FORTUNE

FORTUNE

BY
J. C. SNAITH
Author of “Araminta,” “Broke of Covenden,” Etc.

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
New York
All rights reserved
Published April, 1910
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
RAHWAY, N. J.

CONTENTS

FORTUNE

FORTUNE

CHAPTER I
OF MY JOURNEY TO THE PLAIN

As I left the place of my birth and long abiding and took the road to that far country where I thought my fortune lay, the sun already had a countenance. It was shining on the chestnut trees; on the tall white walls of the house of justice at the corner of the square; on the worthy priest who was sprinkling holy water on the steps of the monastery of the Bleeding Heart to suppress the dust, to keep away the flies, and to consecrate the building; and especially on the only bailiff that our town could boast, whose salary fluctuated with the thieves he captured. He, honest fellow, had driven so poor a trade of late that he crept along in his winter coat, seeking the shade of trees and houses.

Even at this time some portion of philosophy had gone to the increase of my mind, a habit which sprang, I think, from my mother’s family—her brother Nicolas was a clerk of Salamanca and wore a purple gown. So when it fell to consider two such matters as the dearth of rogues and the sun’s majestic clemency it found a pleasant argument. I had yet to adventure half a league into the world, but unless my eyes were false, the place I had vowed to win was fair and full of virtue. Having such thoughts I rejoiced exceedingly. Thus I checked my horse a moment and, lifting up my eyes to heaven, was fain to salute the morning.

However, as I made to pursue my way, glowing with the generosity of my youth, my gaze was diverted by a thing of pity. It was an old poor woman sitting beside a door. She was thin and feeble. Her cheeks were hollow, there was no lustre in her glance, her mouth had not a tooth; but her face was such that I felt unable to pass her by. My father had an adage pertinent to her case. “Be kind to the poor,” said the first of mankind, “and if you are not the happiest man in Spain, it is a conspiracy of Fortune’s.”

As I approached this aged creature I saw she had an eye which seemed to ask an alms yet did disdain it; and this war of pride and necessity in a poor beggar woman, halt and lean, led me to consider that she was not of the common sort, but had had a birth perhaps, and upon a day had known the cushions of prosperity. And this fancy moved my heart indeed, for in my view there is no more pitiful sight in nature than a blood Arab so broken in his wind and circumstances as to be condemned to base employments. There were only ten crowns in my purse, but its strings were untied before I could consider of my private need. Bowing to her as solemnly as if she had been the daughter of a marquis—and who shall say that she was not?—I begged her to accept a tenth part of my inheritance.

She received this invitation with those shy eyes that so much enhance her sex; while such confusion overcame the gentle soul that a minute passed before her faltering hand could draw a coin from the bag I held before her.

I went on my way with no more than nine crowns in my possession. Now, it is no light thing, believe me, reader, for a youth of one-and-twenty to adventure into an unknown country, upon a quest of fortune on a mountain horse, in the company of a sword of an ancient pattern, a leather jerkin laced with steel, a hat without a feather, and the sum of nine crowns, neither more nor less, for the whole of his estate.

I had set the nose of Babieca in the direction of the south. At first my way was taken through a pleasant country of great hills, that had cork trees on their slopes. Here and there little rivers ran in and out; sparkling in the morning sun; shining on the side of some tall mountain; circling round the foot of some grave precipice. But as the morning passed, and as hour by hour I went farther from my native hills, the nature of the land was changed. The cool woods and streams, the rich green pastures, and the fine tall hills with their garlands of dark forests yielded to a barren plain, to which, alas! there appeared to be no end. It was bare and arid, and strewn in many places with sharp rocks. There was not a tree, not a stream of water; and such horrid quantities of sand consumed it that it became at last a desert whose life was sterile. A few barren shrubs were the only things that grew there; and, as I was soon to learn, an infinite degree of misery.

All this time the sun was rising in the sky, and when about the hour of noon it began to beat from a naked heaven whose face was brass, upon the unsheltered plain, this wilderness grew so fierce and garish as hardly to be borne. Mile upon mile I did assay and stoutly overcame; but horizon succeeded to horizon, each so bright and quivering with heat that the eye was afeared to meet it, each so bare, so flat, and so like the one that was before, glaring sand on every side and torrid fire everywhere, with never a prospect of shelter or abode, and so small a hope of change, that at last I began to shrink from the path I was determined on, and was even led to think this must be the high road to eternity.

Even before noon my mouth was parched like a dust-pit. Thirst shrivelled my tongue, but no spring was there to quench it; nor was there a house to be seen. Indeed, the sun was become almost as cruel as he was formerly gentle, sitting in heaven like a ball of fire, and seeming to take pleasure from his pitiless descent on the coarse suit of a sanguine colour of one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas. And to increase the evil of my case my person was now taken with a pestilence of flies. These vindictive creatures bit my face and neck so sharply that the vexation of my person spread into my mind; whereon it rose to such a height against them as to provoke as round a fume of swearing as that of any rapscallion of the towns. Perforce I had to check this froward disposition in myself; for it is intolerable in one who boasts that his fortitude shall overcome the world, to find himself put out of countenance by the meanest insect in it.

It is no part of valour for a man to break and flee before an enemy, but the sun was now so much against me that I was fain to seek a refuge from him. Indeed, necessity was like to drive me to it all too soon, for there was already a kind of sickness creeping in my brain. So a little in the afternoon I saw through the fiery haze that trembled above the plain, a piece of scrub that promised a retreat. I turned my horse towards it with more alacrity than credit, though I am sure that had Cæsar himself been mounted that afternoon on my patient Babieca he must have acted even as did I, however the stoutness of his heart had cried out on the weakness of his nature.

I led Babieca into as much shade as I could devise, tied him to a bush, and crawled under it with my unlucky brains. While taking refuge here I had a fall in fortune. You will conceive, O admirable reader! that the sun, this false friend in whom I had reposed my trust, having dealt with me in this false spirit, there was no longer that poetry in my temper with which I had begun my journey. I was beset with doubts. If a face so bright, so open, so intelligible could hide such malice, where was the candour of the world? By this pertinent reflection my thoughts were carried to the poor woman who had also shared my trust. Perchance it was not the part of wisdom to bestow the tenth portion of my inheritance upon a beggar in the road. Sorely considering this aspect of the case I took forth my pouch, and pouring my little means into my hand, not without a pang that one palm could hold it all, behold! in lieu of nine crowns I discovered that I had but eight.

Now, I was never afraid to believe that if a man hold a low opinion of his kind, and looks upon them in a spirit of askance, such a one is fit for no nice company, since he merits no more consideration than he is willing to bestow. But to find that my trust had been abused so wickedly gravelled me altogether. I could have wept for the petty trick and cried out upon the world. Nor would I have you to consider that it was a piece of lucre that led me to this mind. It was the plausibility, the cold ingratitude that pricked me like a dagger. I had hoped to carry upon my pilgrimage that good faith towards my fellows that my noble father had bade me entertain. It was to be my solace and my watchword. As I rode forth the zephyrs of the morning were to breathe it in my ears; at night I was to lie down in its security underneath the stars. “Man is a thing so excellent that this peerless world was made for his demesne.” Thus Don Ygnacio, and he was threescore years and seven when he perished of the stone. Was the seed of that true caballero to renounce a wisdom so mature because of a blow received by misadventure?

Some hours I lay in security, for I was in mortal fear of the ball of fire above my head. By a good chance I had placed a luncheon of rye bread and a piece of cheese made of goat’s milk in my wallet. This I munched with discretion, for there was never a house to be seen, and this uninhabited plain appeared to stretch many miles. There was no spring at which to allay my thirst, and during long hours I was tormented dreadfully. My tongue and throat were blistered by the heat that arose from the burning sand. Bitterly did I lament that I had not had the wisdom to strap a skin of water to my saddle.

By the time the fury of the sun had grown somewhat less my head had recovered of its stroke, and I got upon my road. Nor was it in any bitterness of spirit that I went, for I had taken a solace from my meditations which reconciled me to the rape of my patrimony. It should call for more than a single mischance to break my faith in my brothers of the mountains and my cousins of the plains. Many a weary mile did I make ere the sun went down and a little pity for the wayfarer entered the firmament. My eyes did ache with the glare of the burning yellow ground; my body was sorely painful with the fatigues of travel; and when at last the sun was gone and the night and its stars appeared I gazed anxiously on every hand for the sign of some habitation to which I might commit my distress. But there was never a poor inn nor a swineherd’s hut to be seen in all this wilderness.

The night found me greatly doubtful of my way. I kept Babieca’s head as fair to the south as I could reckon, but in the faint light of the stars a true course was difficult to point. Nor was it without its dangers, for the road was of a wretched nature. It was strewn with sharp-pointed boulders, sand, stunted grasses, and was full of holes. Whither it led I did not know. But I had been told, or perhaps had dreamt, that many famous cities lay before me buried in the mists of night. They were marked in my imagination as the homes of every splendid enterprise, of every fortunate endeavour; and beyond all else, of the fairest peoples of the fairest countries of the world.

It was very dark, but soon I saw these cities stretching out before me in the night. They were truly delectable to see; fair places all, with the morning beams upon a crowd of palaces, castles of a noble situation, large, white, and lofty churches built of stone, and a company of ships. I saw the sea, which was only known to me by rumour, that broad highway to the Indies and other foreign lands where fame and riches wait on boldness and can be picked like acorns from beneath the trees. I saw the waves, a dark yet radiant azure, which were said to ride a thousand galleons, filled with men of valour. I could see their friends upon the beach waving their farewells. And I know not what emotion then swept over me, for no sooner did I observe the people in this fantasy than I remembered I had not a friend in all the world save Babieca, patient ambler and poor mountain creature that he was, and he was dumb like the stones upon the road. I felt the tears rising in my heart, and though I fought against them they were stubborn rebels not easy to suppress. For I cannot say with what intensity I longed at this dark hour for one glance from the eyes of him who was alive but a week ago.

My way was very lonely then, having strayed remote into a distant country. And very lonely was my heart; yet to those who will overpass my boldness I will confide it faltered not in resolution and therefore was not cold. For through all the long season of his adversity my father had maintained: “Courage is a living fire in a winter’s night.” Thus when the evening winds arose and chilled my body I pressed on, though I knew not whither, and had no thought of return. Hours came and hours went, and I had a great despair of sanctuary for myself and willing beast; and I had such a languor that it was no virtue of my own that held the reins. My belly was as bare as was this wilderness, yet my heart was fixed against complaint. I pressed forward stubbornly until at last Babieca began to stumble at every yard he took.

Upon that both of us came to one mind. We could go no farther. I was seeking for a tree whose branches might afford some protection from the shrewd airs of the night, and in such a desert a tree was hard to find, when I thought I discerned a light a great way off. I cannot tell you, reader, in what a tumult of hope I made towards this beacon. It showed across the waste so faintly that at first it looked no more than the ignis fatuus. Yet we had no other hope than this. Cheerful words to the hapless Babieca and shaking of the reins persuaded the good beast still to do his best. And presently these doubts were settled, for as we pressed on towards our talisman we found it to proceed from a sort of house. Thereupon I could have cried aloud for joy, in such a manner had hunger, weariness, and solitude wrought upon the hardihood of my resolves.

It was no easy task to find the place whence this light proceeded. And when at last I was able to learn I uttered a cry of delight. For it was an inn; a little inn and paltry, and yet the sweetest inn, I think, to which a traveller ever brought his weariness.

CHAPTER II
OF AN INN. OF A MAN FROM FOREIGN PARTS

On coming at last to the door I found this wayside inn to be of a mean condition, but at least it had four walls to it, and therefore might be called an inn. Such as it was it promised food and rest and the society of man. Observing a stable to be near at hand I led Babieca to it. A wretched hovel it was, yet it also had four walls of a sort and therefore might be called a stable.

Although no one came out of the inn to receive me and a great air of desolation was upon everything, I led Babieca within the hovel and contrived to find him a place in which he might repose. After much groping in the starlight—other light there was none—which came through the holes in the mud walls I was able to scrape enough straw together to form his bed. Also I was able to find him a supper of rough fare. And in so doing I observed that this poor place was in the occupation of a horse of a singular appearance. As well as I could learn in the darkness this was a very tall, large-boned, and handsome beast, sleek and highly fed. Near to it, hanging upon a nail in the wall, was a saddle so massive of artifice and so rarely bedizened as to indicate that both this piece of furniture and the beast that bore it were in such a degree above the common sort as doubtless to be the property of a lord. And this conclusion pleased me very well; for I was glad to believe that one of his condition had lent his presence to this mean place, because there is no need to tell you, gentle reader, a man of birth needs one of a similar quality with whom to beguile his leisure.

As I issued, however, from the stable and made to enter the inn I was stayed at the door by a dismal rustic who proved to be the landlord. His bearing was of such singular dejection and in his countenance was such sore embarrassment as to make it clear that either a grievous calamity had lately befallen him or that one was about to do so.

“I give you good evening, honest fellow. Have you seen a ghost?”

The dismal wight placed a finger to his lip.

“Hush, sir! hush, I pray you!” he whispered hoarsely.

“Nay, my good fellow, I hush for no man—that is, unless you have a corpse in the house.”

“I have worse than a corpse in the house,” said the innkeeper, crossing himself.

“Worse than a corpse?”

“Yes, kind gentleman, a thousand times worse! How shall I speak it? I have the Devil.”

The innkeeper made a piteous groan.

“I can hardly believe that,” said I. “He is not often seen in Spain nowadays.”

“Yes, it’s the Devil right enough,” said the innkeeper, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his jerkin. “I am a ruined man.”

“How does he seem in appearance? Are there horns on his head and does fire proceed out of his mouth?”

“He has an eye,” said the innkeeper.

In spite of my incredulity I could not help shivering a little.

“The evil eye, your worship, the mal d’ojo. And he is so enormous! When he rises from his stool his head goes into the roof.”

“Peace, honest fellow,” I said stoutly. “The age of monsters is overpast.”

“Ojala!” wailed the innkeeper, “your worship is in the wrong entirely. You can form no conception of what a fiend is this.”

“There have been no monsters in Spain since the time of the Cid,” said I, placing my hand on my sword.

“I tell you this is the fiend,” said the innkeeper vehemently. “He is hugeous, gigantical; and when he cools his porridge he snorts like a horse. Three weeks has he lain upon me like the pestilence. He has picked my larder bare, and swears by his beard he’ll treat my bones the same if I do not use him like an emperor. He has poured all the choice red wine out of my skins into his thrice cursed one. He outs his bilbo if a man so much as looks upon him twice. All my custom is scattered to the wind. Me hace volver loco! His mouth is packed with barbarous expressions. And he has an eye.”

In spite of my father’s sword and the natural resolution that goes with my name and province the strange excitement of the landlord made me thrill all over.

“It is the eye of the fiend,” he said. “It glows red like a coal; it is hungry like a vulture’s, fierce like a wolf’s. And then his voice—it is like an earthquake in the mountains. Oh, your worship, it is Lucifer in person who has come to comb my hair!”

I reproved the poor rustic for this levity.

