"I dare not seek to offer thee
A timid love like mine—"
'Like hers indeed—aw—aw—ha! ha! it has been offered to half the fellows in the Household Brigade. Curse that pink champagne—it makes one so devilish shaky in the aw—legs. Yes—Laura has talked so much about this 'Ighland colt, Mac Innon, ever since the shooting-match, that I—aw don't half like it. In fact, Clavering—a good judge of both horses and aw—women—swears that she loves him.'
'You cannot be serious?'
'Aw—yes, frightfully serious. But only think of a girl like Laura troubling her—aw head about such a wild Highland Sawney Bean? I should like to see him handling my yacht, the Bruiser, in a stiff nor'-easter off Cowes; taking the mettle out of a four-in-hand team; aw—making up his book on the Derby; widing the winnaw at the Oaks; knocking the balls about at billiards, or aw—aw—getting a child of Judah to fork out the tip, or achieving anything else that savours of town life, or of civilization. The chawming Laura in love with him indeed; 'pon my soul the idea is—aw too absawd!'
'Absurd, indeed,' chorused Mr. Mac Fee.
'Absawd—my dear fellow, absawd!' added Snobleigh, as he staggered away, followed by the obsequious Mac Fee.
Laura spoke of me frequently, and Clavering thought she loved me!
Loved me—could it be credible, or was it the mere jest of a heedless heart, that linked our names together—a linking that, in love, has a nameless charm to the young, the timid, the tender, and the true. What a tumult was raised in my breast by this casual revelation! I scarcely dared to breathe. If aught was wanting to increase the bitterness of the struggle waged by pride and love within me, it was the words of the thoughtless Snobleigh.
But these bright hopes of a vague and joyous future—and all their train of burning thoughts and ardent aspirations, were doomed to be crushed and forgotten for a time, by the terrible tidings awaiting me at my desolate home.
Midnight was close at hand, when, turning away from this abode of luxury and splendour, where every comfort that wealth can procure surrounded the cold and selfish Sir Horace and his pampered household, I bent my steps towards the mountains, and by a narrow path through a dark and moonless copsewood—or rather, an old primeval forest of the Middle Ages, I hastened towards Glen Ora.