Nashon bought Copperbottom, ran him, carried the prize, and sold him next day for ten pounds of profit; on which great occasion he informed his housekeeper, Esther Maclean, that he intended to entertain the whole Soho Club at Outfieldhaugh—a communication that produced a mixed feeling of terror and wonder on the part of the old housekeeper, which she had no words adequately to express. She wished him to be genteel, and like the other gentlemen of the neighbourhood; but she had heard hints that he was getting fast into the vortex of a sportsman’s dissipation; and the intelligence that he was to entertain the “Soho”—equal, in her estimation, to dining the Cham of Tartary and his staff—confirmed the report, and filled her with sorrow and regret. All her efforts to dissuade her master from his purpose were unavailing: cards were issued to forty gentlemen; the question put by Esther, where he was to find the necessary service of table apparatus, the wine, the cooks, and the waiters, required to be answered; and he was at no loss for an answer on a subject he had deeply considered. Mounting Springall, he hastened away to a town at some considerable distance, and procured an estimate from an innkeeper of the expense of his projected entertainment. The innkeeper undertook to supply everything, with livery servants, unknown to the company, and keep his engagement a profound secret, for so much a-head. The entertainment went off in great style; Nashon presided, with all the manners of a thorough-bred blood sportsman—drank, sang, and talked of races and steeple-chases, with all the slang and spirit of the craft. The wine, the plate, the service, the servants in livery, and all the appurtenances of a great establishment, apparently belonging to the merry master of the revels, were of the best kind, and produced universal admiration. The spirit and bounty of Nashon were extolled to the utmost, and Squire Hawthorn admitted, in a whisper to Græme, that the loan of the boots had been amply repaid. Nashon again drank them all out. The extent of the potations made no change on the expense, and a folly that was never to be repeated might be carried with impunity to the confines of madness.
Next morning, after encountering the lugubrious face of Esther Maclean, who saw in the hired servants and the broken dishes and glasses all the worst symptoms of approaching ruin, Nashon went out to enjoy the refreshing breezes that swept along the Well Burn; and, at her beloved spot, the Monks’ Well, he found Dione Græme sitting, wrapped in meditation.
“Do I see,” said Dione, as he approached her, “the same individual I met on this spot on a former occasion, when I thought his unpolished prudence and good sense would have enabled him to profit by a disclosure I made without intention.”
“The very same—Nashon Heatherton,” replied he, “wi’ nae change in him, except it be that he is, if possible, still mair prudent and far wiser than he was on that eventfu day.”
“I know you are a riddle, sir,” said Dione—“a charade I cannot solve. Do not the neighbours say, what I have partially witnessed, that you are inebriated with the spirit of the fox-hunter, and fast riding to ruin, at the nod and by the example of my father, who, however, is making his folly subservient to his purpose of ruining you?”
“A’ true, my bonny Dione,” replied Nashon. “Naebody can be blamed for sayin what I wish him to think. They say, and you suppose, that I am ridin to the deevil; but will ye believe me when I tell you that I am only ridin to you? If you’ll tak me as I stand, and marry me in spite o’ your faither an’ mither, I’ll gie up my mad pranks, and sit quietly down, as a douce, sensible man, whase greatest ambition and highest pleasure would be to minister to the comfort and happiness o’ Dione Græme.”
“My father and mother will never consent to that,” replied Dione. “It was only this morning that my mother urged me to receive more kindly, or rather less unkindly, the addresses of Benjamin Rice; but how can it be that your behaving as a fool can ever come in place of the consent of my parents, or procure me for your wife, even if I were favourably affected towards you?”
“If you will tell me that you love me and will become my wife, provided I get your faither and mither’s consent to our union,” replied Nashon, “I will tell you the wisdom o’ my folly, an’ explain my riddle—that, in place o’ ridin to the deevil, I am ridin to Dione.”
“I must believe the evidence of my senses,” replied Dione. “I have already given you reason to suppose that I was well affected towards you; but, if Benjamin Rice has disgusted me, Nashon Heatherton has terrified me; and I must first see an amendment of your conduct before I pledge myself to what may be my ruin.”
“Time tries whinstanes, Dione,” replied Nashon; “an’ my folly is no quite sae hardened an’ perverse. If ye gang sae muckle by the evidence o’ yer senses, I hae nae objection to mak them the test o’ my conduct, when a’ its pairts are seen thegither, an’ my motives for actin as I now do can be properly understood. Will ye be kind to me, Dione, till I prove myself the same prudent Nashon Heatherton you first thought me?”