"As to that," cried the Squire, "'tis the best thing I know about Rickeybockey, that he don't attempt to humbug us by any such foreign trumpery. Thank heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never tuft-hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry!--pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married a Doctor of Divinity--excellent man--wore a wig, and was made a dean! So long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button. If he's _that_, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on a stage with a Merry-Andrew." "Lord, Hazeldean! where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry laughing. "Pick it up!--why I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last year--when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a cocked hat, a little like the Parson's shovel. He called himself Doctor Phoscophornio--wore a white wig, and sold pills! The Merry-Andrew was the funniest creature--in salmon-coloured tights--turned head over heels, and said he came from Timbuctoo. No, no; if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor, we shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress, tramping about the country in a caravan!" At this notion, both the Squire and his wife laughed so heartily that the Parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the intention of making his report to Riccabocca. CHAPTER XXVI