“Nay, your worship, I speak the truth,” he said miserably. “The good God knows it is so. I am a ruined man. The Devil has lain three weeks in my house, yet I have not received a cuarto for his maintenance. A lion could not be so ravenous. He has devoured lean meat, fat meat, not to mention goodly vegetable. He has drunk wine enough to rot his soul. Ten men together could not use their fangs like he and roar so loud, yet I assure your worship I have not received so much as a cuarto.”

“This matter is certainly grievous,” said I. “Is there nothing you can do to get this person out of your house?”

“Nothing, nothing,” said the innkeeper miserably. “Why, sir, I offered him the whole of the profits I made last year—no less than the sum of ten crowns—to go away from my inn before ruin had come upon me. He took my money, and said he would bring his mind to bear upon the subject.”

“Was your course a wise one?”

“It may have been wise, your worship, and yet it may not. For upon bringing his mind to bear upon the subject, he said he had decided to curtail his visit by ten days; but as he is lying upon me still, it appears uncommonly like it that honest Pedro has had dealings with a villain.”

“That is as may be,” said I; “but the good Don Ygnacio de Sarda y Boegas, who died a week ago of the stone, would have no man judged harshly until his conduct had been carefully weighed.”

“If Don Ygnacio was as good as you say, I expect he never had the Devil in person cooling his porridge at the side of his chimney.”

“No, by my faith. But are you not calling this unlucky individual out of his true character?”

“Well, your worship, it is like this, do you see,” said the innkeeper humbly; “poor Pedro once had the misfortune to steal a horse.”

“You stole a horse, and yet you were not hanged!”

“No, your worship; they hanged my poor son in error. But perchance, if I unload my breast of this misfortune, it may please the Virgin Mary to lessen my afflictions.”

“If you are a wise man you will also burn a candle or two. But, innkeeper, I will enter this venta of yours and speak with your guest, whoever he may be. For myself, I don’t put much faith in the black arts.”

I confess that our discussion of these unnatural affairs had provoked strange feelings. But I spoke as boldly as I could, and laid my hand on the hilt of my sword with so much determination that the poor wight of an innkeeper fell into a violent trembling.

“Oh no, your worship,” he cried; “I would have you go upon your road. He is so prompt to violence that he will certainly slay you if you so much as show him your eyes.”

“That is as may be,” said I, taking a tighter grip upon my sword.

“Oh, your worship,” said the innkeeper, “I pray you use him tenderly. I beseech you be gentle of your discourse. He would pare the nails of the Cid. He fills the world with woes as easily as a she-ass fills a house with fleas.”

“You must obey me, innkeeper,” I said sternly, but without anger I hope, for the state of the poor fellow’s mind had moved me to pity. “You must remember that a caballero of my province is afeared only of God.”

The unlucky wight, finding that I was not to be gainsaid, led the way, with many misgivings, into his squalid house.

There was only one apartment for the service of guests. It was a poor one enough, with hardly anything in it except the lice on the walls and three candles which burned dismally. Such a hovel was only fit for the entertainment of pigs, cows, and chickens; yet it was not its quality that first awoke my attention. Neither was it the extremely singular personage that was seated at the side of the fire.

It was the delicious smell of cookery that filled the whole place. This proceeded out of a great seething pot that hung in the chimney. To one who had travelled all day nothing could have been more delectable. At its sight and odour my hunger began to protest fiercely, for my last piece of victual had been eaten at noon.

Seated on a low stool, as near to the pot as he might venture without being scorched in the legs, I found the author of these grievances. His gaze was riveted upon this delicious kettle. His enormous limbs were outstretched across the hearth, a rare cup of liquor was beside his stool, and so earnestly was he gazing at the meat as it tossed and hissed in the cauldron that upon my entrance he did not stir, but, without so much as removing his chin from his hands, continued in his occupation with an air of approval and expectancy.

For myself, I honoured him with a long and grave look. Since that distant evening in my youth I have met with many chances and adventures in my travels. I have fallen in with persons of all kinds—the virtuous, the wicked, and those who are neither one nor the other. I have broken bread with princes, philosophers, rogues, slaves, and men of the sword—men of all nations and of every variety of fortune-yet I believe never one so remarkable as he who now kept the chimney of this wretched venta upon a three-legged stool. The length of his limbs was extraordinary; his shoulders were those of a giant; and even in his present careless and recumbent attitude he wore an uncommonly sinister and formidable look.

His dress at one time would scarcely have come amiss to a prince, yet now it was barely redeemed from that of a beggar. The original colour of his doublet, which hung in tatters, was an orange tawny, but it was now so soiled and rent that it could have stood for any hue one cared to name. His cloak, which hung upon the wall, was of a bright blue camlet, and was but little superior to the condition of his doublet. Purple silk had once formed the substance of his hose, but now the better part of it was cloth, having suffered many patchings with that material. Added to such conspicuous marks of indigence, his long yellow riding boots were split in pieces, one even revealed the toe of a worsted stocking; whilst his scabbard was in such case as it sprawled on the ground beside his leg that the naked point was visible.

When I came near and fell to regard him the better, he did me the honour to lift his left eye off the cooking-pot. He proceeded to stare at me in a manner of the most lazy indifference, and yet of the greatest insolence imaginable. Then, without saying a word, he yawned in my face and turned the whole of his attention again to the kettle.

Such a piece of sauciness made me feel angry. Had I been a dog I could not have been met with less civility. My hand went again to the hilt of my sword as I took a closer view of his visage. It was as red as borracho, shining with cunning and the love of the cup. But it was the eye he had fixed upon me that gave me the most concern. The poor innkeeper was right when he spoke of his eye. It was as rude as a tiger’s, and animated with such a hungry look that it might have belonged to a dragon who desired to know what sort of meal stood before him.

Though I might be in doubt as to what was his station, whether it was that of a lord or a mendicant, since his assemblance suggested that he partook of both these conditions, I had no doubt at all that he was not a Spanish gentleman—for where should you find a caballero of our most courteous nation who would so soil his manners as to treat a stranger with this degree of impudency? Yet there was a great air of possession about him as he sat his stool, as though every stick and rafter of the inn was his own private furniture, so that I almost felt that I was intruding within his castle. There was, again, that insolence in his looks as clearly implied that it was his habit to command a deal of consideration from the world; and as a lord is a lord in every land, whether he happen to be a Spaniard or a German Goth, I opened, like a skirmisher, in the lightest manner, not to provoke offence, for I trust that Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas has ever too much respect for his forebears to humiliate a man of birth.

“I give the greeting of God to your excellency,” I began, uncloaking myself and bowing low, as became a hidalgo of my nation.

The occupant of the stool made no sign that I had addressed him, except that he spat in the fire.

“May it please you, sir—a thousand pardons,” said I; “but I have heard a tale of you from the keeper of this inn that never did consist with gallantry. And may I pray you to have it rectified, for the poor fellow is sorely afflicted in his understanding.”

At this address the occupant of the stool took his left eye off the cooking-pot for the second time, and fixed it upon me slowly and mockingly, and said in a rude, foreign accent that was an offence to my ears,

“Yes, my son, pray me by all means; or shrive me, or baptize me, or do with me just as you please. I have grown old in the service of virtue, yet perhaps I ought to mention that I have not so much as the price of a pot of small ale in my poke.”

“By your leave, sir, you are upon some misapprehension,” said I. “It is not your money that I crave, but your civility.”

“Civility, my son. Well, I dare say I can arrange for as much of that as you require.”

“It is pleasing to know that, sir. But this innkeeper—unhappy man—does not appear to have partaken of it.”

The occupant of the stool took my remonstrance in fairer part than there was reason to expect. Indeed he even abated his manners into some appearance of politeness.

“You appear to judge shrewdly for one of your years, my young companion,” he said, in a voice that fell quite soft. “But if I must speak the truth, this innkeeper is a notorious villain; and if I am ever civil to a notorious villain, I hope Heaven will correct me.”

“Even upon such a matter as that, sir,” I said gravely, “there may be two sorts of opinion. Even if this poor innkeeper is not so virtuous as he might be, it will not help him on the true path to be mulcted in his substance.”

“By cock!” said the occupant of the stool, “it is an old head you wear on your shoulders, my young companion. You speak to a point. I can tell you have been to college.”

“Sir, you are mistaken in this, although I come of a good family upon the side of both my parents. My uncle Nicolas is magister in the university of Salamanca; and as for my father, lately deceased, he was one of the wisest men that ever lived.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said the occupant of the stool, whose voice had fallen softer than ever. “It is as plain as my hand.”

Somewhat curiously, and perhaps with a little of the vanity of youth, I sought a reason for this estimate.

“It is as plain as the gown of a woman of virtue,” he said, with a stealthy down-looking glance. “I have a wonderful eye for merit. You can never disguise birth and condition from one like myself. I am a former clerk of Oxford, and my lineage is such that modesty forbids me to name it before supper.”

“Oxford,” said I, taking this quaint, barbarous name upon my tongue with pain. “Saving your presence, sir, what part of our great peninsula is that? It sounds not unlike the province of Galicia, where I know the dialect and the people are allowed to be a little uncivil.”

“Not too quickly, my son. The university of Oxford is about a day’s journey from the centre of the world.”

“Then, sir, it must be somewhere in Castile.”

“Why Castile, my son?”

“Madrid is in the province of Castile, and that, I believe, is generally reckoned to be the centre of the world.”

“My young companion, I sit corrected,” said the occupant of the stool, with a humble air that went not at all well with his countenance. “When I was young I was always taught that the centre of the world was London; but I dare say the world has moved on a little since those days.”

“London, sir!” said I; for here was another barbarous word I had never heard before. “I pray you tell me in what part of our peninsula is London.”

Instead of replying to this question, the occupant of the stool began to purse his lips in an odd manner, and to rub his chin with his forefinger.

“By my soul,” he said, “that is a plaguy odd question to address to an English gentleman!”

“Doubtless it may be,” said I, “to one who has travelled much, and knows our great peninsula from one end to the other; but I confess I never left my native province before this morning.”

“Never left your province before this morning!” said this strange person, laughing softly. “Is it conceivable? If you had kept it close it would have required great wisdom to suspect it. Your mind has been finely-trained, my young companion, and your air is so finished that I should like to see it at the court of Sophy.”

I was fain to bow at so much civility. Yet he was laughing softly all the while, and there was a covert look in his eye that I mistrusted.

“Would you say that I had been drinking,” said he, “if I declare to you upon my honour that London never was in Spain at all?”

“I take it nowise amiss, sir; yet if London is no part of Spain I fail to see how it can be the centre of the world.”

For the moment I feared this extraordinary man would fall from his stool, so forcibly did his laughter ascend to the roof. I felt some discomposure, for surely such an action was no part of courtesy. Judging, however, that it is the first business of the polite to refrain from outfacing the rude with their own manners, I gathered all my patience and said, not without haughtiness, I fear: “Sir, are you not from foreign parts?”

“Nay, my young son of the Spains, I am come to foreign parts, if that is your question. I was born and bred in England; I am the natural son of an English king; I have dwelt in England half my years; and when I die my bones shall lie in England, for since the time of Uthyr Pendragon, the respected progenitor of an English sovereign, no scion of my name has left his bones to rot in a foreign climate.”

“England,” said I; “the land is as strange to me as far Cathay.”

It was in vain that I strove to recall what I had heard of this remote island country. Yet, as I could recollect nothing whatever about it, I was fain to believe that I had never heard of it at all.

CHAPTER III
OF THE EATING OF MEAT

No sooner had I made this confession than this remarkable man uttered a shout that filled the place like the report of a caliver.

“By my hand,” he cried, “what a nation! Have you ever heard of the moon, my son?”

“Certainly, sir, I have heard of the moon.”

“Come now, he’s heard of the moon. How learned they are getting in this cursed peninsula! This must be one of the clergy.”

“Yes, sir,” I said with sternness, for the sauciness of his look was hard to condone; “I have heard of the moon continually; and under your good favour I am willing to hear of this England of which you make mention. Where may it be?”

“Well, to begin with, I could never learn that it was in Spain. Thereby I have a predilection to my prayers, that I may reward heaven for its good kindness.”

This incensed me greatly.

“It must be a barbarous land this England, if I may judge by what it breeds,” was my rejoinder.

“Barbarous indeed,” said he. “There are more barbers in England than there are honest men in this peninsula.”

“You misunderstand me, sir, I am afraid.”

“I hope I do misunderstand you, my son; for if I do not, it would almost appear that you are a native of this damnable country.”

“Mother of Jesus!” I cried, “this is intolerable.”

Such a taunt was beyond my patience; and when I fell to consider that he who applied it to my country, was native to a land in which civilization had yet its work to do—I had now a recollection that these English were a dreadful brawling people, a race of robbers who sold their swords for gain, and overran the whole of Europe—I deemed it proper to indulge a grievance against this foreigner whose demeanour was so rude.

“Señor caballero, I fear I am under the necessity of having to correct you.”

I laid my hand on my sword with a dignified gesture.

“By all means, young Hop-o’-my-Thumb.” His harsh voice sank into a most remarkable cooing softness. “I am ever open to correction, as becomes a good mother’s son who hath received it regularly.”

“Here, sir, and now,” I cried hotly, dragging my sword from its case.

While I had been speaking, the eyes of the barbarian had opened wider and wider, till at the moment I showed him my steel he opened his mouth and sent up such a peal of laughter to the hams, onions, and lemons that lined the beams in the roof, as nearly provoked the poor innkeeper, who all this time had taken care to keep behind me, to take leave of his wits.

“Why, if this is not a giant-killer”—he pressed his hands to his ribs and roared like a bull—“I am not a king’s son. By the lord Harry, what a notable assemblance have we here! By cock, how he doth spread his five feet nothing! If he had but a beard under his chin, he might break an egg. And look you, he holds his point as staunchly as old harlequin bears his wand in the Lord Mayor’s Show.”

“On guard, sir, immediately”—I advanced a step upon him—“before I run you through the heart.”

Instead, however, of heeding my purpose, he continued to address most immoderate roars to the roof, and his huge frame swayed on the stool like a ship in distress.

“Why, there’s fierceness!” he roared. “The valiancy of the tempest in a pouncet box. By my good soul, I have never seen anything so terrible, unless it is a cricket sitting under a thorn with its ears spread, or a squirrel casting for nuts in a scarce July. But here’s my hand, little Jack Giant-killer. Do you hop upon it like a good thing; and I pray you, Jacky, do not preen your feathers like a starling, else a fluxion will mount in my brains and I shall spit blood.”

The enormous barbarian held his hand towards me, as though I were a small bird with feathers, and he puckered up his mouth, as if he would coax me to perch upon his forefinger. He kept gazing at me sideways, and now and again would whisk away his face and break into laughter the most unseemly.

I tapped the point of my sword on the floor in the instancy of anger.

“Feathers!” he cried. “By my good soul, they preen and bristle like the back of a goose. Why I would like to wear your quills in my bonnet and eat your grease in a pie.”

