The luxuries of a Natch, and the peculiar Oriental
beauty of the enchantresses who perfumed their
voluptuous Eastern domes, for the pleasure of the
haughty English conquerors, were no less attractive
than the battles and sieges on which the Captain
at other times expatiated. Not a stream did
he mention but flowed over sands of gold, and not
a palace that was inferior to those of the celebrated
Fata Morgana. His descriptions seemed steeped
in odours, and his every phrase perfumed in ottar
of roses. The interviews at which these descriptions
took place, often ended in a bottle of choicer
wine than the Swan Inn afforded, with some other
appendages of the table, which the Captain, who,
was a _bon-vivant_, had procured from Edinburgh.
From this good cheer Middlemas was doomed to
retire to the homely evening meal of his master,
where not all the simple beauties of Menie were
able to overcome his disgust at the coarseness of
the provisions, or his unwillingness to answer
questions concerning the diseases of the wretched
peasants who were subjected to his inspection.
Richard's hopes of being acknowledged by his
father had long since vanished, and the rough repulse
and subsequent neglect on the part of Mon
ada,
had satisfied him that his grandfather was
inexorable, and that neither then, nor at any future
time, did he mean to realize the visions which
Nurse Jamieson's splendid figments had encouraged
him to entertain.
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