He went up and down upon the points of his toes, rising up on his instep with a jerk which at once expressed vexation and defiance--He carried his nose turned up in the air, like that of a pig when he snuffs the approaching storm--He spoke in monosyllables when he spoke at all; and--what perhaps illustrated in the strongest manner the depth of his feelings--he refused, in face of the whole company, to pledge Sir Bingo in a glass of the Baronet's peculiar cogniac.
At length, the whole Well was alarmed by the report brought by a smart outrider, that the young Earl of Etherington, reported to be rising on the horizon of fashion as a star of the first magnitude, intended to pass an hour, or a day, or a week, as it might happen, (for his lordship could not be supposed to know his own mind,) at St.Ronan's Well.
This suddenly put all in motion.

Almanacks were opened to ascertain his lordship's age, enquiries were made concerning the extent of his fortune, his habits were quoted, his tastes were guessed at; and all that the ingenuity of the Managing Committee could devise was resorted to, in order to recommend their Spa to this favourite of fortune.

An express was dispatched to Shaws-Castle with the agreeable intelligence, which fired the train of hope that led to Mowbray's appropriation of his sister's capital.

He did not, however, think proper to obey the summons to the Spring; for, not being aware in what light the Earl might regard the worthies there assembled, he did not desire to be found by his lordship in any strict connexion with them.
Sir Bingo Binks was in a different situation.

The bravery with which he had endured the censure of the place began to give way, when he considered that a person of such distinction as that which public opinion attached to Lord Etherington, should find him bodily indeed at St.Ronan's, but, so far as society was concerned, on the road towards the ancient city of Coventry; and his banishment thither, incurred by that most unpardonable offence in modern morality, a solecism in the code of honour.