Mrs. Lecount
looked at him in astonishment.
"Can't you see the brute is drunk?" he went on, more and more irritably.
"Is my life nothing? Am I to be left at the mercy of a drunken coachman?
I won't trust that man to drive me, for any consideration under heaven!
I'm surprised you could think of it, Lecount."
"The man has been drinking, sir," said Mrs. Lecount. "It is easy to see
and to smell that. But he is evidently used to drinking. If he is sober
enough to walk quite straight--which he certainly does--and to sign his
name in an excellent handwriting--which you may see for yourself on the
Will--I venture to think he is sober enough to drive us to Dumfries."
"Nothing of the sort! You're a foreigner, Lecount; you don't understand
these people. They drink whisky from morning to night. Whisky is the
strongest spirit that's made; whisky is notorious for its effect on the
brain. I tell you, I won't run the risk. I never was driven, and I never
will be driven, by anybody but a sober man."
"Must I go back to Dumfries by myself, sir?"
"And leave me here? Leave me alone in this house after what has
happened? How do I know my wife may not come back to-night? How do I
know her journey is not a blind to mislead me? Have you no feeling,
Lecount? Can you leave me in my miserable situation--?" He sank into a
chair and burst out crying over his own idea, before he had completed
the expression of it in words.
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