The ale had been strengthened with raw alcohol, and made heady with steaming and the admixture of spices. It had special properties—as all blackguards in search of victims or confederates well knew—of loosening tongues and addling feeble minds.
Daniel Pye had had no desire to be reticent. He was already over-ready to talk. But the spirituous ale which soon got into his head killed that instinctive native suspicion in him, which in more sober moments would have caused him to look askance at the easy familiarity of his newly-found friend.
Pye was quite unaware of the fact that Tongue was really questioning him very closely, and that he himself gave ready answer to every question. Within half an hour, he had told the other all that there was to know about Mistress Peyton and her household, but still Master Tongue was disappointing in his offers of advice. Daniel was under the impression that the man with the florid face would help him to be revenged on his spiteful mistress, and yet time went on and Daniel had told his story over and over again in every detail and yet nothing had been suggested that sounded satisfactory.
He wanted to dwell on his troubles, those final ten lashes specially ordered, the rotten eggs thrown at him one by one by that damnable little scullion whom he himself had so often thrashed. Yet Master Tongue would no longer dwell on these interesting facts, but always dragged the conversation back to Mistress Peyton's household, or to the gentlemen who formed her court.
"Surely, friend," he said somewhat impatiently at last, "you must have known some of these gentlemen quite intimately. If as you say your mistress was a noted beauty, she must have had many admirers, some more favoured than others—some of these must have been Papists. The Duke of Norfolk now—did he come to see your lady?"
"No," replied Daniel Pye, sulkily. "But just as that rascally scullion hit me in the eye—"
"Never mind about that now," interrupted the other. "Try and tell me the names of those gentlemen who most often visited this Mistress Julia Peyton."
"There was Sir John Ayloffe—"
"He is no Papist—who else?"
"Sir Anthony Wykeham—"