How was Sir George to glorify the God whom he could honestly thank
for nothing but whisky, the sole of his gifts that he prized? Over
and over that day he repeated the words, "Man's chief end is to
glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever," and all the time his
imagination, his desire, his hope, were centred on the bottle, which
with his very back he felt where it stood behind him, away on the
floor at the head of his bed. Nevertheless when he had gone over
them a score of times or so, and Gibbie had begun, by a merry look
and nodding of his head, to manifest that he knew what was coming
next, the father felt more content with himself than for years past;
and when he was satisfied that Gibbie knew all the words, though,
indeed, they were hardly more than sounds to him, he sent him, with
a great sense of relief, to fetch the broth and beef and potatoes
from Mistress Croale's.

Eating a real dinner in his father's house, though without a table
to set it upon, Gibbie felt himself a most privileged person. The
only thing that troubled him was that his father ate so little. Not
until the twilight began to show did Sir George really begin to
revive, but the darker it grew without, the brighter his spirit
burned. For, amongst not a few others, there was this strange
remnant of righteousness in the man, that he never would taste drink
before it was dark in winter, or in summer before the regular hour
for ceasing work had arrived; and to this rule he kept, and that
under far greater difficulties, on the Sunday as well. For Mistress
Croale would not sell a drop of drink, not even on the sly, on the
Sabbath-day: she would fain have some stake in the hidden kingdom;
and George, who had not a Sunday stomach he could assume for the day
any more than a Sunday coat, was thereby driven to provide his
whisky and that day drink it at home; when, with the bottle so near