Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humour, the astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted captive whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared speechless and aghast upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the doctor enjoying his pipe, and cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sangfroid that was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that black and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged up, and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant; while to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more and more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers of Darkness, and that he himself, prematurely and in the flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy.
Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do him justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean’s report of the squire’s urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale’s ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing Stirn’s amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known to display,—except at the whist-table,—
“Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,—I am shocked at you. I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman’s sermon had been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish! What on earth has come to you all?”
“That’s the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer,” groaned the squire, quite mildly and pathetically,—“What on earth has come to us all? Ask Stirn:” (then bursting out) “Stirn, you infernal rascal, don’t you hear? What on earth has come to us all?”
“The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir,” said Stirn, provoked out of all temper. “I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all.”
“A mortal fiddlestick! Where’s Leonard Fairfield, I say?”
“Him knows best,” answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety’s sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though both the squire and parson had indeed recognized 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 overheated 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 March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for Little Lenny!”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would permit,—“perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks.”
The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile, as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of extricating him.
“Lord love your reverence, you’d better not!” cried Mr. Stirn. “Don’t be tempted,—he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near him for all the—”
The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to the parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than all present—even than the tall squire—approached Mr. Stirn, with a gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently.
“I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn,” said the Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. “It is certainly a great honour; but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits you to a personal interview in another—and a hotter world.”
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