“I am afraid you do not apprehend, sir,” said I, striving to regain my composure, “with whom you hold speech. My name is Sarda; and Don Ygnacio, my illustrious father, both by descent and nurture was one of the first of his native province of Asturias. His family have served their country in a thousand ways, since the time of that Ruy Diaz whom we call familiarly the Cid.”

“Is that so, good Don, is that really the case?” The Englishman averted his countenance. “Then if you are the offshoot of such an illustrious trunk, you must be nearly as full of high breeding as an elderly bonaroba is full of dignity. Good Master Don What-do-you-call-yourself, I pray you do not make me laugh; the best surgeons in the county of Middlesex have warned me against flux of the brain and the spitting of blood. All the most accomplished minds of a pretty good house have died in that way.”

“Sir Englishman,” said I, “I grieve for this demeanour which you display; but the last of our name must follow the practice of his fathers. Your language is unseemly; it is to be regretted; the misprisions you have urged against my country cannot go unmarked.”

“Oh, my young companion,” said he, striving to be grave, yet failing to appear so, “I am persuaded I shall die a horribly incontinent death.”

With might and main he strove to behave more worthily. By taking infinite pains he was able at last to compose his coarse red features, bloated with the cup and stained by the sun, into an appearance of respectfulness; but the moment I bespoke him down went his chin, his enormous frame began to quiver, and forth came another roar that echoed along the rafters like the discharge of an arquebuse.

Such conduct put me out of countenance completely. Although my experience of the world was not such as to teach me how to meet it becomingly, I was determined that it should not go free. I had a passion to run him through the body, but this could not be done while he continued to pay no regard to my sword. Yet, as he was impervious to those methods of courtesy that were the pride of my race, I determined to adopt a mode more extreme. I was about to deal him a blow in the face with my hand, to bring him to a sense of his peril, when, like a wise fellow, the innkeeper made a diversion. And this for the time being changed the current of affairs.

He fished a ham from the cooking-pot, and laid it on a dish. No sooner did the Englishman discover this meat to be set against his elbow than out he whipped his dagger and fell upon it, being no more able to contain his inclination than are the beasts that perish. Perforce, I had to put up my sword and abide in patience until this barbarian had quelled his appetite. But I had not reckoned well if I thought he would do this easily. Never have I seen a man eat so rapidly, so grossly, so extensively as this gigantical foreigner. At last came a pause in this employ, whereupon he regarded me with the grease shining about his chaps.

“Why, good Don,” said he, “you look a little sharp yourself. You have travelled overlong upon your emptiness, or I am a rogue. You shouldn’t do it, my son, you shouldn’t do it. Always be courteous to the belly, and you will find her docile. Neglect her, good Don, and you will find her a jade. Landlord, will you have the goodness to bring a platter for our friend of the feathers, or must I be put to the trouble of fixing the point of my dagger into your filthy Iberian skin?”

The innkeeper, who appeared to have no desire to place the Englishman to this necessity, was mightily prompt in his obedience. Also, he fished a second ham out of the kettle, from which the Englishman cut a great portion, laid it on his own platter, and gave over the remainder to me.

“There is a marrow-bone to suck,” said he. “’Tis the sweetest luxury, that and a drop of sherris.”

Almost overcome with the pangs of hunger as I was, nothing was further from my intention than to accept a courtesy at these rude hands. Yet, after all, continence has a poor sort of virtue in the presence of a mistress of such despotic powers. Before I was aware that I had so much as taken the delicious platter into my keeping, I was conveying sweet smoking morsels into my mouth. And as the propitiation of so imperious a creature is at all times a delightful exercise, I had scarce felt my teeth in the delectable pig than I forgot my feud against the Englishman. Also I forgot my disgust at the manner of his feeding; for so choice were these dainty morsels that, after all, I considered it were better not to judge him harshly, as, perhaps, his methods were less unworthy than they seemed. And he, having dealt faithfully with his second ham, and having called for a pint of sherry in a voice like a trumpet, ere I was half upon my course, proceeded to smile upon my dealings with the marrow-bone in a fashion that can only be described as brotherly.

“He who stands not true to the trencher is a poor shot,” he said with a most encouraging smile. “A brave demeanour at meals is as necessary to the blood, the assemblance and the superstructure of man, as is piety, good principles, and contemplation to the soul. Therefore, eat away, my good little Don Spaniardo, and I pray you to forget that I am present. If my own poor courage could in anywise compare with yours I should be as near to perfection as is woman to deceit. Small in circumference thou art, fair shrew, but thou art a beautiful champer, and a notorious lover of flesh. How wouldst thou esteem a salad, my son, of the brains of a Jew, as Sir Purchas of my name, and worthy kinsman, always yearned for and so seldom obtained? He was a man if you please, and notoriously fine at his meals. I never heard of a man who was better before a leg of mutton with caper sauce; and he drank canaries until the very hour they came to measure him for his shell. How rarely do you find a great nature disrespectful to its knife and its nuncheon. Modesty in the presence of flesh meat is a menace to virtue. But for that I must have been twice the man that I am. Ha! my son, give my old pluck such bravery and I would pawn my pedigree and be a slave, for a liberal stomach is no friend to displeasure.”

“Yet, good Englishman,” said I, with a touch, I fear, of our northern slyness, “you seem to do pretty well.”

“Pretty well!” He sighed heavily. “Pretty well is pretty well; pretty well is neither here nor there. Landlord, bring me this minute a bite of cheese, about so big as the knee of a bee; and further, landlord, another cup of this abominable sherris, or by this hand I will cut your throat, as I am the son of a sainted Christian lady.”

To lend point to this drastic utterance, the Englishman scowled like a fiend and drew his sword. This weapon, like everything about him, was of a monstrous character, and he stuck it in the ground beside his stool.

CHAPTER IV
OF FURTHER PASSAGES AT THE INN

Upon this action, the innkeeper came forward fearfully, for he felt that destruction threatened. When he had replenished the cup of his remarkable guest, I was fain to observe its curious nature. Its mouth was as wide as a bowl; and as the body which contained the wine was in a right proportion to the rim, it had rather the appearance of a pancheon than a cup of sherry. It was cast in silver, was gorgeously chased, while its whole device was quaint and ingenious. Indeed, I marvelled how one so poor as this innkeeper should have an article of so much worth and beauty in his possession.

After the Englishman had fitted his mouth to the rim for so long a period that he must have come near to looking upon the bottom, he gave back the cup to the innkeeper, and ordered it to be refilled. It was then handed to me, and I was invited to drink.

“That is if you can,” said he. “It is such a damnable liquor that personally I hardly durst touch it. But I suspect your stomach is not so proud as mine, you strong-toothed rogue. You see, we English are a most delicate people.”

I drank a copious draught of the wine, which was excellent, or at least my great thirst of the day had made it so. Then said the Englishman, eyeing me with approval:

“Well, my young companion, and what do you think of the pot?”

“The pot is worthy of notice,” said I, examining its rare contexture.

“It has been admired in Europe, and it has been admired in Asia,” said the Englishman. “That it merits attention I have been informed by half the great world. For example, the Emperor Maximilian broached a cask of Rhenish in its homage, and would, I doubt not, have fallen as drunk as a Cossack, had it been possible for a great crowned person to embrace these indecent courses. He offered me a thousand guilders for that pot; but said I, ‘Honest Max’—I must tell you, Spaniard, there is no crowned person of my acquaintancy for whom I entertain a higher regard—‘honest Max,’ I said, ‘offer your old gossip the Baltic ocean, the sun, the moon, and the most particular stars of heaven, and that pot will still remain faithful to my house.’ ‘Why, so, honest Dick?’ said the Emperor. ‘It is in this wise, my old bully rook,’ said I, fetching him a buffet along the fifth rib with a kindly cordiality, ‘that pot was given many years ago by the famous Charlemagne to my kinsman, Sir Cadwallader Pendragon, for his conduct upon the field of battle.’ ‘In that case, worthy Richard, friend of my youth and beguiler of my maturity,’ said the Emperor, embracing me with the greatest affection and filling my old sack cup with gold dollars—all the dollars are gold in Turkey—‘I do not ask it of you; let it remain an heirloom in your house.’ Therefore you will see at once, good Spaniard, that this pot is in some sort historical. And in all my travels I bear it at my saddle-bow; so whether I happen to lie down with fleas in a villainous Spanish venta hard by to purgatory; or whether I happen to sit at the right hand of potentates in England, Germany, and France, I can take my sack as I like to take it—that is, easily and copiously, with a proper freedom for the mouth, and with a brim that’s wide enough to prevent the nose from tapping against the sides.”

Curious as I had been from the first in regard to this strange individual, the nature of his conversation rendered me more so. In spite of his remarkable appearance, his costume might once have been that of a person of condition, however lamentably it failed to be so now; while his manners, although none of those of the great of my own country, may yet have been accustomed to receive consideration from the world. Therefore I said with a bow, “Good Sir Englishman, under your worshipful indulgence I would make so bold as to ask your name.”

Such a request seemed to give him great pleasure.

“That is a very proper question,” said he, “for my name happens to be one that has been favourably mentioned in every nation of the civilized globe.”

“Yes, sir, I feel sure of it,” said I; for as he spoke his dignity grew of the finest nature.

“You ask my name, good Spaniard; well now, what do you think of Richard Pendragon for a name?”

“A truly fine name,” said I, being led to this statement by the love of politeness, although I am not sure that I did not feel it to be a very barbarous name after all.

“Sir Richard Pendragon, knight; yes, by my hand, that’s a name! I have seen Goths and Arabs turn pale at it; it has been embraced by the foremost in valour; it has lain in the bed of queens. Yet the bearer of that name is gentle enough, by my soul; for it is the name of a good and true man, a simple knight, a valiant friend, a courteous enemy; a humble-minded seeker of light who is addicted to reading the stars and the works of nature. I have seen the wearer of this most inimitable name wipe the blood of a Barbary pirate off his sword with the hem of his pourpoint, and sit down and write a ballad. I have never seen his superior in female company. You may well ask my name, good Spaniard, for, without making a boast, which I abhor, where shall you find such performance united to such simplicity, such chaste austerity to such constancy in love? I tell thee, Spaniard, had I not been nurtured in humility, had I not been inducted to it by my sainted mother, even as the young kid is taught to bleat by the reception of its milk, I must have been a boaster, for I am of royal lineage, and the blood of kings flows under my doublet.”

“Hombre de dios!” I cried excitedly, for my own brains seemed overmounted by his enthusiasm, “you have indeed a great name. I would love to hear of those kings of whom you appear to be such a worthy descendant.”

“This is a proper curiosity, my honest youth. The name of my father is no less than Edward of England. I am his son, but not his heir. If every man walked according to his merit, the royal offspring that bespeaks you would have the crown of Great Britain tilted upon his left eyebrow at an angle of forty-five degrees.”

“For what reason have you not, sir, if you are indeed the king’s son and the crown is yours in the course of nature?”

“There was a little irregularity connected with my birth, which at the time of its occurrence I was not in a situation to adjust. Thenceforward a race of knaves and formalists have taken the wall of honest Dick, and have placed another upon the throne of England. But mark me, my son, the hour will strike when one who has grown old in the love of virtue will make good his estate, for he can show a line of kings upon both sides of his family. Upon the side of his dam is one Uthyr Pendragon, and of the seed of him sprang Arthur, who many years ago was a sovereign lord of Britain. It was many years ago, I say, but this Arthur was a good prince, a man of integrity, and his name is still mentioned favourably in his native country.”

“When, sir, do you propose to make this attempt upon the throne of England?”

At this question Sir Richard Pendragon assumed an air of magnificence, which did not consort very well with the hole in his scabbard and the condition of his hose and doublet.

“All in a good season,” he said majestically. “If not to-day it will be to-morrow. The truth is the machinations of the wicked have left me somewhat light in purse, and have also blown upon my reputation. But I don’t doubt that some fair morning when the larks are singing, the first-born son of a sainted mother, for all his misfortune and his plaguy dry throat, will land at Dover and march to London city at the head of twenty thousand Christian gentlemen who have sworn to redress his injuries.”

“May I be one of so fair a company!” said I, feeling the spell of his passion.

“Amen to that, honest youth.” He spoke superbly. “Give old honest Dickon your hand upon it. There is no sort of doubt that I shall hold you to a vow that does such honour to your nation and your character. By the way, is that a ring I see upon your finger, honest youth?”

“It is an heirloom of my house,” said I. “It was given by my father to my mother when he came to woo her.”

The Englishman raised his eyebrows with an aspect of grave interest.

“Was that so, my young companion? Given by your father to your mother—was that really the case? And set with agates, unless my eyes deceive me.”

“Yes, they are agates.”

“The sight of agates puts me in mind of a ring I had of my old friend, the Sophy. I used always to affect it on the middle finger of the right hand, just as you affect your own, my son, until it was coveted by my sainted mother upon a wet Ash Wednesday.”

Still exhibiting the tokens of a lively regard, the Englishman began to fondle the ring as it lay on my finger.

“An honest band of gold, of a very chaste device. It looks uncommonly choice on the hand of a gentleman. Does it not fit somewhat loosely, my young companion?”

Speaking thus, and before I could suspect his intention, Sir Richard Pendragon drew the ring off my finger. He held it up to the light, and proceeded to examine it with the nicest particularity.

“I observe it was made in Milan,” said he. “It must have lain for years in a nobleman’s family. My own was fashioned in Baghdat, but I would say this is almost as choice as the gift of the Sophy. And as I say, my son, it certainly makes an uncommonly fine appearance on the hand of a gentleman.”

Thereupon Sir Richard Pendragon pressed the slender band of metal upon the large fat middle finger of his right hand.

“It comes on by no means so easy as the Sophy’s gift,” said he; “but then, to be sure, my old gossip had a true circumference taken by the court jeweller. I often think of that court jeweller, such an odd, brisk little fellow as ’a was. ’A had a cast in the right eye, and I remember that when he walked one leg went shorter than its neighbour. But for all that ’a knew what an agate was, and his face was as open as a fine evening in June.”

With an air of pleasantry that was impossible to resist, Sir Richard passed his cup and exhorted me to drain it. I drank a little of the wine, yet with some uneasiness, for it was sore to me that my father’s talisman was upon the hand of a stranger.

“I shall thank you, sir, to restore the ring to my care.”

“With all the pleasure in life, my son.” The Englishman took hold of his finger and gave it a mighty pull, but the ring did not yield.

He shook his head and began to whistle dolefully.

“Why, as I am a good Christian man this plaguy ring sticks to my hand like a sick kitten to a warm hearthstone. Try it, my son, I pray you.”

I also took a pull at the ring, which was wedged so firmly upon his hand, but it would not budge.

“This is indeed a terrible matter,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “What is to be done, young Spaniard?”

He called the innkeeper and bade him bring a bowl of cold water. Into this he dipped his finger; and although he held it in the water for quite a long time, the ring and his right hand could not be induced to part company.

“What is the price you set upon this ring, my young companion?”

“The ring is beyond price—it was my mother’s—and has ever been in the keeping of an ancient house.”

