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 high road, 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 of Riccabocca, and evinced symptoms of that surprise and superstitious repugnance at unknown objects which goes by the name of “shying”)—looked askance at Riccabocca.
“Don’t stir, please,” said the parson, “or I fear you’ll alarm the 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 bourns neither cognate nor conjecturable, she moved gravely up towards the gate on which the Italian sat; and, after eying him a moment,—as much as to say, “I wish you would get off,”—came to a deadlock.
“Well,” said Riccabocca, “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!”
“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.”
“‘Chi va piano va sano,
E chi va sano va lontano,’”
said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. “You go 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!” 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! 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 whiphand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on the pad’s shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of 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 creature,—and 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 Hazeldean. 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 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!”
Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff as soon as he reached terra firma, the parson consigned the pad to the hostler, and walked into the sanded parlour 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 smelled 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 him tasted,—when a stagecoach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out with his carpetbag in his hand, and was shown into the sanded parlour.
The parson rose politely, and made a bow.
The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off, looked at Mr. Dale from top to toe, then walked to the window, and whistled a lively, impatient tune, then strode towards the fireplace 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 hind-legs 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.
Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly,—“Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I’m afraid you’ll be down.”
“Eh,” said the traveller, looking up much astonished. “Eh, down?—oh, you’re satirical, sir.”
“Satirical, sir? upon my word, no!” exclaimed the parson, earnestly.
“I think every freeborn 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
