With all this we have yet come no further than the noontime of the Monday; but I have yet one more thread to gather up before I come again to my proper part in this tale.
That stranger, the sight of whose back so frighted me, foolishly clad in boy's garments, that I dared not risk encounter with the gaze of his eyes, was, though, alas! I knew it not, my brother Philip. When I did pass through the great hall on my way to the stables, he had just come to an end of some talk with Simon Emmet, who was then gone to fetch Sir Michael.
From his errand Simon hoped little good, fearing of the ills that might arise from Philip's return at this conjuncture, most of all the perturbation of spirit into which it was like to cast his master. So much, indeed, he said, with such plainness as his old and unbroken affection for my brother would allow. There is no little reason to suppose that, even more than the lad's father, Simon Emmet had been grieved by Philip's adoption of his mother's religion. For Philip, upon his arrival and encounter with the old man, was no sooner recognized than he was asked if it were indeed true that he was become a priest: and when Simon was assured that so it was, he counselled a speedy departure, since no good would come, Sir Michael being minded as he was, of their meeting. Being told, with that gentle severity which did use to sit very nobly upon my brother, that he must inform his master with no more ado, he yet in going must turn at the door to deliver a parting bolt through the man he loved at the creed he abhorred.
"Now, I bethink me, Master Philip," says Simon, "there is, when all is said, some good come of your heresy." And when Philip said gently that he hoped indeed it was so, but saw not how he meant it, Simon gave answer that, old man and sick though he was, Sir Michael upon that dire news had gotten a mind to live, and had lived ever since, in the firm intent that, as long as he might prevent, a Papist should never rule at Drayton.
"But, Simon," says Philip, with a sadness political rather than religious, "there was surely a time when my dear father had preferred a Papist in his house to a Dutch Calvinist on the throne."
"Ay, Master Phil," says Simon, with an old man's chuckle of much cunning, "but that was before the throne had tried a Papist," and so left him.