Вальтер Скотт - St. Ronan's Well

“It was feeding-time, my love,” said Lady Penelope; “and the lower animals of every class become pugnacious at that hour – you see all our safer and well-conditioned animals are loose, and in good order.”

“Oh, yes – in the keeper's presence, you know – Well, I must venture to cross the hall again among all that growling and grumbling – I would I had the fairy prince's quarters of mutton to toss among them if they should break out – He, I mean, who fetched water from the Fountain of Lions. However, on second thoughts, I will take the back way, and avoid them. – What says honest Bottom? —

“Shall I go with you, my dear?” said Lady Penelope.

“No – I have too great a soul for that – I think some of them are lions only as far as the hide is concerned.”

“But why would you go so soon, Clara?”

“Because my errand is finished – have I not invited you and yours? and would not Lord Chesterfield himself allow I have done the polite thing?”

“But you have spoke to none of the company – how can you be so odd, my love?” said her ladyship.

“Why, I spoke to them all when I spoke to you and Lady Binks – but I am a good girl, and will do as I am bid.”

So saying, she looked round the company, and addressed each of them with an affectation of interest and politeness, which thinly concealed scorn and contempt.

“Mr. Winterblossom, I hope the gout is better – Mr. Robert Rymar – (I have escaped calling him Thomas for once) – I hope the public give encouragement to the muses – Mr. Keelavine, I trust your pencil is busy – Mr. Chatterly, I have no doubt your flock improves – Dr. Quackleben, I am sure your patients recover – These are all the especials of the worthy company I know – for the rest, health to the sick, and pleasure to the healthy!”

“You are not going in reality, my love?” said Lady Penelope; “these hasty rides agitate your nerves – they do, indeed – you should be cautious – Shall I speak to Quackleben?”

“To neither Quack nor quackle, on my account, my dear lady. It is not as you would seem to say, by your winking at Lady Binks – it is not, indeed – I shall be no Lady Clementina, to be the wonder and pity of the spring of St. Ronan's – No Ophelia neither – though I will say with her, Good-night, ladies – Good night, sweet ladies! – and now – not my coach, my coach – but my horse, my horse!”

So saying, she tripped out of the room by a side passage, leaving the ladies looking at each other significantly, and shaking their heads with an expression of much import.

“Something has ruffled the poor unhappy girl,” said Lady Penelope; “I never saw her so very odd before.”

“Were I to speak my mind,” said Lady Binks, “I think, as Mrs. Highmore says in the farce, her madness is but a poor excuse for her impertinence.”

“Oh fie! my sweet Lady Binks,” said Lady Penelope, “spare my poor favourite! You, surely, of all others, should forgive the excesses of an amiable eccentricity of temper. – Forgive me, my love, but I must defend an absent friend – My Lady Binks, I am very sure, is too generous and candid to

‘Hate for arts which caused herself to rise.’”

“Not being conscious of any high elevation, my lady,” answered Lady Binks, “I do not know any arts I have been under the necessity of practising to attain it. I suppose a Scotch lady of an ancient family may become the wife of an English baronet, and no very extraordinary great cause to wonder at it.”

“No, surely – but people in this world will, you know, wonder at nothing,” answered Lady Penelope.

“If you envy me my poor quiz, Sir Bingo, I'll get you a better, Lady Pen.”

“I don't doubt your talents, my dear, but when I want one, I will get one for myself. – But here comes the whole party of quizzes. – Joliffe, offer the gentlemen tea – then get the floor ready for the dancers, and set the card-tables in the next room.”

If the reader has attended much to the manners of the canine race, he may have remarked the very different manner in which the individuals of the different sexes carry on their quarrels among each other. The females are testy, petulant, and very apt to indulge their impatient dislike of each other's presence, or the spirit of rivalry which it produces, in a sudden bark and snap, which last is generally made as much at advantage as possible. But these ebullitions of peevishness lead to no very serious or prosecuted conflict; the affair begins and ends in a moment. Not so the ire of the male dogs, which, once produced and excited by growls of mutual offence and defiance, leads generally to a fierce and obstinate contest; in which, if the parties be dogs of game, and well-matched, they grapple, throttle, tear, roll each other in the kennel, and can only be separated by choking them with their own collars, till they lose wind and hold at the same time, or by surprising them out of their wrath by sousing them with cold water.

The simile, though a currish one, will hold good in its application to the human race. While the ladies in the tea-room of the Fox Hotel were engaged in the light snappish velitation, or skirmish, which we have described, the gentlemen who remained in the parlour were more than once like to have quarrelled more seriously.

We have mentioned the weighty reasons which induced Mr. Mowbray to look upon the stranger whom a general invitation had brought into their society, with unfavourable prepossessions; and these were far from being abated by the demeanour of Tyrrel, which, though perfectly well-bred, indicated a sense of equality, which the young Laird of St. Ronan's considered as extremely presumptuous.

As for Sir Bingo, he already began to nourish the genuine hatred always entertained by a mean spirit against an antagonist, before whom it is conscious of having made a dishonourable retreat. He forgot not the manner, look, and tone, with which Tyrrel had checked his unauthorized intrusion; and though he had sunk beneath it at the moment, the recollection rankled in his heart as an affront to be avenged. As he drank his wine, courage, the want of which was, in his more sober moments, a check upon his bad temper, began to inflame his malignity, and he ventured upon several occasions to show his spleen, by contradicting Tyrrel more flatly than good manners permitted upon so short an acquaintance, and without any provocation. Tyrrel saw his ill humour and despised it, as that of an overgrown schoolboy, whom it was not worth his while to answer according to his folly.

One of the apparent causes of the Baronet's rudeness was indeed childish enough. The company were talking of shooting, the most animating topic of conversation among Scottish country gentlemen of the younger class, and Tyrrel had mentioned something of a favourite setter, an uncommonly handsome dog, from which he had been for some time separated, but which he expected would rejoin him in the course of next week.

“A setter!” retorted Sir Bingo, with a sneer; “a pointer I suppose you mean?”

“No, sir,” said Tyrrel; “I am perfectly aware of the difference betwixt a setter and a pointer, and I know the old-fashioned setter is become unfashionable among modern sportsmen. But I love my dog as a companion, as well as for his merits in the field; and a setter is more sagacious, more attached, and fitter for his place on the hearth-rug, than a pointer – not,” he added, “from any deficiency of intellects on the pointer's part, but he is generally so abused while in the management of brutal breakers and grooms, that he loses all excepting his professional accomplishments, of finding and standing steady to game.”