"He's one of the Earl of Stair's men. Don't you see his colours?"
"Ay, I am one of the Earl of Stair's men," growled the footman, rising; "and he will make you pay for what you have done. There are eyes upon you, master."
"He shall punish you or take the act upon himself," answered Smeaton. At the same moment Van Noost pulled his sleeve, whispering:
"You had better come in, sir; yen had better come in. This is a bad business."
"Come, young gentleman," said Smeaton, laying his hand kindly on the boy's arm, "come in here with us, and let us see if he has hurt you much."
The boy followed mechanically; Van Noost locked the gate, which he had opened; the footman went away grumbling, with two or three children running after him to look at him, keeping, however, at a wary distance; and the little crowd which had collected gradually dispersed.
Once in the house, Smeaton and Van Noost applied themselves to stop the bleeding of a wound of no great extent or consequence which the boy had received on his head in falling, and the former asked him a number of questions, to which he received answers neither nonsensical nor without pertinence, but somewhat strange and uncommon. Shakspeare would probably have called them "simple answers," for the meaning of that word simple was not so limited in his day as in ours; yet there was an occasional touch of shrewdness in his replies, which savoured not at all of the simpleton. He used, it is true, expressions sometimes childlike, sometimes not altogether intelligible to those unaccustomed to his way of talking, but often poetical, or perhaps I should rather say figurative. His head he invariably called "his noddle." The ground on which he had fallen he spoke of as "mother earth." The fist of the man who had struck him he denominated "his poulter," and the blow "a dunder." He bore the pain well, and seemed to care little for the accident, but at the same time exhibited a degree of enthusiastic gratitude towards Smeaton (more than commensurate with the service which had hem rendered) for interfering on his behalf, and especially for avenging him on the bully who had struck him.
"Ay, ay," he said, looking eagerly in Smeaton's face, "it was good to teach the coulter-head that he's not too long to lie on mother earth."
In a few minutes he seemed quite recovered; and Van Noost poured him out a little of his Dutch Cinnamon, which, though Smeaton rather disapproved of the remedy, had a marvellous effect in restoring the boy's spirits.
Nevertheless he appeared somewhat eager to be gone; and his companions were not particularly disposed to detain him when they found that he was not seriously injured. Van Noost saw him to the garden-gate, and, on his return, perceived that his companion had fallen into a fit of thought, in which he continued for a moment or two after his host entered.