Much, we read, is required from those to whom much is given, and Johnnie was to go through places far more terrible than the Valley of the Shadow of Death ever is to most men before he saw the Dawn.
When the Mass was said—the final "Missa est" was to ring in the young man's ears for many a long day—he went to breakfast. He took nothing in the Common Room, however, but John Hull brought him food in his own chamber.
The man's brown, keen face beamed with happiness. He was like some faithful dog that had lost one master and found another. He could not do enough for Johnnie now—after the visit to Mr. Cressemer's house. He took charge of him as if he had been his man for years. There was a quiet assumption which secretly delighted Commendone. There they were, master and man, a relationship fixed and settled.
On that afternoon there was to be a tournament in the tilting yard, and Johnnie meant to ride—he had nearly carried away the ring at the last joust. Hull knew of it—in a few hours the fellow seemed to have fallen into his place in an extraordinary fashion—and he had been busy with his master's armour since early dawn.
While Johnnie was making his breakfast, though he would very willingly have been alone, and indeed had retired for that very purpose, Hull came bustling in and out of the armour-room his face a brown wedge of pleasure and excitement. The volante pièce, the mentonnière, the grande-garde of his master's exquisite suite of light Milan armour shone like a newly-minted coin. The black and lacquered cuirasse, with a line of light blue enamel where it would meet the gorget, was oiled and polished—he had somehow found the little box of bandrols with the Commendone colour and cypher which were to be tied above the coronels of Johnnie's lances.
And all the time John Hull chattered and worked, perfectly happy, perfectly at home. Already, to Commendone's intense amusement, the man had become dictatorial—as old and trusted servants are. He had got some powder of resin, and was about to pour it into the jointed steel gauntlet of the lance hand.
"It gives the grip, master," he said. "By this means the hand fitteth better to the joints of the steel."
"But 'tis never used that I know of. 'Tis not like the grip of a bare hand on the ash stave of a pike...."
There was a technical discussion, which ended in Johnnie's defeat—at least, John Hull calmly powdered the inside of the glaive.
He was got rid of at last, sent to his meal with the other serving-men, and Commendone was left alone. He had an hour to himself, an hour in which to recall the brief but perfect joy of the night before.