Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

22. CHAPTER XXII (continued)

'One night, however, during one of our orgies - one of our high festivals, I mean - he glided in, like the ghost in "Macbeth," and seated himself, as usual, a little back from the table, in the chair we always placed for "the spectre," whether it chose to fill it or not. I saw by his face that he was suffering from the effects of an overdose of his insidious comforter; but nobody spoke to him, and he spoke to nobody. A few sidelong glances, and a whispered observation, that "the ghost was come," was all the notice he drew by his appearance, and we went on with our merry carousals as before, till he startled us all by suddenly drawing in his chair, and leaning forward with his elbows on the table, and exclaiming with portentous solemnity, - "Well! it puzzles me what you can find to be so merry about. What you see in life I don't know - I see only the blackness of darkness, and a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation!"

'All the company simultaneously pushed up their glasses to him, and I set them before him in a semicircle, and, tenderly patting him on the back, bid him drink, and he would soon see as bright a prospect as any of us; but he pushed them back, muttering, -

'"Take them away! I won't taste it, I tell you. I won't - I won't!" So I handed them down again to the owners; but I saw that he followed them with a glare of hungry regret as they departed. Then he clasped his hands before his eyes to shut out the sight, and two minutes after lifted his head again, and said, in a hoarse but vehement whisper, -

'"And yet I must! Huntingdon, get me a glass!"

'"Take the bottle, man!" said I, thrusting the brandy-bottle into his hand - but stop, I'm telling too much,' muttered the narrator, startled at the look I turned upon him. 'But no matter,' he recklessly added, and thus continued his relation: 'In his desperate eagerness, he seized the bottle and sucked away, till he suddenly dropped from his chair, disappearing under the table amid a tempest of applause. The consequence of this imprudence was something like an apoplectic fit, followed by a rather severe brain fever - '