed by a tender hand-Miss
Hazeldean had quite enough sense to comprehend the
plain duties of married life; and if the sense could fail, it
found a substitute in good old homely English principles,
and the instincts of amiable, kindly feelings.
I know not how it is, but your very clever man never
seems to care as much as your less gifted mortals for
cleverness in his helpmate. Your scholars, and poets,
and ministers of state, are more often than not found
assorted with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women,
and apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how happily Racine lived with his wife,
and what an angel he thought her, and yet she had never
read his plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled the lady
who called him "Mr. Privy Councillor" with whims about
"monads," and speculations on color, nor those stiff
metaphysical problems on which one breaks one's shins in
the Second Part of the Faust. Probably it may be that
such great geniuses -knowing that, as compared with
themselves, there is little difference between your clever
woman and your humdrum woman —merge at once all
minor distinctions, relinquish all attempts at sympathy in
hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite satisfied to establish that tie which, after all, best resists wear and tear -
viz., the tough household bond between one human heart
and another.




298              MY NOVEL; OR,
At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr.
Riccabocca, when one morning, after a long walk with
Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to himself"Duro con duro
Non fece mai buon muro.'
Which may bear the paraphrase, " Bricks without mortar
would make a very bad wall." There was quite enough
in Miss Jemima's disposition to make excellent mortar:
the Doctor took the bricks to himself.
When his examination was concluded, our philosopher
symbolically evinced the result he had arrived at by a
very simple proceeding on his part, which would have
puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and meditated
thereon, till you saw all that it implied.  Dr. Riccabocca
took off his spectacles! Hie wiped them carefully, put
them into their shagreen case, and locked them in his
bureau:  that is to say, he left off wearing his spectacles.
You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of
meaning in that critical symptom, whether it be regarded
as a sign outward, positive, and explicit; or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as to the last, it
denoted that the task of the spectacles was over; that,
when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is
better henceforth to be short-sighted — nay, even somewhat purblind -than to be always scrutinising the domestic felicity, to which he is about to resign himself, through
a pair of cold, unillusory barnacles. And for the things
beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is
he not about to ally to his own defective vision a good,




VARIETIES IN  ENGLIS-HI  LIFE.    299
sharp pair of eyes, never at fault where his interests are
concerned? On the other hand, regarded positively,
categorically, and explicitly, Dr. Riccabocca, by laying
aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to
commence that happy imitation of courtship when every
man, be he ever so much a philosopher, wishes to look as
young and as handsome as time and nature will allow.
Vain task to speed the soft language of the eyes through
the medium of those glassy interpreters I I remember,
for my own part, that once, on a visit to the town of
Adelaide, I - Pisistratus Caxton - was in great danger
of falling in love-with a young lady, too, who would
have brought me a very good fortune, when she suddenly
produced from her reticule a very neat pair of No. 4, set
in tortoise-shell, and fixing upon me their Gorgon gaze,
froze the astonished Cupid into stone I And I hold it a
great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast
experience in mankind, that he was not above the consideration of what your pseudo sages would have regarded
as foppish and ridiculous trifles. It argued all the better
for that happiness which is our being's end and aim, that
in. condescending to play the lover, he put those unbe.
coming petrifiers under lock and key.
And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it
was impossible to deny that the Italian had remarkably
handsome eyes. Even through the spectacles, or lifted a
little above them, they were always bright and expressive;
but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more
tempered: they had that look which the French call




300             MY NOVEL; OR,
veloute, or velvety; and he appeared altogether ten years
younger. If our Ulysses, thus rejuvenated by his Minerva,
has not fully made up his mind to make a Penelope of
Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos; -
He preys- upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynophagite I
CHAPTER XXIII.
"AND YOU commission me, then, to speak to our dear
Jemima?" said Mrs. Dale, joyfully, and without any
bitterness whatever in that "dear."
DR.. RICCABOCCA. - Nay, before speaking to Miss
Hazeldean, it would surely be proper to know how far
my addresses would be acceptable to the family.
MRs. DALE. - Ah!
DR. RICCABOCCA.- The Squire is, of course, the head
of the family.
Mus. DALE (absent and distraite). — The Squireyes, very true -quite proper (then looking up, and with
nalvetB), can you believe me, I never thought of the
Squire? And he is such an odd man, and has so many
English prejudices, that really - dear me, how vexatious
that it should never once have occurred to me that Mr.
Iazeldean had a voice in the matter I Indeed, the relationship is so distant, - it is not like being her father;
and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and -




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    301
but, as you say, it is quite proper that he should be con.
sulted, as the head of the family.
DR. RICCABOCCA. - And you think that the Squire of
Hazeldean might reject my alliance? - Pshaw I that's a
grand word, indeed; -I mean, that he might object very
reasonably to his cousin's marriage with a foreigner, of
whom he can know nothing, except that which in all
countries is disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal
poverty?
MRS. DALE (kindly). - You misjudge us poor English
people, and you wrong the Squire, Heaven bless him! for
we were poor enough when he singled out my husband
from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his
neighbor and his friend. I will speak to him fearlesslyDR. RIccABOCCA. - And frankly. And now I have
used that word, let me go on with the confession which
your kindly readiness, my fair friend, somewhat interrupted.
I said that if I might presume to think my addresses
would be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I
was too sensible of her amiable qualities not to - not
to -
MRS. DALE (with demure archness). - Not to be the
happiest of men: that's the customary English phrase,
Doctor.
RIccABOccA (gallantly). -There cannot be a better.
But, continued he, seriously, I wish it first to be understood that I have-been married before.
MRS. DALE (astonished). -Married before!
RIcABocA. - And that I have an only child, dear to
I.-26




302             MY NOVEL; OR,
me - inexpressibly dear.  That child, a daughter, has
hitherto lived abroad; circumstances- now render it
desirable that she should make her home with me. And
I own fairly that nothing has so attached mc to Miss
Hazeldean, nor so induced my desire for our matrimonial
connection, as my belief that she has the heart and the
temper to become a kind mother to my little one.
MRS. DALE (with feeling and warmth).-You judge
her rightly there.
RIccABOCCA. - Now in pecuniary matters, as you may
conjecture from my mode of life, I have nothing to offer
to Miss Hazeldean corresponding with her own fortune,
whatever that may be!
MRS. DALE. - That difficulty is obviated by settling
Miss Hazeldean's fortune on herself, which is customary
in such cases.
Dr. Riccabocca's face lengthened.  "And my child,
then?" said he, feelingly.  There was something in that
appeal so alien from  all sordid and merely personal
mercenary motives, that Mrs. Dale could not have had
the heart to make the very rational suggestion, -" But
that child is not Jemima's, and you may have children by
her."
She was touched, and replied, hesitatingly,-  "But,
from what you and Jemima may jointly possess, you can
save something annually, —you can insure your life for
your child. We did so when our poor child whom we
lost was born (the tears rushed into Mrs. Dale's eyes;)
and I fear that Charles still insures his life for my sake,
though Heaven knows that —that —— "




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            303
The tears burst out.  That little heart, quick and
petulant though it was, had not a fibre of the elastic
muscular tissues which are mercifully bestowed on the
hearts of predestined widows. Dr. Riccabocca could not
pursue the subject of life insurances further.  But the
idea - which had never occurred to the foreigner before,
though so familiar to us English people when only
possessed of a life income -pleased him greatly.  I will
do him the justice to say that he preferred it to the
thought of actually appropriating to himself and to his
child a portion of Miss Hazeldean's dower.
Shortly afterwards he took his leave, and Mrs. Dale
hastened to seek her husband in his study, inform him of
the success of her matrimonial scheme, and consult him as
to the chance of the Squire's acquiescence therein. "You
see," said she, hesitatingly, " though the Squire might be
glad to see Jemima married to some Englishman, yet if
he asks who and what is this Dr. Riccabocca, how am I
to answer him?"
"You should have thought of that before," said Mr.
Dale, with unwonted asperity; "and, indeed, if I had
ever believed anything serious could come out of what
seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you not to interfere in such matters.  Good
heavens!" continued the Parson, changing color, "if we
should have assisted, underhand as it were, to introduce
into the family of a man to whom we owe so much, a
connection that he would dislike t how base we should be!
-how  ungrateful I"




304              MY NOVEL; On,
Poor Mrs. Dale was frightened by this speech, and still
more by her husband's consternation and displeasure.
To do Mrs. Dale justice, whenever her mild partner was
really either grieved or offended, her little temper vanished
- she became as meek as a lamb. As soon as she
recovered the first shock she experienced, she hastened to
dissipate the Parson's apprehensions. She assured him
that she was convinced that, if the Squire disapproved of
Riccabocca's pretensions, the Italian would withdraw
them at once, and Miss Hazeldean would never know of
his proposals. Therefore, in that case, no harm would
be done.
This assurance, coinciding with Mr. Dale's convictions
as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honor, tended
much to compose the good man; and if he did not, as
my reader of the gentler sex would expect from him, feel
alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have been
irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in
jeopardy by the Squire's refusal, it was not that the
Parson wanted tenderness of heart, but experience in
womankind; and he believed, very erroneously, that Miss
Jemima Iazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of that kind would produce a lasting impression.
Therefore Mr. Dale, after a pause of consideration, said
kindly -
" Well, don't vex yourself —and I was to blame quite
as much as you. But, indeed, I should have thought it
easier for the Squire to have transplanted one of his tall
cedars into his kitchen-garden, than for you to inveigle




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    305
Dr. Iiccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man
who could voluntarily put himself into the Parish Stocks
for the sake of experiment, must be capable of anything!
However, I think it better that I, rather than yourself,
should speak to the Squire, and I will go at once."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE Parson put on the shovel-hat, which -conjoined
with other details in his dress peculiarly clerical, and
already, even then, beginning to be out of fashion with
churchmen - had served to fix upon him, emphatically,
the dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of' Parson," and took his way towards the Home Farm, at
which he expected to find the Squire. But he had
scarcely entered upon the village-green when he beheld
Mr. Hazeldean, leaning both hands on his stick, and
gazing intently upon the Parish Stocks. Now, sorry am
I to say that, ever since the Hegira of Lenny and his
mother, the Anti-Stockian and Revolutionary spirit in
Hazeldean, which the memorable homily of our Parson
had awhile averted or suspended, had broken forth afresh.
For though, while Lenny was present to be mowed and
jeered at, there had been no pity for him, yet no sooner
was he removed from the scene of trial, than a universal
compassion for the barbarous usage he had received pro.
duced what is called "the reaction of public opinion."
26*               u




306              MY NOVEL; OR,
Not that those who had mowed and jeered repented them
of their mockery, or'considered themselves in the slightest
degree the cause of his expatriation.  No; they, with the
rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon the- stocks.
It was not to be expected that a lad of such exemplary
character could be thrust into that place of ignominy, and
not be sensible of the affront. And who, in the whole
village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in were
to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the very
best and quietest lad the village had ever known? Thus,
a few days after the widow's departure, the stocks was
again the object of midnight desecration: it was bedaubed
and bescratched - it was hacked and hewed - it was
scrawled over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and
laconic exe6rations on tyrants.  Night after night new
inscriptions appeared, testifying the sarcastic wit and the
vindictive sentiment of the parish. And perhaps the
stocks was only spared from axe and bonfire by the convenience it afforded to the malice of the disaffected: it
became the Pasquin of iazeldean.
As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent
vigor in authority, so affairs had been lately administered
with greater severity than had been hitherto wont in the
easy rule of the Squire and his predecessors.  Suspected
persons were naturally marked out by Mr. Stirn, and reported to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to
charge them openly with ingratitude, at first only passed
them by in his walks with a silent and stiff inclination of
his head; and afterwards gradually yielding to the bale



VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    3017
ful influence of Stirn, the Squire grumbled forth "that he
did not see why he should be always putting himself out
of his way to show kindness to those who made such a
return. There ought to be a difference between the good
and the bad."  Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had
conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and
their whole kith and kin, with the iron-handed justice
that belonged to his character. For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy, and vegetables from the
gardens, were surlily suspended; others were informed
that their pigs were always trespassing on the woods iu
search of acorns;~ or that they were violating the Game
Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house, popular in the
neighborhood, but of late resorted to overmuch by the
grievance-mongers (and no wonder, since they had become the popular party), was threatened with an application to the magistrates for the withdrawal of its license.
Sundry old women, whose grandsons were notoriously illdisposed towards the stocks, were interdicted from gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they
broke down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger members of the parish than most
other retaliatory measures, three chestnut trees, one walnut, and two cherry trees, standing at the bottom of the
Park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given
up to the youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed
under the general defence of "private property."  And
the crier had announced that, henceforth, all depredators
on the fruit trees of Copse Hollow would be punished
with the utmost rigor of the law.




308: MY NOVEL; OR,
Stirn, indeed, recommended much more stringent pro.
ceedings than all these indications of a change of policy,
which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its
senses — such as discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the surplus labor of the
village. But there the Squire, falling into the department,
and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet
not properly hardened. When it came to a question that
affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed
by the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of
human kindness - with which Providence has so bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and of which our Squire had an extra "yield " —
burst forth, and washed away all the indignation of the
harsher Adam.
Still your policy of half measures, which irritates without crushing its victims, which flaps an exasperated waspnest with a silk pocket-handkerchief, instead of blowing
it up with a match and train, is rarely successful; and,
after three or four other and much guiltier victims than
Lenny had been incarcerated in the stocks, the parish of
Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity.  Pestilent Jacobinical tracts, conceived and composed in the sinks of
manufacturing towns -found their way into the popular
beer-house —heaven knows how, though the Tinker was
suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who
still, in a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally,
there appeared amongst the other graphic embellishments
which the poor stocks had received, the rude gravure of




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    309
a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots, suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath -Z "A
warnin to hall tirans - mind your hi i - sighnde Captin
sTraw. "
It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture
that the Squire was gazing when the Parson joined him.
"Well, Parson," said Mr. Hazeldean, with a smile
which he meant to be pleasant and easy, but which was
exceedingly bitter and grim, "I wish you joy of your
flock —you see they have just hanged me in effigy I "
The Parson stared, and though greatly shocked, smo-~hered his emotions; and attempted, with the wisdom of
the serpent and the mildness of the dove, to find another
original for the effigy.
"It is very bad, but not so bad as all that, Squire;
that's not the shape of your hat. It is evidently meant
for Mr. Stirn. "
" Do you think so?" said the Squire, softened.  "Yet
the top-boots- Stirn never wears top-boots."
" No more do you, except in the hunting-field. If you
look again, those are not tops —they are leggings —
Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that flourish, which is
meant for a nose, is a kind of a hook, like Stirn's; whereas
your nose — though by no means a snub- rather turns
up than not, as the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca's parlor."
"Poor Stirn I " said the Squire, in a tone that evinced
complacency, not unmingled'with compassion, "that's
what a man gets in this world by being a faithful servant,




310. MY NOVEL; OR,
and doing his duty with zeal for his employer. But you
see that things have come to a strange pass, and the
question now is, what course to pursue. The miscreants
hitherto have defied all vigilance, and Stirn recommends
the employment of a regular night-watch, with a lanthorn
and bludgeon."
"That may protect the stocks, certainly; but will it
keep those detestable tracts out of the beer-house?"
"We shall shut the beer-house up the next sessions."
"The tracts will break out elsewhere-the humor's
in the blood!"
"I've half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamington- good hunting at Leamington - for a year, just to
let the rogues see how they can get on without me I!"
The Squire's lip trembled.
"My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the Parson, taking
his friend's hand, "I don't want to parade my superior
wisdom; but, if you had taken my advice, quieta non
movere! Was there ever a parish so peaceable as this,
or a country-gentleman so beloved as you were, before
you undertook the task which has dethroned kings and
ruined states-that of wantonly meddling with antiquity,
whether for the purpose of uncalled-for repairs, or the
revival of obsolete uses?"
At this rebuke, the Squire did not manifest his constitutional tendencies to choler; but he replied almost
meekly, "If it were to do again, faith, I:would leave the
parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest pair of stocks
that ever disgraced a village.  Certainly I meant it for




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    311
the best — an ornament to the green; however, now the
stocks is rebuilt, the stocks must be supported.  Will
Hazeldean is not the man to give way to a set of thankless rapscallions."
"I think," said the Parson, "that you will allow that
the House of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined,
resolute dynasty enough-high-hearted and strong-headed.
A Tudor would never have fallen into the same calamities
as the poor Stuart did!"
"What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do
with my stocks? "
"A great deal.  Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it up; and the people, in return,
allowed him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who,
I know, is your idol in history —"
" To be sure! - she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury
Fort."
" Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which becomes a
sovereign, and makes surrender a grace."
" Ha I and you would have me give up the stocks? "
"I would much rather the stocks had remained as it
was before you touched it; but, as it is, if you could
find a good plausible pretext - and there is'an excellent
one at hand:-the sternest kings open prisons, and grant
favors, upon joyful occasions -now a marriage in. the
royal family is of course a joyful occasion  - and so it




