XXXI
Jennings stood with a decanter in his hand, looking resentfully at his master's untasted wine. He shook his head ponderously. Not only was the wine untouched, but the Cumberland Times lay unopened upon the table. Grim and severe in his high-backed chair, Stephen Strangewey sat with his eyes fixed upon the curtained window.
"There's nothing wrong with the wine, I hope, sir?" the man asked. "It's not corked or anything, sir?"
"Nothing is the matter with it," Stephen answered. "Bring me my pipe."
Jennings shook his head firmly.
"There's no call for you, sir," he declared, "to drop out of your old habits. You shall have your pipe when you've drunk that glass of port, and not before. Bless me! There's the paper by your side, all unread, and full of news, for I've glanced it through myself. Corn was higher yesterday at Market Ketton, and there's talk of a bad shortage of fodder in some parts."
Stephen raised his glass to his lips and drained its contents.
"Now bring me my pipe, Jennings," he ordered.
The old man was still disposed to grumble.
"Drinking wine like that as if it were some public-house stuff!" he muttered, as he crossed the room, toward the sideboard. "It's more a night, this, to my way of thinking, for drinking a second glass of wine than for shilly-shallying with the first. There's the wind coming across Townley Moor and down the Fells strong enough to blow the rocks out of the ground. It 'minds me of the time Mr. John was out with the Territorials, and they tried the moor for their big guns."