Whatever may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs upon Dr Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the Parson's, charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was bid, he owed an agonising defeat and a shameful incarceration. And, to Mrs Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his lessons at school--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though sullenly; and the Parson thought it better to temporise as to the more unpalatable demand. Unluckily Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realised. Though Stirn at first kept his own counsel, the Tinker blabbed the whole affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then Stirn told his story, as the Tinker had told his own; both tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern boy had broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out the misdemeanours of his equals: therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded pattern boy and baffled spy, could expect no mercy;--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other. It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster, and under the eye of Mr Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the moment those checks were removed, popular persecution began. Some pointed and mowed at him; some cursed him for a sneak, and all shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed through the village at dusk, "Who was put in the stocks?--baa!" "Who got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!" To resist this species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head and a colder temper than our poor pattern boy's. He took his resolution at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after Dr Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he to the Doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his red silk umbrella over his head; "Please, sir, if you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I'll work for your honour night and day; and as for the wages, mother says 'just suit yourself, sir.'"