312             MY NOVEL; OR,
should be in that of the King of Hazeldean."  Admire
that artful turn in the Parson's eloquence!-it was worthy
of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had profited
much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect.
"A marriage - yes; but Frank has only just got into
coat-tails! "
"I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!"
CHAPTER XXV.
THE Squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked
out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sat down on
the stocks.
All the female heads in the neighboring cottages
peered, themselves unseen, through the casements. What
could the Squire be about? -what new mischief did he
meditate? Did he mean to fortify the stocks? Old
Gaffer Solomons, who had an indefinite idea of the lawful
power of squires, and who had been for the last ten
minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and
said- " Them as a cut out the mon a-hanging, as a put
it in the Squire's head I'"
"Put what?" asked his grand-daughter.
"The gallus  " answered Solomons - " he be a-going
to have it hung from the great elm-tree. And the Par



VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.             313
son, good moll, is a-quoting Scripture agin it -you see
he's a-taking off his gloves, and a-putting his two han's
together, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany."
That description of the Parson's mien and manner,
which, with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer
Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea
of the earnestness with which the Parson pleaded the
cause he had undertaken to advocate.  He dwelt much
upon the sense of propriety which the foreigner had
evinced in requesting that the Squire- might be consulted
before any formal communication to his cousin; and he
repeated Mrs. I)ale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honor and belief in the sacred
rights of hospitality, that, if the Squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the Parson was convinced that the
Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering
that Miss iazeldean was, to say the least, come to years
of discretion, and the Squire had long since placed her
property entirely at her own disposal,'Mr. Hazeldean was
forced to acquiesce in the Parson's corollary remark,
"That this was a delicacy which could not be expected
from every English pretender to the lady's hand."  Seeing that he had so far cleared ground, the Parson went
on to intimate, though with great tact, that since Miss
Jemima would probably marry sooner or later (and, indeed, that the Squire could not wish to prevent her), it
might be better for all parties concerned that it should
be with some one who, though a foreigner, was settled in
the neighborhood, and of whose character what was
I. -2




314             MY -NOVEL; OR,
known was certainly favorable, rather than run the hazard
of her being married for her money by some adventurer,
or Irish fortune-hunter, at the watering-places she yearly
visited. Then he touched lightly on Riccabocca's agreeable and companionable qualities; and concluded with a
skilful peroration upon the excellent occasion the wedding would afford to reconcile iHall and Parish, by making
a voluntary holocaust of the stocks.
As he concluded, the Squire's -brow, before thoughtful,
though not sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth,
the Squire was dying to get rid of the stocks, if he could
but do so handsomely and with dignity; and had all the
stars in the astrological horoscope conjoined together to
give Miss Jemima "assurance of a husband," they could
not so have served her with the Squire, as that conjunction between the altar and the stocks which the Parson
had effected!
Accordingly, when Mr. Dale had come to an end, the
Squire replied, with great placidity and good sense,
"That Mr. Rickeybockey had behaved very much like a
gentleman, and that he was very much obliged to him;
that he (the Squire) had no right to interfere in the
matter, farther than with his advice; that Jemima was
old enough to choose for herself, and that, as the Parson
had implied, after all, she might go farther and fare worse
-indeed, the farther she went (that is, the longer she
waited), the worse she was likely to fare. I own, for my
part," continued the Squire, "that though I like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected that Jemima was




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            315
caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for
tastes.  My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave
me many a hint, for which I only laughed at her.  Still
I ought to have thought it looked queer when Mounseer
took to disguising himself by leaving off his glasses, ha
— ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's go and talk
to her.-"
The Parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the
matter, hooked his arm into the Squire's, and they walked
amicably towards the Hall. But on coming first into
the gardens they found Mrs. EIazeldean herself, clipping
dead leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The
Squire stole slily behind her, and startled her in her turn
by putting his arm round her waist, and saluting her
smooth cheek with one of his hearty kisses; which, by
the way, from some association of ideas, was a conjugal
freedom that he usually indulged whenever a wedding
was going on in the village.
"Fie, William I" said Mrs. Hazeldean, coyly, and
blushing as she saw the Parson.  "Well, who's going to
be married now?"
" Lord, was there ever such a woman? -she's guessed
it! " cried the Squire, in great admiration.  "Tell her all
about it, Parson."
The Parson obeyed.
Mrs. Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed
much less surprise than her husband had done; but she
took the news graciously, and made much the same
answer as that which had occurred to the Squire, only




316             MY NOVEL; OR,
with somewhat more qualification and reserve.  "Signor
iRiccabocca had behaved very handsomely; and though
a daughter of the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean might expect
a much better marriage in a worldly point of view, yet
as the lady in question had deferred finding one so long,
it would be equally idle and impertinent now to quarrel
with her choice -if indeed she should decide on accepting Signor Riccabocca. As for fortune, that was a
consideration for the two contracting parties.  Still, it
ought to be pointed out to Miss Jemima that the interest
of her fortune would afford but a very small income.
That Dr. Riccabocca was a widower was another matter
for deliberation; and it seemed rather suspicious that he
should have been hitherto so close upon all matters connected with his former life. Certainly his manners were
in his favor, and as long as he was merely.an -acquaintance, and at.most a tenant, no one had a right to institute
inquiries of a strictly private nature; but that, when he
was about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it became
the Squire at least to know a little more about himwho and what he was. Why did he leave his own country? English people went.abroad to save: no foreigner
would choose England as a country in which to save
money! She supposed that a foreign Doctor was no
very great things; probably he had been a professor in
some Italian university. At all events, if the Squire
interfered at all, it was on such points that he should
request information."
"My dear madam," said the Parson, "what you say




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    317
is extremely just. As to the causes which have induced
our friend to expatriate himself, I think we need not look
far for-them.  He is evidently one of the many Italian.
refugees whom political disturbances have driven to a
land of which it is the boast to receive all exiles of whatever party. For his respectability of birth and family, he
certainly ought to obtain some vouchers. And if that
be the only objection, I trust we may soon congratulate
Miss Hazeldean on a marriage with a man who, though
certainly very poor, has borne privations without a murmur; has preferred all hardship to debt; has scorned to
attempt betraying the young lady into any clandestine
connection; who, in short, has shown himself so upright
and honest, that I hope my dear Mr. Hazeldean will forgive him if he is only a doctor-probably of Lawsand not, as most foreigners pretend to be, a marquis or
a baron at least."
"As to that," cried the Squire, "'tis the best thing I
know about Rickeybockey, that he don't attempt to humbug us by any such foreign trumpery. Thank heaven,
the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never tuft-hunters and
title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English lord,
I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brothor-inlaw whom I was forced to call markee or count I I should
feel sure he was a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham.
Turn up your nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry; - pshaw,
good English style that I Doctbr I my aunt married a
Doctor of Divinity- excellent man- wore a wig, and
was made a dean!  So long as Rickeybockey is not a
i    ~




318              MY NOVEL; OR,
doctJr of physic, I don't care a button. If he's that,
indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those
foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes,
and go about on a stage with a Merry-Andrew."
"Lord, Hazeldean! where on earth did you pick up
that idea?" said Harry, laughing.
"Pick it up I — why I saw  a fellow myself at the
cattle-fair last year — when I was buying short-horns -
with a red waistcoat and a cocked-hat, a little like the
Parson's shovel. He called himself Doctor Phoscophornio - and sold pills! The Merry-Andrew was the funniest creature - in salmon-colored tights - turned head
over heels, and said he came from Timbuctoo. No, no;
if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor, we shall have Jemima
in a pink tinsel dress, tramping about the country in a
caravan I"
At this notion both the Squire and his wife laughed so
heartily, that the Parson felt the thing was settled, and
slipped away, with the intention of making his report to
Riccabocca.
CHAPTER XXVI.
IT was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave
and well-bred equanimity that the Italian received the
information, that he need apprehend no obstacle to his
suit from the insular prejudices or the worldly views of
the lady's family.  Not that he was mean and cowardly




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.    319
enough to recoil from the near. and unclouded prospect
of that felicity which he had left off his glasses to behold
with unblinking naked eyes:  no, there his mind was
made up; but he had met in life with much that inclines
a man towards misanthropy, and he was touched not only
by the interest in his welfare testified by an heretical priest,
but by the generosity with which he was admitted into a
well-born and wealthy family, despite his notorious poverty and his foreign descent.  lie conceded the propriety
of the only stipulation, which was conveyed to him by
the Parson with all the delicacy that became one long
professionally habituated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of mankind -viz., that, amongst Riccabocca's
friends or kindred, some person should be found whose
report would confirm the persuasion of his respectability
entertained by his neighbors; he assented, I say, to the
propriety of this condition; but it was not with alacrity
and eagerness. His brow became clouded. The Parson
hastened to assure him that the Squire was not a man
qui stupet in titulis (who was besotted with titles), that
he neither expected nor desired to find an origin and rank
for his brother-in-law above that decent mediocrity of
condition to which it was evident, from  Riccabocca's
breeding and accomplishments, he could easily establish
his claim.  "And though," said he, smiling, "the Squire
is a warm politician in his own country, and would never
see his sister again, I fear, if she married some convicted
enemy of our happy constitution, yet, for foreign politics
he does not care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your




320             MY NOVEL; on,
exile arises from some quarrel with your Government -
which, being foreign, he takes for granted must be insupportable -he would but consider you as he would a
Saxon who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or a Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our
Wars of the Roses."
The Italian smiled. " Mr. Hazeldean shall be satisfied,"
said he simply. "I see, by the Squire's newspaper, that
an English gentleman who knew me in my own country
has just arrrived in London. I will write to him for a
testimonial, at least to my probity and character.  Probably he may be known to you by. name — nay, he must
be, for he was a distinguished officer in the late war. I
allude to Lord L'Estrange."
The Parson started.
"You know Lord L'Estrange?- a profligate, bad
man, I fear."
"Profligate I - bad  " exclaimed Riccabocca.  "Well,
calumnious as the world is, I should never have thought
that such expressions would be applied to one who,
though I knew him but little - knew him chiefly by the
service he once rendered to me -first taught me to love
and revere the English name!"
" He may be changed since- "  The Parson paused.
"Since when?" asked Riccabocca, with evident curiosity.
Mr. Dale seemed embarrassed.  "Excuse me," said he,
"it is many years ago; and, in short, the opinion I then
formed of the nobleman you named was based upon
circumstances which I cannot communicate."




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.   321
The punctilious Italian- bowed in silence, but he still
looked as if he should have liked to prosecute inquiry.
After a pause, he said, "Whatever your impression
respecting Lord L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose,
which would lead you to doubt his honor, or reject his
testimonial in my favor?"
"According to fashionable morality," said Mr. Dale,
rather precisely, "I know of nothing that could induce
me to suppose that Lord L'Estrange would not, in this
instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably a
high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position
in the world." Therewith the Parson took his leave. A
few days afterwards, Dr. Riccabocca enclosed to the
Squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he had received from
Harley L'Estrange. It was evidently intended for the
Squire's eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian's
respectability; but this object was fulfilled, not in the
coarse form of a direct testimonial, but with a tact and
delicacy which seemed to show more than the fine breeding to be expected from one in Lord L'Estrange's station.
It evinced that most exquisite of all politeness which
comes from the heart: a certain tone of affectionate
respect (which even the homely sense of the Squire felt,
intuitively, proved far more in favor of Riccabocca than
the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and antecedents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in
itself to remove all scruples from  a mind much more
suspicious and exacting than that of the Squire of Hazeldean. But, lo and behold I an obstacle now occurred to




322              MY NOVEL; OR,
the Parson, of which he ought to have thought long
before - viz., the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr.
Riccabocca was professedly a Roman Catholic.  He so
little obtruded that fact -and, indeed, had assented so
readily to any animadversions upon the superstition and
priestcraft which, according to Protestants, are the
essential characteristics of Papistical communities - that
it was not till the hymeneal torch, which brings all faults
to light, was fairly illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so cast into a shade burst upon the
conscience of the Parson. The first idea that then
occurred to him was the proper and professional one -
viz., the conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to
his study, took down from his shelves long-neglected
volumes of controversial divinity, armed himself with an
arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts; then, seizing
the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE Parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche I He was so full of his subject that he could not
let it out in prudent driblets.  No, he went souse upon
the astounded Riccabocca-, Tremendo
Jupiter ipse ruens tumultu."
The sage- shrinking deeper into his arm-chair, and




VARIETIES tN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    323
drawing his dressing,-robe more closely round him --
suffered the Parson to talk for three-quarters of an hour,
till, indeed, he had thoroughly proved his case; and, like
Brutus, "paused for a reply."
Then said Riccabocca, mildly, "In much of what you
have urged so ably, and so suddenly, I am inclined to
agree. But base is the man who formally forswears the
creed he has inherited from his fathers, and professed
since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change
presents itself in the guise of a bribe; when, for such is
human nature, he can hardly distinguish or disentangle
the appeal to his reason from the lure to his interest —
here a text, and there a dowry-!- here Protestantism,
there Jemima! Own, my friend, that the soberest casuist
would see double under the inebriating effects produced
by so mixing his polemical liquors. Appeal, my good
Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken to Philip sober! -from
Riccabocca intoxicated with the assurance of your excellent lady, that he is about to be'the happiest of men,'
to Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying
it off with the seasoned equability of one grown familiar
with stimulants -in a word, appeal from Riccabocca the
wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be convertible,
but conversion is a slow process; courtship should be a
quick one -ask Miss Jemima. Finalmente, marry me
first, and convert me afterwards!"
"You take this too jestingly," began the Parson: " and
I don't see why with your excellent understanding, truths
so plain and obvious should not strike you at once."




324             1MY NOVEL; OR,
"Truths," interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, "are the
slowest-growing things in the world  It took fifteen
hundred-years from the date of the Christian era to produce your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at
Satan (I have seen the mark made by the book on the
wall of his prison in Germany), besides running off with a
nun, which no Protestant clergyman would think it
proper and right to do now-a-days."  Then he added,
with seriousness, " Look you, my dear sir, - I should lose
my own esteem if I were even to listen to you now with
becoming attention, - now, I say, when you hint that the
creed I have professed may be in the way of my advantage.  If so, I must keep the creed and resign the advantage.  But if, as I trust-not only as a Christian,
but a man of honor — you will defer this discussion, I
will promise to listen to you hereafter; and though, to
say the truth, I believe that you will not convert me, I
will promise you faithfully never to interfere with my
wife's religion."
"And any children you may have?"
"Children!" said Dr. Riccabocca, recoiling - "you
are not contented with firing your pocket-pistol right in
my face; you must also pepper me all over with smallshot. Children! well, if they are girls, let them follow
the faith of their mother; and if boys, while in childhood,
let them be contented with learning to be Christians; and
when they grow into men, let them choose for themselves
which is the best form for the practice of the great principles which all sects have in common."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    325
"But," began Mr. Dale again, pulling a large book
from his pocket.
Dr. Riccabocca flung open the window, and jumped.out of it.
It was the rapidest and most dastardly flight you could
possibly conceive; but it was a great compliment to the
argumentative powers of the Parson, and he felt it as
such. Nevertheless, Mr. Dale thought it right to have a
long conversation, both with the Squire and Miss Jemima
herself, upon the subject which his intended convert had.so ignominiously escaped.
The Squire, though a great foe to Popery, politically
considered, had also quite as great a hatred to renegades
and apostates. And in his heart he would have despised
Riccabocca if he could have thrown off his religion as
easily as he had done his spectacles. Therefore he said
simply - "Well, it is certainly a great pity that Rickeybockey is not of the Church of England, though, I take
it, that would be unreasonable to expect in a man born
and bred under the nose of the Inquisition" (the Squire
firmly believed that the Inquisition was in full force in
all the Italian states, with whips, racks, and thumbscrews; and, indeed, his chief information of Italy was
gathered from a perusal he had given in early youth to
The One-Handed Monk); "but I think he speaks very
-fairly, on the whole, as to his wife and children. And
the thing's gone too far now to retract.  It's all your
fault for not thinking of it before;' and I've now iust made
I. -2.8




32 6            MY NOVEL; OR,
up myn mind as to the course to pursue respecting thed d stocks!"
As for Miss.Jemima, the Parson left her with a pious
thanksgiving that Riccabocca at least was a Christian,
and not a Pagan, Mahometan, or Jew!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THERE is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal sensation amongst the
humbler classes.
From the moment the news that Miss Jemima was to
be married had spread throughout the village, all the old.affection for the Squire and his House burst forth the
stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could think
of the stocks in such a season? The stocks was swept
out of fashion- hunted from remembrance as completely
as the question of Repeal or the thought of Rebellion
from the warm Irish heart, when the fair young face of
the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle.
Again cordial curtseys were dropped at the thresholds
by which the Squire passed to his own farm; again the
sun-burnt brows uncovered —no more with sullen ceremony -were smoothed into cheerful gladness at his.nod.
Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their
ancient rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarised




