Mistress Warlock was longing for a talk with Grizzie, and had no wish for Lady Joan’s presence at tea.
“An old woman is bare company for a young one, Cosmo,” she said.
His lordship sat as if he did not mean to move.
“Will you not come, Lord Mergwain?” said the laird. “We had better go before the night gets worse.”
“I will stay where I am.”
“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 quantity might in its way be dangerous; and that anyhow it was not for him to order the regimen of a passing guest, to whom first of all he owed hospitality.