Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol IV. No. XX. January, 1852.

While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep approached cautiously, and in a low voice said, in broken English, “Sare, sare, let me speak vid you.”

Randal turned in surprise, and beheld a swarthy saturnine face, with grizzled hair and marked features. He recognized the figure that had joined Riccabocca in the Italian’s garden.

“Speak-a you Italian?” resumed Jackeymo.

Randal, who had made himself an excellent linguist, nodded assent; and Jackeymo, rejoiced, begged him to withdraw into a more private part of the grounds.

Randal obeyed, and the two gained the shade of a stately chestnut avenue.

“Sir,” then said Jackeymo, speaking in his native tongue, and expressing himself with a certain simple pathos, “I am but a poor man; my name is Giacomo. You have heard of me; – servant to the Signior whom you saw to-day – only a servant; but he honors me with his confidence. We have known danger together; and of all his friends and followers, I alone came with him to the stranger’s land.”

“Good, faithful fellow,” said Randal, examining the man’s face, “say on. Your master confides in you? He confided that which I told him this day?”

“He did. Ah, sir! the Padrone was too proud to ask you to explain more – too proud to show fear of another. But he does fear – he ought to fear – he shall fear” (continued Jackeymo, working himself up to passion) – “for the Padrone has a daughter, and his enemy is a villain. Oh, sir, tell me all that you did not tell to the Padrone. You hinted that this man might wish to marry the Signora. Marry her! I could cut his throat at the altar!”

“Indeed,” said Randal, “I believe that such is his object.”

“But why? He is rich – she is penniless; no not quite that, for we have saved – but penniless, compared to him.”

“My good friend, I know not yet his motives, but I can easily learn them. If, however, this Count be your master’s enemy, it is surely well to guard against him, whatever his designs; and, to do so, you should move into London or its neighborhood. I fear that while we speak, the Count may get upon his track.”

“He had better not come here!” cried the servant, menacingly, and putting his hand where the knife was not.

“Beware of your own anger, Giacomo. One act of violence, and you would be transported from England, and your master would lose a friend.”

Jackeymo seemed struck by this caution.

“And if the Padrone were to meet him, do you think the Padrone would meekly say, ‘Come stà sa Signoria.’ The Padrone would strike him dead!”

“Hush – hush! You speak of what, in England, is called murder, and is punished by the gallows. If you really love your master, for heaven’s sake, get him from this place – get him from all chance of such passion and peril. I go to town to-morrow; I will find him a house that shall be safe from all spies – all discovery. And there, too, my friend, I can do – what I can not at this distance – watch over him, and keep watch also on his enemy.”

Jackeymo seized Randal’s hand, and lifted it toward his lip; then, as if struck by a sudden suspicion, dropped the hand, and said bluntly: “Signior, I think you have seen the Padrone twice. Why do you take this interest in him?”

“Is it so uncommon to take interest even in a stranger who is menaced by some peril?”

Jackeymo, who believed little in general philanthropy, shook his head skeptically.

“Besides,” continued Randal, suddenly bethinking himself of a more plausible reason: “besides, I am a friend and connection of Mr. Egerton; and Mr. Egerton’s most intimate friend is Lord L’Estrange; and I have heard that Lord L’Estrange – ”

“The good lord! Oh, now I understand,” interrupted Jackeymo, and his brow cleared. “Ah, if he were in England! But you will let us know when he comes?”

“Certainly. Now, tell me, Giacomo, is this Count really unprincipled and dangerous? Remember, I know him not personally.”

“He has neither heart, head, nor conscience.”

“That makes him dangerous to men; but to women, danger comes from other qualities. Could it be possible, if he obtained any interview with the Signora, that he could win her affections?”

Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly, and made no answer.

“I have heard that he is still very handsome.”

Jackeymo groaned.

Randal resumed: “Enough; persuade the Padrone to come to town.”

“But if the Count is in town?”

“That makes no difference; the safest place is always the largest city. Every where else a foreigner is in himself an object of attention and curiosity.”

“True.”

“Let your master, then, come to London. He can reside in one of the suburbs most remote from the Count’s haunts. In two days I will have found him a lodging and write to him. You trust to me now?”

“I do indeed – I do, Excellency. Ah, if the Signorina were married, we would not care!”

“Married! But she looks so high!”

