I only thought
you looked as if you might have changed your mind; and in such a
night as this, beyond a doubt, bed is the best place for everybody
that has got one to go to."
"That depends," answered his lordship, and drank.
The laird held his peace for a time, then spoke again:
"Would your lordship think me rude if I were to take a book?"
"I don't want a noise. It don't go well with old wine like this:
such wine wants attention! It would spoil it. No, thank you."
"I did not propose to read aloud, my lord--only to myself."
"Oh! That alters the matter! That I would by no means object to. I
am but poor company!"
The laird got his "Journal," and was soon lost in the communion of
a kindred soul.
By and by, the boat of his lordship's brain was again drifting
towards the side of such imagination as was in him. The half-tide
restoring the physical mean was past, and intoxication was setting
in. He began to cast uneasy glances towards the book the laird was
reading. The old folio had a look of venerable significance about
it, and whether it called up some association of childhood,
concerned in some fearful fancy, or dreamfully he dreaded the
necromancer's art, suggested by late experience, made him uneasy.
"What's that you are reading?" he said at length. "It looks like a
book of magic."
"On the contrary," replied the laird, "it is a religious book of
the very best sort."
"Oh, indeed! Ah! I have no objection to a little religion--in its
own place.
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