The effect of that simple question startled him. Harlequin skipped as if a whip had lashed him. His eyebrows rose, his teeth set, incoherent maledictions came reverberating over his palate down his nose. It was moments before he could master his emotion.
‘Why?’ said he. There was actually moisture on his forehead.
‘I know not,’ said Brion, somewhat alarmed. ‘It was thy name, perhaps. What ails thee at my question? If there was hurt in it, my ignorance, not my will, was to blame.’
‘Fool, fool!’ muttered Clerivault, slapping his brow. ‘To quarrel with the lamb because it bleats!’ He passed a trembling hand across his mouth; his features stiffened into a mirthless smile. ‘God assoil thee,’ he said: ‘but never ask me so again. I not English! Then England exists not save for curs and hybrids. Will it please you to rise, Sir?’
His voice sunk from high protest to the civility of a servitor; and indeed Brion knew not what he was nor how to treat him, his office seemed so menial yet his soul so great. He tumbled out of bed, however, and washed himself in cold water, with a ha’pennyworth of mottled soap, and, while dressing, peeped often and curiously from the window into the yard of the inn, where were ostlers rubbing down horses, and maids flitting—clean girls with unconfined necks as white as their aprons, and skirts close to their hips, which Brion thought ever so much prettier than the full kirtles worn by the quality—and here and there a blowzy carter staring owlishly over a mug of beer. When he was ready, his attendant conducted him to a little timbered room on the floor below, where he found Mr Bagott seated over a round of cold beef and a stoup of ale on which he was breakfasting. He nodded to the boy, and bade him be seated and fall to, for he had a long journey before him.
So Brion obeyed, conscious that the dark gloomy eyes were appraising him from under their heavy brows, yet feeling in some way secure and not put out of countenance. And presently, Clerivault being out of the room, his uncle spoke in a quick sudden manner:—
‘Hast slept sound, boy?’
‘Yes, Sir,’ he answered, looking the other straight and frank in the face.
‘And favoured thine attendant?’
‘He is strange, Sir; but I favoured him.’