He stumbled away from the table, pulled himself together, and, following Mr. Lacel's butler, who had just come into the hall, ascended the broad stairway.
Mr. Lacel looked very curiously at Johnnie.
"Sir," he said in a low voice, looking round the hall to see if any servant were within earshot, "that drunkard hath said more than he meant. I am not quite the country fool I seem to be, but least said is soonest mended. I have known Sir John Shelton for some years—a good man in the chase, a soldier, but a drunken fool withal. I know your name, and I have met your father at the Wool Exchange in London. We are both of Catholic houses, but I think none of us like what is going on now, and like to go on since"—here he dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and glanced upwards to the gallery which ran round the hall—"since Her Grace had wedded out of the kingdom. But we must say nothing. Who that gentleman upstairs is, I do not seek to know, but I tell you this, Mr. Commendone, that, heretic or none, I go to-morrow morning to Father Lacy and give him a rose-angel to say masses for the soul of a good dead friend of mine. I shall not tell him who 'tis, and he's too big a fool to ask, but——"
The old man's voice caught in his throat. He lifted his cup, and instinctively Johnnie did the same.
"Here's to him," Mr. Lacel whispered, "and to his dame, a sweet and gracious lady, and to his little lad Thomas, and the girl Mary; they have oft sat on my knee—for I am an old widower, Mr. Commendone—when I have told them the tale of the babes in the wood."
Tears were in the Sheriff's eyes, and in the eyes of the young man also, as he raised his cup to his lips and drank the sad and furtive toast.
"And here," Mr. Lacel continued, lifting his cup once more, and leaning forward over the table close to his, "and here's to Lizzie, whom dear Dr. Taylor adopted to be as his own daughter when she was but a little maid of three. Here's to Elizabeth, the sweetest girl, the most blithe companion, the daintiest, most brave little lady that ever trod the lanes of Suffolk——"
He had hardly finished speaking, and Johnnie's hand was trembling as he lifted the goblet to his lips, when there was a noise in the gallery above, and Sir John Shelton, pale of face, and followed by the butler, came noisily down the oak stairs.
The knight's manner was more than a little excited.
"Mr. Commendone," he said in a quick but conciliatory voice, "His Highness—that is to say, the Spanish gentleman—is very fatigued, and cannot ride to London to-day."