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    327
with the Phenomenon, or convinced that, in the general
sentiment of good-will, its powers of evil were annulled.
The Squire tasted once more the sweets of the only
popularity which is much worth having, and the loss of
which a wise man would reasonably deplore —viz., the
popularity which arises from a persuasion of our goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the more sensibly felt from previous interruption,
the Squire enjoyed this restored popularity with an exhilarated sense. of existence; his stout heart beat more
vigorously; his stalwart step trod more lightly; his
comely English face looked comelier and more English
than ever; -you would have been a merrier man for a
week, to have come within hearing of his jovial laugh.
He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the
special agents of Providence in this general integratio
arnoris. To have looked at him, you would suppose that
it was the Squire who was going to be married a second
time to his Harry I
One may well conceive that such would have been
an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological
scruples. To have stopped that marriage - chilled all
the sunshine it diffused over the village —seen himself
surrounded again by long sulky visages, —I verily believe,
though a better friend of Church and State never stood
on a hustings, that, rather than court such a revulsion,
the Squire would have found jesuitical excuses for the
marriage, if Riccabocca had been discovered to be the
Pope in disguise I As for the stocks, its fate was now




328:            MY NOVEL; OR,
irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded'
-first privately, according to the bridegroom's creed, by'
a Roman Catholic clergyman, who lived in a town some
miles off, and next publicly in the village church of Hazeldean.
It was the heartiest rural wedding I Village girls
strewed flowers on the way;-a booth was placed amidst
the prettiest scenery of the Park on the margin of the
lake-for there was to be a dance later in the day; — an
ox was roasted whole.  Even Mr. Stirn -no, Mr. Stirn
was not present, so much happiness would have been the
death of him! And the Papisher too, who had conjured
Lenny out of the stocks; nay, who had himself sat in
the stocks for the very purpose of bringing them into
contempt —the Papisher! he had as lief Miss Jemima
had married the devil! Indeed he was persuaded that,
in point of fact, it was all one and the same.  Therefore
Mr. Stirn had asked leave to go and attend his uncle the
pawnbroker, about to undergo a torturing operation for
the stone! Frank was there, summoned from Eton for
the occasion — having grown two inches taller since he
left —for the one inch of which nature was to be thanked,
for the other a new pair of resplendent Wellingtons.  But
the boy's joy was less apparent than that of others.  For
Jemima was a special favorite with him, as she would
have been with all boys —for she. was always kind and
gentle, and made him many pretty presents whenever she
came from the watering-places. And Frank knew that
he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a
very queer choice.




VARIETIES. IN- ENGLISH  LIFE.           329
Captain itigginbothamn had been invited; but, to the
astonishment of Jemima, -he had replied to the invitation
by a letter toTlerself, marked "private and confidential."
" She must have long known," said the latter, "of his
devoted attachment to her! motives of. delicacy, arising
from the narrowness of his income, and the magnanimity
of his sentiments, had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that he was informed (he could scarcely
believe his senses or command his passions) that her relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS marriage
with a foreigner of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and
most abject circumstances, he lost not a moment in laying
at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did this
the more confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be
aware of Miss Jemima's SECRET feelings towards him,
while he was proud and happy to say, that his dear and
distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had honored
him with a warmth of regard, which justified the most
brilliant EXPECTATIONS- likely to be soon realised- as
his eminent relative had contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service of his country, and could not last
long I "
In all the years they had known each other, Miss
Jemima, strange as it may appear, had never once suspected the Captain of any other feelings to her than
those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified
by learning her mistake, would be to say that she was
more than woman. Indeed, it must have been a source
of no ignoble triumph to think that she could prove her
28*




330            MY NOVEL; OR,
disinterested  affection to her dear Riccabocca, by a
prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched
the rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But
the Captain evidently considered himself ill used; he did
not reply to the letter, and did not come to the wedding.
To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss
Jemima, Captain HIigginbotham was much less influenced
by Cupid than by Plutus in the offer he had made. The
Captain was one of that class of gentlemen who read
their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps,
called expectations.  Ever since the Squire's grandfather
had left him - then in short clothes - a legacy of ~500,
the Captain had peopled the future with expectations I
He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares
in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little -be now up
and now down-but it was morally impossible, if he lived
on, but that he should be a millionaire one of these days.
Now, though Miss Jemima was a good fifteen years
younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good
round sum in the ghostly books of the Captain. She
was an expectation to the full amount of her ~4,000,
seeing that Frank was an only child, and it would be
carrying coals to Newcastle to leave him anything.
Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly
spunged out of his visionary ledger-rather than so much
money should vanish clean out of the family, Captain
Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his
property. If the golden horn could not be had witllout




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.             331
the heifer, why, he must take the heifer into the bargain.
He had never formed to himself an idea that a heifer so
gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow was
stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of
the covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of
compassion. And leaving poor Captain Higginbotham
to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may among
"the expectations" which gathered round the form of
Mr. Sharpe Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant
imaginable, and never allowed at his table any dishes not
compounded with rice, which played Old Nick with the
Captain's constitutional functions,-I return to the wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom -
who looked singularly.well on the occasion -hand the
bride (who, between sunshiny tears and affectionate
smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty
bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the Squire had
presented to them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial
excursion amidst the blessings of the assembled crowd.
It may be thought strange by the unreflective that
these rural spectators should so have approved and blessed
the marriage of a Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor,
outlandish, long-haired foreigner; but, besides that tRiccabocca, after all, had become one of the neighborhood,
and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman,"ait is
generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride
so monopolises interest, curiosity, and admiration, that
the bridegroom himself goes for little or nothing. lie is
merely the passive agent in the affair -the unregarded




332              MY NOVEL; OR,
cause of-the general satisfaction.  It was not Riccabocca
himself that they approved and blessed —it was the gentleman in the white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima
- Madam Rickeybockey I
Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the
Squire to lean on his wife's arm rather than she on his,
when he was specially pleased; and there was something
touching in the sight of that strong, sturdy frame thus
insensibly, in hours iof happiness, seeking dependence on
the frail arm of woman) — leaning, I say, on his wife's
arm, the Squire, about the hour of sunset, walked down
to the booth by the lake.
All the parish - young and old, woman, and child —
were assembled there, and their faces seemed to bear one
family likeness, in the common emotion which animated
all, as they turned to his frank, fatherly smile.  Squire
HIazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled
a horn with ale from the brimming tankard beside him.
Then he looked round, and lifted his hand to request
silence; and, ascending the chair, rose in full view of all.
Every one felt that the Squire was about to make a
speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not
unpractised in the oratory of the hustings) only thrice
before had the Squire made what could fairly be called
"a speech" to the villagers of ilazeldean - once on a
kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them
his bride - once in a contested election for the shire, in
which he took more than ordinary interest, and was not




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    333
quite so sober as he ought to have been - once in a time
of great agricultural distress, when, in spite of reduction
of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a
large number of their customary laborers; and when the
Squire had said- " I have given up keeping the hounds,
because I want to make a fine piece-of water "-that
was the origin of the lake, -" and to drain all the low
lands round the Park.  Let every man who wants work
come to me! " and that sad year the parish rates of
Ilazeldean were not a penny the heavier.
Now, for the fourth time, the Squire rose, and thus he
spoke. At his right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank. At
the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale,
his little wife behind him, only obscurely seen. She cried
readily, and her handkerchief was already before her eyes.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SQUIRE'S SPEECH.
"FRIENDS and neighbors, - I thank you kindly for
coming round me this day, and for showing so much
interest in me and mine. My cousin was not born amongst
you as I was, but you have known her from a child. It
is a familiar face, and one that never frowned, which you
will miss at your cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it
long in the old Hall-  "




334              MY~  NOVEL; OR,
Here there was a sob from some of the women, and
nothing was seen of Mrs. Dale but the white handkerchief.
The squire himself paused, and brushed away a tear with
the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a sudden
change of voice that was electrical," For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost
it! Now, friends and-neighbors; a little time ago, it
seemed as if some ill-will had crept in the village- illwill between you and me, neighbors! —why, that is
not like ilazeldean I"
The audience hung their heads I You never saw people
look so thoroughly ashamed of themselves. The Squire
proceeded, -
"I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was
mine. "
"I Noa - noa- noa," burst forth in a general chorus.
"Nay, friends, continued the Squire, humbly, and in
one of those illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle
than Riccabocca's, were more within reach of the popular
comprehension- "nay, we are all human, and every man
has his hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and
sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth,
breaks in him.  One man's hobby has an ill habit of
always stopping at the public-house! (Laughter.) Another
man's hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door where
some buxom lass patted its neck the week before-a
hobby I rode pretty often when I went courting my good
wife here I (Much laughter and applause.)  Others have
a lazy hobby, that there's no getting on; others, a run



VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    335:
away hobby that there's no stopping: but, to cut the
matter short, my favorite hobby as you well know, is
always trotted out to any place on my property which
seems to want the eye and hand of the master. I hate,"
cried the Squire, warming, "to see things neglected and
decayed, and going to the dogs! This land we live in is
a good mother to us, and we can't do too much for her.
It is very true, neighbors, that I owe her a good many
acres, and ought to speak well of her; but what then? I
live amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one
hand, I divide amongst you with the other.  (Low but
assenting murmurs.) Now, the more I improve my
property, the more mouths it feeds. MIy great-grandfather
kept a -Field-Book, in which were entered, not only the
names of all the farmers, and the quantity of land they
held, but the average number of the laborers each employed. My grandfather and father followed his example ~
I have done the same. I find, neighbors, that our rents
have doubled since my great-grandfather began to make
the book. Ay, but there are more than four times the
number of laborers employed on the,  estate, and at much
better wages, too! Well, my men, that says a great deal
in favor of improving property, and not letting it go to
the dogs. (Applause.) And therefore, neighbors, you
will kindly excuse my hobby: it carries grist to your mill.
(Reiterated applause.)  Well, but you will say,'What's
the Squire driving at?' Why this, my friends: There
was only one worn-out, dilapidated, tumble-down thing
in the parish of ailzeldean, and it became an eyesore to




336             MY NOVEL; OR,
me; so I saddled my hobby, and rode at it. O ho! you
know what I mean now! Yes, but neighbors, you need
not have taken it so to heart. That was a scurvy trick
of some of you to hang me in effigy, as they call it."
"It war'nt you," cried a voice in the crowd; " it war
Nick Stirn."
The Squire recognised the voice of the Tinker; but
though he now guessed at the ringleader, on that day of
general amnesty he had the prudence and magnanimity
not to say, "Stand forth, Sprott: thou art the man."
Yet his gallant English spirit would not suffer him to
come off at the expense of his servant.
"If it was Nick Stirn you meant," said he, gravely,
"more shame for you. It showed some pluck to hang
the master; but to hang the poor servant, who only
thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought
upon him, was a shabby trick, — so little like the lads of
Hazeldean, that I suspect the man who taught it to them
was never born in the parish. But let bygones be bygones.  One thing is clear, you don't take kindly to my
new pair of stocks I The stocks has been a stumblingblock and a grievance, and there's no denying that we
went on very pleasantly without it. I may also say that,
in spite of it, we have been coming together again lately.
And I can't tell you what good it did me to see your
children playing again on the green, and your honest
faces, in spite of the stocks, and those diabolical tracts
you've been reading lately, lighted up at the thought that
something pleasant was going on at the Hall. Do you,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    33T
know, neighbors, you put me in mind of an old story
which, besides applying to the parish, all who are married,
and all who intend to marry, will do well to recollect. A
worthy couple, named John and Joan, had lived happily
together many a long year, till one unlucky day they
bought a new bolster. Joan said the bolster was too
hard, and John that it was too soft; so, of course, they
quarrelled. After sulking all day, they agreed to put the
bolster between them at night." (Roars of laughter
amongst the men; the women did not know which way
to look, except, indeed. Mrs. Hazeldean, who, though
she was more than usually rosy, maintained her innocent,
genial smile, as much as to say, " There is no harm in the
Squire's jests.")  The orator resumed:-"After they
had thus lain apart for a little time, very silent and sullen,
John sneezed.'God bless you!' says Joan, over the
bolster.'Did you say God bless me?' cries John;-'then here goes the bolster!'" (Prolonged laughter and
tumultuous applause.)
"Friends and neighbors," said the Squire, when silence
was restored, and lifting the horn of ale, "I have the
pleasure to inform you that I have ordered the stocks to
be taken down, and made into a bench for the chimneynook of our old friend Gaffer Solomons yonder. But
mind me, lads, if ever you make the parish regret the loss
of the stocks, and the overseers come to me with long
faces, and say,' the stocks must be rebuilded,' why  -"
Here from all the youth of the village rose so deprecating
a clamor, that the Squire would have been the most bungI.- 29                w




338                MY NOVEL.
ling orator in the world, if he had said a word further on
the subject. He elevated the horn over his head, —
"Why, that's my old Hazeldean again! Health and long
life to you all I"
The Tinker had sneaked out of the assembly, and did
not show his face in the village for the next six months.
And as to those poisonous tracts, in spite of their salubrious labels, " The Poor Man's Friend," or " The Rights
of Labor," you could no more have found one of them
lurking in the drawers of the kitchen-dressers in Hazeldean, than you would have found the deadly nightshade
on the flower-stands in the drawing-room of the Hall.
As for the revolutionary beer-house, there was no need to
apply to the magistrates to shut it up -it shut itself up
before the week was out.
O young head of' the great House of Hapsburg, what
a Hazeldean you might have made of Hungary! -What
a "Moriamur pro rege nostro " would have rung in your
infant reign, —if you had made such a speech as the
Squire's I




BOOK FOURTH.
INITIAL CHIAPTER.
COMPRISING MR. CAXTON'S OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIALI STATE, SUPPORTED BY LEARNED AUTHORITIES.
"IT was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus," said my
father, graciously, " to depict the heightened affections and
the serious intention of Signor Riccabocca by a single
stroke — e left off his spectacles!  Good."
"Yet," quoth my uncle, " I think Shakspeare represents
a lover as falling into slovenly habits, neglecting his
person, and suffering his hose to be ungartered, rather
than paying that attention to his outer man which induces
Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as
handsome as nature will permit him."
"There are different degrees and many phases of this
passion," replied my father. "Shakspeare is speaking of
an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone lover, much aggrieved
by the cruelty of his mistress - a lover who has found it
of no avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen derpondently into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor
(339)




340              MY NOVEL; OR,
Riccabocca has nothing to complain of in the barbarity
of' Miss Jemima."
"Indeed he has not!" cried Blanche, tossing her head
- "forward creature I"
"Yes, my dear," said my mother, trying her best to
look stately, "I am decidedly of opinion that, in that
respect, Pisistratus has lowered the dignity of the sex.
Not intentionally," added my mother, mildly, and afraid
she had said something too bitter; "but it is very hard
for a man to describe us women."
The Captain nodded approvingly; Mr. Squills smiled;
my father quietly resumed the thread of his discourse.
"To continue," quoth he. " Riccabocca has no reason
to despair of success in his suit, nor any object in moving
his mistress to compassion.  He may, therefore, very
properly tie up his garters and leave off his spectacles.
What do you say, Mr. Squills? - for, after all, since lovemaking cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the experience of a medical man must be the best
to consult."
" Mr. Caxton," replied Squills, obviously flattered, "you
are quite right: when a man makes love, the organs of
self-esteem and desire of applause are greatly stimulated,
and therefore, of course, he sets himself off to the best
advantage.  It is only, as you observe, when, like Shakspeare's lover, he has given up making love as a bad job,
and has received that severe hit on the ganglions which
the cruelty of a mistress inflicts, that he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects it, not because he is in love,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    341
but because his nervous system is depressed.  That was
the cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim.  tle
wore. his wig all awry when Susan Smart jilted him; but
I set it right for him."
"By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting
him a new sweetheart?" asked my uncle.
" Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold
bathing. 
"We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that,
as a general rule, the process of courtship tends to the
spruceness,: and even foppery, of the individual engaged
in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily proved
somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion,
that the lady at least ought to continue those cares of
her person even after marriage.  There is extant, in
Sahagun's History of New Spain, the advice of an Aztec
or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says -'That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn
yourself, wash yourself, and let your garments be clean.'
It-is true that the good lady adds -' Do it in moderation; since, if every day you are washing yourself and
your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate;
and particular people will call yOU — TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!  What those words precisely mean," added my
father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I never had the
opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language —but
something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt."
"I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca,'
said my uncle, "was not himself very Tapetzon tine —
29*




