'Stuff, Snobleigh,' said Captain Clavering; 'what the deuce does a little blood matter? You have done well and nobly, Mac Innon; but you look a little pale—you are not hurt, I hope?'
'Not in the least.'
'Why don't you speak, Sir Horace?' said Miss Clavering, impetuously; 'have you not a tongue to thank him who saved your daughter's life?'
'I have a tongue, but not words, my dear Miss Clavering,' said the cold and pompous baronet. 'You have saved my Laura from a terrible death, sir,' he continued, addressing me with a warmth of manner somewhat unusual in him; 'stay among us, Mr. Mac Innon, and I shall leave nothing undone for your welfare—that is, if it is in my power, of course.'
'Aw—of course,' chorused the languid Snobleigh.
'Do, Mr. Mac Innon,' added Fanny Clavering, bending her bright and beautiful eyes upon me, while she laid her pretty hand upon my arm; 'do, and all the past shall be forgotten.'
'Your offer comes too late, Sir Horace,' said I, in a broken voice, 'though my heart is rent in two by this separation from my native country—with that separation every tie is broken. Restore the people—restore that now ruined hamlet and desolate glen to what it was a month ago; give me back my poor old mother from her cold grave on yonder promontory, that grave to which your severity or the cruelty of your underlings drove her, and then speak of remaining here; but not till then.'
'Arms are the natural profession of a Highlander,' said Captain Clavering, putting a hand on my shoulder in his frank English way; 'could you, Sir Horace, not do something for him at the Horse Guards?—Devilish sorry that I have no interest in that quarter myself.'
'It would afford me the utmost gratification to do so,' replied the stiff and pompous baronet, in his coldest manner; 'but really, the fact is, I do not feel myself at liberty to ask a favour from any of the present administration.'
'The deuce you don't?'