Torrance had already consumed a good deal of wine. He had been crossed in his purpose, and his temper roused. His dark face was flushed, and his light eyes staring. Both his companions were men entirely out of sympathy with him, who were there because they could not help it, and who listened rather with angry shame that they should be parties to such discourse, than with any amiable desire to cover his shortcomings. They did not look at each other, but a slight uneasy movement on the part of both was as good as a mutual confidence, and both began to speak at once, with an anxious attempt to put an end to these unseemly revelations.
"What fine weather we've been having for the crops!" said Dr Stirling. And, "I wish you'd tell me what flies you use about here. I have had no luck at all on the river," cried John.
But their host was on his mettle, and felt himself a match for them both. "As for the weather, I've no land in my own hands--not such a fool! and I don't care a----that for the crops! Flies! you may have the finest in the world, but without sense you'll make nothing of them. Come with me, and I'll let you see how to make them bite. But as I was saying," Torrance went on, elevating his voice, "if you think his lordship is bent on the good of the county, you're mistaken, I can tell you. He means to get the seat for Rintoul. And who's Rintoul, to represent a county like this? A boy, in the first place--not fledged yet; what I call fledgling. And knows nothing about what we want. How should he? He never was in the county in his life till four or five years ago. You would have thought a man like old Lindores, that has been about the world, would have had more sense. That's just it; a man knocks about these little foreign places, and he thinks he knows the world. Now there's me. I would not take the trouble of Parliament, not for any inducement. It's no object to me. I prefer quiet and my own way. There's nothing that any Ministry could give me, neither office nor rise in life. I'm content to be Torrance of Tinto, as my father was before me: but at all events, I am one that knows the county and its ways. I could tell them what's wanted for Scotland. But no! a boy like Rintoul that knows nothing--without sense or experience,--he's the man. My father-in-law, for so clever as he is, has awful little sense."