The baronet, in the course of that evening, was sitting in his dining-room alone, a bottle of Madeira before him, for indeed it is necessary to say, that although unsocial and inhospitable, he nevertheless indulged pretty freely in wine.  He appeared moody, and gulped down the Madeira as a man who wished either to sustain his mind against care, or absolutely to drown memory, and probably the force of conscience.  At length, with a flushed face, and a voice made more deep and stern by his potations, and the reflections they excited, he rang the bell, and in a moment the butler appeared.

“Is Gillespie in the house, Gibson?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Send him up.”

In a few minutes Gillespie entered; and indeed it would be difficult to see a more ferocious-looking ruffian than this scoundrel who was groom to the baronet.  Fame, or scandal, or truth, as the case may be, had settled the relations between Sir Thomas and him, not merely as those of master and servant, but as those of father and son.  Be this as it may, however, the similarity of figure and feature was so extraordinary, that the inference could be considered by no means surprising.

“Tom,” said the baronet, “I suppose there is a Bible in the house?”

“I can’t say, sir,” replied the ruffian.  “I never saw any one in use.  O, yes, Miss Gourlay has one.”

“Yes,” replied the other, with a gloomy reflection, “I forgot; she is, in addition to her other accomplishments, a Bible reader.  Well, stay where you are; I shall get it myself.”

He accordingly rose and proceeded to Lucy’s chamber, where, after having been admitted, he found the book he sought, and such was the absence of mind, occasioned by the apprehensions he felt, that he brought away the book, and forgot to lock the door.

“Now, sir,” said the baronet, sternly, when he returned, “do you respect this book?  It is the Bible.”

“Why, yes, sir.  I respect every book that has readin’ in it—­printed readin’.”

“But this is the Bible, on which the Christian religion is founded.”

“Well, sir, I don’t doubt that,” replied the enlightened master of horse; “but I prefer the Seven Champions of Christendom, or the History of Valentine and Orson, or Fortunatus’s Purse.”

“You don’t relish the Bible, then?”

“I don’t know, sir; I never read a line of it—­although I heard a great deal about! it.  Isn’t that the book the parsons preach I from?”

“It is,” replied the baronet, in his deep voice.  “This book is the source and origin and history of the revelation of God’s will to man; this is the book on which oaths are taken, and when taken falsely, the falsehood is perjury, and the individual so perjuring himself is transported, either for life or a term of years, while living and when dead, Gillespie—­mark me well, sir—­when dead, his soul goes to eternal perdition in the flames of hell.  Would you now, knowing this—­that you would be transported in this world, and damned in the next—­would you, I say, take an oath upon this book and break it?”