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Responsive to Mr Cupples's last words uttered from the brink of the pit into which his spirit was sinking, and probably forgotten straightway, Alec knocked at his door upon the Sunday evening, and entered. The strange creature was sitting in the same position as before, looking as if he had not risen since he spoke those words.
Thomas, as soon as he understood Mr Cupples's sacrifice, caught the delicate hand in his granite grasp�-like that with which the steel anvil and the stone block held Arthur's sword�-and said solemnly, "Ye hae done a great deed, which winna gang wantin' its reward. It canna hae merit, but it maun be pleesant in His sicht.
It was pathetic to see how Mr Cupples's right hand, while he looked at the cards in his left, would go blindly flitting about the spot where his glass had always used to stand; and how, when he looked up unable to find it, his face shadowed over with disappointment. After those two or three games, he threw down the cards, saying, "It winna do, bantam. I dinna like the cairts the nicht.
She saw them, and came gravely forward over the lawn, moving as Trent had known that she would move, erect and balanced, stepping lightly. When she welcomed him on Mr Cupples's presentation her eyes of golden-flecked brown observed him kindly. In her pale composure, worn as the mask of distress, there was no trace of the emotion that had seemed a halo about her head on the ledge of the cliff.
Because he could not have a bed of roses, he had thrown himself down in the pig-stye. He rushed into a public-house, and swallowed two glasses of whisky. That done, he went straight home, and ran up to Mr Cupples's room. Mr Cupples was sitting before the fire, with his hands on his knees and his head bound in white, bloodstained. He turned a ghastly face, and tried to smile.
Her words awoke an echo in Mr Cupples's conscience, but he returned no reply. "Hoo's Alec?" he asked. "Some better. He's growin' better, though it's langsome like." "And do they lippen you to luik efter him, no?" "Ay. What for no? His mither wad be worn to deith gin she sat up ilka nicht. He canna bide ouybody but her or me."
The same moment Mr Cupples was floundering on the bed in a perplexed attempt to get under the bed-clothes. A violent fit of coughing was the consequence of the exertion. "Ye're like to toom yer ain kist afore ye brain my pan, Mr Cupples," said Alec. When the fit was over, he lay still, and stared at Alec. Alec had sat down in Mr Cupples's easy-chair, and was staring at the fire.
Alec went to bed, rebuked and distressed. But not having taken enough to hurt him much, he was unfortunately able, the next morning, to regard Mr Cupples's lecture from a ludicrous point of view. And what danger was he in more than the rest of the fellows, few of whom would refuse a tumbler of toddy, and fewer of whom were likely to get drunk?
"Ye come at yer ain will: ye maun gang at mine. Gin I cud but get a kick at that fellow Cupples! But I declare I canna help it. Gin I war God, I wad cure him o' drink. It's the verra first thing I wad do." Alec could not help being shocked at the irreverence of the words. But the solemnity of Mr Cupples's face speedily dissipated the feeling.
I may still be wrong in the surmise that I base upon that fact. There is only one way of finding out that is open to me, and I must nerve myself to take it. He smiled suddenly at Mr Cupples's face of consternation. 'All right I'm not going to be tragic any more, and I'll tell you all about it when I can. Look here, I'm not half through my game with the powder-bottles yet.
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