An impatient knock on the kitchen door, the old woman hastened to answer it, and Sir Denzil limped in. He was thinner and whiter than the last time he came. He leaned heavily on a stick and looked frail and worn.
"Well, Mrs. Lee," he said, as he came over to the fire and bent over it and chafed his hands, "you'd given up all fears of ever seeing me again, I suppose?"
"Ay, a'most we had," said the old woman, as she lifted the kettle off the bob and set it in the blaze.
"Well, it wasn't far off it. I had a bad smash returning to London that last time. That fool of a post-boy drove into a tree that had fallen across the road, and killed himself and did his best to kill me. Now light the biggest fire you can make in the oak room, and another in my bedroom, and get me something to eat. Kennet"--as his man came in dragging a travelling-trunk--"get out a bottle of brandy, and, as soon as you've got the things in, brew me the stiffest glass of grog you ever made. My bones are frozen."
He dragged up a chair and sat down before the fire, thumping the coals with his stick to quicken the blaze. The rest sped to his bidding.
Kennet, when he had got in the trunks, brewed the grog in a big jug, with the air of one who knew what he was about.
"Shall I give the boy some, sir?" he asked, when Sir Denzil had swallowed a glass and was wiping his eyes from the effects of it.
"Yes, yes. Give him a glass, but tone it down, or he'll be breaking his neck like the last one."
So Kennet watered a glass to what he considered reasonable encouragement for a frozen post-boy, and presently the jingling of harness died away in the distance, and Kennet came in and fastened the door.
Sir Denzil had filled and emptied his glass twice more before Mrs. Lee came to tell him the room was ready. Then he went slowly off down the passage, steadying himself with his stick, for a superfluity of hot grog on an empty stomach on a cold night is not unapt to mount to the head of even a seasoned toper.