“Alas! not now – not here!”

Randal sighed heavily. Jackeymo’s eyes sparkled. He thought he had detected a new motive for Randal’s interest – a motive to an Italian the most natural, the most laudable of all.

“Find the house, Signior – write to the Padrone. He shall come. I’ll talk to him. I can manage him. Holy San Giacomo, bestir thyself now – ’tis long since I troubled thee!”

Jackeymo strode off through the fading trees, smiling and muttering as he went.

The first dinner-bell rang, and, on entering the drawing-room, Randal found Parson Dale and his wife, who had been invited in haste to meet the unexpected visitor.

The preliminary greetings over, Mr. Dale took the opportunity afforded by the Squire’s absence to inquire after the health of Mr. Egerton.

“He is always well,” said Randal, “I believe he is made of iron.”

“His heart is of gold,” said the Parson.

“Ah!” said Randal, inquisitively, “you told me you had come in contact with him once, respecting, I think, some of your old parishioners at Lansmere?”

The Parson nodded, and there was a moment’s silence.

“Do you remember your battle by the Stocks, Mr. Leslie?” said Mr. Dale, with a good-humored laugh.

“Indeed, yes. By the way, now you speak of it, I met my old opponent in London the first year I went up to it.”

“You did! where?”

“At a literary scamp’s – a cleverish man called Burley.”

“Burley! I have seen some burlesque verses in Greek by a Mr. Burley.”

“No doubt, the same person. He has disappeared – gone to the dogs, I dare say. Burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present.”

“Well, but Leonard Fairfield? – you have seen him since?”

“No.”

“Nor heard of him?”

“No! – have you?”

“Strange to say, not for a long time. But I have reason to believe that he must be doing well.”

“You surprise me! Why?”

“Because, two years ago, he sent for his mother. She went to him.”

“Is that all?”

“It is enough; for he would not have sent for her if he could not maintain her.”

Here the Hazeldeans entered, arm-in-arm, and the fat butler announced dinner.

The Squire was unusually taciturn – Mrs. Hazeldean thoughtful – Mrs. Dale languid, and headachy. The Parson, who seldom enjoyed the luxury of converse with a scholar, save when he quarreled with Dr. Riccabocca, was animated, by Randal’s repute for ability, into a great desire for argument.

“A glass of wine, Mr. Leslie. You were saying, before dinner, that burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present. Pray, sir, what knowledge is in power?”

Randal (laconically). – “Practical knowledge.”

Parson. – “What of?”

Randal. – “Men.”

Parson (candidly). – “Well, I suppose that is the most available sort of knowledge, in a worldly point of view. How does one learn it? Do books help?”

Randal. – “According as they are read, they help or injure.”

Parson. – “How should they be read in order to help?”

Randal. – “Read specially to apply to purposes that lead to power.”

Parson (very much struck with Randal’s pithy and Spartan logic). – “Upon my word, sir, you express yourself very well. I must own that I began these questions in the hope of differing from you; for I like an argument.”

“That he does,” growled the Squire; “the most contradictory creature!”

Parson. – “Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am afraid I must agree with you, which I was not at all prepared for.”

Randal bowed, and answered – “No two men of our education can dispute upon the application of knowledge.”

Parson (pricking up his ears). – “Eh! what to?”

Randal. – “Power, of course.”

Parson (overjoyed). – “Power! – the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?”

Randal (in his turn interested and interrogative). – “What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?”

Parson. – “The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence.”

Randal suppressed the half disdainful smile that rose to his lip.

“You speak, sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world gets any power at all.”

Squire (seriously). – “That’s true: I never get my own way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and harsh.”

Parson. – “Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?”

Randal. – “Resemble? – I can hardly say, some very great man – almost any very great man – who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his ends.”

Parson. – “I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not meant to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Cæsar was naturally beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil.”

Randal (startled). – “Do you mean the Devil?”

Parson. – “Yes, sir – the Devil; and even he, sir, did not succeed! Even he, sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure.”

Mrs. Dale. – “My dear – my dear.”

Parson. – “Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he fell.”

There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to own to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose.

The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the Parson, satisfied with what he deemed a clencher upon his favorite subject of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till happening to fall upon tithes, the Squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular.