.342            MY NOVEL; OR,
what d'ye call it?- and a good. healthy English wife, that
poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him."
" Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners:
a respectable prejudice, and quite natural in a man who
has been trying his best to hew them in pieces and blow
them up into splinters. But you don't like philosophers
either —and for that dislike you have no equally good
reason."
"I only implied that they are not much addicted to
soap and water," said my uncle.
"A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have
been very great beaux. Aristotle was a notorious fop.
Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when he sat down to
write, which implies that he washed his hands first.
Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent
ablutions; and Horace —who, in his own way, was as
good a philosopher as any the Romans produced -takes
care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper little
gentleman he was. But I don't think you ever read the'Apology of Apuleius?"
"Not I —what is it about?" asked the Captain.
"About a great many things. It is that Sage's vindication from sev eral malignant charges -amongst others,
and principally, indeed, that of being much too refined
and effeminate for a philosopher.  Nothing can exceed
the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for using
- tooth-powder.'Ought a philosopher,' he exclaims,'to allow anything unclean about him, especially in the
mouth-the mouth, which is the vestibule of the soul,




VARIETIES IN.ENGLISH  LIFE.            343
the gate of discourse, the portico of thought I Ah, but
Emilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens his
mouth but for slander and calumny-tooth-powder would
indeed be unbecoming to him!  Or, if he use any, it will
not be my good Arabian tooth-powder, but charcoal and
cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul as his language!
And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned;
insects get into them, and horrible reptile though he be,
he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical
bird, who volunteers his beak for a tooth-pick.' "
My father was now warm in the subject he had started,
and soared miles away from Ricbabocca and "My Novel."
"And observe," he exclaimed-" observe with what gravity
this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the charge of
having a mirror.'Why, what,' he exclaims,'more worthy
of the regards of a human creature than his own image,'
(nihil respectabilius homini quam formam suanm!)  Is
not that one of our children the most dear to us who is
called'the picture of his father?' But take what pains
you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as the
face. in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with
proper attention on one's-self in the glass.! Did not
Socrates recommend such attention to his disciplesdid he not make a great moral agent of the speculum?
The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were
admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and
the more the ugly stared at themselves, the more they
became naturally anxious to hide the disgrace of their
features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not De



844             MYR  NOPEL; OR,
mosthenes always at his speculum?  Did he not rehearse
his causes before it as before a master in the art? He
learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from
Eubulides; but as for his delivery -there, he came to
the mirror I
"Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the subject -"therefore, it is no reason to
suppose that Dr. Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and
decent care of the person because he is a philosopher;
and, all things considered, he never showed himself more
a philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and
looked his best."
"Well," said my mother kindly, " I only hope it may
turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased
if Pisistratus had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant
a wooer."
"Very true," said the Captain; "the Italian does not
shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him,
Pisistratus - something gallant and chivalrous."
"Fire — gallantry -chivalry I " cried my father, who
had taken Riccabocca under his special protection"why, don't you see that the man is described as a philosopher? - and I should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable
misgiving and cold shivers. Indeed, it seems that —
perhaps before he was a philosopher - Riccabocca had
tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even
that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus
Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a




VARIETIES IN, ENGLISH  LIFE            345
Roman Censor, thus expressed himself in an exhortation
to the people to perpetrate matrimony —' If, O Quirites,
we could do without wives, we should all dispense with
that subject of care (ea molestid careremus;) but since
nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women
comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide
for the human race than our own temporary felicity.'"
Here the ladies set up a cry of such indignation, that
both Roland and myself endeavored to appease their
wrath by hasty assurances that we utterly repudiated the
damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus.
My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence
was established, recommenced - " Do not think, ladies,"
said he, "that you were without advocates at that day:
there were many Romans gallant enough to blame the
Censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held
to be equally impolite and injudicious.'Surely,' said
they, with some plausibility,' if Numidicus wished men to
marry, he need not have referred so peremptorily to the
disquietudes of the connection, and thus have made them
more inclined to turn away from matrimony than given
them a relish for it.' But against these critics one honest
man (whose name of Titus Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained that Metellus Numidicus
could not have spoken more properly:'For remark,'
said he,'that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician.
It becomes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise, and make
the best of things; but Metellus, sanctus vir —a holy
and blameless man, grave and sincere to wit, and address



346              MY NOVEL; OR,
ing the Roman people in the solemn capacity of Censor
-was bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he
was treating of a subject on which the observation of
every day, and the experience of every life, could not
leave the least doubt upon the mind of his audience.'
Still, Riccabocca, having decided to marry, has no doubt
prepared himself to bear all the concomitant evils - as
becomes a professed sage; and I own I admire the art
with which Pisistratus has drawn the kind of woman most
likely to suit a philosopher -— "
Pisistratus bows and looks round complacently; but
recoils from two very peevish and discontented faces
feminine.
MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence.)- Not only as
regards mildness of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the very person of the object of his
choice. For you evidently remember, Pisistratus, the
reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage:
YIHrob xalYV 6E  Xip   X[1 Et aaL"   a6Ev  X  OLV'P Et fl
a,'opa xv 6t ~';tot.v'v.
Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias
by heart, and nods acquiescingly.
MR. CAXTON. -That is, my dears, "the woman you
would marry is either handsome or ugly; if handsome,
she is koine, viz.': you don't have her to yourself; if ugly,
she is poine - that is, a fury."  But, as it is observed in
Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a
wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus
Ennius, in his tragedy of Menalippus, uses an admirable




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    34'T
expression to designate women of the proper degree of
matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would
select.  He calls this degree stata forma —a rational,
mediocre sort of beauty, which is not liable to be either
koine or poine. And Favorinus, who was a remarkably
sensible man, and came from Provence -the male inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves
on their knowledge of love and ladies - calls this said
stata forma the beauty of wives -the uxorial beauty.
Ennius says, that women of a stata forma are almost
always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is
described as possessing this stata forma;. and it is the
nicety of your observation in this respect, which I like
the most in the whole of your description of a philosopher's
muatritonial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the
stroke of the spectacles,) for it shows that you had
properly considered the opinion of Bias, and mastered all
the counter-logic suggested in Book V., chapter xi., of
Aulus Gellius.
" For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely,
with a smile in the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't
remember that Pisistratus, in the days when he wished to
be most complimentary, ever assured me that I had a
stata forma - a rational, mediocre sort of beauty. "
"And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he
comes to his real heroine, whoever she may be, he will
not' trouble his head much about either Bias or Aulus
Gellius."




348             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER If.
MA.TRIMONY is certainly a great change in life. One
is astonished not to find a notable alteration in one's
friend, even if he or she have been only wedded a week.
In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the change
was peculiarly visible.  To speak first of the lady, as in
chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced
that melancholy which had characterised Miss Jemima:
she became even sprightly and gay, and looked all the
better and prettier for the alteration.  She did not
scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale, that she was
now of opinion that the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the meanwhile, she did not neglect
the duty which the belief she had abandoned serves to
inculcate-" She set her house in order. "  The cold and
penurious elegance that had characterised the Casino
disappeared like enchantment —that is, the elegance
remained, but the cold and penury fled before the smile
of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the nuptials of his.
master, Jackeymo only now caught minnows and sticklebacks for his own amusement.  Jackeymo looked much
plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair
Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly
thought her extravagant, but like a wise man, declined to




VARIETIES IN  E-NGLISH  LIFE.            349:
look at the house-bills, and ate his joint in unreproachful
silence.
Indeed, there was so much unaffected kindness in the
nature of Mrs. Riccabocca -beneath the quiet of her
manner, there beat so genially the heart of the Hazeldeans —that she fairly justified the favorable anticipations of Mrs. Dale:.  And though the'Doctor did not
noisily boast of his felicity, nor, as some new-married
folks do, thrust -it insultingly under the nirnis unctis
naribus - the turned-up noses of your surly old married
folks - nor force it gaudily and glaringly on the envious
eyes of the single, you might still see that he was a more
cheerful and light-hearted man than before.  His smile
was less ironical, his politeness less distinct. He did not
study Machiavelli so intensely - and he did not return to
the spectacles; which last was an excellent sign.  Moreover, the humanising influence of the tidy English wife
might be seen in tlie improvement of his outward or
artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit him better;
indeed the clothes were new.  Mrs. Dale no longer remarked that the buttons were. off the wristbands, which
was a great satisfaction to her.  But the sage still remained faithful to the pipe, the cloak, and the red silk
umbrella.  Mrs. Riccabocca had (to her credit be it
spoken) used all becoming and wife-like arts against these
three remnants of the old bachelor Adam, but in vain.
" Anima mia" (soul of mine), said the Doctor, tenderly;
"I hold the cloak, the umbrella, and the pipe, as the sole
I -30




350              MY. NOVEL; OR,
relics that remain to me of my native country.  Respect
and spare them."
Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense
to perceive that man, let him be ever so much married,
retains certain signs of his ancient independence - certain
tokens of his old identity, which a wife, the most despotic,
will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak, she
submitted to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence
of the pipe. After all, considering the natural villany of
our sex, she confessed to herself that she might have been
worse off. But, through all the calm and cheerfulness of
Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently perceptible;- -it commenced after the second week of marriage -it went on increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his terrace, gazing down
upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed —lo, a
stage-coach stoppedl  The Dotor made a bound, and
-put both hands to his heart as' if he had been shot; he
then leaped over the balustrade, and his wife from her
window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long
hair streaming in the wind, till the trees hid him from
her sigbt.
"Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal
jealousy, " henceforth I am only second in his home. He
has gone to welcome-his child! " And at that reflection
Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears.
But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to
curb her emotion, and efface as well as she could the
trace of a step-mother's grief.  When this was done, and




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH   LIFE.    351
a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good
woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning
up her best smiles, emerged on the terrace.
She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the
open air, when two little arms were thrown around her,
and the sweetest voice that ever came from a child's lips,
sighed out in broken English, " Good mamma, love me a
little. "
"Love you? with my whole heart I" cried the stepmother, with all a mother's honest passion. And she
clasped the child to her breast.
"God bless you, my wife I" said Riccabocca, in a
husky tone.
"Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as
well as his sobs would let him - and he broke off a great
bough full of blossoms from his favorite orange-tree, and
thrust it -into his mistress's hand.  She had not the
slightest notion what he meant by it!
CH APTE R  I II.
VIOLANTE was indeed a bewitching child- a child to
whom I defy Mrs. Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!)
to have been a harsh step-mother.
Look at her now, as, released from those kindly arms,
she stands, still clinging with one hand to her new
mamma, and holding out the other to Riccabocca,-with




352             MY NOVEL; OR,
those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a
lovely smile! - what an ingenuous, candid brow! She
looks delicate - she evidently requires care - she wants
the mother. And rare is the woman who would not love
her the better for that I Still, what an innocent, infantine
bloom in those clear, smooth cheeks! - and in that slight
frame, what exquisite natural grace!
"And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling? " said
Mrs. Riccabocca, observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely, without cap or bonnet, but
a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a filagree chain
or necklace resting upon her kerchief.
"Ah, good Anetta," said Violante ill Italian. "Papa,
she says she is to go back; but she is not to go back -
is she?"
Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman,
started at that question -exchanged a rapid glance with
Jackeymo - and then, muttering some inaudible excuse,
approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to follow him,
went away into the grounds. He did not return for more
than an hour, nor did the woman then accompany him
home.  He said briefly to his wife that the nurse was
obliged to return at'once to Italy, and that she would
stay in the village to catch the mail; that indeed she
would be of no use in their establishment, as she could
not speak a word of English; but that he was sadly
afraid Violante would pine for her. And Tiolante did
pine at first. But still, to a child it is so great a thing
to find a parent- to be at home — that, tender and




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    353
grateful as Violante was, she could not be inconsolable
while her father was there to comfort.
For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted
any one to be with his daughter but himself.  He would
not even leave her alone with his Jemima. They walked
out together -sat together for hours in the Belvidere.
Then by degrees he began to resign her more and more
to Jemima's care and tuition, especially in English, of
which language at present she spoke only a few sentences
(previously, perhaps, learned by heart), so as to be clearly
intelligible.
CHAPTER IV.
THERE was one person in the establishment of Dr.
Riccabocca, who was satisfied neither with the marriage
of his master nor the arrival of Violante - and that was
our friend Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the all-absorbing duties of courtship, the young peasant had secured a
very large share of Riccabocca's attention. The sage
had felt an interest in the growth of this rude intelligence
struggling up to light. But what with the wooing, and
what with the wedding, Lenny Fairfield had sunk very
much out of his artificial position as pupil, into his natural
station of under-gardener. And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural bitterness, that he was clean
forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, but almost by Jackeymo.
30*               x




354             MY NOVEL; OR,
It was true that the master still lent him books, and the
servant- still gave him lectures on horticulture. But
Riccabocca had no time nor inclination now to amuse
himself with enlightening that tumult of conjecture which
the books created.  And if Jackeymo had been covetous
of those mines of gold buried beneath the acres now
fairly taken from the Squire (and good-naturedly added
rent-free, as an aid to Jemima's dower), before the advent of the young lady whose future dowry the produce
was to swell - now that she was actually under the eyes
of the faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his
industry that he could think of nothing else but the land,
and the revolution he designed to effect in its natural
English crops.  The garden, save only the orange-trees,
was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional laborers
were called in for the field-work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part of the soil was suited to lavender,
that another would grow camomile. He had in his heart
apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but
against the growth of flax the Squire set his face obstinately. That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops, when
soil and skill suit, was formerly attempted in England
much more commonly than it is now, since you will find
few old leases which do not contain a clause prohibitory
of flax, as an impoverishment of the land. And though
Jackeymo learnedly endeavored to prove to the Squire
that the flax itself contained particles which, if returned
to the soil, repaid all that the crop took away, Mr. Hazel.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISIH  LIFE.    -355
dean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter,
which were insuperable.  "My forefathers," quoth he,
"did not put that clause in their leases without good
cause; and as the Casino lands are entailed on Frank, I
have no right to gratify your foreign whims at his expense."
To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved
to convert a very nice bit of pasture into orchard ground,
which he calculated would bring in ~10 net per acre by
the time Miss Violante was marriageable.  At this the
Squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear that the
land would be all the more valuable hereafter for the
fruit-trees, he consented to permit the "grass-land " to
be thus partially broken up.
All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much
to himself- at a time when the new and strange devices
which the initiation into book knowledge creates made
it most desirable that he should have the constant
guidance of a superior mind.
One evening after his work, as' Lenny was returning
to his mother's cottage, very sullen and very moody, he
suddenly came in contact with Sprott the Tinker.




