style="font-size:15px;"> "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 the 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! and you would have me give up the Stocks?"
"I would much rather they had stayed as they were, before you touched them; 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 favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion! – and so it 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 long 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, sate down on the Stocks.
All the female heads in the neighbouring 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!"
"Put what?" asked his granddaughter.
"The gallus!" answered Solomons – "he be a-goin to have it hung from the great elm-tree. And the Parson, good mon, is a-quoting Scripter agin it – you see he's a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two han's togither, 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 Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honour 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 Hazeldean 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 neighbourhood, and of whose character what was known was certainly favourable, 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 Hall 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 if all the stars in the astrological horoscope had 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 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 Hazeldean 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!" said Mrs Hazeldean coyly, and blushing as she saw the Parson. "Well, who's going to 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 with somewhat more qualification and reserve. "Signor Riccabocca 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 favour, 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 him – who 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 is extremely just. As to the
