"Perhaps I may," replied Charles of Montsoreau; "at all events, you shan't go without reward."
"We will be there, we will be there," replied the man; and the Count having ascertained that the reckoning was paid, rode on upon his way.
The little incident which had broken in upon the train of his melancholy thoughts did not very long occupy his mind. "This must be a shrewd boy," he thought, "to adapt his song so well to the circumstances; for it is clearly from what he saw at the castle gates that he judged of the nature of my feelings, and sang accordingly."
Thus thinking, he rode on, and his mind readily reverted to the darker topics which had before occupied it. When he arrived at the sleeping place, which were in those days called Gîtes, he found a large and comfortable inn, such as was scarcely ever to be met with in any other country but France in those days. He looked naturally for the band of musicians at the door; but it seemed that they had either forgotten their promise, or had not yet arrived; and the young count had entered the hall and commenced his supper before there was a sign of their approach.
The first thing that gave him any intimation of their coming was the sound of voices speaking sharp and angrily in the Italian language; and he thought he heard amongst them the tones of the boy uttering a few, but indignant, words of remonstrance.
Rising from the table at which he sat, the young count approached the window, and found that he was right in supposing the party of musicians had arrived. The boy was standing in the midst, and the woman, as well as the two men, were bending over him, talking to him earnestly, with vehement grimaces on the countenance of each, while the clenched fist of the elder man shaken unceasingly, though not raised even so high as his own girdle, showed that some threats were being used to the boy, in order, apparently, to drive him to something, to do which he was unwilling. Although the window was on a level with their heads, the count could not distinguish what they said, for they were now speaking low, though still eagerly. They raised their voices, indeed, almost to a scream, when they uttered some wild Italian exclamation, but it was meaningless without the context. At length, however, to the surprise of Charles of Montsoreau, the boy seemed moved by a sudden fit of rage; and lifting the hand which held his pipe, he dashed the instrument of music upon the ground, shivering it to atoms, and exclaiming, "Never! never! I will neither sing nor play a note!"
At that instant the elder man struck him a blow on the side of the head, which knocked him at once down upon the road; and Charles of Montsoreau opening the window, leaped out, and interfered, while several of his attendants followed him from the supper room.
The faces of the Italians fell when they saw him; and there was a sort of confused and guilty look about them, which might well have made any one of a suspicious nature believe that they had been planning no very good schemes, when the obstinacy of the boy had obstructed them.
"You treat this youth ill," said Charles of Montsoreau, frowning upon the man who had struck him. "Are you his father?"
"No, the blessed Virgin be thanked!" exclaimed the Italian; "his name is Carlo Ignatius Morone, though we call him Ignati. No, obstinate little brute! he is no child of mine! I bought him of his mother to sing and dance for us. A bad bargain I made of it too, for he does not gain his own bread with his whims. His mother was a courtezan of Genoa."