, who every day
eat, drank, danced, and made merry together, hating each other all the
while with all the animosity of political party, endeavouring by every
art to secure the adherence of each guest who arrived, and ridiculing
the absurdities and follies of each other, with all the wit and
bitterness of which they were masters.

At the head of one of these parties was no less a personage than Lady
Penelope Penfeather, to whom the establishment owed its fame, nay, its
existence; and whose influence could only have been balanced by that of
the Lord of the Manor, Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's, or, as he was called
usually by the company who affected what Meg called knapping English,
The Squire, who was leader of the opposite faction.

The rank and fortune of the lady, her pretensions to beauty as well as
talent, (though the former was something faded,) and the consequence
which she arrogated to herself as a woman of fashion, drew round her
painters and poets, and philosophers, and men of science, and lecturers,
and foreign adventurers, _et hoc genus omne_.

On the contrary, the Squire's influence, as a man of family and property
in the immediate neighbourhood, who actually kept greyhounds and
pointers, and at least talked of hunters and of racers, ascertained him
the support of the whole class of bucks, half and whole bred, from the
three next counties; and if more inducements were wanting, he could
grant his favourites the privilege of shooting over his moors, which is
enough to turn the head of a young Scottishman at any time. Mr. Mowbray
was of late especially supported in his pre-eminence, by a close
alliance with Sir Bingo Binks, a sapient English Baronet, who, ashamed,
as many thought, to return to his own country, had set him down at the
Well of St. Ronan's, to enjoy the blessing which the Caledonian Hymen
had so kindly forced on him in the person of Miss Rachel Bonnyrigg. As
this gentleman actually drove a regular-built mail-coach, not in any
respect differing from that of his Majesty, only that it was more
frequently overturned, his influence with a certain set was
irresistible, and the Squire of St. Ronan's, having the better sense of
the two, contrived to reap the full benefit of the consequence attached
to his friendship.

These two contending parties were so equally balanced, that the
predominance of the influence of either was often determined by the
course of the sun. Thus, in the morning and forenoon, whe