me
stubbornness; with great sensibility to kindness, there was also strong
reluctance to forgive affront.

This mixed nature in an uncultivated peasant's breast interested
Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the commerce of mankind,
still looked upon man as the most various and entertaining volume which
philosophical research can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the
tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive; and Lenny's
language and ideas became insensibly less rustic and more refined. Then
Riccabocca selected from his library, small as it was, books that,
though elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found
within his reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language
well, better in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not
ill-educated Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with
which a scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he
had many of the books which had formerly served him for that purpose.
These were the first works he had lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo
imparted to the boy many secrets in practical gardening and minute
husbandry, for at that day farming in England (some favored counties and
estates excepted) was far below the nicety to which the art has been
immemorially carried in the north of Italy--where, indeed, you may
travel for miles and miles as through a series of market-gardens--so
that, all these things considered, Leonard Fairfield might be said to
have made a change for the better. Yet in truth, and looking below the
surface, that might be fair matter of doubt. For the same reason which
had induced the boy to fly his native village, he no longer repaired to
the church of Hazeldean. The old intimate intercourse between him and
the Parson became necessarily suspended, or bounded to an occasional
kindly visit from the father--visits which grew more rare, and less
familiar, as he found his former pupil in no want of his services, and
wholly deaf to his mild entreaties to forget and forgive the past, and
come at least to his old seat in the parish church. Lenny still went to
church--a church a long way off in another parish--but the sermons did
not do him the same good as Parson Dale's had done; and the clergyman,
who had his own flock to attend to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale
would have done, to explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was
profitable, in private talk, with that stray lamb from ano