356             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER V.
THE Tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away
at an old kettle —with a little fire burning in front of him
-and the donkey hard by, indulging in a placid doze.
Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed -nodded kindly,
and said" Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so'spectably sitivated with Mounseer."
"Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancor in his
recollections, "you're not ashamed to speak to me now
that I am not in disgrace. But it was in disgrace, when
it wasn't my fault, that the real gentleman was most kind
to me."
"Ar-  r, Lenny," said the Tinker, with a prolonged
rattle in that said Ar-  r, which was not without great
significance.  "But you sees the real gentleman, who
han't got his bread to get, can hafford to'spise his cracter
in the world. A poor Tinker must be timbersome and
nice in his'sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny;
I've summut to say to ye I"
"To me — "
"To ye.  Give the neddy a shove out i' the vay, and
sit down, I say."
Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously,
accepted this invitation.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISHI LIFE.            357
"I hears," said the tinker in a voice made rather ndistinct by a couple of nails which he had inserted- between
his teeth -"I hears as how you be unkimmon fond of
reading. I ha' sum nice cheap books in my bag yonder -
sum as low as a penny."
"I should like to see them," said Lenny, his eyes
sparkling.
The Tinker rose, opened one of the panniers on the
ass's back, took out a bag, which he placed before Lenny,
and told him to suit himself. The young peasant desired
no better. HIe spread all the contents of the bag on the
sward, and a motley collection of food for the mind was
there - food and poison - serpentes avibus - good and
evil. Here Milton's Paradise Lost, there'The Age of
Reason-here Methodist Tracts, there True Principles
of Socialism -Treatises on Useful Knowledge by sound
learning actuated by pure benevolence -Appeals to Operatives by the shallowest reasoners, instigated by the same
ambition that had moved Eratosthenes to the conflagration of a temple; works of fiction admirable as Robinson
Crusoe, or innocent as the Old English Baron; besides
coarse translations of such garbage as had rotted away
the youth of France under Louis Quinze. This miscellany
was an epitome, in short, of the mixed World of Books,
of that vast City of the Press, with its palaces and hovels,
its aqueducts and sewers- which opens all alike to the
naked eye and the curious mind of him to whom you say,
in-the Tinker's careless phrase, "Suit yourself."
But it is not the first impulse of a nature, healthful and




358             MY NOVEL;. OR,
still pure, to settle in the hovel and lose itself amidst the
sewers; and Lenny Fairfield turned innocently over the
bad books, and selecting two or three of the best, brought
them to the Tinker, and asked the price.
"Why," said Mr. Sprott, putting on his spectacles,
"you has taken the werry dearest: them'ere be much
cheaper, and more hinterestin'."
"But I don't fancy them," answered Lenny; "I don't
understand what they are about, and this seems to tell one
how the steam-engine is made, and has nice plates; and
this is Robinson Crusoe, which Parson Dale once said he
would give me - I'd rather buy it out of my own money."
"Well, please yourself," quoth the Tinker; "you shall
have the books for four bob, and yon can pay me next
month. "
" Four bobs -four shillings? it is a great sum," said
Lenny; "but I will lay by, as you are kind enough to
trust me: good evening, Mr. Sprott."
" Stay a bit," said the Tinker; "I'll just throw you
these two little tracts into the bargain; they be only a
shilling a dozen, so'tis but tuppence - and when you has
read those, vy, you'll be a reglar customer."
The Tinker tossed to Lenny Nos. 1 and 2 of Appeals
to Operatives, and the peasant took them up gratefully.
The young knowledge-seeker went his way across the
green fields, and under the still autumn foliage of the
hedge-rows. He looked first at one book, then at another;
he did not know on which to settle.
The Tinker rose and made a fire with leaves, and furze,
and sticks, some dry and some green.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            359
Lenny has now opened No. 1 of the tracts: they are
the shortest. to read, and don't require so much effort of
the mind as the explanation of the steam-engine.
The Tinker has set on his grimy glue-pot, and the glue
simmers.
CHAP.TER VI.
As Violante became more familiar with her new home,
and those around her became more familiar with Violante,
she was remarked for a certain stateliness of manner and
bearing, which, had it been less evidently natural and
inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of
a forlorn exile, and would have:been rare at so early an
age among children of the loftiest pretensions. It was
with the air of a little princess that she presented her
tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or submitted her calm
clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was so
graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating, that she was not the less loved for all her grand
airs. And, indeed, she deserved to be loved; for though
she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale could approve
of, her pride was devoid of egotism; and that is a pride
by no means common. Shei ad an intuitive forethought
for others: you could see that she was capable of that
grand woman-heroism, abnegation of self; and though
she was an original child, and often grave and musing,




360             MY NOVEL; OR,
with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her
character, still she was not above the happy, genial
merriment of childhood  only her silver laugh was more
attuned, and her gestures more composed, than those of
children habituated to many playfellows usually are. Mrs.
HIazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said
" she would become a very sensible woman."  Mrs. Dale
liked her best when she was gay, and said "she was born
to make many a heart ache;" for which Mrs. Dale was
properly reproved by the Parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave
her a little set of garden tools; Mrs. Dale a picture-book
and a beautiful doll. For a long time the book and the
doll had the preference. But Mrs. Hazeldean having
observed to Riccabocca that the poor child looked pale,
and ought to be a good deal in the open air, the wise
father ingeniously pretended to Violante that Ars. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the picture-book, and
that he should be very glad to have the doll, upon which
Violante hastened to give them both away, and was never
so happy as when mamma (as she called Mrs. Riccabocca)
was admiring the picture-book, and Riccabocca with
austere gravity dandled the doll. Then Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in the
garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her
spade, hoe, and wheel-barrow.
This last occupation broaght her into immediate contact with Mr. Leonard Fairfield; and that personage one
morning, to his great horror, found Miss Violante had
nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had
ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.              361
Lenny was extremely angry.  He snatched away the
hoe, and said angrily, "You must not do that, Miss; I'll
tell your papa if you-"
Violante drew herself up, and never having been so
spoken to before, at least since her arrival in England,
there was something comic in the surprise of her large
eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity of her
offenkded mien.  "It is very naughty of you, Miss," continued Leonard in a milder tone, for he aWas both softened
by the eyes and awed by the mien, " and I trust you will
not do it again."
"Non capisco," (I don't understand), murmured Violante, and the dark eyes filled with tears.  At that
moment, up came Jackeymno: and Violante, pointing to
Leonard, said, with an effort not to betray her emotion,
"ll fanciullo b ilolto grossolano,'? (he is a very rude
boy).
Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger.  "How you dare, scum of de earth that
you are," cried he,* " how you dare mako cry the signorina? "  And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives sufficiently, he poured out'upon Lenny such a
profusion of Italian abuse, that the boy turned red and
white, in a breath, with rage and perplexity.
Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she
* It need scarcely be observed, that Jackeymo, in his conversations withl'his master or Violante, or his conferences with himself,
employs his native language, which is therefore translated without
the blunders that he is driven to commit when compelled to trust
himself to the tongue of the country in which he is a sojourner.
1. -31




362             MY NOVEL; OR,
had made, and, with true feminine caprice, now began to
scold Jackeymo for his anger, and, finally approaching
Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a kindness at once child-like and queenly, and in the prettiest
imaginable mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian,
to which I cannot pretend to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't mind him. I dare say it was all
my fault, only I did not understand you; are not these
things weeds?"
"No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian,
looking ruefully at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds,
and they sell very well at this time of the year. But still
if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should like to see
who's to prevent it."
Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum
of the earth," by a foreigner too! He had again been
ill-treated for doing what he conceived his duty.  He
was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor,
and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly
warfare, for he had read from beginning to end those two
damnable tracts which the Tinker had presented to him.
But in the midst of all the angry disturbance of his mind,
he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand, the soothing
influence of her conciliating words, and he was half
ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child.
Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away,
and sat down at a distance.  "I don't see," thought he,
" why there should be rich and poor, master and servant."
Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's
Political Sermon.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISII  LIFE.    363
An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny re.
turned to his work. Jackeymo was no longer in the garden: he had gone to the fields; but Riccabocca was
standing by the celery-bed, and holding the red silk umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground looking up
at her father with those eyes already so full of intelligence,
and love, and soul.
"Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been
telling me that she has been very naughty, and Giacomo
very unjust to you. Forgive them both."
Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscences of tracts Nos. 1 and 2,
"Like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Left not a wreck behind."
le raised eyes, swimming with all his native goodness,
towards the wise man, and dropped them gratefully on
the infant peace-maker. Then he turned away his head
and fairly wept. The Parson was right: " O ye poor,
have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the poor."
CHAPTER VII.
Now from that day the humble Lenny and regal Violante became great friends. With what pride he taught
her to distinguish between celery and weeds -and how
proud too was she when she learned that she was useful 
There is not a greater pleasure you can give children,




364             -MY NOVE-L-; OR,
especially female children, than to make them feel they
are already of value in the world, and serviceable as well
as protected. Weeks and-months rolled away, and Lenny
still read, not only the books lent him by the Doctor, but
those he bought of Mr. Sprott.  As for the bombs and
shells against religion which the Tinker carried in his bag,
Lenny was not induced to blow himself up with them.
He had been reared from his cradle in simple love and
reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Savior,
whose life beyond all epics of mortal heroism, no being
whose infancy has been taught to supplicate the Merciful
and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life may
be entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear reviled and scoffed without a shock to
the conscience and a revolt to the heart.  As the deer
recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look of the
scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never
saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald
profanity on which the Tinker put his black finger, made
Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too, was the peasant boy
from any temptation in works of a gross and licentious
nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his
rural life, but because of a more enduring safeguard -
genius I Genius, that, manly, robust, healthful as it be,
is long before it lose its instinctive Dorian modesty;
shamefaced, because so susceptible to glory  genius, that
loves indeed to dream, but on the violet bank, not the
dunghill.  Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it
seeks to escape from the sensual into worlds of fancy,




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    365
subtle and refined. But apart from the passions, true
genius is the most practical of all human gifts.  Like the
Apollo whom the Greek worshipped as its type, even Arcady is its exile, not its home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempe, it ascends to its mission —the Archer
of the silver bow, the guide of the car of light.  Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusiasm for self-improvement; it ceases or sleeps the moment it desist from seeking some object which it believes of value, and by that
object it insensibly connects its self-improvement with the
positive advance of the world. At present Lenny's genius
had no bias that was not to the Positive and Useful. It
took the direction natural to its sphere, and the wants
therein - viz., to the arts which we call mechanical. He
wanted to know about steam-engines and Artesian wells;
and to know about them it was necessary to know somethihig of mechanics and hydrostatics; so he bought popular elementary works on those mystic sciences, and set
all the powers of his mind at work on experiments.
Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care
for fame, and little reward from pelf, have opened to the
intellects of the poor the portals of wisdom!  I honor
and revere ye; only do not think ye have done all that
is needful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a choice
from the Tinker's bag would have been made by a boy
whom religion had not scared from the Pestilent, and
genius had  not led to the self-improving.  And Lenny
did not wholly escape from the mephitic portions of the
motley elements from which his awakening mind drew its
31 *




366              MY NOVEL; OR,
nurture.  Think not it was all pure oxygen that the
panting- lip drew in. No; there were still those inflammatory tracts.  Political I do not like to call them,
for politics means the art of government, and the tracts I
speak of assailed all government which mankind has
hitherto recognised.  Sad rubbish, perhaps, were such
tracts to you, O sound thinker, in your easy-chair! Or
to you practised statesman, at your post on the Treasury
Bench - to you, calm dignitary of a learned Church -
or to you, my lord judge, who may often have sent from
your bar to the dire.Orcus of'Norfolk's Isle the ghosts
of men whom that rubbish, falling simultaneously on the
bumps of acquisitiveness and combativeness, hath untimely slain!  Sad rubbish to youl  But seems it such
rubbish to the poor man, to whom it promises a paradise
on the easy terms of upsetting a world?  For ye see,
those "Appeals to Operatives" represent that same
world-upsetting as the simplest thing imaginable —a
sort of two-and-two-make-four proposition.  The poor
have only got to set their strong hands to the axle, and
heave-a-hoy! and hurrah for the topsy-turvy!  Then,
just to put a little wholesome rage into the heave-a-hoy!
it is so facile to accompany the eloquence of "Appeals"
with a kind of stir-the-bile-up statistics- "Abuses of the
Aristocracy "- "Jobs of the Priesthood "-" Expenses
of the Army kept up for Peers' younger sons "   " Wars
contracted for the villanous purpose of raising the rents
of the land-owners' - all arithmetically dished up, and
seasoned with tales of every gentleman who has com



VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    36?
mitted a misdeed, every clergyman who has dishonored
his cloth; as if such instances were fair specimens of
average gentlemen and ministers of religion I All this
passionately advanced (and observe, never answered, for
that literature admits no controversialists, and the writer
has it all his own way,) may be rubbish; but it is out of
such rubbish that operatives build barricades for attack,
and legislators prisons for defence.
Our poor friend Lenny drew plenty of this stuff from
the Tinker's bag. - He' thought it very clever and very
eloquent'; and he supposed the statistics were as true as
mathematical demonstrations.
A famous knowledge-diffuser is looking over my shoulder, and tells me, " Increase education, and cheapen good
books, and all this rubbish will disappear!"  Sir, I
don't believe a word of it.  If you printed Ricardo and
Adam Smith at a farthing a volume, I still believe that
they would be as little read by the operatives as -they are
now-a-days by a very large proportion of highly-cultivated
men.  I still believe that, while the press works, attacks
on the rich, and propositions for heave-a-hoys, will
always form a popular portion of the Literature of Labor.
There's Lenny Fairfield. reading a treatise on hydraulics,
and constructing a model for a fountain into the bargain;
but that does not prevent his acquiescence in any proposition for getting rid of a. National Debt, which he
certainly never agreed to pay, and which he is told makes
sugar and tea so shamefully dear. No, I tell you what
does a little counteract these eloquent incentives to break




368             MY NOVEL; 01x,
his own head against the strong walls of the Social
System - it is, that he has two eyes in that head, which
are not always employed in reading. And, having been
told in print that masters are tyrants, parsons hypocrites
or drones in the hive, and land-owners vampires and
blood-suckers, he looks out into the little world around
him, and, first, he is compelled to acknowledge that his
master is not a tyrant (perhaps because he is -a foreigner
and a philosopher, and, for what I and Lenny know, a
republican.) But then Parson Dale, though High Church
to the marrow, is neither hypocrite nor drone. He has a
very good living, it is true -much better than he ought
to have, according to the "political" opinions of those
tracts! but Lenny is obliged to confess that, if Parson
Dale were a penny the poorer, he would do a pennyworth's less good; and, comparing  one parish with
another, such as Rood Hall and Hazeldean, he is dimly
aware that there is no greater CIVILISER than a person
tolerably well off. Then, too, Squire Hazeldeau, though
as- arrant a Tory as ever stood upon shoe-leather, is
certainly not a- vampire nor blood-sucker. He does not
feed on the public; a great many of the public feed upon
him: and, therefore, his practical experience a little
staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel
accuracy of his theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons,
and land-owners! having, at the risk of all popularity,
just given a coup de patte to certain sages extremely the
fashion at present, I am not going to let you off without
an admonitory flea in the ear. Don't suppose that any




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    369
mere scribbling and typework will suffice to answer'the
scribbling and typework set at work to demolish you -
write down that rubbish you can't - live it down you
may. If you are rich, like Squire Hazeldean, do good
with your money; if you are poor, like Signor Riccabocca, do good with your kindness.
See I there is Lenny now receiving his week's wages;
and though Lenny knows that he can get higher wages
in the very next parish, his blue eyes are sparkling with
gratitude, not at the chink of the money, but at the poor
exile's friendly talk on things apart from all service; while
Violante is descending the steps from the terrace, charged
by her mother-in-law with a little basket of sago, and
such like delicacies, for Mrs.: Fairfield, who has been ailing
the last few days.
Lenny will see the Tinker as he goes home, and he will
buy a most Demosthenean "Appeal "-a tract of tracts,
upon the Propriety of Strikes, and the Avarice of Masters. But, somehow or other, I think a few words from
Signor Riccabocca, that did not cost the Signor a farthing, and the sight of his mother's smile-at the contents
of the basket, which cost very little, will serve to neutralize the effects of that "Appeal," much more efficaciously
than the best article a Brougham  or a Mill could write
on the subject.




o370            MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER VIII.
SPRING had come again; and one beautiful May-day,
Leonard Fairfield sat beside the little fountain which he
had now actually constructed in the garden. The butterflies were hovering over the belt of flowers which he had
placed around his fountain, and the birds were singing
overhead. Leonard Fairfield was resting from his day's
work, to enjoy his abstemious dinner, beside the cool play
of the sparkling waters, and, with the yet keener appetite
of knowledge, he devoured his book as he munched his
crusts.
A penny tract is the shoeing-horn of literature! it
draws on a great many books, and some too tight to be
very useful in walking. The penny tract quotes a celebrated writer -you long to read him; it props a startling assertion by a grave authority-you long to refer to
it. During the nights of the past winter, Leonard's intelligence had made vast progress! he had taught himself more than the elements of mechanics, and put to
practice the principles he had acquired, not only in the
hydraulical achievement of the fountain, and in the still
more notable application of science, commenced on the
stream in which Jackeymo had fished for minnows, and
which Lenny had diverted to the purpose of irrigating
two fields, but in various ingenious contrivances for the




VARIETIES INiENGLISH LIFE.    371
facilitation or abridgment of labor, which had excited
great wonder and praise in the neighborhood. On the
other hand, those rabid little tracts, which dealt so summarily with the destinies of the human race, even when
his growing reason, and the perusal of works more classical or more logical, had led him to perceive that they
were illiterate, and to suspect that they jumped from premises to conclusions with a celerity very different from
the careful ratiocination of mechanical science, had still,
in the citations and references wherewith they abounded,
lured him on to philosophers more specious and more
perilous. Out of the Tinker's bag he had drawn a translation of Condorcet's Progress of Man, and another of
-Rousseau's Social Contract. Works so eloquent had
ifiduced him to select from the tracts in the Tinker's miscellany those which abounded most in professions of philanthropy, and predictions of some coming Golden Age,
to which old Saturn's was a joke -tracts so mild and
mother-like in their language, that it required a much
more practical experience than Lenny's to perceive that
you would have to pass a river of blood before you had
the slightest chance of setting foot on the flowery banks
on which they invited you to repose-tracts which rouged
poor Christianity on the cheeks, clapped a crown of innocent daffodillies on her head, and set her to dancing a
pas de zephyr in the pastoral ballet in which St. Simon
pipes to the flock he shears; or having first laid it down
as a preliminary axiom that




