"We had better go before the night gets worse." "I will stay where I am." "Excuse me, my lord, that can hardly be.

Come, I will carry your wine.

You will finish your bottle more at your ease there, knowing you have not to move again." "The bottle is empty," replied his lordship, gruffly, as if reproaching his host for not being aware of the fact, and having another at hand to follow.
"Then--" said the laird, and hesitated.
"Then you'll fetch me another!" adjoined his lordship, as if answering an unpropounded question that ought not to be put.
Seeing, however, that the laird stood in some hesitation still, he added definitively, "I don't stir a peg without it.

Get me another bottle--another MAGNUM, I mean, and I will go at once." Yet a moment the laird reflected.

He said to himself that the wretched man had not had nearly so much to drink that day as he had the day before; that he was used to soaking, and a great diminution of his customary quantity might in its way be dangerous; and that anyhow it was not for him to order the regimen of a passing guest, to whom first of all he owed hospitality.
"I will fetch it, my lord," he said, and disappeared in the milk-cellar, from which a steep stone-stair led down to the ancient dungeon.
"The maister's gane wantin' a licht," muttered Grizzie; "I houp he winna see onything." It was an enigmatical utterance, and angered Lord Mergwain.
"What the deuce should he see, when he has got to feel his way with his hands ?" he snarled.
"There's some things, my lord,'at can better affoord to come oot i' the dark nor the licht," replied Grizzie.
His lordship said nothing in rejoinder, but kept looking every now and then towards the door of the milk-cellar--whether solely in anxiety for the appearance of the magnum, may be doubtful.