"Yes," he replied. "I will come."
Sir Stephen greeted the decision with a roar of laughter.
"Well done, Mike," he cried. "Split me, but I don't believe you're so sour after all, in spite of those straight looks. We'll be comrades, eh, boy? and drown the ghosts in the flowing bowl. They'll need drowning," he added, leaning against his son's broad shoulder and speaking in a whisper. "That's why I didn't come before. Not that I care for Sir Henry; he may frown an' curse at me till he rots, I'll but drink the deeper. But the little mother is different; she looks sad, and I see her crying over there by her tambour frame, and I know the tears are for me. That's what I can't stand, Mike, d'you hear? It makes me—there, there, I'm a drunken fool or yet not drunk enough,
'And that I think's a reason fair
To drink and fill again.'"
He flung back his head with a rollicking laugh over the refrain. Ghosts there should not be at Berrington Manor.
"Let's to the Hall," he cried, with an oath. "There's good wine, good company, and pretty faces there, if Phil Berkeley's to be believed. He vows Morry's sister's a jewel fit for a king's crown. You'll be your father's son where a pair of pretty eyes are to be toasted, eh, boy? Ha! ha!"
But Michael did not reply, though his own eyes were grim for those of a youth who went a-wooing.