’Nonsense, man; fill the glass.  I’ll stand no nonsense now.  I’ll be master of my own house to the last.  Give it here, I tell you.  Ten thousand devils are tearing me within.  You—­you could have comforted me; but you would not.  Fill the glass I tell you.’

‘I should be killing you were I to do it.’

’Killing me! killing me! you are always talking of killing me.  Do you suppose that I am afraid to die?  Do not I know how soon it is coming?  Give me the brandy, I say, or I will be out across the room to fetch it.’

’No, Scatcherd.  I cannot give it to you; not while I am here.  Do you remember how you were engaged this morning?’—­he had that morning taken the sacrament from the parish clergyman—­’you would not wish to make me guilty of murder, would you?’

’Nonsense!  You are talking nonsense; habit is second nature.  I tell you I shall sink without it.  Why, you know, I always get it directly your back is turned.  Come, I will not be bullied in my own house; give me that bottle, I say!’—­and Sir Roger essayed, vainly enough, to raise himself from the bed.

’Stop, Scatcherd; I will give it to you—­I will help you.  It may be that habit is second nature.’  Sir Roger in his determined energy had swallowed, without thinking of it, the small quantity which the doctor had before poured out for him, and still held the empty glass within his hand.  This the doctor now took and filled nearly to the brim.

’Come, Thorne, a bumper; a bumper for this once.  “Whatever the drink, it a bumper must be.”  You stingy fellow!  I would not treat you so.  Well—­well.’

‘It’s about as full as you can hold it, Scatcherd.’

‘Try me; try me! my hand is a rock; at least at holding liquor.’  And then he drained the contents of the glass, which were in sufficient quantity to have taken away the breath of any ordinary man.

‘Ah, I’m better now.  But, Thorne, I do love a full glass, ha! ha! ha!’

There was something frightful, almost sickening, in the peculiar hoarse guttural tone of his voice.  The sounds came from him as though steeped in brandy, and told, all too plainly, the havoc which the alcohol had made.  There was a fire too about his eyes which contrasted with his sunken cheeks:  his hanging jaw, unshorn beard, and haggard face were terrible to look at.  His hands and arms were hot and clammy, but so thin and wasted!  Of his lower limbs the lost use had not returned to him, so that in all his efforts at vehemence he was controlled by his own want of vitality.  When he supported himself, half-sitting against the pillows, he was in a continual tremor; and yet, as he boasted, he could still lift his glass steadily to his mouth.  Such now was the hero of whom that ready compiler of memoirs had just finished his correct and succinct account.

After he had had his brandy, he sat glaring a while at vacancy, as though he was dead to all around him, and was thinking—­thinking—­thinking of things in the infinite distance of the past.