"The mare can do it, I tell ye! an' the Captain rode her beau-tiful! Isn't it strange, now, to see little Shaneen comin' in like that at the finish, an' givin' her a batin' by a neck!"
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Dinner that day at the castle seemed less lively than usual. Macormac, indeed, whose joviality was invincible, ate, drank, laughed, and talked for a dozen; but Lady Mary's spirits were obviously depressed; and the guests, perhaps not without private vexation of their own, took their cue rather from hostess than host. An unaccountable sense of gloom and disappointment pervaded the whole party. The General having come down early, in hopes of a few minutes with Miss Douglas in the drawing-room before the others were dressed, had been disappointed by the protracted toilette and tardy appearance of that provoking young lady, with whom he parted an hour before on terms of mutual sympathy and tenderness, but who now sat pale and silent, while the thunder clouds he knew and dreaded gathered ominously on her brow. His preoccupation necessarily affected his neighbour—a budding beauty fresh from the school-room, full of fun and good humour, that her sense of propriety kept down, unless judiciously encouraged and drawn out. Most of the gentlemen had been wet to the skin, many had lost money, all were tired, and Norah Macormac's eyes filled every now and then with tears. These discoveries Mrs. Lushington imparted in a whisper to Lord St. Abbs as he sat between herself and her hostess, whom he had taken in to dinner, pausing thereafter to mark the effect of her condescension on this raw youth, lately launched into the great world. The young nobleman, however, betrayed no symptoms of emotion beyond screwing his eye-glass tighter in its place, and turning round to look straight in her face, while it dropped out with a jump. Even Mrs. Lushington felt at a disadvantage, and took counsel with her own heart whether she should accost him again.
Why Lord St. Abbs went about at all, or what pleasure he derived from the society of his fellow-creatures, was a puzzle nobody had yet been able to find out. Pale, thin, and puny in person, freckled, sandy-haired, bearing all outward characteristics of Scottish extraction, except the Caledonian's gaunt and stalwart frame, he neither rowed, shot, fished, sang, made jokes, nor played whist. He drank very little, conversed not at all, and was voted by nearly all who had the advantage of his acquaintance "the dullest young man out!"
Yet was he to be seen everywhere, from Buckingham Palace or Holland House to Hampton races and the fire-works at Cremorne; always alone, always silent, with his glass in his eye, observant, imperturbable, and thinking, no doubt, a great deal.