This description did not satisfy Mrs. Headley, indeed she feared that her son was likewise bewitched; and when, the next morning, Stephen, who had been sent to inquire for the patient, reported him better, but still unable to be moved, since he could not lift his head without sickness, she became very anxious. Giles was transformed in her estimate from a cross-grained slip to poor Robin Headley’s boy, the only son of a widow, and nothing would content her but to make her son conduct her to Warwick Inner Yard to inspect matters, and carry thither a precious relic warranted proof against all sorcery. It was with great trepidation that the good old dame ventured, but the result was that she was fairly subdued by Abenali’s patriarchal dignity. She had never seen any manners to equal his, not _even_ when King Edward the Fourth had come to her father’s house at the Barbican, chucked her under the chin, and called her a dainty duck! It was Aldonza, however, who specially touched her feelings. Such a sweet little wench, with the air of being bred in a kingly or knightly court, to be living there close to the very dregs of the city was a scandal and a danger—speaking so prettily too, and knowing how to treat her elders. She would be a good example for Dennet, who, sooth to say, was getting too old for spoilt-child sauciness to be always pleasing, while as to Giles, he could not be in better quarters. Mrs. Headley, well used to the dressing of the burns and bruises incurred in the weapon smiths’ business, could not but confess that his eye had been dealt with as skilfully as she could have done it herself. CHAPTER XIV. THE KNIGHT OF THE BADGER “I am a gentleman of a company.” Shakespeare. Giles Headley’s accident must have amounted to concussion of the brain, for though he was able to return to the Dragon in a couple of days, and the cut over his eye was healing fast, he was weak and shaken, and did not for several weeks recover his usual health. The noise and heat of the smithy were distressing to him, and there was no choice but to let him lie on settles, sun himself on the steps, and attempt no work.