"Excuse me, my lord, that can hardly be. Come, I will carry your wine. You will finish your bottle more at your ease there, knowing you have not to move again."

"The bottle is empty," replied his lordship, gruffly, as if reproaching his host for not being aware of the fact, and having another at hand to follow.

"Then--" said the laird, and hesitated.

"Then you'll fetch me another!" adjoined his lordship, as if answering an unpropounded question that ought not to be put.

Seeing, however, that the laird stood in some hesitation still, he added definitively, "I don't stir a peg without it. Get me another bottle--another MAGNUM, I mean, and I will go at once."

Yet a moment the laird reflected. He said to himself that the wretched man had not had nearly so much to drink that day as he had the day before; that he was used to soaking, and a great diminution of his customary quant.i.ty might in its way be dangerous; and that anyhow it was not for him to order the regimen of a pa.s.sing guest, to whom first of all he owed hospitality.

"I will fetch it, my lord," he said, and disappeared in the milk-cellar, from which a steep stone-stair led down to the ancient dungeon.

"The maister's gane wantin' a licht," muttered Grizzie; "I houp he winna see onything."

It was an enigmatical utterance, and angered Lord Mergwain.

"What the deuce should he see, when he has got to feel his way with his hands?" he snarled.

"There's some things, my lord,'at can better affoord to come oot i'

the dark nor the licht," replied Grizzie.

His lordship said nothing in rejoinder, but kept looking every now and then towards the door of the milk-cellar--whether solely in anxiety for the appearance of the magnum, may be doubtful. The moment the laird emerged from his dive into darkness, bearing with him the pearl-oyster of its deep, his lordship rose, proud that for an old man he could stand so steady, and straightened himself up to his full height, which was not great. The laird set down the bottle on the table, and proceeded to wrap him in a plaid, that he might not get a chill, nor heeded that his lordship, instead of showing recognition of his care, conducted himself like an ill-conditioned child, to whom his mother's ministrations are unwelcome. But he did not resist, he only grumbled. As soon as the process was finished, he caught up the first bottle, in which, notwithstanding his a.s.sertion, he knew there was yet a gla.s.s or two, while the laird resumed the greater burden of the second, and gave his guest an arm, and Grizzie, leaving the door open to cast a little light on their way, followed close behind, to see them safe in.

When they reached the drawing-room, his lordship out of breath with the long stair, they found Lady Joan teaching and Cosmo learning backgammon, which they immediately abandoned until they had him in his former chair, with a small table by him, on it the first bottle, and the fresh one at his feet before the fire: with the contents of one such inside him, and another coming on, he looked more cheerful than since first he entered the house. But a fluctuating trouble was very visible in his countenance notwithstanding.

A few poverty-stricken attempts at conversation followed, to which Lord Mergwain contributed nothing. Lost in himself, he kept his eyes fixed on the ripening bottle, waiting with heroic self-denial, nor uttering a single audible oath, until the sound of its opening should herald the outbursting blossom of the nightly flower of existence. The thing hard to bear was, that there were no fresh wine-gla.s.ses on the table--only the one he had taken care to bring with the old bottle.

Presently Grizzie came with the tea-things, and as she set them down, remarked, with cunningly devised look of unconsciousness:

"It's a gurly nicht; no a pinch o' licht; an' the win' blawin' like deevils; the Pooer o' the air, he's oot wi' a rair, an' the snaw rins roon' upo' sweevils."

"What do you mean, woman? Would you drive me mad with your gibberish?" cried his lordship, getting up, and going to the window.

"Ow, na, my lord!" returned Grizzie quietly; "mad's mad, but there's waur nor mad."

"Grizzie!" said the laird, and she did not speak again.

Lurking in Grizzie was the suspicion, less than latent in the minds of the few who had any memory of the old captain, that he had been robbed as well as murdered--though nothing had ever been missed that was known to belong to him, except indeed an odd walking-stick he used to carry; and if so, then the property, whatever it was, had been taken to the loss of his rightful heir, Warlock o'

Glenwarlock. Hence mainly arose Grizzie's desire to play upon the fears of the English lord; for might he not be driven by terror to make rest.i.tution? Therefore, although, obedient to the will of her master, she left the room in silence, she cast on the old man, as she turned away, a look, which, in spite of the wine he had drunk, and the wine he hoped to drink, he felt freeze his very vitals--a look it was of inexplicable triumph, and inarticulate doom.

