We found him in the nook made by the turn of the stair, flung thither, as it seemed, by the recoil of the great bell-mouthed blunderbuss which he was still clutching.  The fall had partly stunned him, but he was alive enough to protest feebly that he would take a dozen oaths upon his loyalty to the cause; that he had mistook us for some thieving marauders of the other side; craftily leaving cause and party without a name till he should have his cue from us.

Whereupon Richard loosed his neckcloth to give him better breathing space, and bidding me see if the revelers had left a heel-tap of wine in any bottle nearer than the wine cellar, lifted the old man and propped him in the corner of the high-backed hall settle.

The wine quest led me to the banqueting-room.  Here disorder reigned supreme.  The table stood as the roisterers had left it; the very wreck and litter of a bacchanalian feast.  Bottles, some with the necks struck off, were scattered all about, and the floor was stained and sticky with spilt wine and well sanded with shattered glass.

I found a remnant draining in one of the broken bottles, and a cup to pour it in; and with this salvage from the wreck returned to Jennifer and his charge.  The old man had come to some better sensing of things,—­he had been vastly more frightened than hurt, as I suspected,—­and to Richard’s eager questionings was able to give some feebly querulous replies.

“Yes, they’re gone—­all gone, curse ’em; and they’ve taken every plack and bawbee they could lay their thieving hands upon,” he mumbled. “’Tis like the dogs; to stay on here and eat and drink me out of house and home, and then to scurry off when I’m most like to need protection.”

“But Madge?” says Richard.  “Is she safe in bed?”

“She’s a jade!” was all the answer he got.  Then the old man sat up and peered around the end of the settle to where I stood, cup and bottle in hand. “’Tis a Christian thought,” he quavered.  “Give me a sup of the wine, man.”

I served him and had a Scottish blessing for my wastefulness, because, forsooth, the broken bottle spilt a thimbleful in the pouring.  I saw he did not recognize me, and was well enough content to let it rest thus.

Richard suffered him to drink in peace, but when the cup was empty he renewed his asking for Margery.  At this the master of the house, heartened somewhat by my father’s good madeira, made shift to get upon his feet in some tremulous fashion.

“Madge, d’ye say?  She’s gone; gone where neither you nor that dour-faced deevil that befooled us all will find her soon, I promise you, Dickie Jennifer!” he snapped; and I gave them my back and stumbled blindly to the door, making sure his next word would tell my poor wronged lad all that he should have learned from never any other lips but mine own.  But Richard himself parried the impending stroke of truth, saying: 

“So she is safe and well, Mr. Stair, ’tis all I ask to know.”