Anne Bronte: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

22. CHAPTER XXII (continued)

'"Just so!" cried Hattersley -

"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think
Before you further go,
No longer sport upon the brink
Of everlasting woe."

'"Exactly!" replied his lordship, with the utmost gravity. "And if you choose to visit the bottomless pit, I won't go with you - we must part company, for I swear I'll not move another step towards it! - What's this?' he said, taking up his glass of wine.

'"Taste it," suggested I.

'"This is hell broth!" he exclaimed. "I renounce it for ever!" And he threw it out into the middle of the table.

'"Fill again!" said I, handing him the bottle - "and let us drink to your renunciation."

'"It's rank poison," said he, grasping the bottle by the neck, "and I forswear it! I've given up gambling, and I'll give up this too." He was on the point of deliberately pouring the whole contents of the bottle on to the table, but Hargrave wrested it from him. "On you be the curse, then!" said he. And, backing from the room, he shouted, "Farewell, ye tempters!" and vanished amid shouts of laughter and applause.

'We expected him back among us the next day; but, to our surprise, the place remained vacant: we saw nothing of him for a whole week; and we really began to think he was going to keep his word. At last, one evening, when we were most of us assembled together again, he entered, silent and grim as a ghost, and would have quietly slipped into his usual seat at my elbow, but we all rose to welcome him, and several voices were raised to ask what he would have, and several hands were busy with bottle and glass to serve him; but I knew a smoking tumbler of brandy-and-water would comfort him best, and had nearly prepared it, when he peevishly pushed it away, saying, -