The final effect of it on her victim, however, was different from what she intended. For it roused suspicion. What if, he thought with himself, he was the victim of a conspiracy? What if the something frightful that befell him the night before, of which he had but a vague recollection, had been contrived and executed by the people of the house? This horrible old hag might remember else-forgotten things? What if they had drugged his wine? the first half of the bottle he had yesterday was decanted!--But the one he had just drunk had not been touched! and this fresh one before the fire should not be carried from his sight! he would not take his eyes off it for a moment! he was safe so far as these were concerned! only if after all--if there should be no difference--if something were to happen again all the same--ah, then indeed!--then it would only be so much the worse!--Better let them decant the bottle, and then he would have the drug to fall back upon!

Just as he heard the loud bang of Grizzie's closure of the great door, the wind rushed all at once against the house, with a tremendous bellow, that threatened to drive the windows into the room. An immediate lull followed, through which as instantly came strange sounds, as of a distant staccato thunder. The moment the laird heard the douf thuds, he started to his feet, and made for the door, and Cosmo rose to follow.

"Stop! stop!" shouted Lord Mergwain, in a quavering, yet, through terror, imperative voice, and looked as if his hair would have stood on end, only that it was a wig.

Lady Joan gave Cosmo a glance of entreaty: the shout was ineffectual, the glance was not. The laird scarcely heard his visitor's cry, and hastened from the room, taking huge strides with his long thin legs; but Cosmo resumed his seat as if nothing were the matter.

Lord Mergwain was trembling visibly; his jaw shook, and seemed ready to drop.

"Don't be alarmed, my lord," said Cosmo; "it is only one of the horses kicking against his stall."

"But why should the brute kick?" said his lorship, putting his hand to his chin, and doing his best to hide his agitation.

"My father will tell us. He will soon set things right. He knows all about horses. Jolly may have thrown his leg over his halter, and got furious. He's rather an ill-tempered horse."

Lord Mergwain swallowed a great gla.s.s of wine, the last of the first bottle, and gave a little shiver.

"It's cold! cold!" he said.

The wine did not seem to be itself somehow this evening!

The game interrupted, Lady Joan forgot it, and stared into the fire. Cosmo gave his eyes a glorious holiday on her beautiful face.

It was some time before the laird returned. He brought the news that one of the strange horses was very ill.

"I thought he looked bad this morning," said Cosmo.

"Only it's not the same horse, my boy," answered his father. "I believe he has been ill all day; the state of the other has prevented its being noticed. He was taken suddenly with violent pain; and now he lies groaning. They are doing what they can for him, but I fear, in this weather, he will not recover. Evidently he has severe inflammation; the symptoms are those of the worst form of the disease now about."

"Hustled here in the dark to die like a rat!" muttered his lordship.

"Don't make a trap of the old place, my lord," said the laird cheerily. "The moment the roads will permit, I will see that you have horses."

"I don't doubt you'll be glad enough to get rid of me."

"We shall not regret your departure so much, my lord, as if we had been able to make your lordship comfortable," said the laird.

With that there came another great howling onset of wind. Lord Mergwain started almost to his feet, but sat down instantly, and said with some calmness,

"I should be obliged, Mr. Warlock, if you would order a wine-gla.s.s or two for me. I am troublesome, I know, but I like to change my gla.s.s; and the wine will be the worse every moment more it stands there.--I wish you would drink! We should make a night of it."

"I beg your pardon, my lord," said the laird. "What was I thinking of!--Cosmo, run and fetch wine-gla.s.ses--and the c.o.c.k-screw."

But while Cosmo was returning, he heard the battery of iron shoes recommence, and ran to the stable. Just as he reached the door of it, the horse half reared, and cast himself against the side of his stall. With a great crash it gave way, and he fell upon it, and lay motionless.

"He's deid!" cried one of the men, and Cosmo ran to tell his father.

While he was gone, the time seemed to the toper endless. But the longer he could be kept from his second magnum, the laird thought it the better, and was not troubled at Cosmo's delay.

A third terrible blast, fiercer and more imperious than those that preceded it, shook the windows as a dog shakes a rat: the house itself it could shake no more than a primeval rock. The next minute Cosmo entered, saying the horse was dead.

"What a beastly country!" growled his lordship.

But the wine that was presently gurgling from the short neck of the apoplectic magnum, soon began to console him. He liked this bottle better than the last, and some composure returned to him.

The laird fetched a book of old ballads, and offered to read one or two to make the time pa.s.s. Lord Mergwain gave a scornful grunt; but Lady Joan welcomed the proposal: the silent worship of the boy, again at her feet, was not enough to make her less than very weary.

For more than an hour, the laird read ballad after ballad; but n.o.body, not even himself, attended much--the old lord not at all.

But the time pa.s.sed. His lordship grew sleepy, began to nod, and seemed to forget his wine. At length he fell asleep. But when the laird would have made him more comfortable, with a yell of defiance he started to his feet wide awake. Coming to himself at once, he tried to laugh, and said from a child he had been furious when waked suddenly. Then he settled himself in the chair, and fell fast asleep.