“If it is beyond price there is an end to the question. I was about to offer you money, but I see you have one of those lofty spirits that can brook no vulgar dross. Well, well, pride of birth is a good thing, and money is but little. Yet one who has grown old in the love of virtue would like to requite you in some way. Had we not better throw a main with the dice? If I win I wear the ring for my lawful use; and if I lose you shall have the good tuck that was given to me by the King of Bavaria for helping him against the Dutch.”

I did not accept this suggestion, as you may believe. Yet it gave me sore concern to see my father’s heirloom upon the hand of this foreigner. In what fashion it was to be lured from his finger I was at a loss to know; and in my inexperience of the world I did not know what course to embrace.

CHAPTER V
I HEAR OF THE PRINCESS

Upon his own part Sir Richard Pendragon showed a wonderful calmness. He wore the ring upon his finger with so great an air, and withal was so polite that the forcing of a quarrel was put out of the question. None the less it was clear that if ever I was to recover my father’s gift it must be at the point of the sword.

It is always claimed, however, by the natives of my province, which in the things of the mind is allowed to be the first in all Spain, that a cool judgment must ride before violence. Therefore I was in no haste to push the matter to an extremity. My mind was set that I could only regain possession of the trinket by an appeal to the sword; that soon or late we must submit ourselves to that arbitrament, but as the night was yet in its youth, I felt there was no need to force the brawl before its season. Thus, nursing my injury in secret I marked the man narrowly as he sat his stool, with his hungry eyes forever trained upon me sideways, and forever glancing down with furtive laughter, while his great lean limbs in their patched, parti-coloured hose, in which the weather had wrought various hues, were sprawled out towards the warmth of the chimney.

As thus he lay it was hard to decide whether he was indeed a king’s son or no more than a fluent-spoken adventurer. And in spite of the flattering opinions he put forward of his own character, I was fain to come to it that the latter conclusion was at least very near to the truth. For one thing, the lack of seriousness in his demeanour did not consort very well with the descendant of princes, whom all the world knows to be grave men. He never so much as looked towards me without a secret light of mirth in his eye; and this I was unable to account for, as for myself I had never felt so grave.

“Sir Richard Pendragon, knight,” said he, for no particular reason, unless it were the love of hearing his own discourse; “of all names I believe that to be the most delectable; for it is the name of a true man, of one addicted to contemplation, and of one who has grown old in the love of virtue. Sir Richard Pendragon, knight—a name is a small thing, but it has its natural music; Sir Richard Pendragon, knight—yes, it runs off the tongue to a tune. I think, my young companion, you have already admired it?”

“Indeed, sir, I have,” said I, with a certain measure of mockery, of which, upon occasion, those of my province are said to be adept in the use. “I conceive it to be a most wonderful name. Have you not said so yourself?”

“If I have, I have,” said he, patting my shoulder with a familiarity for which I did not thank him. “After all, the murder was obliged to come out. Is it the part of valour to shun the truth? My young companion, I feel sure you are one of those who respect that pious opinion that is shared by P. Ovidius Naso and other learned commentators upon the subject. Indeed, it is very well that a name which stands so high in middle Europe is come into this outer part. Quite recently I feared it to be otherwise. I met an itinerant priest, not a month ago, bald, obese, and biblical, who said that to his mind my name was deficient. ‘Fair sir, for what is it celebrated?’ was his question. ‘For what is it celebrated, reverend one?’ was my rejoinder. ‘Why, where can you have lived these virtuous years of yours? It is the name of a notorious pea-nut and straw-sucker.’ ‘That is verily a singular accomplishment,’ said the reverend father in God. ‘Yes, your reverence,’ I answered, ‘this old honest fellow can draw a nut through a straw with the same complacency as a good churchman can draw sack through the neck of a bottle.’ ‘That is indeed remarkable,’ said the reverend father, and proceeded to demonstrate that as pea-nuts were wide and straws were narrow, it was no light matter. ‘Yes, my father,’ said I, ‘that is a very just observation. But I am sure you would be the last to believe that one who has a king’s blood flowing under his doublet would bring his mind to anything trivial.’ ‘Doubtless your view is the correct one,’ said the reverend sceptic, ‘but all the same, I fail to see how a king’s blood would be able to compass a feat of that nature.’ ‘There is none shall say what a king’s blood will compass,’ was my final rejoinder, ‘for there is a particular genius in it.’ Yet, my young son of the Spains, I have little doubt that the worthy Dominican is still breaking his mind upon this problem behind the walls of Mother Church; and such is the subtlety of these scholars with their thumb rules and their logicality, that presently you shall find that this innocent pleasantry has unhinged the brains of half the clerks in Salamanca.”

“You have indeed a ready wit and a subtle contrivance, sir,” said I at the conclusion of this ridiculous tale, for it was plain that he looked for some such comment upon it.

“You must blame my nation for that. Every Englishman is witty when he has taken wine; he is an especially bright dog in everything after the drinking of beer. You dull rogues of the continent can form no conception of an Englishman’s humour.”

“How comes it, sir, that you find yourself an exile from this land which, by your account of it, is fair unspeakably?”

“It is a matter of fortune,” he made answer.

“Is that to say you are on a quest of fortune?” said I, breathing high at this magic word.

“You have come to the truth,” said he with a sigh and a smile and a sidelong look at the sword that hung by his leg.

“Why then, sir,” I cried with an eagerness I could not restrain, “we are as brothers in this matter. I also am on a quest of fortune.”

My words seemed to jump with the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon. He looked at me long and curiously, with that side glance which I did not find altogether agreeable, stroked his beard as if sunk in deep thought, and said with the gravest air I had heard him use,

“Oh, indeed, my son, is that the case! So you are on a quest of fortune, are you, my son? Well, she is a nice, a proper, and a valiant word.”

“My father was ever the first to allow it,” said I. “She used him ill; his right hand was struck off in a battle at a tender age, but I never heard him complain about her.”

“She hath ever been haughty and distant with old English Dick,” said my companion, sighing heavily; “but you will never hear that true mettle abuse the proud jade. Fortune,” he repeated and I saw his great hungry eyes begin to kindle until they shone like rubies—“oh, what a name is that! She is sweeter in the ears of us of England than is the nightingale. What have we not adventured in thy name, thou perfect one! Here is this Dick, this old red bully, with his dry throat and his sharp ears and his readily watering eye, what hath he not dared for thee, thou dear ungracious one! He has borne his point in every land, from the wall of China to the high Caucasian mountains; from the blessed isles of Britain to farthest Arabia. Who was it drove the Turk out of Vienna with a six-foot pole? Who was it beat the Preux Chevalier off his ground with a short sword? Who was it slew the sultan of the Moriscoes with his own incomparable hand? Who was it, and wherefore was it, my son?”

In this exaltation of his temper he peered at me with his side glance, as though he would seek an answer to a question to which no answer was necessary.

“Why do I handle,” he proceeded, “the sword, the broadsword, the short sword, the sword and buckler, and above all that exquisite invention of God, the nimble rapier of Ferrara steel, with the nice mastery of an old honest blade, but in thy service, thou sweet baggage with thy moist lip and thy enkindling eye?”

“Ah! Sir Englishman,” cried I, feeling, in spite of his rough brogue, the music of his nature, “I love to hear you speak thus.”

“Thirty years have I been at the trade, good Spaniard, and sooner than change it I would die. One hundred towns have I sacked; ten fortunes have I plundered. But by sack they came, and by sack they did depart. It is wonderful how a great nature has a love of sack. Yet I have but my nose to show for my passion. Do you observe its prominent hue, which by night is so luminous that it flames like a beacon to forewarn the honest mariner? Yet to Fortune will we wet our beards, good Spaniard, for we of England court her like a maiden with a dimple in her cheek.”

Having concluded this declamation, Sir Richard Pendragon called the landlord in a tone like thunder, bade him bring a cup of sherry for my use, and fill up his own, which was passing empty.

“I will bear the charges, lousy one,” said Sir Richard with great magnificence.

“Oh yes, your worship”—the poor innkeeper was as pale as a corpse—“but there is already such a score against your worship—”

“Score, you knave!” Sir Richard rolled his eyes horribly. “Why, if I were not so gentle as a woman I would cut your throat. Score, you dog! Then have you no true sense of delicacy? Now I would ask you, you undershot ruffian with your bleared eyes and your soft chaps, are gentlemen when they sit honouring their mistresses in their own private tavern, are they to be crossed in their sentiments by the lowest order of man? Produce me two pots of sack this minute, or by this hand I will cut a gash in your neck.”

The unlucky wight had fled ere his guest had got half through this speech, which even in my ears was frightful, with such roars of fury was it given. When he returned with two more cups filled with wine, Sir Richard looked towards me and laid his finger to the side of his nose, as though to suggest that he yielded to no man in the handling of an innkeeper.

By the time he had drunk this excellent liquor there came a sensible change in the Englishman’s mien. The poetry of his mood, which had led him to speak of Fortune in terms to kindle the soul, yielded to one more fit for common affairs.

“Having lain in my castle,” said he, “and being well nourished with sack, to-morrow I start on my travels again. Upon pressure I would not mind taking a young squire.”

He favoured me with a look of a very searching character.

“I say,” he repeated solemnly, stretching out his enormous legs, “I am minded to take a young squire.”

“In what, sir, would his duties consist?”

“They would be mild, good Don. Assuming that this young squire—if he were a man of birth so much the better—paid me a hundred crowns a year, cleaned my horse of a morning and conversed with me pleasantly in the afternoon, I would undertake to teach him the world.”

“Why, sir,” said I, “surely it would be more fitting if your squire received one hundred crowns from you annually, which might stand as his emolument.”

“Emolument!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard. “One hundred crowns! These be very quaint ideas.”

“Why, sir,” said I, with something of that perspicacity for which our province is famous, “would not your squire have duties to perform, and would they not be worthy of remuneration?”

“Duties!—remuneration!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard furiously. “Why, can you not know, good Don, I am in the habit of receiving a thousand guilders per annum for teaching the world to sons of the nobility?”

“Indeed, sir! can a knowledge of the world be of so much worth?”

The Englishman roared at that which he took for my simplicity.

“By my soul!” he exclaimed, “a knowledge of the world is a most desperate science. I have met many learned men in my travels, but that science always beat them. Cæsar was a learned man, but he would have had fewer holes in his doublet had he gone to school earlier. It is a deep science, my son; it is the deepest science of all. What do you know of deceit, my son, you who have never left your native mountains before this morning? You, with the dust of your rustic province upon your boots, what do you know of those who hold you in fair speaking that they may know the better where to put the knife?”

“I confess, sir, I have thought but little of these things,” I said humbly, for my misadventure with the beggar woman was still in my mind, and my mother’s ring was no longer in the keeping of her only son.

“Then you will do well to think upon it, my young companion,” said the Englishman, regarding me with his great red eyes. “You talk of fortune, Spaniard, you who have yet to move ten leagues into the world! Why, this is harebrained madness. You who have not even heard of the famous city of London and the great English nation, might easily fall in with a robber, or be most damnably cheated in a civil affair. Why, you who say ‘if you please’ to an innkeeper might easily lose your purse.”

“I may be ill found in knowledge, sir, but I hope my sword is worthy,” said I, determined that none should contemn my valour, even if my poor mind was to be sneered at.

“Oh, so you hope your sword is worthy, do you now?” The Englishman chuckled furiously as if moved by a conceit. “Well, Master No-Beard, that is a good accomplishment to carry, and I suspect that you may find it so one of these nights when there is no moon.”

All the same Sir Richard Pendragon continued to laugh in his dry manner, and fell again to looking at me sideways. For my life I could not see where was the occasion for so much levity.

“My father has taught me the use of the sword,” said I.

“Oh, so your father has taught you the use of the sword! Well, to judge by the length of your beard, good Don, I am inclined to suspect that your father had a worthy pupil.”

“I hope I may say so.”

“Oh, so you hope you may say so, my son! Well, now, I think you may take it, good Don, from one who has grown old in the love of virtue, that your father would know as much of the sword as a burgomaster knows of phlebotomy. You see, having had his right hand struck off in battle at a tender age, unless he happened to be a most infernally dexterous fellow he forfeited his only means of becoming a learned practitioner.”

The Englishman laughed in his belly.

“My father had excellent precept,” said I, “although, as you say, the Hand of God curtailed his practice.”

“Well now, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, assuming a grave air, which yet did not appear a very sincere one, “he who speaks you is one whose practice the Hand of God has not curtailed. He was proficient with sword and basket in his tenderest infancy. He has played with all the first masters in Europe; he has made it a life study. With all the true principles of this inimitable art he is familiar. He has been complimented upon his talent and genius, natural and acquired, by those whom modesty forbids him to name. And all these stores, my worthy Don, of experience, ensample, and good wit are at your command for the ridiculous sum of an hundred crowns.”

“I have not an hundred crowns in the world, sir,” I confessed with reluctancy, for his arguments were masterful.

“By cock!” he snarled, “that is just as I suspected.”

There could be no mistaking the change in his demeanour when I made this unhappy confession. It caused him to resolve his gross and rough features into some form of contemplation. At last he said, with an eye that was like a weasel’s,—

“What is the sum in your poke, good Spaniard?”

“I have but eight crowns.”

“Eight crowns! Why, to hear your conversation one would think you owned a province.”

“A good sword, a devout heart, and the precepts of my noble father must serve, sir, as my kingdom,” said I, hurt not a little at the remarkable change that had come over him.

“I myself,” said he, “have always been governor and viceregent of that kingdom, and had it not been for a love of canaries in my youth, which in my middle years has yielded to a love of sherris, I must have administered it well. But there is also this essential divergence in our conditions, my son. I am one of bone and sinew, an Englishman, therefore one of Nature’s first works; whereas you, good Don, saving your worshipful presence, are but a mincing and turgid fellow, as thick in the brains as a heifer, and as yellow in the complexion as a toad under his belly. Your mind has been so depressed by provincial ideas, and your stature so wizened by the sun, that to a liberal purview they seem nowise superior to a maggot in a fig, or a blue-bottle fly in the window of a village alehouse.”

“Sir Englishman,” said I haughtily, for since I had told him I had but eight crowns in the world his manner of speaking had grown intolerable, “I do not doubt that among your own nation you are a person of merit, but it would not come amiss if you understood that you pay your addresses to a hidalgo of Spain. And I must crave leave to assure you that in his eyes one of your nation is but little superior to a heathen Arab who is as black as a coal. At least, I have always understood my father, God keep him! to say this.”

“By my faith, then,” said the Englishman, “even for a Spaniard your father must have been very ill informed.”

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I sternly, “I would have you be wary of the manner in which you mention my father.”

“I pray you, brother, do not make me laugh.” He trained his sidelong look upon me. “I have such an immoderately nimble humour—it has ever been the curse of my family from mother to daughter, from father to son—as doth cause the blood to commit all manner of outrages upon mine old head veins. All my ancestors died of a fluxion that did not die of steel. But I tell you, Spaniard, it is as plain as my hand that your father must have been a half-witted fellow to beget such a poor son.”

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I cried, incensed beyond endurance, “if you abuse my father I will run you through the heart!”

