sitively
succeeded in making what he calls _wine_--a liquid, indeed, that, if the
cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the
mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a
robust man who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity, having
once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had a bill
from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis, Dr.
Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement smoothed and
trim as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favorite
flowers were arranged. Here four orange trees were in full blossom; here a
kind of summer-house or Belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his
chosen morning room from May till October; and from this Belvidere there
was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature had
hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a
banquet to the exile.

A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was employed
in watering the flowers; a man with movements so mechanical--with a face so
rigidly grave in its tawny hues--that he seemed like an automaton made out
of mahogany.

"Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly.

The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head.

"Put by the watering-pot, and come here," continued Riccabocca in Italian;
and, moving toward the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the
historian, calls Jean Jacques "_John James_." Following that illustrious
example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo came to the
balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master.

"Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with us.
Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent those
fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange
movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on his
finger.

"If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said
Jackeymo, doubtfully.

"_Piu vale un presente che due futuri_," said Riccabocca. "A bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush."

"_Chi non fa quondo puo, non puo fare quondo vuole_"--("He who will not
when he may, when he will it shall have nay")--answered Jackeymo, as
sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that he
must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina"--(young lady).

Riccabocca sighed, and made n