On the other hand, whatever admiration Nevile might conceive was strangely mixed with surprise, and, it might almost be said, with fear. This girl, with her wise converse and her child’s face, was a character so thoroughly new to him. Her language was superior to what he had ever heard, the words more choice, the current more flowing: was that to be attributed to her court-training or her learned parentage?
“Your father, fair mistress,” said he, rousing himself in one of the pauses of their conversation—“your father, then, is a mighty scholar, and I suppose knows Latin like English?”
“Why, a hedge-priest pretends to know Latin,” said Sibyll, smiling; “my father is one of the six men living who have learned the Greek and the Hebrew.”
“Gramercy!” cried Marmaduke, crossing himself. “That is awsome indeed! He has taught you his lere in the tongues?”
“Nay, I know but my own and the French; my mother was a native of France.”
“The Holy Mother be praised!” said Marmaduke, breathing more freely; “for French I have heard my father and uncle say is a language fit for gentles and knights, specially those who come, like the Neviles, from Norman stock. This Margaret of Anjou—didst thou love her well, Mistress Sibyll?”
“Nay,” answered Sibyll, “Margaret commanded awe, but she scarcely permitted love from an inferior: and though gracious and well-governed when she so pleased, it was but to those whom she wished to win. She cared not for the heart, if the hand or the brain could not assist her. But, poor queen, who could blame her for this?—her nature was turned from its milk; and, when, more lately, I have heard how many she trusted most have turned against her, I rebuked myself that—”
“Thou wert not by her side?” added the Nevile, observing her pause, and with the generous thought of a gentleman and a soldier.
“Nay, I meant not that so expressly, Master Nevile, but rather that I had ever murmured at her haste and shrewdness of mood. By her side, said you?—alas! I have a nearer duty at home; my father is all in this world to me! Thou knowest not, Master Nevile, how it flatters the weak to think there is some one they can protect. But eno’ of myself. Thou wilt go to the stout earl, thou wilt pass to the court, thou wilt win the gold spurs, and thou wilt fight with the strong hand, and leave others to cozen with the keen head.”
“She is telling my fortune!” muttered Marmaduke, crossing himself again. “The gold spurs—I thank thee, Mistress Sibyll!—will it be on the battle-field that I shall be knighted, and by whose hand?”