“Well,” said he, “this is good speaking on eight crowns, a provincial accent, and a piece of rusty iron which is fitter to toast half a saddle of mutton than to enhance the scabbard of a gentleman. And if you make this speaking good, why, it will be still better. For this is a very high standard, brother, you are setting up, and I doubt me grievously whether even the Preux Chevalier would be able to maintain it.”

He concluded with such an insolent and unexpected roar of laughter as made me grow furious.

“I would have you beware, sir!” I cried. “Were you twice as gross in your stature and three times as rude, I run you through the heart if again you contemn the unsullied name of my noble father.”

“Your father was one-handed,” said this gigantical ruffian, looking at me steadily. “He was as stupid in his wits as a Spanish mule, and I spit in the face of the unbearded child that bears his name.”

CHAPTER VI
OF A PRIVATE BRAWL. I TAKE PROFIT AT THE COST OF REPUTATION

Before I could draw my sword my challenger was on his feet, had kicked away the stool on which he had sat, and had bared his own weapon. I was so overcome with fury that I could not stay to mark his enormous stature, yet his head seemed to live among the hams in the roof.

This was the first occasion I had drawn my sword in a quarrel, but I needed to ask no better. The pure reputation of this noble heart I was defending nerved my right arm with unimaginable strength. Besides, I was twenty-one years old, well grown and nourished for one of my nation. My blade was of an ancient pattern, but a true Toledo of the first quality, and many high deeds of the field had been wrought thereby. The Englishman towered above me in the extremity of his stature, but had he been of twice that assemblance, in my present mood I would not have feared him. For, as I was fain to believe, some of the hardiest fighting blood of our northern provinces was in my veins. This was my first duello; but you must not forget, reader, that my father had instructed me how to bear my point, how to thrust, how to receive, and, above all, how to conduct the wrist as laid down by the foremost practice.

We spent little time in courtesies, for my anger would not permit them. At once I ran in upon my adversary, thrusting straight at his heart. Yet he received my sword on his own with a skill that was truly wonderful, and turned it aside with ease. All the power I possessed was behind it, yet he cast it off almost as complacently as if he had been brushing away a mosquito. The sting of this failure and his air of disdain caused me to spring at him like a cat, yet, I grieve to say, without its wariness, for, do what I would, I was unable to come near him. He saved every stroke with a most marvellous blade, not once moving his wrist or changing his posture. After this action had proceeded for some minutes I was compelled to draw off to fetch my breath; whereon said my adversary with a snarl of contempt that hurt me more than my impotence:—

“I wish, my son, you would help me to pass the time of the day.”

My instant response was a most furious slash at his head, although it is proper to mention that this method was not recommended in the rules of the art as expounded by the illustrious Don Ygnacio. But I grieve to confess that rage had overmastered me. Yet Sir Richard Pendragon evaded this blow as dexterously as he had evaded the others.

“Come, brother,” he said; “even for a Spaniard this is futility. This is no more than knife work. I am persuaded your father was a butcher, and owed his entire practice to the loins of the Galician hog.”

Such derision galled me worse than a thrust from his sword. Casting away all discretion I ran in upon him blindly, for at that moment I was minded to make an end one way or another.

“Worse and worse,” said he. “You bear your blade like a clergyman’s daughter. Still, do not despair, my young companion; perhaps you will make better practice for my left hand.”

As he spoke, to my dismay he changed his weapon from his right hand to his left, and parried me with the same contemptuous dexterity. Suddenly he made a strong parade, and in the next instant I felt the point of his sword at my breast.

“Your father must have been a strangely ignorant man, even for a Spaniard,” he said. “I do not wonder that he lost his right hand at an early age. You have as little defence as a notorious cutpurse on his trial. Any time these five minutes you must have been slain.”

Then it was I closed my eyes in the extremity of shame and never expected to open them again. But to my astonishment the forces of nature continued to operate, and soon, in a vertigo of fear and anger, I was fain to look for the cause. It seemed that my enemy had lowered his point and drawn off. Plainly he intended to use me as a cat uses a mouse, for his private pleasure. For that reason I fell the harder upon him, since I knew my life to be forfeit, and I had an instinct that the more furiously it was yielded the less should I know of a horrid end.

“I will now slit your doublet, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “Have you a favourite rib you would care to select? What of the fifth?”

Without more ado he began cutting my doublet with a dexterity that was amazing. His point flashed here and there across my breast and seemed to touch it in a thousand places; yet, although the old leather was pierced continually, no hap was suffered by my skin.

“If only I had my lighter and more fanciful blade of Ferrara here,” he said in the midst of a thousand fanfaronades and brandishments, “I would flick every button off your doublet so nicely as a tailor.”

“Kill me!” I cried, flinging myself upon his blade.

I made such a terrific sweep with my sword that it whistled through the air, and was like to cut off his head. Instead, however, of allowing it to do so, he met it with a curious turn of the wrist, and the weapon was hurled from my grasp.

As I stood before him panting and dishevelled, and young in the veins and full in them too, I seemed to care no more than a flake of snow for what was about to occur. I could but feel that I had traduced my father’s reputation, and had cast a grievous slur upon his precept. The blood was darkening my eyes and singing in my ears, but quite strangely I was not minding the blade of my enemy. That which was uppermost in my mind was the landlord’s opinion that he was the Devil in Person.

Upon striking my sword to the ground he bade me remark his method of disarmament.

“It approaches perfection so nearly,” said he, “as aught can that is the offspring of the imperfection of man. It is the fruit of a virtuous maturity; it is the crown of artifice; consider all the rest as nought. For I do tell thee, Spaniard, this piece of espièglerie, as they say at Paris, divides one of God’s own good swordsmen from the vulgar herd of tuck-pushers or the commonalty. And, mark you, it was all done with the left hand.”

While awaiting with as much composure as I could summon that stroke which was to put me out of life, there happened a strange thing. There had come into the room, unobserved by us both, the tap-wench to the inn. And in a moment, seeing what was toward, this brave little creature, not much bigger than a stool, and as handsome and flashing a quean as ever I saw, ran between me and the sword of my adversary.

“Hold, you bloody foreign man!” she cried imperiously.

“Nay, hold yourself, you neat imp,” said the Englishman, catching her round the middle by his right arm, and lightly hoisting her a dozen paces as though she had been a sack of feathers. Yet he had made but a poor reckoning if he thought he could thus dispose of this fearless thing. For his wine cup, half full of sherry, which had been set in the chimney-place out of the way of hap, was to her hand. She picked it up, and hurled the pot and its contents full in the face of the giant.

“Take it, you wicked piece of villainy!” she cried.

Now, by a singular mischance the edge of the cup struck Sir Richard Pendragon on the forehead. It caused a wound so deep that his blood was mingled with the excellent wine. Together they flowed into his eyes and down his cheeks, and so profusely that they stained his doublet and dripped upon the floor. And the courageous girl, seeing my enemy’s discomfiture, for what with the liquor and what with his gore he was almost blind for the nonce, she darted across the room and picked up my sword. With a most valiant eagerness she pressed it into my hand.

“Now, young señor gentleman, quick, quick!” she cried. “Have at him and make an end of him!”

“Alack, you good soul,” said I, “this cannot be. I am the lawful prize of my adversary. God go with you, you kind thing.”

I cast the sword to the ground.

“Then oh, young master, you are a very fool.” Tears sprang to the eyes of the honest girl and quenched her fiery glances.

However, so dauntless was the creature in my cause that she picked up my sword again, and crying, “I myself will do it, señor,” actually had at the English barbarian with the greatest imaginable valiancy.

In the meantime the giant had been roaring at his own predicament in the most immoderate fashion. For, on feeling his head, and discovering that the stream that trickled into his eyes was a compound of elements so delectable, he cast forth his tongue at it in a highly whimsical manner, and drew as much into his mouth as he could obtain.

“I have my errors,” he cried, rocking with mirth; “but if a wanton disregard of God’s honest sherris be there among, when he dies may this ruby-coloured one be called to the land of the eternal drought. Jesu! what a body this Pendragon azure gives it. ’Tis choicer than Tokay out of the skull of a Mohammedan. When the hour comes to invest me in my shell, I will get me a tun of sherris and sever a main artery, and I will perish by mine own suction.”

He had scarcely concluded these comments when the brave little maid had at him with my sword. Expecting no such demonstration on the part of one not much taller than his leg, it needed all his adroitness of foot, which for one of his stature was indeed surprising, to save the steel from his ribs. And so set was the creature on making an end of him that the force with which she dashed at his huge form, and yet missed it, carried her completely beyond her balance. With another of his mighty roars, the English giant seized her by the nape with his right hand, and held her up in the air by the scruff, so curiously as if she had been a fierce little cat that had flown at him.

“Why, thou small spitfire,” he said, “thou art even too slight to be cracked under mine heel. Thou pretty devil, I will buss thee.”

“I will bite off the end of your nose, you bloody-minded villain,” cried the little wench, struggling frantically in his gripe.

“Nay, why this enmity, pretty titmouse,” said the giant, “seeing that I have a mind to fondle thee for thy valour?”

“You would slay the young gentleman señor, you wicked cut-throat villain, you!”

“Nay, by my hand I will not, if you will give me twenty honest busses, you neat imp, to heal my contusion.”

“You swear, Englishman, upon your wicked beard, the young señor gentleman shall come to no hurt if I kiss you?”

“I will swear, thou nice hussy, by the bones of all my ancestors in their Cornish cemetery, that young Don Cock-a-hoop shall go uncorrected for all his sauciness and pretension. With eight crowns in his wallet and a most unfathomable ignorance he drew his tuck on a right Pendragon. But so much effrontery shall go unvisited, mark you, at the price of twenty honest busses from those perfect lips of thine. If thou art not the most perfect thing in Spain, I am little better than a swaggerer.”

“Put me down then, Englishman,” said the little wench as boldly as an ambassador; “and do you give the young gentleman señor his sword.”

“So I will; but I would have you remark it, pretty titmouse, that I will be embraced with all the valiancy of thy nature. Ten on each side of my royal chaps, and one for good kindness right i’ th’ middle.”

“Give the young gentleman señor his sword, then, you English villain.”

So had this matter accosted the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon that he obeyed her.

“Take it, young Spaniard,” said he with a magnificent air; “and do you consider it as your first lesson in the affairs of the world. I do perceive two precepts to whose attention your noble father does not appear to have directed you. The first is, never draw upon the premier swordsman of his age, so long as life hath any savour in it; and for the other, never lack the favour of a farthingale. Do I speak sooth, good girl?”

“Yes, you do, you large villain,” said the little creature, with her two fierce eyes as black as sloes. “And now I will kiss you quickly, so that I may have done. I shall scarcely be able to chew so much as a piece of soft cheese for a month after it.”

The Englishman seated himself upon his stool, and set her upon his knees.

“Begin upon the right, my pretty she, slowly, purposefully, and with valiancy. I would as lief have your lips as a bombard of sherris. If it were not for one Betty Tucker, a dainty piece at the ‘Knight in Armour’ public-house hard by to the town of Barnet, in the kingdom of Great Britain, I would bear you at my saddle-bow all the way back to our little England, and marry you at the church of Saint Clement the Dane, which is in London city. For next to sack I love valour, and next to valour I love my soul. Now then, thou nice miniard, I must taste thy lips softly, courteously, but yet with valiancy as becomes thy disposition.”

It was never my fortune to behold a sight more whimsical than that of this monstrous fellow seated with the blood still trickling down to his chin, while this little black-eyed wench, not much bigger than his fist, with her skin the colour of a walnut, her hair hanging loose, and her rough clothes stained and in tatters, dealt out her kisses first to one side of his ugly mouth and then to the other, yet making as she did so lively gestures of disgust.

“Courteously, courteously!” cried the giant. “Let us have no unmannerly haste in this operation, or I will have them all over again.”

“Nay, you shall not; I will take heed of that. That is fifteen. Another ten, you foreign villain, would give me a canker in my front teeth.”

“Nay, that is but fourteen, my pretty mouse. Here we have the fifteenth. Courteously, courteously, do I not tell thee. See to it that it is so long drawn out that I may count nine.”

“There’s twenty, you large villain!” cried the little creature in huge disgust, and slipping off his knee as quickly as a lizard.

“Aye, but where’s the lucky one, the one right i’ th’ middle, that I was to have for good fellowship?”

“It was not in the terms, and I will not give it thee.”

“Not in the terms, pretty titmouse! By my hand I will not be cozened in this manner.”

The little creature scuttled away like a rat, but the giant had his hands on her before she could get to the door.

“Now for the lucky one, thou sweet hellicat, the one right i’ th’ middle,” cried he, swinging her up to him as though she had been a squirrel.

“Unhand me, foreign dog!” she cried, with a snort of defiance, “else I will bite thee in the cheek.”

“Do thou, sweet adder, for I love thee.”

“There, you large villain!”

She darted her strong teeth, flashing with whiteness, at him, and he dropped her with an oath, as though she had been a snake. She made off out of doors as nimbly as a cat, leaving the astonished giant to staunch yet another wound she had dealt him.

“By my soul”—he pressed his hands to his ribs and his face grew empurpled with his roars—“I have the greatest mind in the world to marry that pretty doxey.”

CHAPTER VII
OF THE DISABILITIES THAT ATTEND ON GENTLE BIRTH

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I, when at last the immoderation of his mirth would permit me to address him, “I make you my service. I owe it to your clemency that I retain my life.”

“My young companion,” said he, “I pray you not to mention so small an affair. I did but require a little exercise for mine arm. I had no mind whatever to slay you.”

“I am afraid, Sir Richard,” I confessed, “that in my heat I would have slain you readily had it but lain in my power.”

“Well, well,” said this remarkable man, with a magnanimity for which I should have been the last to allow him the credit, “in our heats and violences even we strong minds are like to commit that from which in soberness we should refrain. I remember discoursing upon this point with the Crown Prince of Bohemia. ‘Charles,’ said I—there was ever a great familiarity between us—‘Charles,’ said I, ‘I would slay no man in a private quarrel unless he were a villain.’ ‘Not even if he had sworn to slay you, my illustrious friend?’ said the Crown Prince. ‘No, Charles,’ said I. ‘The truly illustrious are the truly magnanimous.’ ‘The sentiment is fine, good coz,’ said the heir to the throne. ‘There speaks a great folly or a great nature.’ Now, my young companion, which cap is it that fits the first-born son of a sainted English lady?”

“I believe you to be a good man, Sir Englishman. I know you are a great swordsman; and also you appear to have an excellent knowledge of the world. I make you my service.”

“These are honest words,” said he. “I wish you had an hundred crowns; you would make a good appearance as my squire. You would be able to clean my horse as well as another, and polish my spurs, and in return I would advise you in the use of the sword, the broadsword, and, above all, the noblest of God’s implements—the Italian rapier.”

“I would that I had, sir, for it would seem that I have but slight pretension to the handling of these weapons. And methinks that here is an art in which a man must aspire to excellence if he is to win his way to fortune in a time so perilous.”

“You speak sooth, my son. A pedigree will bring no advancement to virtue in these evil times unless it is accompanied by a bit of shrewd steel and a deft wrist to push home its modest claims. But I grieve to say, good Don, that I never met a more disappointing blade. Had you never borne it before in the cause of integrity?”

