I am troublesome, I know, but I like to change my glass; and the wine will be the worse every moment more it stands there .-- I wish you would drink! We should make a night of it." "I beg your pardon, my lord," said the laird.

"What was I thinking of!--Cosmo, run and fetch wine-glasses--and the cock-screw." But while Cosmo was returning, he heard the battery of iron shoes recommence, and ran to the stable.

Just as he reached the door of it, the horse half reared, and cast himself against the side of his stall.

With a great crash it gave way, and he fell upon it, and lay motionless.
"He's deid!" cried one of the men, and Cosmo ran to tell his father.
While he was gone, the time seemed to the toper endless.

But the longer he could be kept from his second magnum, the laird thought it the better, and was not troubled at Cosmo's delay.
A third terrible blast, fiercer and more imperious than those that preceded it, shook the windows as a dog shakes a rat: the house itself it could shake no more than a primeval rock.