On the day appointed, Nashon, dressed and scented in great style, dined at Eyrymount. There were present several fox-hunters, Benjamin Rice, and others of the neighbours—none of whom came up to Nashon in brilliancy or scent. They seemed all delighted and amused with the grotesque figure, excepting Dione, who stared at him in sorrow and disappointment; for she could not conceive how so sudden a transformation from simplicity to gaudy glitter and bad taste, could have taken place on one who appeared to be gifted with prudence and good sense. She feared the hunter had turned his brain, and that her father and mother were in a fair way of seeing their scheme accomplished. Her pride was, moreover, hurt, when she saw the man whom she had begun to love, made a laughing-stock to a whole company, including the hated Benjamin Rice, who was himself exquisitely fitted for filling the high office so unaccountably occupied by the plain and cautious Nashon Heatherton. Nor was she better pleased with his conversation, which, while his old Scotch was retained by necessity, was directed towards subjects which she thought he despised—the interminable hunt, the turf, the dog-kennel, and the wassail chamber.
“I am told, Mr. Heatherton,” said Benjamin Rice, “that you were in at the death at the last hunt, and that you stood the great cup better than any one of the company.”
“Ou ay,” replied Nashon—“I hae turned a great sportsman, thanks to Eyrymount! an’ no bad hand at the bottle. I’m at present on terms wi’ Gib Cowper, the horse-jockey, for twa famous hunters, as guid, I think, as Springall. They’re baith by Bellerophon, real bluids; but he asks twa hundred guineas for them, an’ that I think is ower muckle; I offered him a hunder and ninety.”
“Where are they to be seen?” inquired Græme.
“I dinna ken,” replied Nashon. “He brought them to Outfieldhaugh; but wadna leave them in my stable till we bargained. He said he would ca’ again. I hae been offered Lord Luxmore’s pack, too, at four hunder guineas, fifty head, that is about four guineas a dog—owre muekle, dinna ye think, Eyrymount?”
“I don’t think so,” said Eyrymount—“I’ll run halves with you.”
“I’ll consider o’t,” said Nashon. “His lordship said he wad see me again. We’ll better no seem owre anxious—we may mak a better bargain, especially as they say he needs money.”
“Is it possible,” whispered Hawthorn to Eyrymount, “that the borrower of my old boots has any serious intention of keeping a pack?”
“I do not doubt it,” replied Eyrymount.
“Poor simpleton!” said Dione to herself, with a sigh, as she looked on the ruddy cheeks and open countenance of her grotesquely dressed lover—“has he fallen into the very snare I unwittingly pointed out to him?”