3T2.'MY NOVEL; OR,
"The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itselfYea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,"
substituted in place thereof Monsieur Fourier's symmetrical phalanstere, or Mr. Owen's architectural parallelogram.  It was with some such tract that Lenny was
seasoning his crusts and his radishes, when Riccabocca,
bending his long dark face over the student's shoulder,
said abruptly —
"Diavolo, my friend! what on earth have you got
there I Just let me look at it, will you?"
Leonard rose respectfully, and colored deeply as he
surrendered the tract to Riccabocca.
The wise man read the first page attentively, the second
more cursorily, and only ran his eye over the rest.  Iie
had gone through too vast a range of problems political,
not to have passed over that venerable Pons Asinorum
of Socialism, on which Fouriers and St. Simons sit straddling, and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last
boundary of knowledge!
"All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca irreverently; "but the hills stand still, and this -there it
goes I " and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his
pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical
Delusions? No I Well, I'll lend it to you. You will
find therein a story of a lady who always saw a black cat
on her hearth-rug. The black cat existed only in her
fancy, but the hallucination was natural and reasonableeh- what do you think?"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.           373
"Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's
meaning, "I don't exactly see that it was natural and
reasonable."
" Foolish boy, yes I! because black cats are things possible and known. But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the hearth-rugs of Messrs.
Owen and Fourier? If the lady's hallucination was not
reasonable, what is his who believes in such visions as
these? "
Leonard bit his lip.
"My dear boy," cried Riccabocca kindly, "the only
thing sure and tangible to which these writers would lead
you, lies at the first step, and that is what is commonly
called a Revolution. Now, I know what that is. I have
gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at
one. "
Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look
of profound respect, and great curiosity.
"Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the
boy gazed exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic
expression for one animated, noble, and heroic.  "Yes,
not a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which
the coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful,
all time approves as divine - the redemption of our
native soil from the rule of the foreigner I I have shared
in such an attempt.  And," continued the Italian mournfully, "recalling now all the evil passions it arouses, all
the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it commands to
flow, all the healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen
I.- 32




374             MY NOVEL; OR,
that it arms, all the victims that it dupes, I question
whether one man really honest, pure, and humane, who
has once gone through such an ordeal, would ever hazard
it again, unless he was assured that the victory was
certain - ay, and the object for which he fights not to be
wrested from his hands amidst the uproar of the elements
that the battle had released."
The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and
remained long silent. Then gradually sesuming his ordinary tone, he continued"Revolutionis that have no definite objects made clear
by the positive experience of history; revolutions, in a
word, that aim less at substituting one law or one dynasty
for another, than at changing the whole scheme of society,
have been little attempted by real statesmen. Even Lycurgus is proved to be a, myth who never existed. Such
organic changes are but in the day-dreams of philosophers
who lived apart from the actual world, and whose opinions
(though generally they were very benevolent, good sort
of men, and wrote in an elegant-poetical style) one would
no more take on a plain matter of life, than one would
look upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the
ordinary pains and pleasures of the peasants who tend
our sheep. Read them as you would read poets, and
they are delightful. But attempt to shape the world
according to the poetry, and fit yourself for a madhouse.
The farther off the age is from the realisation of such
projects, the more these poor philosophers have indulged
them, Thus, it was amidst the saddest corruption of




VARIETIES IN ENG-LISH  LIFE.            375
court manners that it became the fashion in Paris to sit
for one's picture, with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis
or Daphne. Just as liberty was fast dying out of Greece,
and the successors of Alexander were founding their
monarchies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its
iron grasp all states save its own, Plato withdraws his
eyes from the world, to open them in his dreamy Atlantis.
Just in the grimmest period of English history, with the
axe hanging over his head, Sir Thomas More gives you
his Utopia.  Just when the world is to be the theatre of
a new Sesostris, the sages of France tell you that the
age is too enlightened for war, that man is henceforth to
be governed by pure reason, and live in a paradise.
Very pretty reading all this to a man like me, Lenny,
who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the man
who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks it
would be so much more pleasant to live at his ease in a
phalanstere than to work eight or ten hours a-day; to
the man of talent, and action, and industry, whose future
is invested in that tranquillity and order of a state in
which talent, and action, and industry are a certain
capital; -why, Messrs. Coutts, the great bankers, had
better encourage a theory to upset the system of banking! Whatever disturbs society, yea, even by a causeless
panic, much more by an actual struggle, falls first upon
the market of labor, and thence affects prejudicially every
department of intelligence.  In such times the arts are
arrested; literature is neglected; people are too busy to
read anything save appeals to their passions. And




3176            XMY NOVEL; OR,
capital, shaken in its sense of security, no longer ventures
boldly through the land, calling forth all the energies of
toil and enterprise, and extending to every workman his
reward. Now, Lenny, take this piece of advice. You
are young, clever, and aspiring: men rarely succeed in
changing the world; but a man seldom fails of success, if
he lets the world alone, and resolves to make the best of
it.  You are in the midst of the great crisis of your life;
it is the struggle between the new desires knowledge excites, and that sense of poverty, which those desires convert either into hope and emulation, or into envy and
despair. I grant that it is an up-hill work that lies before
you; but don't you think it is always easier to climb a
mountain than it is to level it?  These books call on you
to level the mountain; and that mountain is the property
of other people, subdivided amongst a great many proprietors, and protected by law.  At the first stroke of
the pickaxe, it is ten to one but what you are taken up
for a trespass.  But the path up the mountain is a right
of way uncontested. You may be safe at the summit,
before (even if the owners are fools enough to let you)
you could have levelled a yard.  Cospetto!'- quoth the
doctor, "it is more than two thousand years ago since
poor Plato began to level it, and the mountain is as high
as ever!"
Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe,
and stalking thoughtfully away, he left Leonard Fairfield
trying to extract light from the smoke.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             3fl
CHAPTER IX.
SHORTLY after this discourse of Riccabocca's, an incident occurred to Leonard that served to carry his mind
into new directions. One evening, when his mother was
out, he was at work on a new mechanical contrivance,
and had the misfortune to break one of the instruments
which he employed.  Now, it will be remembered that
his father had been the Squire's head carpenter: the
widow had carefully hoarded the, tools of his craft, which
had belouged to her poor Mark; and though she occasionally lent them to Leonard, she would not give them
up to his service. Amongst these, Leonard knew that he
should find the one that he wanted; and being much interested in his contrivance, he could not wait till his
mother's return.  The tools, with other little relics of the
lost, were kept in a large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleeping-room; the trunk was not locked, and Leonard went
to it without ceremony or scruple. In rummaging for
the instrument, his eye fell upon a bundle of MSS.; and
he suddenly recollected that when he was a mere child,
and before he much knew the difference between verse
and prose, his mother had pointed to these MSS., and
said, " One day or other, when you can read nicely, I'll
let you look at these, Lenny.  My poor Mark wrote
such verses-ah, he was a schollard!"  Leonard, reason32*




378              MXY NOVEL; OR,
ably enough, thought that the tiie had now arrvled when
he was worthy the privilege of reading the paternal effusions, and he took forth the NMSS. with a keen but
mel-iancholy interest.  Ele recognised his father's handwriting, which he had often seen before in account-books
and memoranda, and read eagerly some trifing poems,
which did not show much genius, nor much mastery of
language and rhythm-such poems, in short, as a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling, rather than
poetic inspiration or artistic culture, mighlt compose with
credit, but not for fame.  But suddenly, as he turned
over these " Occasional Pieces," Leonard came to others
in a different handwriting - a woman's handwriting, -
small, and fine, and exquisitely formed.  lie had scarcely
read six lines of these last, before his attention was
irresistibly chained.  They were of a different order of
merit from poor Mark's; they bore the unmistakable
stamp of genius.  Like the poetry of women in general,
they were devoted to personal fefling; they were not the
mirror of a world, but reflections of a solitary heart. Yet
this is the kind of poetry most pleasing to the young.
And the verses in question had another attraction for
Leonard; they seemed to express some struggle akin to
his own, -some complaint against the actual condition
of the writer's life, -  some sweet, melodious murmurlurs It
fortune. For the rest, they were clharacterised by a vein
of sentiment so elevated, that if written by a man it would
have run into exaggeration; written by a woman, the
romance was carried off by so many genuine revelations




VARIETIES IN ENGLIS:H  LIFE.    379
of sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that it- was always
natural, though true to a nature for which you would not
augur happiness.
Leonard was still absorbed in the perusal of these
poems, when Mrs. Fairfield entered the room.
"What have you been about, Lenny?- searching. in
my box?-"
"I came to look for my father's bag of tools, mother,
and I found these papers, which you said I might read
some day."
"I doesn't wonder you did not hear me when I came
in," said the widow, sighing.  "I used to sit still for the
hour together, when my poor Mark.read his poems to
me. There was such a pretty one about the:'Peasant's
Fireside,' Lenny; have you got hold of that?"
"Yes,.dear mother; and I remarked the allusion to
you; it brought tears to my eyes. But these verses are
not my father's, -whose are they?  They seem in a
woman's handwriting."
Mrs. Fairfield looked, - changed color, - grew faint,
and seated herself.
"Poor, poor Nora I " said she, falteringly.'"I did not
know as they were there; Mark kep'emr; they got among
his..  "
LEONARD. - Who was Nora?
MRS. FAIRFIELD. -Who?- child -- who? Nora was
-was my -own sister..
LEONARD (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the
writer of these musical lines, in that graceful hand, with




380             MY NOVEL; OR,
his homely, uneducated mother; who could neither read
nor write). - Your sister I - is it possible? My aunt,
then. How comes it you never spoke of her before? Oh I
you should be so proud of her, mother.
MRs. FAIRFIELD (clasping her hands). -We were
proud of her, all of us - father, mother - all! She was
so beautiful and so good, and not proud she! though
she looked like the first lady in the land.  Oh! Nora,
Nora I
LEONARD (after a pause). -But she must have been
highly educated?
MRS. FAIRFIELD. -'Deed she was I
LEONARD. - How was that?
MRS. FAIRFIELD (rocking herself to and fro in her
chair). - Oh I my Lady was her godmother — Lady
Lansmere I mean,- and took a fancy to her when she
was that high I and had her to stay at the Park, and wait
on her Ladyship; and then she put her to school, and
Nora was so clever, that nothing would do but she must
go to London as a governess. But don't talk of it, boy I
-don't talk of it 
LEONARD.- Why not, mother? What has become of
her? - where is she?
MRs. FAIRFIELD (bursting into a paroxysm of tears)..-In her grave -in her cold grave! Dead, dead!
Leonard was inexpressibly grieved and shocked. It is
the attribute of the poet to seem always living, - always
a friend. Leonard felt as if some one very dear had been
suddenly torn from his heart.  He tried to console his
28*




VARIETIES IN ENGLISIt LIFE.    381
mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept
with her.
"And how long has she been dead? " he asked, at last,
in mournful accents.
" Many's the long year - many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's
shoulder, "you'll just never talk to me about her,-I can't
bear it, -it'breaks my: heart; I can bear better to talk
of Mark.  Come down stairs- come."-'"May I not keep these verses, mother?  Do let me."
"Well, well, those bits o' paper be all she left behind
her. Yes, keep them, but put back Mark's.  Are they
all here? —sure?"  And the widow, though she could
not read her husband's verses, looked jealously at the
MSS. written in his irregular large scrawl, and, smoothing
them carefully, replaced them in the trunk, and resettled
over them some sprigs of lavender, which Leonard had
unwittingly disturbed.
"But," said Leonard, as his eye again rested on the
beautiful handwriting of his lost aunt —" but you call her
Nora- I see she signs herself L."
"Leonora was her name-. I said she was my lady's
godchild.  We called her Nora for short -
"Leonora -and I am Leonard- is that how I came
by the name?"
" Yes, yes -do hold your tongue, boy,"- sobbed poor
Mrs. Fairfield; and she could not be soothed nor coaxed
into continuing or renewing a subject which'was evidently
associated with insupportable pain.




382              MY NOVEL;- OR,
CHAPTER X.
IT is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery
produced on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble race had, then, preceded him
in his struggling flight towards the loftier regions of
Intelligence and Desire. It was like the mariner amidst
unknown seas, who finds carved upon some desert isle a
familiar household name. And this creature of genius
and of sorrow - whose existence he had only learned by
her song, and whose death created, in the simple heart of
her sister, so passionate a grief, after the lapse of so many
years - supplied to the romance awaking in his young
heart the ideal which it unconsciously sought.  He was
pleased to hear that she had been beautiful and good.
He paused from his books to muse on her, and picture
her image to his fancy. That there was some mystery in
her fate was evident to him; and while that conviction
deepened his interest, the mystery itself, by degrees, took
a charm which he was not anxious to dispel. He resigned
himself to Mrs. Fairfield's obstinate silence. He was contented to rank the dead amongst those holy and ineffable
images which we do not seek to unveil. Youth and
Fancy have many secret hoards of idea which they do not
desire to impart, even to those most in their confidence.




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    383
I doubt the depth of! feeling in any man who has not
certain recesses in his soul into which none may enter.
Hitherto, as I have said, the talents of Leonard Fairfield had been more turned to things positive than to the
ideal; to science and investigation of fact than to poetry,
and that airier truth in which poetry has its element. He
had read our greater poets, indeed, but without thought
of imitating; and rather from the general curiosity to
inspect all celebrated monuments of the human mind, than
from that especial predilection for verse which is too
common in childhood and youth to be any sure sign of a
poet. But now these melodies, unknown to all the world
beside, rang in his ear, mingled with his thoughts -set,
as it were, his whole life to music. He read poetry with
a different sentiment -it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret.  And so reading, the passion seized
him, and "the numbers came."
To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and
earnest pilgrimage, I am Vandal enough to think that the
indulgence of poetic taste and reverie does great and
lasting harm; that it serves to enervate the character,
give false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery'
to the noble toils and duties of the active man. All
poetry would not do this- not, for instance, the Classical,
in its diviner masters-not the poetry of Homer, of
Virgil, of Sophocles -not, perhaps, even that of the
indolent Horace. But the poetry which youth usually
loves and appreciates the best —the poetry of mere sentiment -does so in minds already over-predisposed to the




384:  MY NOVEL; OR,
sentimental, and which require bracing to grow into
healthful manhood.
On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which
is peculiarly modern, does suit many minds of another
mould - minds which our modern life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce.  And as in certain climates
plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to those
diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely
sown, as it were, by the benignant providence of nature -
so it may be that the softer and more romantic species of
poetry, whick comes forth in harsh, money-making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and counter-poisons.
The world is so much with us, now-a-days, that we need
have something that prates to us, albeit even in too fine
an euphuism, of the moon and stars.
Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his
intellectual life, the softness of our Eelicon descended as
healing dews. In his turbulent and unsettled ambition,
in his vague grapple with the giant forms of political
truths, in his bias towards the application of science to
inmmediate- practical purposes, this lovely vision of the
Muse came in the white robe of the Peacemaker; and
with upraised hand, pointing to serene skies, she opened
to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which is given to
Peasant as to Prince  showed to him that on the surface
of earth there is something nobler than fortune -that he
who can view the world as a poet is always at soul a
king; while to practical purpose itself, that larger and
more profound invention, which poetry stimulates, supplied




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    385
the grand design and the subtle view -leading him beyond the mere ingenuity of the mechanic, and habituating
him to regard the inert force of the matter at his command
with the ambition of the Discoverer. But, above all, the
discontent that was within him finding a vent, not in
deliberate war upon this actual world, but through the
purifying channels of song —in the vent itself it evaporated, it was lost. By accustoming ourselves to survey
all things with the spirit that retains and reproduces them
only in their lovelier or grander aspects, a vast philosophy
of toleration for what we before gazed on with scorn or
hate insensibly grows upon us. Leonard looked into his
heart after the Enchantress had breathed upon it; and
through the mists of the fleeting and tender. melancholy
which betrayed where she had been, he beheld a new sum
of delight and joy dawning over the landscape of human
life.
Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual
knowledge, this mysterious kinswoman - "a voice, and
nothing more'"-had spoken to him, soothed, elevated,
cheered, attuned each discord into harmony; and, if now
permitted from some serener sphere to behold the life that
her soul thus strangely influenced, verily with yet holier
joy, the saving and lovely spirit might have glided onward
in the Eternal Progress.
We call the large majority of human lives obscure.
Presumptuous that we are! How know we what lives. a
single thought retained from the dust of nameless graves
nay have lighted to renown?
I. —33                z




386             MY NOVEL; OR,
CHAPTER XI.
IT was about a year after Leonard's discovery of the
family MSS. that Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad
mare in the Squire's stables, and set out on an equestrian
excursion. He said that he was bound on business connected with his old parishioners of Lansmere; for, as it
has been incidentally implied in a previous chapter, he
had been connected with that borough town (and, I may
here add, in the capacity of curate) before he had been
inducted into the living of Hazeldean.
It was so rarely that the Parson stirred from home,
that this journey to a town more than twenty miles off
was regarded as a most daring adventure, both at the
Hall and at the Parsonage.  Mrs. Dale could not sleep
the whole previous night with thinking of it; and though
she had naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on
the eventful morn, she yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than her own to pack up the saddlebags which the
Parson had borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so distrustful was she of the possibility of the good man's
exerting the slightest common sense in her absence, that
she kept him close at her side while she was engaged in
that same operation of packing up —showing him the
exact spot in which the clean shirt was put, and how
nicely the old slippers were packed up in one of his own




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH LIFE.             387
sermons.  She implored him not to mistake the sandwiches for his shaving-soap, and made him observe how
carefully she had provided against such confusion, by
placing them as far apart from each other as the nature
of saddle-bags will admit.  The poor Parson- who was
really by tro means an absent man, but as little likely to
shave himself with sandwiches and lunch upon soap as the
most common-place mortal may be -listened with conjugal patience, and thought that man never had such a
wife before; nor was it without tears in his own eyes that
he tore himself from the farewell embrace of his weeping
Carry.
I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension
that he set his foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person
to the mercies of an unfamiliar animal.  For, whatever
might be Mr. Dale's minor accomplishments as manll and
parson, horsemanship was not his forte; indeed, I doubt
if he had taken the reins in his hand more than twice since
he had been married.
The Squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance
with the pad; and, to the Parson's gentle inquiry whether
Mat was quite sure that the pad was quite safe, replied
laconically, "Oi, oi, give her her head."
"Give her her head!" repeated  Mr. Dale, rather
amazed, for he had not the slightest intention of taking
away that part of the beast's frame so essential to its
vital economy-" Give her her head!"
" Oi, oi; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a
doincing on her hind-legs."




