David ought to have left then, but he did not; and when his uncle's health was given, and the glass of steaming whiskey stood before him, he raised it to his lips and drank.

It was easy to drink the second glass and the third, and so on.

The men fell into reminiscence and song, and no one knew how many glasses were mixed; and even when they stood at the door they turned back for "a thimbleful o' raw speerit to keep out the cold," for it had begun to snow, and there was a chill, wet, east wind.
Then they went; and when their forms were lost in the misty gloom, and even their voices had died away, David turned back to put out the lights, and lock the mill-door for the last time.

Suddenly it struck him that he had not seen Robert Leslie for an hour at least, and while he was wondering about it in a vague, drunken way, Robert came out of an inner room, white with scornful anger, and in a most quarrelsome mood.
"You have made a nice fool of yoursel', David Callendar! Flinging awa so much gude gold for a speech and a glass o' whiskey! Ugh!" "You may think so, Robert.

The Leslies have always been 'rievers and thievers;' but the Callendars are of another stock." "The Callendars are like ither folk--good and bad, and mostly bad.
Money, not honor, rules the warld in these days; and when folk have turned spinners, what is the use o' talking about honor! Profit is a word more fitting." "I count mysel' no less a Callendar than my great-grandfather, Evan Callendar, who led the last hopeless charge on Culloden.