I confessed that I had not.

“Well, gossip, you must pass many a weary vigil ere you can win the mastery of this incomparable tool. But in spite of your nation, as I perceive you to be a youth of parts, I have a mind to put you in the way of the rudiments. My young son of the Spains, your peninsula is a foolish one; but, as I say, you are of good birth and your intentions are honourable—two vital particulars upon which my sainted mother was extremely nice. It will only be a little against me if I teach you the use of the sword. Give me those eight crowns and you shall be my squire.”

He held out his hand for all I had in the world. Yet this was a matter for grave reflection. Poor as I was, and humbled in my thoughts, I was still a Spanish gentleman; and expert as was this Englishman with the sword, and finely as he was found in wisdom, he was yet one of another nation, and scarcely to be esquired by a blood like mine. My condition was such that I could not give my service to one less in degree than a Spanish nobleman, or one who was at least a prince in his own country; and although this Englishman had moved about the courts of Europe and Asia Minor, and the blood of kings flowed under his doublet, it was yet a parlous thing for my father’s son, a veritable Sarda y Boegas, to attend him in a humble capacity.

“Why, brother,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, “would you insult a generous nature with your reluctancy? Is not the suggestion a noble one? Is it not princely? Have I not peddled a great mind about Europe for thirty years in the mild pursuit of knowledge, and do I not place at your service the whole store of my politeness for the paltry sum of eight crowns? Yet was I ever immoderate in the love of worth. My young Spaniard, I have conceived a deep regard for your character. Besides, I am in need of a squire, and between you and me and the door, eight crowns will not come amiss.”

So much fair and honourable speaking upon the part of the Englishman caused me to take most earnest thought. But at last, with a proper submission, for the offer was fine from a swordsman so notable, I felt I must deny him.

“I thank you from the heart, sir, for such fair words, proceeding as they do from a man of learning and genius, but I fear I must seek my fortune alone. My condition renders it necessary that the person I serve be not less in degree than one of the Spanish nobility.”

“By cock!” he cried, “is not a Pendragon worthy? Can you be unacquainted with the fact that a king’s blood flows under every doublet of that name?”

“It is not the blood of a king of Spain, and therefore, good Englishman, though I like you well, I fear I cannot attend you.”

I think my words must have worked on this mad fellow—since I have come to know the world better I have learned that all Englishmen are mad—for he put by his indignation, looked at me with immense solemnity, and teased his short chin beard.

“So be it, my young companion. You are a man of birth, and in every country under the stars a chip of that quality must be allowed his maggot. Blood is blood wherever it flows, whether it is in Arabia sitting in a mosque without its shoes, or whether it is in England, drinking malmsey and eating walnuts with the Heir Apparent. I myself am of that condition, and therefore, good Spaniard, none is better acquainted with those immodest fancies that vex the minds of the nobly nurtured.”

“These are good words, Sir Richard; and if my name were other than Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas I would ask no better master for my two hands and my faithful service.”

“Well, Master Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, I never heard such proud speaking on eight crowns before. If you had eight thousand I expect you would be a maker of ballads. But I am inclined to love you for it; and therefore out of a gentle feeling propose to teach you the use of the sword. First, I would have you hand me your old tuck.”

With a proper humility I gave him my sword.

“Why,” said he, making divers sweeps and passes with it, “it would weary one of twice your stature. It would require the giant Cormoran to wield it delicately. It is a good thing but an ancient; it is at least an hundred years behind the age.”

“My noble father gave it into my hand as death closed his eyes,” said I, feeling my pride to be surmounting my humility.

“I expect your father was a very brave man, and as such I esteem him. All the same, I should say that the intellect was not more than half his estate.”

“He was as wise a man as ever lived.”

“As wise a Spaniard I make no doubt. But the really wise men live in England. It is also the home of the first swordsmen of the time. You see, Master Miguel, there is no true felicity in anything without true mind. That is why we English are so fortunate; we have the mind and therefore the felicity. Now, Master Miguel, I will show you how to fix your gripe upon your sword. The wrist must be free, and the arm must have good play.”

For more than an hour this learned master expounded the rudiments of this weapon, which he swore by his beard I did not know. He declared that every one of my father’s precepts, which I had to confess I had put to a poor use, would not have been new in the time of the Cid. And although I had a mind to dispute this contempt for my father’s opinion, I did not venture, since I was quite unable to support the precepts of my youth with any fair ensample. Indeed, only the highest presumption would have ventured to dispute with so arch a master of the noble weapon. There appeared to be nothing appertaining to its nature and conduct that he did not know. He said he had devoted his life to this study, and infinite practice, allied to the kindness of his stars, had given him an address that was incomparable.

There was one trick he performed which I often recall, with such wonder did it fill me. He took from a scabbard which he kept under his eye in the chimney corner, a long, fine, and tapering Italian rapier, which he declared was the most perfect and poetic thing of man’s invention. With no other weapon than this, he met my own sword in such a fashion that, heavy as it was, it seemed but as a lath before it. Indeed I, its wielder, was unable to make the least advance therewith; and to my amazement, with the might of his arm and this thin piece of steel, he urged me before him all over the room. Afterwards he rolled up the sleeve of his doublet with an air of pride, and showed the contour of that enormous limb.

“Yet, Master Miguel,” said he, “it is not brute strength that makes the man you behold. It is the deftness of the fingers in conjunction with the brain’s agility.”

By the time my lesson was concluded the sweat had sprung from every pore, and I was breathing heavily. On the contrary, the Englishman, who had exerted himself not less greatly, was untroubled in any particular, save that of the throat, an inconvenience, however, which in his case seemed to be of a permanent character.

“These exercises,” said he, “I perform every day to keep the limbs supple and the wrists responsive. Sometimes, if I feel especially valiant, I place an apple or an onion upon the head of the old bull frog of an innkeeper, and slice it in four quarters with my broadsword, and to observe him quake as if he had the ague is the most delectable sight. He is forever thinking that my honest blade will proceed too far, and cleave through his mind; and I conceive it to be my duty to assure him that he does well to show this concern, for sometimes accidents have been known to occur.”

He then offered very courteously to perform a like action to an apple placed upon my own head. This, however, I declined with a courtesy which I hope was not less than his own.

Sir Richard Pendragon, having drunk copiously of his favourite beverage out of his favourite cup, and having insisted that I should follow his example, said,—

“Master Miguel, in what part of the globe do you intend to adventure to-morrow with your noble eight crowns? They will not bear you above a thousand leagues; fortune does not grow on the bushes, according to all that I have heard about it; your stomach is too proud to take service with one who has the blood of kings flowing under his doublet; so it would seem that unless you bring your chaste mind to the nicking of purses and the cutting of throats, your body will starve.”

“God forbid, sir! I have devices of my own. I mind me of one of the finest and most sententious of my father’s precepts.”

“Not of swordsmanship, I trust?”

“No, sir, of conduct.”

“Not of conduct of the sword, Master Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas—how I love the sound of that name!—if I may put the question?”

“Not conduct of the sword, sir, conduct of the heart. My father’s precept was this: ‘In choosing him you shall serve, rather let it be some high lord or gentleman of birth, diminished in his fortune, or in some sort isolated from his right estate, for it is the cause of the weak that feeds the valiant.’”

It was pleasing to witness Sir Richard Pendragon nod his head in approval.

“That was well observed of your father, Master Miguel. I am rejoiced to notice that he knew a little more of mankind than he did of martial weapons. But, by my sooth, you will not need to look above a thousand leagues for this high lord or gentleman of birth, diminished in his fortune, or in some sort isolated from his right estate.”

“I am well pleased,” said I eagerly, “that he is so near at hand. Where may he be, good Englishman?”

“He sits before you, gentle Spaniard, sipping a quartern of sack out of a silver goblet on a three-legged stool.”

“I would ask no better master, had the king’s blood in his veins been a true Spanish colour.”

“Well, every man to his taste,” said he, looking into his wine, “but you Spaniards are very mad fellows. The blood of Uthyr Pendragon, sire of Arthur, king and sovereign lord of Britain, not being to your mind, we must make abatement of this peninsularity of yours, and find some other.”

“I would serve some Spanish gentleman of high degree, and if you can bring one to mind, Sir Englishman, who, diminished in his fortune, has a beauteous and enchanting daughter—”

“Oho! we have now in the case a beauteous and enchanting daughter! Is that another of your father’s precepts, my son, or does it proceed out of your own wise pate?”

“The words of my father are these: ‘Set your heart without haughtiness, but with bright ambition, upon some fair Spanish lady, one whose condition is the equal of her beauty, and whose figure in the world is of the first consideration, for so much superiority shall raise your spirit, my gentle kinsman, to vie with hers, and be, as it were, as that North Star that is fixed above the seas to point the course of fortune. And further, gentle kinsman, I append as follows: When your parts and situation are fit to vie with hers, the blood of a Sarda y Boegas shall make you the nuptial lord of this proud lady.’”

When I had given this further precept of my father’s, the Englishman sat laughing into his hands.

“Why, this is the maddest fellow,” he said, as if to himself; “yet I like to hear these notions of his, because there is a kind of poetry in them, and there is no saying whither his maggot will be leading him next.”

“I wish, sir, you could aid me in the quest of this nobleman I seek, and likewise of this beautiful and enchanting lady.”

“What should English Dick know of these noblemen you seek, and these beautiful and enchanting ladies, you mad varlet?”

“You know the world so thoroughly. I believe you are acquainted with every blade of grass that grows in it, and you appear to be familiar with every person of the first consideration that inhabits it.”

“The varlet is not so mad after all,” he said, with a sleek air. “Now and again there is sooth in him, although the rascal is always flying off into such odd ideas. Yes, I am acquainted with the world a little, Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas—that name will be my doom!—and although I know hardly anything that is good of that part of it which is oddly called Spain—another most ridiculous sounding name to my mind!—I think I have heard of just the one person in it who will be the man for your services.”

“A Spanish nobleman?”

“As full of nobility as a dog is of fleas. Quarterings I know not how many; and as proud as the Fiend.”

“Of what degree, sir?”

“A duke, to be sure. Duke of Montesina—and as haughty as mine old and dear friend the Sophy.”

“Is he diminished in his fortune, sir, and isolated from his right estate?”

“Yes, by my troth. He is as bankrupt in his substance as he is in his wit. Were he not well found in virtuous principles, he would be obliged to starve like a sparrow in a hard winter.”

“And is this virtuous nobleman embroiled with an enemy?”

“Yes, good Don. He hath been embroiled this long while with the King of Castile, his covetous nephew and bitter foe, who seeks to add his fair castle and good lands above the city of Toledo to his own dominion. And I may tell you, Spaniard, this Castilian is like to do it, unless some wise and cunning hand arises to deny him, for that piece of old punctilio, who gets nearer to eighty every day, will soon be unable to fend him off.”

“Can it be,” I cried excitedly, “that Heaven has called me to be this same wise and cunning hand? This looks uncommonly like a providence.”

“Oh, my dear Don Miguel!” exclaimed the Englishman, breaking forth into another of his mighty roars of laughter, “I pray you to take pity on these fluxions of mine. If one of these days you do not lay me stark dead of an apoplexy, there is not an ounce of king’s blood in my nature.”

“I am grievously surprised if my stars have not called me to some high destiny. Don Ygnacio, my father, declared as he lay dying that it was so.”

“I do fear me then, good Don, this high destiny of yours will declare itself late in the day. You are as raw as a green pear. You must be set on the chimney-piece to ripen before you can be considered as a table fruit.”

“You wrong me, good Sir Richard. I am determined to prove myself as soon as another. I may have no mind for stratagem, but I shall not be afeared to draw my sword for this worthy but unfortunate grandee.”

“O Jesu!” said the English giant, laughing into his hands softly, “I can feel this accursed fluxion mounting into my mind. I can see perfectly well, Master Miguel, if we go our ways together about this peninsula of yours, I shall be compelled to travel with a physician. Not afeared to draw your sword! Why, good Don, your sword is a lath, and he who draws it has not a hair to his chin, and cannot bleat so loud as a Barbary sheep.”

“Deride me if you will, Sir Richard, but I will draw my sword for this grandee. Fortune has decreed it. And tell me, in addition to these misfortunes of his, hath he a daughter of a most surpassing fairness?”

“You can certainly count on his having a daughter. Dukes all the world over are notorious getters of wenches.”

I asked the Englishman the reason of this phenomenon.

“It is a singular quality of their blood,” he declared. “It loses its ambition and fills the world with farthingales.”

“Indeed,” said I, “is that the case? But it doth truly appear that this virtuous Duke of Montesina was designed by Heaven that I might fulfil my father’s behests. To-morrow, come what may, I will adventure towards his country; and as you would have me believe that he hath a daughter, I must hasten to appear before her.”

“A pitiless old hag of sixty, I dare swear,” cried Sir Richard Pendragon. “There will not be a tooth in her mouth. But now you have put me in mind of this duke, young sirrah, I think I will adventure thither myself. For, upon my life, I have a crow to pluck with this King John of Castile. I mind me it is high time I put paid to a score I owe him.”

“Wherefore, Sir Richard?”

“Wherefore, my son? ’Tis but a year ago he threw the last of the Pendragons into a dungeon; and had it not been for the ready contrivance of that meritorious mind in scraping a hole through the wall with a nail out of his shoe, he would have ceased to drink sack this twelvemonth. Yes, Spaniardo, it was a most villainous matter, and it is certainly time I put it in order.”

“If I may ride with you, sir, I shall count it a proud day,” said I, making a low bow; for this strange man, with all his quiddity, was one whose company was to be esteemed in an early adventure into the world.

“You shall, good Don,” said he, smiling upon me with much civility. “And now let us draw our cloaks about us and creep into the chimney-place, and sleep the sleep of those who addict themselves to virtue. You take one corner and I will take the other; and let us pray that we sleep like doom, for I tell you, brother, it is a long and hard journey to Toledo.”

Seeing him quaff the final dregs in his monstrous cup, which of late had begun to thicken his speech a little, seeing him wrap his cloak about him and otherwise suit his action to his words, I was fain to imitate him in these particulars. Nestling into the warm corner of the chimney, for after the heat of the day the northern night was cold, fatigue overcame me at once, and I fell into a profound and delicious sleep.

CHAPTER VIII
OF A GREAT CALAMITY

I had not even time to mutter my prayers, which, considering what lay before me, were never so sorely needed, ere I was in a sweet oblivion. Upon returning from this pleasant bourne a joyful sense of refreshment stole over my veins, for my slumber had been dreamless, and for several hours the sun had been in attendance on the morning.

The first thing I observed was my companion of the previous night. He was seated on his stool, and was blowing with his mouth upon a basin of porridge.

“Landlord,” I heard him roar, “if you do not bring me a cup of sack to cool my throat, which I have blistered already with your damnable gruel, the worms will have fresh meat in their larder.”

He pointed this threat by thrusting his dagger into the loose earth which formed the floor.

“Ha! Spaniardo,” said he, observing that I had opened my eyes, “do I perceive you to be awake already? You have slept round the clock. What a notable gift is that of youth.”

