Niccolo was the oldest servant in the establishment, having filled
the same place he now held under the Marchese's father. He was an
older man by several years than the Marchese Lamberto; and he it had
been, who, when the present Marchese was a child of ten years old,
had put him on his first pony, and been his riding-master. Old
Niccolo, like every other old Italian servant of the old school,
held, as the first and most important article of his creed, the
unquestioning belief that the Castelmare family was the most noble,
the most ancient, and in every respect the grandest in the world,
and the Marchese Lamberto the greatest and most powerful man in it.
He was a good sort of man in his way, was old Niccolo; went to
confession regularly; and did his duty in that state of life to
which it had pleased Providence to call him according to his lights;
was honest in his dealings; knew in a rough sort of way that
veracity was good, and unveracity bad, to such an extent as to
understand that truth-telling should be the rule and lying the
exception; and was faithful to the death to his employer.
Old Niccolo was also a very perfect specimen of the product of a
peculiar way of thinking, which was a speciality of the rapidly
disappearing class to which he belonged. He did not imagine for a
moment, that the laws and rules of morality and duty, by which he
had been taught, that he ought to regulate his own conduct, were at
all applicable to his master.
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