"So that it must be; it must be just that; I must find Elizabeth"—his subconscious brain heard with a certain surprise and wonder how the slow voice trembled at the word—"I must find Elizabeth. And then, when I have found her, I must tell her that she, and she alone, is to be my wife, and my lady ever more. I must sue and woo her, and then she must be my wife. It is that which I have to do. The Court is nothing; my service is nothing; it is Elizabeth!"
The mare raised her head, her mouth full of long sweet grass, and she looked at him with mild, brown eyes.
He rose from the stile, put his hand within his doublet, and pulled out a little crucifix of ebony, with a Christ of gold nailed to it.
He kissed it, and then, singularly heartened and resolute in mind, he mounted again, seeing, as he did so, that his men were coming up behind. He waited till they were near and then trotted off, and in an hour came to the outskirts of Chelmsford town.
It was now more than two hours after noon, and he halted with his men at the "Tun," the principal inn of the place, and adjacent to a brewery of red brick, where the famous Chelmsford ale—no less celebrated then than now—was brewed.
He rode into the courtyard of the inn, and the ostlers came hurrying up and took his horse away, while he went into the ordinary and sat down before a great round of beef.
The landlord, seeing a gentleman of quality, bustled in and carved for him—a pottle-bellied, voluble man, with something eminently kindly and human in his eye.
"From the Court, sir, I do not doubt?" he said.
Johnnie nodded.
"If I mistake not, you are one of the gentlemen who rode with the Sheriff and Dr. Rowland Taylor this morning?"