“I give you good morrow, Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and slowly recalling my situation.

Hardly had I done so than I remembered that eight crowns was my fortune, in an old piece of goatskin. Instantly I pressed my hand where I had placed it last. How shall I record the terrible pang that seized me when I pressed and felt in vain.

I got up and looked all about my corner; looked under the settle on which I had lain; examined the dry earth which composed the floor; felt in all my pockets yet again, and even groped among the ashes of the newly kindled fire. But my purse was not. I cannot tell you what a desperate pang overcame me when I discovered that I was bereft of every maravedi I had in the world.

By the time I had concluded these investigations the Englishman, who had been far too much employed with his breakfast to heed these actions, had taken himself off out of doors. I was glad to find him gone; and I proceeded to conduct my search in every corner of the place, in the vain hope that it had fallen from me in those energetic passages of the previous night. But I should have done as well to look in a sandpit for a precious stone.

I was standing with my hands tucked in my doublet, and trying ruefully enough to confront my position, when the innkeeper entered. I was hungry, yet I had no money with which to purchase a breakfast. Further, I had not a friend; I had not a home; I was in a country as foreign to me as a distant land; and I hardly dared in this predicament to turn to a stranger to crave a word of kindness. And now did I feel so tender in my years, and so plainly did I discern that my experience of mankind was insufficient for my needs, that even as I stood I felt despair spread over me in a manner that I should have thought impossible. So far was I from my valiancy of the previous evening that I nearly shed tears before the innkeeper when I mentioned to him my loss.

Now here you shall mark the difference between a man who has breeding and a man who has not. No sooner did I confide my loss to the innkeeper and that I was left as penniless as a beggar, than this notorious coward, who the previous night had called for my aid, pulled the wryest mouth I ever saw and looked upon me rudely.

“Does Pedro understand by this,” he said in a desperate tone of injury, “that you will not pay him for your lodging and the quantities of wine and victual you had of him last night?”

“Not will not, landlord—cannot,” said I miserably, not having now the spirit to defend myself from his reproaches. “I grieve to say I have not so much as a penny in the world. The amount of my score must stand as a loan you have made to me, and I will not sleep of a night until you are repaid. I will charter a messenger to bring you your just due as soon as I can obtain it.”

“Why, what words are these?” the innkeeper whined. “Loan—sleep of a night—a messenger! Oh, by the Virgin Mary, I have been robbed and cheated! Look here, you who pretend to be a gentleman, I will have it out of you. Pedro has been mishandled by such as you before this morning. And oh, good Our Lady, how he did cozen you, Pedro, when you told of this foreign cut-throat who for three weeks has used you the same.”

It made my ear burn, reader, that I, Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, of the sangre azul of my native Asturias, should stand before this common fellow in the light of a rogue. Yet in spite of the innkeeper’s hard words I strove to bear myself with patience and dignity, for it was ever my father’s opinion that Fortune is a capricious mistress, who will oft humiliate her wooers not so much to do them hurt, but to make proper trial of their fortitude. Yet it was not my spirit alone that was to be vexed in this affair; my body was to be mortified also. Having slept many hours, and being in the flush of a vigorous youth, I grew bitterly hungry.

“Not a sip, not a crumb,” snarled the landlord, when I asked modestly enough that my breakfast and that of my horse might be scored up with the rest.

Now here it was that the brave little serving-wench, who the previous evening had saved my life, came up to her master.

“Give the young gentleman his wine and his porridge,” said she, “and, master, I myself will bear his charges.”

“You, good wench!” I asked incredulously, for she was so ragged that she looked in worse case than myself.

“Yes, young gentleman, I can pay,” she answered proudly. “I make it a practice to save a hundred maravedis of my wages a year.”

“Very well then, Casilda,” said the innkeeper. “Fetch me fifty of your maravedis, and you may bring this young rogue his breakfast. But you are a little fool, I say, for he is but a travelling cheat who will never repay you.”

No sooner had her master spoken thus to my disparagement than the kindly creature, who was really very handsome if you will believe me, reader, stood up most majestically upon all her few inches, and said like a little queen,—

“Shame upon you, master! He is no cheat, but a very gentleman, with the sweetest face and an honest and kind expression, just like Victor, our old mule. I would trust him to the utmost of my wages; and if I do not see my money again, I shall know that fortune has used him ill.”

It touched me to the soul to hear this rude and tattered little creature speak up for me like this—for me, a beggar, without a friend in the whole of the world. There was no reason, except that furnished by a kind heart, why she should confide her savings to one unknown to her, one from whom all things were averse.

While I ate my breakfast with not so good a relish as I had expected, I could not but meditate upon so much goodness proceeding out of a low condition, and, further, upon the humiliation of my state. I had not got through with this food for the mind when the Englishman entered, and in great sickness of the spirit I asked him how far it was to Toledo.

“An hundred leagues or so,” he said lightly, as though such a journey was no great affair.

I felt my heart sink. My beggary began to oppress me like a distemper, for how was I to win such a distant place without so much as a piece of silver in my coat? Wherefore, with many misgivings and with deep discomfiture, I laid my case before him. And I asked counsel of him, for in spite of his mad humours, for which his nation was to blame, he was a man of birth, a man of excellent native shrewdness, and he knew the world.

When I told him of my pass, he blinked his eyes a good deal, rubbed his chin, and held his jaw in his hand with an air of deep perplexity.

“This is a devil of a matter,” he said very gravely. “You would not suppose, Master Miguel, that this purse of yours took to itself a pair of legs, walked out of your pocket, and started out into the desert to admire the scenery?”

“I fail to see how it could do so.”

“I share your opinion, good Don; therefore I adjudge the landlord, who is a scurvy fellow, to have picked it out of your pocket as you lay asleep.”

“Ah no,” said I; “the unhappy man is sorely afflicted at the loss. I cannot pay my score, and he has accused me of not having had the money at all.”

“Has he so?” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “That sounds like a deep rascal. I am convinced this accursed innkeeper has the eye of a picker and stealer.”

“I pray you, sir, not to accuse the poor man. I feel sure he would not stoop to such an act, and already he has been misused grievously.”

“Well, good Don, if you are clear as to his innocence—and I am not sure of it myself—and you really had this amount of money?”

“Oh yes, to be sure I had—it was my patrimony.”

“And it did not walk out of the inn of itself, and that black-eyed little wench has not touched it—and though she’s a rude quean I believe she would not—and there is no hole in your pocket—is it possible there is a hole in your pocket, good Don?”

“There is no hole in my pocket, sir.”

“And there is no cat or dog about the premises; and the innkeeper, by an odd chance—for he is the first of his kidney that is—is an honest man—you have either mislaid your purse, good Don, you never had it, or as you lay asleep you must have dreamed of fortune and have swallowed it.”

Although the Englishman’s gravity was so admirable, it helped me but little; and when I got on my knees to creep all over the ground to seek for my treasure, and met all manner of filth by the way, he too began poking about with the point of his sword, yet met with no better success than did I.

“It is a case for a physician,” he said, “for a man to dream of fortune, and in the unnatural excitation of his mind to swallow all his money.”

“I know not what to do,” said I miserably. “I have not a groat to take me to Toledo.”

The Englishman rubbed his chin again; and this I observed was his habit when he thought heavily.

“This is indeed a devil of a matter,” he said. “You see, if you had had a little money you could have been my squire and I could have borne you with me; but I do not see how one of my condition can take a squire into his service unless he receives a fee for so doing.”

“Well, sir,” I said, feeling that now no choice was left to me, “I am prepared to take service with you.”

“Are you so?” said the Englishman, rubbing his chin harder than ever. “Yes, but you see, Master Miguel, a person of my quality does not receive a squire into his service for the love of his eyes.”

“My blood, sir, is of the first condition,” said I humbly. “My father’s pedigree is contained in the archives of Simancas.”

“Yes, fair shrew; but a pedigree will not grow apples, as we say in our plain English manner. My own pedigree can be referred to between the hours of eleven and three at the Herald’s College in the city of London; but I should not have got so much as a cup of sack by it unless it had been accompanied by a good sword. You see, Master Miguel, had you had an hundred crowns you might have borne your knee by my saddle and looked at the world; but since you have had the misfortune to swallow every silver piece in your possession, body of God!—to use a profane expression—I do not see what is to be done with you.”

“Oh, sir,” I said, oppressed with my despair, “I pray you to consider of my situation. Bear me with you to this duke you mention, and half of my first year’s emolument shall be yours.”

“Emolument! Why, my young companion, this duke is about as rich as yourself. Still, it is an offer that betrays an honourable disposition; and not being likely to receive anything more substantial in your present pass, I dare say it behoves me to take it, and prove myself not to be covetous. But all the same, Master Miguel, I could have wished you had had a little something to eke out your charges by the way, for I have noticed that living is very expensive in this part of the world.”

In this manner I sealed the momentous compact to enter the service of the Englishman. You will readily conceive, good reader, that in this matter the choice was none of my own. Indeed, had I not gone forth in his company I might never have come to the duke at all. And at least, although he was not of our peninsula, he was a man of birth, with a fine genius for the sword, and a deep acquaintance with the world. Yet I did not like to think what my father would have suffered could he have known of my case, and how such blood as his had come to be the body servant of one of a foreign nationality.

Shortly after this affair was settled we arranged to go upon our road, and I went forth to the stable to put the saddle on Babieca. As I made to do this, the Englishman called out to me in a loud and insolent tone such as would not have come amiss to a groom or a varlet,—

“Miguel, you had best put the saddle on my own horse also. Beware he does not bite you; he is as rude as a lion to all except his personal friends.”

Upon the instant the blood sang in my ears to hear a stranger apply my baptismal name with such familiarity, and to such a tune, as though I were a menial. Indeed, it galled me so, that I drew back to remonstrate with him upon the matter, in order that a wrong impression of our relationship might not get abroad. But even in this pass I was able to reflect and was visited by wisdom. For what is manhood, and what is blood, and what is dignity that they must be asserted on the smallest occasion? “Knaves protest of their virtue too much, low persons of their condition” was a saying of Don Ygnacio’s. Yet to prove that my thoughts had run in the mind of another, no sooner had I come to the stable and had taken up the saddle of Babieca, perhaps with my head somewhat high and a proud consideration in my mien, than there came a rustle of the straw, and upon looking up I saw at my side that little wench who had already stood so much my friend.

“Will the gentleman señor let me do it?” she asked shyly. “I can see he is of that condition that ought never to saddle horses.”

These words were spoken with such soft earnestness that quite a gentle beauty was thrown about this rustic creature.

“You are very kind, good girl, but as I am setting forth to bend the world to my devices with my own two hands I must learn to do these things.”

She lowered her looks, and said with a softness almost as of music, “My name is Casilda. If you could speak it once, young gentleman, before you go away forever into the world, I would always remember you, for I have never seen such sweetness and kindness before.”

There was such a strange breaking in her voice as thus she spoke that I felt a sinking of the heart; and looking down upon her I saw her little form was trembling through its rags, and that her black eyes were full of tears.

“Casilda,” said I, with a pang which once only had I felt and that was as my father closed his eyes; “little Casilda, wherever I go, whether it be all over this great country of Spain, or even as far as foreign places, and even if I enter into wisdom and riches, and I am called to sit with the great, so long as God allows me a memory I will never forget so much goodness as is yours. You are the friend that saved me from the sword; and now you see me without means and in despair you bring me your all and you stand my surety.”

“These be true words, young gentleman,” said she in a kind of modest joy, putting one foot in Babieca’s stirrup that she might raise herself to look into my eyes. “You speak but your thoughts, sweet gentleman. And were I a proud lady and might wed you, I would choose your face before the King’s, and I would cherish it beyond all my great possessions.”

Upon such speaking I could not forbear to press this sweet little slattern to my bosom, and yielded my lips to the gentlest mouth that the night before had been so fierce in my service. And as my embrace fell about this lowly but honest creature the world itself took a fairer hue. This was a revelation of my father’s wisdom. Harshness and unkindness were not the world’s true condition.

The rough voice of the landlord was now calling Casilda lustily. But the little wench would not leave me until she had brought some oats for Babieca’s breakfast, which otherwise the honest horse was like to go without. And even as she left the stable at last, crying, “Go with God, señor; my prayers and my constant heart are yours forever,” she ran back again to whisper with the most urgent instancy, “Be wary, señor, of that foreign man. I would not have you trust him at all. He is much less of a caballero than he speaks, and very much more of a thief.”

I had to reprove the little quean for this counsel, lest I should prove untrue to my master’s service. And although by this time the innkeeper was promising to visit her with a cudgel if she did not come to him directly, she ran back to me yet again, jumped into Babieca’s stirrup, just like a cat, and snatched another embrace, declaring that in spite of every innkeeper in the world, her leave of me should be one of kindness.

These were almost my final passages at this inn, since in less than twenty minutes my new master and I were breasting our way to the south. Yet I mourn to tell you, reader, that as soon as we were in the saddle there came the bitter curses of the landlord to our ears. Neither of us had requited him with so much as a peseta in return for our benefits. But in this matter I must declare Sir Richard Pendragon to be by far the more reprehensible. He had dwelt full twenty nights under the roof-tree of this inn, whereas I had dwelt but one. Besides in his pouch was the wherewithal, but I regret to state that the inclination was not in his heart; whereas with me, as I will leave you to suppose, the contrary was the true state of the case.

Indeed, I learned that the Englishman had a conviction of a deep-seated sort upon this subject. For when I heard the innkeeper’s outcry I felt unable to suffer it, and begged my companion to make me a loan of the amount of my score, that my debt at least might be expunged. To the which he replied that I appeared to have an incredible ignorance of human nature, and the more particularly that part of it that included innkeepers. He said he would prefer to cast his money in the sea than put it to such misuse.

“To rise a little earlier than an innkeeper,” said he, “is a civil practice and has the sanction of Heaven. I would have you to know, Miguel, that my hair has been bleached before its season for consideration of the poor souls that this monstrous race has brought to ruin. Young men, old men, virgins, widows, matrons, small children of both sexes—oh! I tell you, Miguel, to think of this breeds a dreadful sickness within me. I will always rise, please Heaven, a little earlier than an innkeeper, for this iniquitous tribe has been the sworn enemy of my family for a thousand years. Was it not the landlord of ‘The Rook and Flatfish’ in the Jewry, a little bald fellow with an eye like a kite, that mulcted my revered ancestor, Sir Andrew Pendragon, in the sum of two shillings and ninepence—think on it, good Don!—for a pint of sack and a gurnet when the true price was never more than twelvepence halfpenny in a time of famine. And this is only to mention one matter out of an hundred in that sort. Oh, believe me, Miguel, we Pendragons have suffered miserably at the hands of innkeepers all through the course of history; but if the present wearer of this name does not redress a few of these injustices, call him not a true man, not a good fellow, but a rogue on whom the sun shines by courtesy.”

I was glad to find that Sir Richard Pendragon had these deep reasons for his action in this affair. Evidently he had meditated to a purpose upon the subject, and in the name of his own race, of which he was the last representative, was determined to be avenged upon its hereditary foes.

