Only the Christian is then miserable, and Lord Mergwain was relieved; for did he not then come to himself?
and did he know anything better to arrive at than just that wretched self of his?
A glass or two more, and he laughed at the terror by night.

He had been a thorough fool not to go to bed like other people, instead of sitting by the fire with a porridge-eating Scotchman, who regarded him as one of the wicked, afraid of the darkness.

The thought may have passed from his mind to that of his host, for the self-same moment the laird spoke: "Don't you think you had better go to bed when you have finished your bottle, my lord ?" With the words, a cold swell, as from the returning tide of some dead sea, so long ebbed that men had ploughed and sown and built within its bed, stole in, swift and black, filling every cranny of the old man's conscious being.
"My God!" he cried; "I thought better of you than that, laird! I took you for a man of your word! You promised to sit up with me!" "I did, my lord, and am ready to keep my promise.

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.