‘Pol,’ said John Jervase, waving his right hand blindly, ‘give me—give me the decanter and a tumbler.’
Both lay near at hand, and Jervase, having primed himself with a great gulp of neat brandy, spoke again.
‘Now, James,’ he asked, ‘what’s the matter? What do you mean by coming here to scare a peaceful house in this wild fashion?’
The accent was the accent of his youth, the broadest speech of the Castle Barfield region. James seemed incapable of answer, and his cousin, laying a hand anew upon the decanter, filled the glass almost to the brim, and held it out to him.
‘Get a heart into you,’ he said gruffly, ‘and speak out!’
The timider of the guilty pair drank unwarily, not knowing what was offered to him, and fell into a fit of coughing. The rest awaited him in a tense expectation. At last he controlled himself, and spoke, sipping from time to time to moisten his dry lips.
‘You know,’ he said, glancing at the floor and at the faces round him alternately, ‘you know that when old General Airey died, that young cub De Blacquaire came into the Droitwich property.’
‘Well,’ said John Jervase, ‘we know that. Go on. What about it?’
‘You know,’ said James, ‘that his property and ours neighboured each other. The young skunk has trumped up a charge against us of having tapped his brine, and having lived on the property of his estate for twenty years past.’
‘Well,’ said—John Jervase, ‘that’s a pretty cool piece of impudence, to be sure! But what is there to make a howl about?’