“Now that is right prettily asked,” she cried, and was well pleased. “Thou shalt indeed stay for a singing page in our household—a voice and a face like thine are merry things upon a rainy Monday. And thou, Master Lark,” said she, fanning the hair back from Nick’s forehead with her perfumed fan—“thou that comest up out of the field with a song like the angels sing—what wilt thou have: that thou mayst sing in our choir and play on the lute for us?”
Nick looked up at the torches on the wall, drawing a deep, long breath. When he looked down again his eyes were dazzled and he could not see the Queen.
“What wilt thou have?” he heard her ask.
“Let me go home,” said he.
There were red and green spots in the air. He tried to count them, since he could see nothing else, and everything was very still; but they all ran into one purple spot which came and went like a firefly’s glow, and in the middle of the purple spot he saw the Queen’s face coming and going.
“Surely, boy, that is an ill-considered speech,” said she, “or thou dost deem us very poor, or most exceeding stingy!” Nick hung his head, for the walls seemed tapestried with staring eyes. “Or else this home of thine must be a very famous place.”
The maids of honour tittered. Further off somebody laughed. Nick looked up, and squared his shoulders.
They had rubbed the cat the wrong way.
It is hard to be a stranger in a palace, young, country-bred, and laughed at all at once; but down in Nick Attwood’s heart was a stubborn streak that all the flattery on earth could not cajole nor ridicule efface. He might be simple, shy, and slow, but what he loved he loved: that much he knew; and when they laughed at him for loving home they seemed to mock not him, but home—and that touched the fighting-spot.
“I would rather be there than here,” said he.