Sad, anxious, and most unhappy, I was silent, and drained the crystal goblet of champagne. Then my spirit warmed a little, and I joined in the conversation which naturally rose on local subjects, such as deer-stalking, grouse-shooting, and the famous white stag of Loch Ora, which many persons believed to be a myth, as no one could wound or kill it.
Even Mr. Fungus Mac Fee, the sheriff, could speak on these matters; but to me, always rather superciliously, because he knew but too well that my family was fallen and poor; while he always deferred to Mr. Snobleigh, who knew as much about deer-stalking as of squaring the circle, or adjusting the longitude. This sheriff knew intuitively that I hated him.
After toadying to his party, spinning out a subsistence by scribbling in magazines and papers in defence of it; after writing, with the same laudable view, a history of Scotland, in which the clans were handled with such severity, and one might suppose the soul of Cumberland had been in his ink-bottle, Mr. Mac Fee found himself sheriff of a county; and after denouncing on the hustings, and through the medium of a journal (long notorious in Scotland for its anti-nationality, its hatred of the Celtic race, and for being the special utensil of the Government,) the waste of one administration, he had no objection to accept of numerous sinecures for himself and his connections, under their successors; hence, he scraped a sufficient sum to purchase the small estate of Druckendubh. He was naturally coarse, argumentative, and full of vapour and authority; but here, among men of undisputed wealth and position—at least, the position which wealth insures to every blockhead in this conventional age—Fungus Mac Fee was the most bland and suave of mankind.
'Any news to-day, Mr. Mac Innon?' asked the sheriff, raising his impudent eyebrows.
'None, sir,' said I, sharply, for our Scottish placeman knew enough of Highland courtesy to be aware that the prefix was offensive to me.
'Have you not heard that the Russians have crossed the Pruth in two places, and mean to occupy Wallachia and Moldavia?'
'Yes; but I have other things to think of, Mr. Mac Fee, and I wish, in my soul, that they were crossing the Braes of Loch Ora.'
'A deuced odd wish that!' said Captain Clavering, 'but perhaps you don't like that straw-coloured champagne—try the pink.'
'Aw—try the claret-jug—you'll aw—find it rathaw the thing, said the languid Snobleigh, smoothing his bandolined moustache; 'Sir Horace is engaged in the library—aw—just now, with Mr. Snaggs—such a howibble name!—on business. Dem business—wish there was no such thing in the world; Snaggs is always annoying Sir Horace about something or other.'
My heart sank lower on hearing this; for even in this visit to the baronet, fate seemed to have conspired against me; but I should have remembered that naturally Sir Horace was frequently engaged in consultations with Snaggs, for being of a proud and tyrannical disposition, he was ever squabbling about rights and points of etiquette; taking offence where none was intended, and waging a legal—and to Snaggs most profitable—war, with the neighbouring proprietors, farmers, shepherds, and poachers.