388             MY NOVEL; OR,
The Parson instantly slackened the reins; and Mrs.
Dale -who had tarried behind to control her tears —
now running to the door for "more last words," he waved
his hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into
the lane.
Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the
idiosyncrasies of the pad-mare, and trying thereby to
arrive at some notion of her general character: guessing,
for instance, why she raised one ear and laid down the
other; why she kept bearing so close to the left that she
brushed his leg against the hedge; and why, when she
arrived at a little side-gate in the fields, which led towards
the home-farm, she came to a full stop, and fell to rubbing
her nose against the rail- an occupation from which the
Parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at length
diverted her by a timorous application of the whip.
This crisis on the road fairly passed,,the pad seemed to
comprehend that she had a journey before her, and giving
a petulant whisk of her tail, quickened her amble into a
short trot, which soon brought the Parson into the highroad, and nearly opposite the Casino.
Here, sitting on the gate which led to his abode, and
shaded by his umbrella, he beheld Dr. Riccabocca.
The Italian lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, and stared hard at the Parson; and he-not
venturing to withdraw his whole attention from the pad
(who, indeed, set up both her ears at the apparition o.f
Riccabocca, and evinced symptoms of that surprise and
superstitious repugnance at unknown objects, which goes




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              339
by the name of "shying") —looked askance at Riccabocca.
"'Don't stir, please," said the Parson, "or I fear you'll
alarm this creature; it seems a nervous, timid thing;
soho - gently - gently."
And he fell to patting the mare with great unction.
The pad, thus encouraged, overcame her first natural
astonishment at the sight of Riccabocca and the red
umbrella; and having before been at the Casino on sundry occasions, and sagaciously preferring places within
the range of her experience to bournes neither cognate
nor conjecturable, she moved gravely up towards the gate
on which the Italian sat; and, after eyeing him a moment
— as much as to say, "I wish you would get off,"
came to a dead lock.
"Well," said R1iccabocca, "since your horse seems
more disposed to be polite to me than yourself, Mr. Dale,
I take the opportunity of your present involuntary pause
to congratulate you on your elevation in life, and to
breathe a friendly prayer that pride may not have a fall 1 "
"Tut," said the Parson, affecting an easy air, though
still contemplating the pad, who appeared to have fallen
into a quiet doze, " it is true that I have not ridden much
of late years, and the Squire's horses are very high-fed and
spirited; but there is no more harm in them than their
master when one once knows their ways."
" Clhi va piano, va sano,
E chi va sano va lontano,"
said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. "You go
33*




390             MY NOVEL; OR,
slowly, therefore safely; and he who goes safely may go
far.  You seem prepared for a journey?"
"I am," said the Parson; "and on a matter that concerns. you a little."
"Me I" exclaimed Riccabocca- "concerns me!"
"Yes, so far as the chance of depriving you of a servant whom you like and esteem affects you."
"Oh," said Riccabocca, "I understand: you have
hinted to me very often that I, or knowledge, or both
together, have unfitted Leonard Fairfield for service."
"I did not say that exactly; I said that you have fitted
him for something higher than service. But do not repeat
this to him. And I cannot yet say more to you, for I am
very doubtful as to the success of my mission; and it will
not do to unsettle poor Leonard until we are sure that we
can improve his condition."
" Of that you can never be sure," quoth the wise man,
shaking his head; "and I can't say that I am unselfish
enough not to bear you a grudge for seeking to decoy
away from me an invaluable servant —faithful, steady,
intelligent, and" added Riccabocca, warming as he approached the climacteric adjective "exceedingly cheap I
nevertheless —go, and Heaven speed you. I am not an
Alexander, to stand between man and the sun."
"You are a noble, great-hearted creature, Signor
Riccabocca, in spite of your cold-blooded proverbs and
villanous books."  The Parson, as he said this, brought
down the whip-hand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on
the pad's shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    391
her innocent doze, made a bolt forward, which nearly precipitated Riccabocca from his seat on the stile, and then
turning round -as the Parson tugged desperately at the
rein - caught the bit between her teeth, and set off at a
canter. - The Parson lost both his stirrups; and when he
regained them (as the pad slackened her pace), and had
time to breathe and look about him, Riccabocca and the
Casino were both out of sight.
" Certainly," quoth Parson Dale, as he resettled himself with great complacency, and a conscious triumph
that he was still on the pad's back-" Certainly it is true'that the noblest conquest ever made by man was that of
the horse' a fine creature it is - a very fine creatureand uncommonly difficult to sit on, especially without
stirrups."  Firmly in his stirrups the Parson planted his
feet; and the heart within him was very proud.
CHAPTER  XII.
THE borough town of Lansmere was situated in the
county adjoining that which contained the village of
HIazeldean. Late at noon the Parson crossed the little
stream which divided the two shires, and came to an inn,
which was placed at an angle where the great main road
branched off into two directions - the one leading towards
Lansmere, the other going more direct to London. At
this inn the pad stopped, and put down both ears with




392             MY NOVEL; OR,
the air of a pad.who has made up her mind to bait. And
the Parson himself, feeling very warm and somewhat sore,
said to the pad benignly, "It is just —thou shalt have
corn and water l"
Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff,
as soon as he reached terra firma, the Parson consigned
the pad to the ostler, and walked into the sanded parlor
of the inn, to repose himself on a very hard windsor chair.
He had been alone rather more than half an hour, reading a county newspaper which smelt much of tobacco,
and trying to keep off the flies that gathered round him
in swarms, as if they had never before seen a Parson, and
were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of one tasted,when a stage-coach stopped at the inn. A traveller got
out with his carpet-bag in his hand, and was shown into
the sanded parlor.
The Parson rose politely, and made a bow.
The traveller touched his hat, without taking it offlooked at Mr. Dale from top to toe -then walked to the
window, and whistled a lively impatient tune, then strode
towards the fire-place and rang the bell; then stared
again at the Parson; and that gentleman having courteously laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it,
threw himself into a chair, flung one of his legs over the
table, tossed the other up on the mantelpiece, and began
reading the paper, while he tilted the chair on its hindlegs with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position
of chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering Parson
expected every moment to see him come down on the
back of his skull.




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    393
Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly"Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I'm afraid
you'll be down."
"Eh I " said the traveller, looking up much astonished
-- " Eh I down? - oh, you're satirical, sir."
"Satirical, sir? upon my word, no! " exclaimed the
Parson, earnestly.
"I think every free-born man has a right to sit'as he
pleases in his own house," resumed the traveller, with
warmth; " and an inn is his own house, I guess, so long
as he pays his score. Betty, my dear."
For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell.
"I han't Betty, sir; do you want she?"
" No, Sally -cold brandy-and-water - and a biscuit."
"I han't Sally, either," muttered the chambermaid;
but the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, colored, and
went her way.
The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He
took out a penknife, and began paring his nails. Suddenly desisting from this elegant occupation, his eye
caught sight of the Parson's shovel-hat, which lay on a
chair in the corner.
"You're a clergyman, I reckon, sir," said the traveller,
with a slight sneer.
Again Mr. Dale bowed -bowed in part deprecatingly
-in part with dignity. It was a bow that said, "No
offence, sir, but I am a clergyman, and I'm not ashamed
of it."




394             MY NOVEL; OR,
Going far?" asked the traveller.
PARSON. - Not very.
TRAVELLER. - In a chaise or fly? If so, and we are
going the same way - halves.
PARSON. - Halves?
TRAVELLER. - Yes, I'll pay half the damage - pikes
inclusive.
PARSON. — YoU are very good, sir. But [spoken with
pride] I am on horseback.
TRAVELLER. - On horseback I Well, I should not
have guessed that! You don't look like it. Where did
you say you were going?
" I did not say where I was going, sir," said the Parson
drily, for he was much offended at that vague and ungrammatical remark applicable to his horsemanship, that
"he did not look like it."
" Close! " said the traveller laughing; " an old traveller,
I reckon."
The Parson made no reply, but he took up his shovelhat, and, with a bow more majestic than the previous
one, walked out to see if his pad had finished her corn.
The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to
her, which was not much, and in a few minutes more Mr.
Dale resumed his journey.  He had performed about
three miles, when the sound of wheels behind him made
him turn his head, and he perceived a chaise driven very
fast, while out of the windows thereof dangled strangely
a pair of human legs. The pad began to curvet as the
post-horses rattled behind, and the Parson had only an




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.~   395
indistinct vision of a human face supplanting those human
legs.  The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by
saw Mr. Dale tossed up. and down on the saddle, and
cried out, "How's the leather?"
"Leather I" soliloquised the Parson, as the pad recomposed herself.  "What does he mean by that?
Leather! a very vulgar man. But I got rid of him
cleverly."
Mr. Dale arrived without farther adventure at Lansmere. He put up at the principal inn - refreshed himself by a general ablution -and sat down with good appetite to his beef-steak and pint of port.
The Parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of
man than that of the horse; and after a satisfactory
glance at the civil smirking landlord, who removed the
cover and set on the wine, he ventured. on an attempt at
conversation.  "Is my lord at the Park?"
LANDLORD (still: more civilly than before). -No, sir:
his lordship and my lady have gone to town to meet Lord
L'Estrange. "
" Lord L'Estronge I He is in England, then? "
"Why, so I heard,"' replied the landlord; "but we
never see him here now. I remember him a very pretty
young man. Every one was fond of him and proud of
him.  But what pranks he did play when he was a lad I
We hoped he would come in for our boro' some of these
days, but he has taken to foren parts — more's the pity.
I am a reg'lar Blue, sir, as I ought to be. The Blue
candidate always does me the honor to come to the Lans



396             MY NOVEL; OR,
mere Arms.'Tis only the low party puts up with the
Boar," added the landlord with a look of ineffable disgust.  "I hope you like the wine, sir?"
"Very good, and seems old."
"Bottled these eighteen-years, sir. I had in the cask
for the great election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have
little left of it, and I never give it but to old friends like
- for, I think, sir, though you be grown stout, and look
more grand, I may say that I've had the pleasure of
seeing you before."
"That's true, I dare say, though I fear I was never a
very good customer."
"Ah, it is Mr. Dale, then I I thought so when you
came into the hall. I hope your lady is quite well, and
the Squire, too; fine pleasant-spoken gentleman; no
fault of his, if Mr. Egerton went wrong. Well, we have
never seen him - I mean Mr. Egerton - since that time.
I don't wonder he stays away; but my lord's son, who
was brought up here, it an't nat'ral like that he should
turn his back on us! "
Mr. Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about
to retire, when the Parson, pouring out another glass of
port, said-" There must be great changes in the parish.
Is Mr. Morgan, the medical man, still here?"
" No, indeed; he took out his ploma after you left, and
became a real doctor; and a pretty practice he had too,
when he took, all of a sudden, to some new-fangled way
of physicking;-I think they calls it homy-something."
"IHomceopathy?"




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    397
"That's it - something against all reason: and so he
lost his practice here and went up to Lunnun. I've not
heard -of him since."
"Do the Avenels still reside in their old house?"
"Oh yes!-and are pretty well off, I hear say. John
is always poorly; though he still goes now and then to
the Odd Fellows, and takes his glass; but his wife comes
and fetches him away before he can do himself any harm."
"Mrs. Avenel is the same as ever? "
"She holds her headbhigher, I think," said the landlord, smiling.  "She was always-not exactly proud like,
but what I calls gumptious."
"I never heard that word before," said the Parson,
laying down his knife and fork.  "Bumptious, indeed,.
though I believe it is. not in the dictionary, has crept into
familiar parlance, especially amongst young folks at school
and college."
"Bumptious is bumptious, and gumptious is gumptious," said the landlord, delighted to puzzle a parson.
" Now, the town beadle is bumptious, and Mrs. Avenel
is gumptious."
"She is a very respectable woman," Said Mr. Dale,
somewhat rebukingly.
"In course, sir; all gumptious folks are; they value
themselves on their respectability, and looks down on
their neighbors."
PARSON (still philologically occupied).-Gumptious -
gumptions.  I think I remember the substantive at school
I.-34




398             MY NOVEL; OR,
-not that my master taught it to me.  "Gumption,"it means cleverness.
LANDLORD (doggedly).-There's gumption and gumptious! Gumption is knowing; but when I say that sum
nn is gumptious, I mean-though that's more vulgar like
-sum un who does not think small beer of hisself. You
take me, sir?"
" I think I do," said the Parson, half-smiling.  "I believe the Avenels have only two of their children alive
still —their daughter, who married Mark Fairfield, and a
son who went to America?"
" Ah, but he made his fortune there, and has come back."
"Indeed I I'm very glad to hear it. He has settled
at Lansmere?"
"No, sir. I hear as he's bought a property a long
way off. But he comes to see his parents pretty oftenso John tells me — but I can't say that I ever see him.
I fancy Dick doesn't like to be seen by folks who remember him playing in the kennel."
"Not unnatural," said the Parson, indulgently; "but
he visits his parents; he is a good son at all events, then?"
"I've nothing to say against him.  Dick was a wild
chap before he took himself off. I never thought he
would make his fortune; but the Avenels are a clever set.
Do you remember poor Nora —the Rose of Lansmere,
as they called her? Ah, no, I think she went up to Lunnun afore your time, sir."
"H umph I" said the Parson drily.  "Well, I think you
may take away now. It will be dark soon, and I'l just
stroll out and look about me."




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.    399
"There's a nice tart coming, sir."
"Thank you, I've dined."
The Parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the
streets. lie eyed the houses on either hand with that
melancholy and wistful interest with which, in middle life,
men revisit scenes familiar to them in -youth - surprised
to find either so little change or so much, and recalling,
by fits and snatches, old associations and past emotions.
The long High Street which he threaded now began to
change its bustling character, and slide, as it were gradually, into the high-road of a suburb. On the left, the
houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of Lansmere
Park: to the right, though houses still remained, they
were separated from each other by gardens, and took the
pleasing- appearance of villas —such villas as retired
tradesmen or their widows, old maids, and half-pay
officers, select for the evening of their days.
Mr. Dale looked at these villas with the deliberate
attention of a man awakening his power of memory, and
at last stopped before one, almost the last on the road,
and which faced the broad patch of sward that lay before
the lodge of Lansmere Park.  An old pollard oak stood
near it, and from the oak there came a low discordant
sound; it was the hungry cry of young ravens, awaiting
the belated return of the parent bird. Mr. Dale put his
hand to his brow, paused a moment, and then, with a
hurried step, passed through the little garden, and knocked
at the door.  A light was burning in the parlor, and Mr.
Dale's eye caught through' the window a vague outline




400              MY NOVEL; OR,.
of three forms.  There was an evident bustle within at
the sound of the knock.  One of the forms rose and disappeared.  A very prim, neat, middle-aged maid-servant
now appeared at the threshold, and austerely inquired the
visitor's business.
"I want to see Mr. or Mrs. Avenel. Say that I have
come many miles to see them; and take in this card."
The maid-servant took the card, and half closed the
door. At least three minutes elapsed before she reappeared.
"Missis says it's late, but walk in."
The Parson accepted the not very gracious invitation,
stepped across the little hall, and entered the little parlor.
Old John Avenel, a mild-looking man, who seemed
slightly paralytic, rose slowly from his arm-chair. Mrs.
Avenel, in an awfully stiff, clean, Calvinistical cap, and a
grey dress, every fold of which bespoke respectability and
staid repute -stood erect on the floor, and fixing on the
Parson a cold and cautious eye, said —
"You do the like of us great honor, Mr. Dale -take a
chair I You call upon business?"
" Of which I apprised Mr. Avenel, by letter."
"My husband is very poorly."
"A poor creature!" said John, feebly, and as if in
compassion of himself.  "I cain't get about as I used to
do. But it ben't near election time, be it, sir?"
"No, John," said Mrs. Avenel, placing her husband's
arm within her own.  "You must lie down a bit, while I
talk to the gentleman."




