"The poor thing would fain speak to your worship," said Matthew Lakyn, in a low voice; "she seems even more afraid of this master they talk of than of Mister Brooke, though she says he used her ill enough."
"Well, hold my horse then," replied the old knight; and dismounting, he approached the girl, as she stood trembling between the two constables, who continued to hold her tight by either graceful arm, as if they had to do with some furious criminal.
"Nay, nay, good fellows," said Sir Harry West; "take off your hands, she will go quietly enough. Now, what would you with me, my poor thing?"
"Oh, don't give me back to that wicked old man," cried the girl. "You must not; indeed, you must not."
"Are you an Italian?" asked Sir Harry West, remarking her accent. "If so, I can speak your language; and you can tell me more of this affair in your own tongue."
The joy of the poor girl at hearing this intelligence sparkled brightly in her eyes; and she poured forth upon the old knight a torrent of Italian, accompanied by a thousand wild but graceful gestures, which made the sober constables of ungesticulating England begin to fancy she was crazed. In five minutes, Sir Harry West was acquainted with her whole history, and had learned that her name was Ida Mara; that her father was a carver in Milan; her mother dead, a step-mother acting towards her the step-mother's part; and her only surviving parent careless and unfeeling enough to sell her for a sum of ready money to the charlatan who had brought her to England. Not even to the old knight, whose manner was certainly well calculated to encourage confidence, would she enter into particulars of the conduct of her master, as she called him. But Sir Harry West had no curiosity on the subject; she assured him, with tears, that the man had wanted her to do what was very wrong; and he easily conceived that she had received just cause to quit him.
When her tale was ended, and she looked up in the old knight's face with an appealing glance, he replied, with a kindly smile, "Do not be alarmed. If it is all exactly as you say, this man can have no power over you in England. We do not recognise here such purchases of our fellow Christians. The case will be different, indeed, if you have yourself signed any paper obliging you to serve him as an apprentice; but even then the law will protect you against wrong."
"I have signed nothing!--I have signed nothing!" cried the girl, vehemently; "it was all my father's doing, and I do not think he signed anything either."
"Well, we shall soon see," said Sir Harry West; "the only difficulty is, what is to become of you if you are taken from this man?"
The girl looked down thoughtfully and sadly; and then replied, raising her eyes with a beam of hope in them, "I can knit, I can sew, I can work all kind of things--I hate singing and playing on the lute--I used to love it once; and it was my only comfort when my mother died; but I hate it, now that I am obliged to do it for strange men to stare at me."