Philip, was it a matter of course to drink till their ideas became
confused. So she simply put her wheel aside, as preparatory to going
to bed, when her mother said, in a more decided tone than that which
she had used on any other occasion but this, and similar ones-

'Come, measter, you've had as much as is good for you.'

'Let a' be! Let a' be,' said he, clutching at the bottle of spirits,
but perhaps rather more good-humoured with what he had drunk than he
was before; he jerked a little more into his glass before his wife
carried it off, and locked it up in the cupboard, putting the key in
her pocket, and then he said, winking at Philip--

'Eh! my man. Niver gie a woman t' whip hand o'er yo'! Yo' seen what
it brings a man to; but for a' that I'll vote for Cholmley, an'
d----t' press-gang!'

He had to shout out the last after Philip, for Hepburn, really
anxious to please his aunt, and disliking drinking habits himself by
constitution, was already at the door, and setting out on his return
home, thinking, it must be confessed, far more of the character of
Sylvia's shake of the hand than of the parting words of either his
uncle or aunt.






CHAPTER V