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.              401
"I'm a real good Blue," said poor John; " but I ain't
quite the man I was;" and leaning heavily on his wife
he left the room, turning round at the threshold, and
saying with great urbanity - " Anything to oblige, sir  "
Mr. Dale was much touched. He had remembered
John Avenel the comeliest, the most active, and the most
cheerful man in Lansmere; great at glee-club and cricket
(though then somewhat stricken in years), greater in vestries; reputed greatest in elections.
" Last scene of all," murmured the Parson; "' and oh
well, turning from the poet, may we cry with the disbelieving philosopher,'Poor, poor humanity!' "*
In a few minutes Mrs. Avenel returned.  She took a
chair at some distance from the Parson's, and, resting one
hand on the elbow of the chair, while with the other she
stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said -
"Now, sir."
That "Now sir," had in its sound something sinister
and warlike. This the shrewd Parson recognised with
his usual tact.  He edged his chair nearer to Mrs. Avenel, and placing his hand on hers —
"Yes, now then, and as friend to friend."
* Mr. Dale probably here alludes to Lord Bolingbroke's ejaculation as he stood by the dying Pope; but his memory does not serve
him with the exact words.
34*               2A




402             MY -NOVEL; OR,
C HAPTER XIII.
MR. DALE had been more than a quarter of an hour
conversing with Mrs. Avenel, and had seemingly made
little progress in the object of his diplomatic mission, for
now, slowly drawing on his gloves, he said —
" I grieve to think, Mrs. Avenel, that you should have
so hardened your heart- yes - you must pardon meit is my vocation to speak stern truths. You cannot say
that I have not kept faith with you, but I must now invite
you to remember that I specially reserved to myself the
right of exercising a discretion to act as I judged best,
for the child's interests, on any future occasion; and it
was upon this understanding that you gave me the promise,
which you would now evade, of providing for him when
he came into manhood."
"I say I will provide for him. I say that you may'prentice him in any distant town, and by-and-by we will
stock a shop for him. What would you have more, sir,
from folks like us, who have kept shop ourselves?  It
ain't reasonable what you ask, sir."
"My dear friend," said the Parson, "what I ask of you
at present is but to see him — to receive him kindly - to
listen to his conversation-, to judge for yourselves. We
can have but a common object — that your grandson
should succeed in life, and do you credit. Now, I doubt




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    403
very much whether we can effect this by making him a
small shopkeeper."
"And has Jane Fairfield, who married a common carpenter, brought him up to despise small shopkeepers?"
exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, -angrily.
"Heaven forbid I Some of the first men in England
have been the sons of small shopkeepers. But is it a
crime in them, or in their parents, if their talents have
lifted them into such rank or renown as the haughtiest
duke might envy? England were not Efngland if a man
must rest where his father began."
" (ood! " said, or rather grunted, an approving voice,
but neither Mrs. Avenel nor the Parson heard it.
"All very fine," said Mrs. Avenel, bluntly.  "But to
send a boy like that to the university- where's the money
to come from?"
"My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the Parson, coaxingly,
" the cost need not be great at a small college at Cambridge; and if you will pay half the expense, I will pay
the other half. I have no children of my own, and can
afford it."
"That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel,
somewhat touched, yet still not graciously.  "But the
money is not the only point."
"Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking
rapidly, "at Cambridge, where the studies are mathematical -that is, of a nature for which he has shown so
great an aptitude - and I have no doubt he will distinguish himself; if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what




404             MY NOVEL; OR,
is called a fellowship -that is, a collegiate dignity accompanied by an income on which he could maintain himself
until he made his way in life. Come, Mrs. Avenel, you
are well off; you have no relations nearer to you in want
of your aid. Your son, I hear, has been very fortunate."
"Sir," said Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the Parson, "it
is not because my son Richard is an honor to us, and is a
good son, and has made his fortin, that we are to rob him
of what we have to leave, and give it to a boy whom we
know nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say,
can't bring upon us any credit at all."
"'Why?  I don't see that."
" Why! " exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely —" why I you
know why.. No, I don't want him to rise in life: I don't
want folks to be speiring and asking about him. I think
it is a very wicked thing to have put fine notions in his
head, and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have
done it herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and
bring out a great boy  who's been a gardener or ploughman, or such like -to disgrace a gentleman who keeps
his carriage, as my son Richard does-I would have you
to know, sir. — No I I won't do it, and there's an end of
the matter."
During the last two or three minutes, and just before
that approving "good" had responded to the Parson's
popular sentiment, a door communicating with an inner
room had been gently opened, and stood ajar; but this
incident neither party had even noticed,. But now the
door was thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the




VAR-IETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    401
Parson had met at the inn walked up to Mr. Dale, and
said, "No! that's not the end of the matter. You say
the boy's a'cute, clever lad?"
"Richard, have you been listening?" exclaimed Mrs.
Avenel.
"Well, I guess, yes — the last few minutes."
"And what have you heard?"
" Why, that this reverend gentleman thinks so highly
of my sister Fairfield's boy, that he offers to pay half of
his keep at college. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you,
and there's my hand, if you'll take it."
The Parson jumped up, overjoyed, and with a triumphant glance towards Mrs. Avenel, shook hands heartily
with Mr. Richard.
" Now," said the latter, "just put on your hat, sir, and
take a stroll with me, and we'll discuss the thing businesslike. Women don't understand business: never talk to
women on business."
With these words, Mr. Richard drew out a cigar-case,
selected a cigar, which he applied to the candle, and
walked into the hall.
Mrs. Avenel caught hold of the Parson. " Sir, you'll be
on your guard with Richard. Remember your promise."
" He does not know all, then?
"He? No I And you see he did not overhear more
than what he says. I'm sure you're a gentleman, and
won't go against your word."
"My word was conditional; but I will promise you
never to break the silence without more reason than I




406             MY NOVEL; OR,
think there is here for it. Indeed, Mr. Richard Avenel
seems to save all necessity for that."
"Are you coming, sir? " cried Richard, as he opened
the street-door.
C HA P TE R XIV.
THE Parson joined Mr. Richard Avenel on the road.
It was a fine night, and the moon clear and shining.
"So then," said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, "poor
Jane, who was always the drudge of the family, has contrived to bring up her son well; and the boy is really
what you say, eh? -could make a figure at college? 
I"  am sure of it," said the Parson, hooking himself on
to the arm which Mr. Avenel proffered.
"I should like to see him," said Richard.  "HEas he
any manner?  Is he genteel? or a mere country lout? 
"Indeed, he speaks with so much propriety, and has
so much modest dignity about him, that there's many a
rich gentleman who would be proud of such a son."
"It is odd," observed Richard, "what difference there
is in families.  There's Jane, now -who can't read nor
write, and was just fit to be a workman's wife - had not
a thought above her station; and when I think of my
poor sister Nora -you would not believe it, sir, but she
was the most elegant creature in the world- yes, even
as a child (she was but a child when I went off to America). And often, as I was getting on in life, often I




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.    407
used to say to myself,'My little Nora shall be a lady
after all.' Poor thing —but she died young.''
Richard's voice grew husky.
The Parson kindly pressed the arm on which he leaned,
and said, after a pause"Nothing refines us like education, sir. I believe your
sister Nora had received much instruction, and had the
talents to profit by it: it is the same with your nephew."
"I'll see him," said Richard, stamping his foot firmly
on the ground, " and if I like him, I'll be as good as a
father to him. Look you, Mr.- what's your name, sir?"' Dale."
"Mr. Dale, look you, I'm a single man. Perhaps I
may marry some day; perhaps I shan't. I'm not going
to throw myself away. If I can get a lady of quality,
why-but that's neither here nor there; meanwhile I
should be glad of a nephew whom I need not be ashamed
of. You see, sir, I am a new man, the builder of my own
fortunes; and though I have picked up a little education
-I don't well know how -as I scrambled on, still, now
I come back to the old country, I'm well aware that I
am not exactly a match for those d-d aristocrats; don't
show so well in a drawing-room as I could wish. I could
be a Parliament man if I liked, but I might make a goose
of myself; so, all things considered, if I can get a sort
of junior partner to do the polite work, and show off the
goods, I think the house of Avenel and Co. might become
a pretty considerable honor to the Britishers.  You understand me, sir?'




408             MY NOVEL; OR,
"Oh very well," answered Mr. Dale, smiling, though
rather gravely.
"Now," continued the New Man, "I'm not ashamed
to have risen in life by my own merits; and I don't disguise what I've been. And when I'm in my own grand
house, I'm fond of saying,'I landed at New York with
~10 in my purse, and here I am!' But it would not do
to have the old folks with me. People take you with all
your faults if you're rich; but they won't swallow your
family into the bargain.  So if I don't have at my house
my own father and mother, whom I love dearly, and
should like to see sitting at table, with my servants behind
their chairs, I could still less have sister Jane.  I recollect her very well, and she can't have got genteeler as
she's grown older. Therefore I beg you'll not set her
on coming after me; it would not do by any manner of
means. Don't say a word about me to her. -,But send
the boy down here to his grandfather, and I'll see him
quietly, you understand."
"Yes, but it will be hard to separate her from her boy."
"Stuff I all boys are separated from their parents when
they go into the world. So that's settled. Now, just
tell me. I know the old folks always snubbed Jane —
that is, mother did. My poor dear father never snubbed
any of us. Perhaps mother has not behaved well to
Jane. But we must not blame her for that; you see this
is how it happened. There were a good many of us, while
father and mother kept shop in the High Street, so we
were all to be provided for anyhow; and Jane, being




VARIETIES IN  ENGLISH  LIFE.            409
very useful and handy at work, got a place when she was
a little.girl, and had no time for learning. Afterwards
my father made a lucky hit, in getting my Lord Lansmere's custom after an election, in which he did a great
deal for the Blues (for which he was a famous electioneer,
my poor father). My Lady stood godmother to Nora;
and then all my brothers, and two of my sisters, died off,
and father retired from business; and when he took Jane
from service, she was so common-like that mother could
not help contrasting her with Nora. You see Jane was
their child when they were poor little shop-people, with
their heads scarce above water; and Nora was their child
when they were well off, and had retired from trade, and
lived genteel: so that makes a great difference.  And
mother did not quite look on her as on her own child.
But it was Jane's own fault: for mother would have made
it up with her if she had married the son of our neighbor
the great linendraper, as she might have done; but she
would take Mark Fairfield, a common carpenter. Parents
like best those of their children who succeed best in life.
Natural. Why, they did not care for me till I came back
the man I am. But to return to Jane: I'm afraid they've
neglected her.  How is she off?"
"-She earns her livelihood, and is poor, but contented.1"
" Ah, just be good enough to give her this," (and Richard took a bank-note of ~50 from his pocket-book).
"You can say the old folks sent it to her; or that it is a
present from Dick, without telling her he has come back
from America."
I.- 35




410             MY NOVEL; OR,
"My dear sir," said the Parson, "I am more and more
thankfiul to have made your acquaintance. This is a very
liberal gift of yours; but your best plan will be to send
it through your mother.  For, though I don't want to
betray any confidence you place in me, I should not know
what to answer if Mrs. Fairfield began to question me
about her brother. I never had but one secret to keep,
and I hope I shall never have another.  A secret is very
like a lie!"
"You had a secret then I" said Richard, as he took
back the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps in America,
to be a very inquisitive man.  He added point-blank,
"Pray, what was it?"
"Why, what it would not be if I told you," said the
Parson, with a. forced laugh-" a secret!
"Well, I guess we're in a land of liberty.  Do as you
like. Now, I dare say you think me a very odd fellow
to come out of my shell to you in this off-hand way. But
I liked the look of you, even when we were at the inn
together. And just now I was uncommonly pleased to
find that, though you are a Parson, you don't want to
keep a man's nose down to a shop-board, if he has anything in him. You're not one of the aristocrats-"
"Indeed," said the Parson, with imprudent warmth,
"it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country
to keep people down. They make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent
and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial
boast of the British constitution, sir!"




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.    411
" Oh, you think so, do you I " said Mr. Richard, looking sourly at the Parson.  "I dare say those are the
opinions in which you have brought up the lad. Just
keep him yourself, and let the-aristocracy provide for
him!"
The Parson's generous and patriotic warmth evaporated at once, at this sudden inlet of cold air into the
conversation.  He perceived that he had made a terrible
blunder; and, as it was not his business at that moment
to vindicate the British constitution, but to serve Leonard
Fairfield, he abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with
the most poltroon and scandalous abruptness. Catching
at the arm which Mr. Avenel had withdrawn from him,
he exclaimed"Indeed, sir, you are mistaken; I nave never attempted
to influence your nephew's political opinions. On the
contrary, if, at his age, he can be said to have formed
any opinions, I am greatly afraid-that is, I think his
opinions are by no means sound - that is, constitutional.
I mean, I mean -" And the poor Parson, anxious to
select a word that would not offend his listener, stopped
short in lamentable confusion of idea.
Mr. Avenel enjoyed his distress for a moment, with a
saturnine smile, and then said"Well, I calculate he's a Radical. Natural enough,
if he has not got a sixpence to lose - all come right by
and by. I'm not a Radical - at least not a Destructive
- much too clever a man for that, I hope. But I wish
to see things very different from what they are. Don't




412             MY NOVAELL; OR,
fancy that I want the common people, who've got nothing, to pretend to dictate to their betters, because I
hate to see a parcel of fellows, who-are called lords and
squires, trying to rule the roast.  I think, sir, that it is
men like me who ought to be at the top of the tree I and
that's the long and the short of it. What do you say? "
"I've not the least objection," said the crestfallen
Parson basely. But, to do him justice, I must add, that
he did not the least know what he was saying!
CHAPTE R XV.
UNCONSCIOUS of the change in his fate which the
diplomacy of the Parson sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was enjoying the first virgin sweetness of fame; for
the principal town in his neighborhood had followed the
then growing fashion of the age, and set up a Mechanics'
Institute; and some worthy persons interested in the
formation of that provincial Athenaeum had offered a
prize for the best Essay on the Diffusion of Knowledge,
-a very trite subject, on which persons seem to think
they can never say too much, and on which there is,
nevertheless, a great deal yet to be said.  This prize
Leonard Fairfield had recently won. His Essay had
been publicly complimented by a full meeting of the
Institute; it had been printed at the expense of the
Society, and had been rewarded by a silver medal




VARIETIES IN ENGLISH  LIFE.             413
delineative of Apollo crowning Merit (poor Merit had
not a rag to his back; but Merit, left only to the care
of Apollo, never is too good a customer to the tailor!)
And the " County Gazette " had declared that Britain
had produced another prodigy in the person of Dr. Riccabocca's self-educated gardener.
Attention was now directed to Leonard's mechanical
contrivances. The Squire, ever eagerly bent on improvements, had brought an engineer to inspect the lad's system of irrigatiou, and the engineer had been greatly
struck by the simple means by which a very considerable
technical difficulty had been overcome. The neighboring
farmers now called Leonard " Mr. Fairfield," and invited
him, on equal terms, to their houses. Mr. Stirn had met
him on the high road, touched his hat, and hoped that
"he bore no malice."  All this, I say, was the first sweetness of fame; and if Leonard Fairfield comes to be a
great man, he will never find such sweets in the afterfruit. It was this success which had determined the
Parson on the step which he had just taken, and which
he had long before anxiously meditated. For, during
the last year or so, he had renewed his old intimacy with
the widow and the boy; and he had noticed, with great
hope and great fear, the rapid growth of an intellect,
which now stood out from the lowly circumstances that
surrounded it in bold and unharmonising relief.
It was the evening after his return home that the
Parson strolled up to the Casino.  le put Leonard
Fairfield's Prize Essay in his pocket. For he felt that
35*




414 -             MY NOVEL.
he could not let the young man go forth into the world
without a preparatory lecture, and he intended to scourge
poor Merit with the very laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo. But in this he wanted Riccabocca's
assistance; or rather he feared that, if he did not get the
Philosopher on his side, the Philosopher might undo all
the work of the Parson.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.