“I did not propose to read aloud, my lord—only to myself.”
“Oh! That alters the matter! That I would by no means object to. I am but poor company!”
The laird got his “Journal,” and was soon lost in the communion of a kindred soul.
By and by, the boat of his lordship’s brain was again drifting towards the side of such imagination as was in him. The half-tide restoring the physical mean was past, and intoxication was setting in. He began to cast uneasy glances towards the book the laird was reading. The old folio had a look of venerable significance about it, and whether it called up some association of childhood, concerned in some fearful fancy, or dreamfully he dreaded the necromancer’s art, suggested by late experience, made him uneasy.
“What’s that you are reading?” he said at length. “It looks like a book of magic.”
“On the contrary,” replied the laird, “it is a religious book of the very best sort.”
“Oh, indeed! Ah! I have no objection to a little religion—in its own place. There it is all right. I never was one of those mockers—those Jacobins, those sans-culottes! Arrogant fools they always seemed to me!”
“Would your lordship like to hear a little of the book, then?”
“No, no; by no means! Things sacred ought not to be mixed up with things common—with such an uncommon bottle of wine, for instance. I dictate to no one, but for my own part I keep my religion for church. That is the proper place for it, and there you are in the mood for it. Do not mistake me; it is out of respect I decline.”
He drank, and the laird dropt back into the depths of his volume. The night wore on. His lordship did not drink fast. There was no hope of another bottle, and the wine must cover the period of his necessity: he dared not encounter the night without the sustaining knowledge of its presence. At last he began to nod, and by slow degrees sank on the sofa. Very softly the laird covered him, and went back to his book.