on to
anything that might knock the folly out of his troublesome young inmate;
but Edmund had made him uneasy for the youth's eye, and still more so
about the quarters he was in, and he had brought a mattress and a couple
of men to carry the patient home, as well as Steelman, his prime
minister, to advise him.

He had left all these outside, however, and advanced, civilly and
condescendingly thanking the sword-cutler, in perfect ignorance that the
man who stood before him had been born to a home that was an absolute
palace compared with the Dragon court. The two men were a curious
contrast. There stood the Englishman with his sturdy form inclining,
with age, to corpulence, his broad honest face telling of many a civic
banquet, and his short stubbly brown grizzled beard; his whole air
giving a sense of worshipful authority and weight; and opposite to him
the sparely made, dark, thin, aquiline-faced, white-bearded Moor, a far
smaller man in stature, yet with a patriarchal dignity, refinement, and
grace in port and countenance, belonging as it were to another sphere.

Speaking English perfectly, though with a foreign accent, Abenali
informed Master Headley that his young kinsman would by Heaven's
blessing soon recover without injury to the eye, though perhaps a scar
might remain.

Mr Headley thanked him heartily for his care, and said that he had
brought men to carry the youth home, if he could not walk; and then he
went up to the couch with a hearty "How now, Giles? So thou hast had
hard measure to knock the foolery out of thee, my poor lad. But come,
we'll have thee home, and my mother will see to thee."

"I cannot walk," said Giles, heavily, hardly raising his eyes, and when
he was told that two of the men waited to bear him home, he only
entreated to be let alone. Somewhat sharply, Mr Headley ordered him to
sit up and make ready, but when he tried to do so, he sank back with a
return of sickness and dizziness.

Abenali thereupon intreated that he might be left to his care for that
night, and stepping out into the court so as to be unheard by the
patient, explained that the brain had had a shock, and that perfect
quiet for some hours to come was the only way to avert a serious
illness, possibly dangerous. Master Headley did not like the
alternative at all, and was a good deal perplexed. He beckoned to
Tibble Steelman, who had all this time been talking to Lucas Hansen, and
now came up prepared with his test