“The page slew the boar,
The peer had the gloire.”
“A true token,” said Quentin, “lead on, good fellow—I will speak farther with thee presently.”
Then falling back to the ladies, he said, “I am convinced this man is the guide we are to expect, for he hath brought me a password, known, I think, but to the King and me. But I will discourse with him farther, and endeavour to ascertain how far he is to be trusted.”
CHAPTER XVI: THE VAGRANT
I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
THE CONQUEST OF GRENADA
While Quentin held the brief communication with the ladies necessary to assure them that this extraordinary addition to their party was the guide whom they were to expect on the King's part, he noticed (for he was as alert in observing the motions of the stranger, as the Bohemian could be on his part) that the man not only turned his head as far back as he could to peer at them, but that, with a singular sort of agility, more resembling that of a monkey than of a man, he had screwed his whole person around on the saddle so as to sit almost sidelong upon the horse, for the convenience, as it seemed, of watching them more attentively.
Not greatly pleased with this manoeuvre, Quentin rode up to the Bohemian and said to him, as he suddenly assumed his proper position on the horse, “Methinks, friend, you will prove but a blind guide, if you look at the tail of your horse rather than his ears.”
“And if I were actually blind,” answered the Bohemian, “I could not the less guide you through any county in this realm of France, or in those adjoining to it.”
“Yet you are no Frenchman,” said the Scot.