gly or knightly
court, to be living there close to the very dregs of the city was a
scandal and a danger--speaking so prettily too, and knowing how to treat
her elders. She would be a good example for Dennet, who, sooth to say,
was getting too old for spoilt-child sauciness to be always pleasing,
while as to Giles, he could not be in better quarters. Mrs Headley,
well used to the dressing of the burns and bruises incurred in the
weapon-smiths' business, could not but confess that his eye had been
dealt with as skilfully as she could have done it herself.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE KNIGHT OF THE BADGER.

"I am a gentleman of a company."
Shakespeare.

Giles Headley's accident must have amounted to concussion of the brain,
for though he was able to return to the Dragon in a couple of days, and
the cut over his eye was healing fast, he was weak and shaken, and did
not for several weeks recover his usual health.

The noise and heat of the smithy were distressing to him, and there was
no choice but to let him lie on settles, sun himself on the steps, and
attempt no work.

It had tamed him a good deal. Smallbones said the letting out of
malapert blood was wholesome, and others thought him still under a
spell; but he seemed to have parted with much of his arrogance, either
because he had not spirits for self-assertion, or because something of
the grand eastern courtesy of Abenali had impressed him. For
intercourse with the Morisco had by no means ceased. Giles went, as
long as the injury required it, to have the hurt dressed, and loitered
in the Inner Ward a long time every day, often securing some small
dainty for Aldonza--an apple, a honey cake, a bit of marchpane, a dried
plum, or a comfit. One day he took her a couple of oranges. To his
surprise, as he entered, Abenali looked up with a strange light in his
eyes, and exclaimed, "My son! thy scent is to my nostrils as the court
of my fathouse!" Then, as he beheld the orange, he clasped his hands,
took it in them, and held it to his breast, pouring out a chant in an
unknown tongue, while the tears flowed down his cheeks.

"Father, father!" Aldonza cried, terrified, while Giles marvelled
whether the orange worked on him like a spell. But he perceived their
amazement, and spoke again in English, "I thank thee, my son! Thou hast
borne me back for a moment to the fountain in my father's house, where
ye grow, ye trees of the unfading leaf, the spotless blos