Among the legless, blind and crippled veterans of the Napoleonic wars that beg unrewarded on every thoroughfare, a demon lord of pain and unrewarded sacrifice is gaining a following.
The most modish, elegant fabric in this year's Season is dyed with an extract made from ground fairy wings in a grim charnel mill in the west country, and Society will greatly frown on anyone who causes embarrassment about the matter or interrupts the supply.
Mr Ogilvy is the butler at Heatherstone House. Mr Ogilvy has always been the butler at Heatherstone House. Mr Ogilby was the butler to the Warfields when they lived at Heatherstone House, before the last scion went mad and shot himself in the ballroom during the fish course. Mr Ogilvy was the butler to the Bellinghams when they made their seat at Heatherstone House, before the Bellingham children ran off to play in the attics and were never seen again, and the parents died of broken hearts. Mr Ogilvy wears a black suit and white gloves, and his toilette is always immaculate. Can Mr Ogilvy be of any assistance, sir?
(By the by, my favourite Scottish history anecdote is about the mad preacher who roamed the highlands in the late 1700s, prophesying the coming of a dread beast he called the Great Sheep, which would bring ruin and destruction. Of course, it turned out that this prophecy was entirely accurate, as new breeds of sheep were bred that yielded large amounts of high-quality wool on a scant diet, and landowners all over Scotland enthusiastically expelled their crofter tenants in favour of grazing this new and lucrative strain of stock. Massive displacement, poverty and misery ensued, and the Scottish highlands were largely depopulated and a society destroyed as a result. Beware the sheep!)
