foreign politics he does not care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your 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 arrived 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! – 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 gentleman in question was based upon circumstances which I cannot communicate."
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 impressions respecting Lord L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which would lead you to doubt his honour, or reject his testimonial in my favour?"
"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 argued 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 favour 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! an obstacle now occurred to 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 the 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! 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 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 interests – 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."
"Truths," interrupted Riccabocca profoundly, "are the slowest growing things in the world! It took 1500 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 honour – you will defer this discussion, I will promise to listen to you hereafter; and though, to say 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 small-shot. 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."
"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 turn-coats 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 is all your fault for not thinking of it before; and I've now just made up my mind as to the course to pursue