Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

"Now, bring me a bottle of rum."

"Please, Mestur Ogden, you've got no rum in the house."

"No, but you have."

"Please, sir, I've got very little. I think it's nearly all done."

"D'ye think I want to rob you? I'll pay ye for't, damn you!"

"Mestur Ogden, you don't use drinkin' sperrits at Twistle Farm."

Ogden gave a violent blow on the table with his fist, and shouted, "Bring me a bottle of rum, a bottle of rum! D'ye think you're to have all the rum in the world to yourself, you drunken old witch?"

There was that in his look which cowed Sarah, and she reflected that he might be less dangerous if he were drunk. So she brought the rum.

Ogden was pouring himself a great dose into a tumbler, when a sudden hesitation possessed him, and he flung the bottle from him into the fireplace. There was a shivering crash, and then a vast sheet of intolerable flame. The intense heat drove Ogden from the hearth. He seized the candle, and went upstairs into his bedroom.