"But those newspaper rumours are frequently such impertinent falsehoods. Remember that, if their authors get their columns filled, they care little with what it may be, for a newspaper must contain daily the same amount of words, whether it give news or not. So with messieurs the editors, it is anything for the nonce. Their best productions are in the press to-day, and too often, perhaps, we don't know where to-morrow; so put not your trust in this, Norcliff. And now to bed. We have stable duty at seven, A.M., to-morrow," concluded Studhome.
Next morning, Captain Binnacle, who had been on shore at Valetta, brought off with him the mail, which came from London viâ Marseilles, and by it I received a welcome letter from Sir Nigel.
It was long and hurried; but was filled chiefly with hunting intelligence. Had Cora written—and why did she not?—I might have had more interesting tidings.
He had bought a couple of hunters from Lord Chillingham but feared they wouldn't do in such a stone-wall county as Fife; and he had secured a new huntsman—such a tip-top fellow! He had hunted all the counties on the Welsh border—could tell the pedigree of a hound at a glance—was perfect in his work, and rode under ten stone. Sir Hubert himself was but a sham when compared to him, and he was sure to figure some day in the columns of Bell's Life.
I had full permission to draw for whatever I required; but I scanned the letter in vain for the name of Louisa. Slubber's was spoken of only twice. Indeed, my hearty old uncle viewed that noble peer of the realm with no small contempt.
"I am still at Chillingham Park, with our kind friends; but I must be home in Scotland for the Lanarkshire steeple-chase on Beltane day. There will be some queer jockeyship in the mounts, I fear. Four miles distance will be the run, including thirteen stone walls, four rough burns, two water leaps, and six-and-twenty most infernal fences. I know the course well—by Gryffwraes and Waterlee. (All this stuff, thought I, and not one word of Louisa!) Old Slubber is to be made a marquis, it seems, so the countess talks nothing but 'peerage'—Douglas and Debrett, Lodge, and Sir Bernard Burke. It is all noble 'shop,' and we poor commoners have not the shadow of a chance!
"Slubber is an old humbug; I am as old as he is, perhaps; but I don't wear my hat in the nape of my neck, or use goloshes and an umbrella—never had one in all my life. I don't mount my horse with the aid of a groom, and ride him as if I was afraid he'd take it into his head to run up a tree. I don't take dinner pills and Seltzer water on the sly from the butler; and my stomach, thank God, is not like his—a more delicate piece of machinery than Cora's French watch; for I can take a jolly curler's dinner of salt beef and greens, and can rush my horse at a six-foot wall neck and neck with the lightest lad in your troop.
"So why he's made a marquis, the devil, and that Scoto-Russian, Lord Aberdeen, on whose policy he always gobbles like a turkey-cock, only know."
Sir Nigel's ridicule of Slubber consoled me a little for his omitting the dear name of Louisa. I knew that it was my regard for her that inspired his chief dislike for the lord. But why was the good-hearted baronet so vituperative? Was the senile peer really likely to become a successful lover? Save by the side of his mistress, a lover is never content.
CHAPTER XXIX.