old bills. Three days out of the seven,
indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in
the garden, and the fishes in the neighboring rill; when no trout could
be caught they fried the minnows, (and certainly, even in the best
streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trouts.) The next thing
which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of
the neighborhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures
gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At
first indeed, they had no woman servant at all. But this created such
horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca
took in very good part, and an old woman was forthwith engaged, after
some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and scrub as much as
she liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to
sleep. The man servant, who was styled in the neighborhood "Jackeymo,"
did all else for his master--smoothed his room, dusted his papers,
prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned
his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large collection. But however close
a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many
little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some
more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his
calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair
reputation--suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the
Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and
himself,--in other respects harmless enough.

Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the
Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the Squire was inclined to
be very friendly to all his neighbors--he was, like most country
gentlemen, rather easily _huffed_. Riccabocca had, if with great
politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier
invitations to dinner; and when the Squire found that the Italian rarely
declined to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak
points--viz., his regard for the honor of the hospitality of Hazeldean
Hall--and he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected.
Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the Squire, however huffed, to
bear malice, he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by
presents of game, and would have called on him more often than he did,