CHAPTER IX

On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of their school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing between them. Mrs. Hazeldean’s hand hung affectionately over Carry’s shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over the same book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from each other in character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the intimacy of happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from the still land of Truth or Fancy – brought together in heart, as each eye rested on the same thought; – closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the actual world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling the readers of some gentle book.

“And what work interests you so much?” said Randal, pausing by the table.

“One you have read, of course,” replied Mrs Dale, putting a bookmark embroidered by her self into the page, and handing the volume to Randal. “It has made a great sensation, I believe.”

Randal glanced at the title of the work “True,” said he, “I have heard much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it.”

Mrs. Dale. – “I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night, and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean.”

Parson (approaching). – “Oh! that book! – yes, you must read it. I do not know a work more instructive.”

Randal. – “Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it was a mere work of amusement – of fancy. It seems so, as I look over it.”

Parson. – “So is the Vicar of Wakefield; yet what book more instructive?”

Randal. – “I should not have said that of the Vicar of Wakefield. A pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it instructive?”

Parson. – “By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through the heart; the last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You will grant my proposition when you have read it.”

Randal smiled and took the volume.

Mrs. Dale. – “Is the author known yet?”

Randal. – “I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one has claimed it.”

Parson. – “I think it must have been written by my old college friend, Professor Moss, the naturalist; its descriptions of scenery are so accurate.”

Mrs. Dale. – “La, Charles, dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor? How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young; there is so much freshness of feeling.”

Mrs. Hazeldean (positively). – “Yes, certainly young.”

Parson (no less positively). – “I should say just the contrary. Its tone is too serene, and its style too simple for a young man. Besides, I don’t know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has been sent me – very handsomely bound too, you see. Depend upon it, Moss is the man – quite his turn of mind.”

Mrs. dale. – “You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so remarkably plain, too.”

Randal. – “Must an author be handsome?”

Parson. – “Ha, ha! Answer that, if you can, Carry.”

Carry remained mute and disdainful.

Squire (with great naïveté). – “Well, I don’t think there’s much in the book, whoever wrote it; for I’ve read it myself, and understand every word of it.”

Mrs. dale. – “I don’t see why you should suppose it was written by a man at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman.”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “Yes, there’s a passage about maternal affection, which only a woman could have written.”

Parson. – “Pooh, pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm; every wildflower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August – every sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. Nobody else but my friend Moss could have written that description.”

Squire. – “I don’t know; there’s a simile about the waste of corn-seed in hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!”

Mrs. dale (scornfully). – “A farmer! In hob-nailed shoes, I suppose! I say it is a woman.”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “A woman, and a mother!”

Parson. – “A middle-aged man, and a naturalist.”

Squire. – “No, no, Parson; certainly a young man; for that love-scene puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was – ‘Fine weather for the crops, Miss.’ Yes, a young man, and a farmer. I should not wonder if he had held the plow himself.”

Randal (who had been turning over the pages). – “This sketch of night in London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities, and looked at wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book.”

“Strange,” said the Parson, smiling, “that this little work should so have entered our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet equally charmed all – given a new and fresh current to our dull country life – animated us as with the sight of a world in our breasts we had never seen before, save in dreams; – a little work like this, by a man we don’t know, and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a noble one!”

“A sort of power, certainly, sir,” said Randal, candidly; and that night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the reading.

The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the writer’s calm enjoyment of the Beautiful. It seemed like some happy soul sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much force and vigor were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played round the heart of the reader, and vivified feelings that seemed unknown before. Randal laid down the book softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and base purposes to which his own knowledge was applied, stood before him, naked and unmasked.

“Tut,” said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, “it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such would be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise as they may?”

And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect, from which the guide beneficence was gone.

CHAPTER X

Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast bell, and on the staircase met Mrs. Hazeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little morning-room appropriated to herself. No boudoir of white and gold, with pictures by Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses that held the old heir-loom linen strewed with lavender – stores for the housekeeper, and medicines for the poor.

Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked formidably at home.

“Pray,” said the lady, coming at once to the point, with her usual straightforward candor, “what is all this you have been saying to my husband as to the possibility of Frank’s marrying a foreigner?”

Randal. – “Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “You ask me a question, instead of answering mine.”

Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For indeed he had a double purpose to serve – first thoroughly to know if Frank’s marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the Squire sufficiently to endanger the son’s inheritance; and, secondly, to prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address Frank on the subject, and frustrate the marriage itself. Yet, withal, he must so express himself, that he could not be afterward accused by the parents of disguising matters. In his talk to the Squire the preceding day, he had gone a little too far – farther than he would have done but for his desire of escaping the cattle-shed and short-horns. While he mused, Mrs. Hazeldean observed him with her honest, sensible eyes and finally exclaimed —

“Out with it, Mr. Leslie!”

“Out with what, my dear madam? The Squire has sadly exaggerated the importance of what was said mainly in jest. But I will own to you plainly, that Frank has appeared to me a little smitten with a certain fair Italian.”

“Italian!” cried Mrs. Hazeldean. “Well, I said so from the first. Italian! – that’s all, is it?” and she smiled.

Randal was more and more perplexed. The pupil of his eye contracted, as it does when we retreat into ourselves, and think, watch, and keep guard.

“And perhaps,” resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very sunny expression of countenance, “you have noticed this in Frank since he was here?”

“It is true,” murmured Randal; “but I think his heart or his fancy was touched even before.”

“Very natural,” said Mrs. Hazeldean. “How could he help it? – such a beautiful creature! Well, I must not ask you to tell Frank’s secrets; but I guess the object of attraction; and though she will have no fortune to speak of – and it is not such a match as he might form – still she is so amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little like one’s general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think I could persuade Hazeldean into giving his consent.”

“Ah!” said Randal, drawing a long breath, and beginning with his practiced acuteness to detect Mrs. Hazeldean’s error, “I am very much relieved and rejoiced to hear this: and I may venture to give Frank some hope, if I find him disheartened and desponding, poor fellow!”

“I think you may,” replied Mrs. Hazeldean, laughing pleasantly. “But you should not have frightened poor William so, hinting that the lady knew very little English. She has an accent, to be sure; but she speaks our tongue very prettily. I always forget that she’s not English born! Ha, ha, poor William!”

Randal. – “Ha, ha!”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “We had once thought of another match for Frank – a girl of good English family.”

Randal. – “Miss Sticktorights?”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “No; that’s an old whim of Hazeldean’s. But he knows very well that the Sticktorights would never merge their property in ours. Bless you, it would be all off the moment they came to settlements, and had to give up the right of way. We thought of a very different match; but there’s no dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie.”

Randal. – “Indeed no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we now understand each other so well, excuse me if I suggest that you had better leave things to themselves, and not write to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you know, are often stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when the obstacle vanishes.”

Mrs. hazeldean. – “Very possibly; it was not so with Hazeldean and me. But I shall not write to Frank on the subject, for a different reason – though I would consent to the match, and so would William, yet we both would rather, after all, that Frank married an Englishwoman, and a Protestant. We will not, therefore, do any thing to encourage the idea. But if Frank’s happiness becomes really at stake, then we will step in. In short, we would neither encourage nor oppose. You understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“And, in the mean while, it is quite right that Frank should see the world, and try to distract his mind, or at least to know it. And I dare say it has been some thought of that kind which has prevented his coming here.”

Randal, dreading a further and plainer éclaircissement, now rose, and saying, “Pardon me, but I must hurry over breakfast, and be back in time to catch the coach” – offered his arm to his hostess, and led her into the breakfast-parlor. Devouring his meal, as if in great haste, he then mounted his horse, and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers, trotted briskly away.

All things favored his project – even chance had befriended him in Mrs. Hazeldean’s mistake. She had not unnaturally supposed Violante to have captivated Frank on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had certified his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the Squire than an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could yet assure Frank that Mrs. Hazeldean was all on his side. And when the error was discovered, Mrs. Hazeldean would only have to blame herself for it. Still more successful had his diplomacy proved with the Riccaboccas; he had ascertained the secret he had come to discover; he should induce the Italian to remove to the neighborhood of London; and if Violante were the great heiress he suspected her to prove, whom else of her own age would she see but him? And the old Leslie domains – to be sold in two years – a portion of the dowry might purchase them! Flushed by the triumph of his craft, all former vacillations of conscience ceased. In high and fervent spirits he passed the Casino, the garden of which was solitary and deserted, reached his home, and, telling Oliver to be studious, and Juliet to be patient, walked thence to meet the coach and regain the capital.