in its mouth, and not rain.  Carriage and horses and all would have been blown off the road for certain.  It did blow, to be sure!  After dinner was over and the ladies were gone to the drawing-room, and the gentlemen had been sitting over their wine for some time, the butler, William Weir—­an honest man, whose wife lived at the lodge—­came to my room looking scared.  “Lawks, William!” says I,’ said my aunt, sir, ’"whatever is the matter with you?”—­“Well, Mrs Prendergast!” says he, and said no more.  “Lawks, William,” says I, “speak out.”—­“Well,” says he, “Mrs Prendergast, it’s a strange wedding, it is!  There’s the ladies all alone in the withdrawing-room, and there’s the gentlemen calling for more wine, and cursing and swearing that it’s awful to hear.  It’s my belief that swords will be drawn afore long.”—­“Tut!” says I, “William, it will come the sooner if you don’t give them what they want.  Go and get it as fast as you can.”—­“I don’t a’most like goin’ down them stairs alone, in sich a night, ma’am,” says he.  “Would you mind coming with me?”—­“Dear me, William,” says I, “a pretty story to tell your wife”—­she was my own half-sister, and younger than me—­“a pretty story to tell your wife, that you wanted an old body like me to go and take care of you in your own cellar,” says I.  “But I’ll go with you, if you like; for, to tell the truth, it’s a terrible night.”  And so down we went, and brought up six bottles more of the best port.  And I really didn’t wonder, when I was down there, and heard the dull roar of the wind against the rock below, that William didn’t much like to go alone.—­When he went back with the wine, the captain said, “William, what kept you so long?  Mr Centlivre says that you were afraid to go down into the cellar.”  Now, wasn’t that odd, for it was a real fact?  Before William could reply, Sir Giles said, “A man might well be afraid to go anywhere alone in a night like this.”  Whereupon the captain cried, with an oath, that he would go down the underground stair, and into every vault on the way, for the wager of a guinea.  And there the matter, according to William, dropped, for the fresh wine was put on the table.  But after they had drunk the most of it—­the captain, according to William, drinking less than usual—­it was brought up again, he couldn’t tell by which of them.  And in five minutes after, they were all at my door, demanding the key of the room at the top of the stair.  I was just going up to see poor Emily when I heard the noise of their unsteady feet coming along the passage to my door; and I gave the captain the key at once, wishing with all my heart he might get a good fright for his pains.  He took a jug with him, too, to bring some water up from the well, as a proof he had been down.  The rest of the gentlemen went with him into the little cellar-room; but they wouldn’t stop there till he came up again, they said it was so cold.  They all came into my room, where they talked as gentlemen wouldn’t do if the wine hadn’t got uppermost.