"It will keep out the cold," continued the sexton, pressing the liquid upon him: "and you, who are not so much accustomed as I am to the damps of a vault, may suffer from them. Besides," added he, sneeringly, "it will give you courage."
His companion answered not. But the flash of his eye resented the implied reproach.
"Nay, never stare at me so hard, Luke," continued the sexton; "I doubt neither your courage nor your firmness. But if you won't drink, I will. Here's to the rest eternal of Sir Piers Rookwood! You'll say amen to that pledge, or you are neither grandson of mine, nor offspring of his loins."
"Why should I reverence his memory," answered Luke, bitterly, refusing the proffered potion, "who showed no fatherly love for me? He disowned me in life: in death I disown him. Sir Piers Rookwood was no father of mine."
"He was as certainly your father, as Susan Bradley, your mother, was my daughter," rejoined the sexton.
"And, surely," cried Luke, impetuously, "you need not boast of the connection! 'Tis not for you, old man, to couple their names together—to exult in your daughter's disgrace and your own dishonor. Shame! shame! Speak not of them in the same breath, if you would not have me invoke curses on the dead! I have no reverence—whatever you may have—for the seducer—for the murderer of my mother."
"You have choice store of epithets, in sooth, good grandson," rejoined Peter, with a chuckling laugh. "Sir Piers a murderer!"
"Tush!" exclaimed Luke, indignantly, "affect not ignorance. You have better knowledge than I have of the truth or falsehood of the dark tale that has gone abroad respecting my mother's fate; and unless report has belied you foully, had substantial reasons for keeping sealed lips on the occasion. But to change this painful subject," added he, with a sudden alteration of manner, "at what hour did Sir Piers Rookwood die?"
"On Thursday last, in the night-time. The exact hour I know not," replied the sexton.
"Of what ailment?"