"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 recognised 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 Rickey-bockey 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 his 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." CHAPTER XII. "But how on earth did you get into my new Stocks?" asked the Squire, scratching his head. "My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna." "Did he, and what for?" "To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca. The Squire burst out a-laughing.