He opened the note, and spelled it with great difficulty. It was beautifully written, in long, clear letters; but then those letters kept dancing so!
"I much desire to speak to you before 'tis too late, but can think of no way save one. I lie in the turreted room: come under my window at nine of the clock; and prithee come sober, if you respect yourself, or
"Kate."
Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried to think; but he could not think to much purpose. Then this made him suspect he was drunk. Then he tried to be sober; but he found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid agony, with Love and Drink battling for his brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool's struggles to regain the reason he had so madly parted with. He could not do it; and when he found that, he took up a finger-glass, and gravely poured the contents upon his head.
At this there was a burst of laughter.
This irritated Mr. Gaunt; and, with that rapid change of sentiments which marks the sober savage and the drunken European, he offered to fight a gentleman he had been hitherto holding up to the company as his best friend. But his best friend (a very distant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, mingled with tears; and these maudlin drops so affected Griffith that he flung his one available arm round his best friend's head, and wept in turn; and down went both their lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. Griffith's remained there; but his best friend extricated himself, and, shaking his skull, said, dolefully, "He is very drunk." This notable discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused considerable merriment.
"Let him alone," said an old toper; and Griffith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score of intoxication.
Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, and suddenly started up with a notion he was to go to Kate this very moment. He muttered an excuse, and staggered to a glass door that led to the lawn. He opened this door, and rushed out into the open air. He thought it would set him all right; but, instead of that, it made him so much worse that presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, and he measured his length on the ground, and could not get up again, but kept slipping down.
Upon this he groaned and lay quiet.
Now there was a foot of snow on the ground; and it melted about Griffith's hot temples and flushed face, and mightily refreshed and revived him.