Turner gave her a sidelong look over the instep of his boot as he held it up for inspection, but the weird sharpness of her glance was too much, even for his immovable sang froid. His eyes sunk, and he began to gather up the brushes as if in preparation for a retreat.
The old woman came close up and addressed him in Spanish. He understood the language well enough, but either from cunning, or that inveterate hatred of everything French or Spanish which we often find among English travelling servants, continued gathering up his property as if he did not comprehend a word.
After uttering a few sentences, half cajoling, half imperative, the woman turned away, muttering discontentedly between her teeth, and was about entering the back door.
“Halloo, where are you going now?” cried old Turner, satisfied that silence would no longer answer his purpose. “Where are you going, old witch? not into my lord’s room, surely!”
This was spoken in very respectable Spanish, though with a sort of rude snappishness that mingled his hatred of the language with every syllable.
“So you can speak,” answered the woman, with an oath, that springs to a gipsy’s lips naturally as flame leaps from burning wood.
“Yes, I can speak your lingo when I choose to demean myself particularly, and that isn’t often,” replied Turner, with considerable vexation, that he had unwarily been drawn into speaking the hated language. “But what do you want, old beauty? Nothing of my lord, or old Turner, I hope?”
“I want the Busne.”
“The what?” cried Turner, looking toward the door, and kicking the brushes on one side.
“The Busne.”