"Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble
and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and
title!--foreign cabbage and beef!--foreign bubble and foreign
squeak!" And the Squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust
and indignation.
"You must have an Englishwoman?"
"Of course."
"Money?"
"Don't care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, with a
good character for her dower."
"Character--ah, that is indispensable?"
"I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of Hazeldean; you
frighten me. He's not going to run off with a divorced woman, or a--"
The Squire stopped, and looked so red in the face, that Randal
feared he might be seized with apoplexy before Frank's crimes had
made him alter his will.
Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr Hazeldean's mind, and assured
him that he had been only talking at random; that Frank was in
the habit, indeed, of seeing foreign ladies occasionally, as all
persons in the London world were; but that he was sure Frank would
never marry without the full consent and approval of his parents.
He ended by repeating his assurance, that he would warn the Squire
if ever it became necessary. Still, however, he left Mr Hazeldean
so disturbed and uneasy, that that gentleman forgot all about the
farm, and went moodily on in the opposite direction, re-entering the
park at its farther extremity. As soon as they approached the house,
the Squire hastened to shut himself with his wife in full parental
consultation; and Randal, seated upon a bench on the terrace,
revolved the mischief he had done, and its chances of success.
While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep approached
cautiously, and 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 recognised 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 honours 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?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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