As we continued our way across the sandy plain or desert, the heat grew so severe that in the afternoon we were compelled to seek the shade of the first tree that offered. Under this pleasant canopy of leaves Sir Richard flung himself prone, with his enormous length stretched out to the full, and a kerchief laid across his face to defend it from the flies. He soon fell to snoring in a furious manner. No repose came to me, however, for my strange situation ran in my mind continually, turning my thoughts into a queer sort of vertigo which left me uncertain whether to be of good courage or to yield to despair.

CHAPTER IX
OF OUR ROAD TO THE SOUTH

When my companion awoke the sun was a little lower and we were able to pursue our journey. He discovered himself to be of a cheerful disposition, with a nimble fancy, and, for one of his nation, something of wit. He had also a lively imagination which on occasion grew quite delectable. Yet, being called to hold a subordinate place in his company, he allowed his humour to assume so rough an edge towards my country as was hardly to be borne by a true Iberian. He passed much of his time in reviling the land of Spain, swearing at everything in it, and drawing an unworthy comparison between this peninsula of ours and his distant England, for which I had his word that as a place of abode it was somewhat more desirable than paradise. Yet every now and again, just as I would be falling to consider how I could possibly suffer him further, he would break out into some odd history of his surprising deeds in many lands. And then to hear him speak of these adventures in his arch fashion, you would have thought such a valiant person had never walked the earth since Ruy Diaz.

That he was a man of a signal talent was published in his mien; that he was one of the first swordsmen of the age I had had the proof; yet I had but to attend his talk for half an hour in patience and approval, and with a regular nodding of the head, than he would be so carried beyond all latitude by the glamour of his own ideas, that he would ask me to believe that since he had been to Africa the Arabs and other dark men of that nation no longer addressed their prayers to the moon, but to one whom, he said, with a modest side-look, must remain without a name.

“A thousand pardons, good Sir Richard!” said I incredulously, “but I pray you to consider of your suggestion. Are you not given to the practice of exaggeration?”

He plucked at his beard when he discovered that the warmth of his fancy filled me with so much distrust.

“Well, you see, Miguel,” said he, “if it comes to that, perhaps I am something of an exaggeration altogether. But at least I do not exaggerate half so much as nature hath exaggerated me. I am a yard and a half across and two yards and a quarter high.”

“I am ready to believe, good Sir Richard, that a capacious mind goes with such an assemblance as yours.”

“Aye, but there is not the worst of that matter. Such a parcel of the virtues wants a bucket of sack of a morning to keep it in health. And sack is such a notorious inflamer of the fancy that I sometimes break into poetry and all kinds of bombastical ideas. So, my son, I would not have you heed above half what I say.”

It was in this easy fashion that we came to Antirun. The stars had long been shining in the wilderness, yet we arrived without ill hap and supped at the best inn in the place. But as there only chanced to be one it was also the worst; and doubtless I might have pointed a truer indication of its character had I described it as the latter. I shall never forget the abuse that Sir Richard Pendragon showered upon the landlord, and although the food was plenty and smoking hot and the wine was tolerable, he swore his constitution was ruined.

“This is a most damnable peninsula, no doubt about that,” said he as he proceeded to carve a great smoking turkey.

“Have you been long in our delectable land?” I asked, seeking to divert his mind from the innkeeper, who was as pale as a ghost.

“Three years and forty days,” said he, “according to the calendar. But I think I ought to tell you, Spaniardo, that is just three years and forty days too many.”

“I trust that is far from being the case.”

“Yes, good Spaniardo, when I left the blessed island of England, where they eat asparagus on the first of March, I was a smiling and prosperous man; but now owing to this climate, my smile is hidden in my beard, while my prosperity has had too many Spanish flies upon it to be any longer a very prosperous affair.”

“Doubtless, sir, you have not travelled into our fairest places?”

“I have travelled this peninsula of yours from Sagres to Perpinan, from Granada to the Asturias. And other than myself there only lives one person better able to offer an opinion of its sand, its flies, its pigs, its inns, its whims and whams, and its infamously dirty furniture.”

“And who, sir, is he?”

“The Devil.”

“Wherefore one of his infamous character?”

“The Devil made it.”

“By my sooth that is what I can never believe.”

“It is what the Scriptures inform us, Spaniard.”

“Not so, by my faith.”

“There can be no doubt upon that subject, my son. Father Francis, who was apprenticed to book and scholarship in the prettiest monastery in Middlesex, and who reads Hebrew quite as well as I do myself, has assured me on several occasions that ‘though the Scriptures aver that the Lord created the goodliness of earth and heaven in six days, Spain is not mentioned.’ The which makes me to contend that as your land is not mentioned in Holy Writ, and as it differs so greatly from the goodliness of earth and heaven, as English rectitude differs from Spanish chastity, it must having so many tarantulas, fops, flies, and Spaniards in it—and these latter, mark you, never use a word of honest London English in their lives—it must, I say, being so afflicted with such pestilence, be the invention of the Devil. And even for the Devil it was invented very poorly.”

It was during our sojourn at this inn that we fell upon a wise course. The sun at noon had been so much our enemy in travelling that we determined to pursue our journey to Toledo in the night. Thus riding under the coolness of the stars, we made good progress; and so happy were we in the ease and swiftness of this mode, that each afternoon we took a siesta apart from the heat of the day, and kept the road in the darkness.

We had hardly an adventure that was worthy of the name. Indeed the chief ones were those that Sir Richard saw in his imagination. For if he so much as observed a peasant sitting his ass and smiling peacefully, he would hold his sword arm ready, lest he should prove a robber in disguise.

“For I would have you to understand, good Miguel,” said he, “you are the one inhabitant of this precious continent to whom I am not afeared to show my back.”

“Then if you please,” said I, “I would be well content if you make no exception in my favour; for I am convinced that the least of my countrymen are worthy of your trust.”

“My young companion,” said he, “I gather from your conversation that you claim no acquaintance with any land beyond your own cursed sandy peninsula.”

“Indeed that is the case, sir, and with your leave I will never seek to dwell in one that is fairer.”

“Alack! it is precisely here where your mind has gone amiss. I am convinced that were you only to set foot in England, you would take such a disgust of your native peninsularity as I have taken of it.”

The love of my country incited me to a recollection of what my father had told me concerning this strange island of which Sir Richard Pendragon made such a boast.

“Does the sun shine overmuch in England?” I asked.

“Its natural resources are of such immensity,” said the Englishman, “that we do not care to have the sun shine upon us more than nine weeks in the year. We like it to have freedom to visit barren lands like Spain. At Madrid you vainglorious Spaniards showed me your tall spires and palaces glittering finely in this element; but that is no more than the reflection of heaven after all. The sun you will notice is a part of the firmament, not of Spain. Now, in London, if a fog arises on us, that element is native to our island kingdom; and though a modest thing in itself there is none to dispute with us for its possession. There you have the true sterling mettle of the English character.”

“Well, Sir Richard,” said I, being determined to challenge his swollen ideas of his nation to the best of my power; “according to the ancient chronicles, the beauty of our Spanish ladies hath been sung by poets from the earliest times. Yet I could never hear that those of England were so celebrated.”

“Thou never wilt, vainglorious one. Have I not told you that we English are the chastest people on the face of the globe? But this is one of those matters of delicacy in which you people of a foreign nationality have not been bred to delight. In England the adorable fair are so jealous in reputation that they would blush to have their names abroad at the instance of a poet or any other rogue in a hose and jerkin. And as for beauty, my youthful Don, the virtue of an English maid breeds in her damask cheek the chaste tint of lilies, and therein is the fair reflection of her soul.”

From this our discourse, reader, you will gather that although right was upon my side, by some odd flaw of my constitution I was unable to enforce it. This nimble-minded foreigner had always an answer to serve his occasion, which upon its face was so fair-seeming that it stood his need. But in many of his arguments he permitted himself such a notorious subtlety that I could not but wonder how one who had taken virtue for his guide could walk upon paths so perilous.

It was seven o’clock of the morning of the fifth day of our journey that we came to Toledo. I shall ask those who have not seen it to believe that it is a wonderful fair city, and an honour to the land that made it so; while those who have will stand my surety, for I do not see how the eye of man can hold two views upon the subject. And I mention the noble grandeur of this city without any reference to my heart and sentiment, for, as you are presently to hear, I spent some of the darkest hours of my life behind its walls.

We halted at a large inn that lay between the mighty ancient palace of the Moors and the church of San Juan de los Reyes, and had an admirable breakfast. And we were in need of it, since we had been riding hard all night. Now, we had no sooner come to this inn, which was more considerable than any in which we had lain, than I was sensible of a change in the demeanour of my companion. In our journey through the wilderness he had conversed with me familiarly, had treated me as equal as in accordance with my birth; but no sooner were we come into this fair city and this good inn than he fell into hectoring speech, as though I were a menial, and whispered to me privily to call him my lord.

“But, Sir Richard Pendragon,” I protested, “your degree does not warrant me in it.”

“By my hand!” said he, “you must not talk of degree to me, you varlet. Do you not know that in England any person who has a king’s blood under his doublet is called a lord by courtesy.”

To this I demurred not a little, but Sir Richard Pendragon would brook no denial.

“A king’s blood,” said he, “takes a courtesy title wherever it goes. If I lie in Dresden I am called your excellency; at Rome, monseigneur; the same at Paris; in Persia, in Russia, in Turkey, throughout the length and breadth of Europe and Asia I am allowed my merit.”

In the end I was fain to submit to these considerations, although I confess it irked me sorely to apply such a title to one who, according to his style, was no more than a knight. But I had to content myself with Sir Richard Pendragon’s own reflection that a king’s blood is subject to no precedent, and by its own virtue confers its own nobility. And certainly had he been a prince of the blood-royal of his country, his conduct at this inn could not have been more remarkable. I had to eat at another table; he even went so far as to swear at me roundly in a foreign jargon; yet the thing that hurt me was, that he was careful to let those who heard him know that his servant was a scion of an old and honourable Spanish family.

“I think, good Don,” he said in my private ear, “your condition would warrant me in looking upon you as what the French call an equerry. It would not come amiss if you served behind my chair at meals, laying a white cloth across your arm and setting the various dishes before me with a solemn demeanour. And I would have you say ‘yes, my lord,’ and ‘no, your lordship,’ in a rather louder voice, in order that there should be no mistake about it. It will not sound amiss in the ears of innkeepers in a large way of trade, and that sort of people.”

After our meal, which in these circumstances had not given me so much satisfaction as I had hoped, we made for the castle of the duke, five good leagues off. Our way was set across the noble bridge of Alcantara, whose arches span the Tagus. With a proud heart I commended this fair thing to the notice of my companion; and though he stroked his beard and confessed it was not amiss for Spain, he declared it could not compare with what was modestly called the Fleet Ditch that was in London.

As we crossed this bridge we could see clearly, a long distance away, the white castle of the duke, sitting grand and solitary upon one of those brown and rugged hills that make a girdle round the city. And the sight of this brave pile, standing proud upon its promontory, clad in the young beams of the sun, set all my heart in joy; for the contour of the great house that was before me was in tune with my aspirations and lent a proper semblance to my dreams.

CHAPTER X
OF OUR COMING TO THE DUKE OF MONTESINA AND HIS HOUSE UPON THE HILL

“Oh, look, Sir Englishman!” I cried, in the immodesty of my soul. “Do you not see those tall white walls that crown yonder precipice? Look at the beams of the morning on each spire and turret. Do they not smile and beckon? Look at those soldiers with flashing corslets marching upon the outer scarp. Do you not see their halberds glistening and the golden sheen upon their caps? Do they not feed your heart, Sir Englishman, these symbols of renown and victory?”

Indeed, all the majesty of power and the high-hearted genius of war and lofty enterprise passed before my eyes that morning in the spring. Hitherto my life was laid among the mountains in the north, where in one-and-twenty years the bravest things presented to it were monasteries, in themselves grand and severe, yet calling with no trumpet to the blood; and now and then some stained and ragged soldier, maimed and overborne, returning to his native parts. But now that my soul was filled with images of martial businesses, which never fail to delight an ardent nature, the sight thrilled in my veins like music; and as I stood upon the bridge of Alcantara, with my heart attuned to a strange yearning of desire, I rejoiced so greatly in the life that God had given me, that looking far unto those hills on which was set this castle, I thought I saw His face shining between the distant mountains and the yet more distant heavens.

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said, in the ecstasy of contemplation of the future and its store, “limn that surprising lady that is daughter to the duke; for I am here to woo her with courage, constancy, and high thoughts. You understand me?”

“I understand you for a beggar,” said the Englishman, with a laugh and a short grunt.

“My purse is bankrupt,” said I, “but there is blood in my heart and a sword by my leg; and, good Sir Richard Pendragon, if you could look behind my purposes, you would say I had no poverty whatever.”

“Well now,” said he, “if you had so much as three pesetas in the world, which you’ve not, I would wager that amount against you that if you could obtain the ear of the duke—and even to do that you will have to tread as warily as a young dog fox stealing down a hedgerow upon a morning in October—he will either pull your ears or cut your throat when you mention his daughter. Why, if he hath a miniard goodly wench with a rounded chin and a neat ankle, hath she no suitors, varlet? Are there no princes and noblemen and foreigners of consideration, with the blood of kings under their doublets, to woo this piece of the rib of Adam? Would they not come to this castle with the blowing of horns and the waving of banners, with companies of soldiers wearing their livery? Think of the valour of their performances, good varlet; the treasure in their chests; the breadth of their dominions. And then Master Don What-does-he-call-himself—a country youth with his shoes clouted by the village cobbler, a very beggar without a dole in his wallet, a raw Hodge or bumpkin, as we say in our direct English parlance, with a pair of hose too small in the shank and a coat laced with steel already past its meridian—this mad fellow comes forward and speaks to the duke of his daughter! If I do not die of a fluxion, may I forget the savour of burnt sack!”

Now though I was so derided by the Englishman, he had so poor an opinion of all persons, with one notable exception, that I did not pay him that heed which perhaps I ought to have done. Yet I will confess that the higher we ascended the steep road that wound in and out to the gate of the castle, the more was my mind engaged by the notion that his words had made to take shape in it; for he knew the world famously, and there might be sooth in what he said, since, after all, I had only my pedigree, good as it was, and a stout heart to recommend me to the duke’s service.

As we rode up into the shadow of those walls, that were now sheer and massive over our heads, Sir Richard Pendragon bent towards me and said,—

“Miguel, be advised by an elderly soldado. Get you back to Toledo city, sell your horse, which is as old as the moon, buy yourself an orange basket, take your stance at the shadiest corner of the Plaza del Toros, and be content with a modest annuity. You can then pay the true friend that addresses you the hundred crowns that are his due for launching you out of your native element into this broad and magnificent world. The sun is a good thing, so are the stars, so are the rivers and mountains, so is yonder palace of the Moriscoes, so is this castle that lies before us; and when you beget children you will be able to say that you have looked on all these things in your youth. But I pray you, my son, not to dwell upon them here. Return to some humbler walk, good Don; for if you adventure through these white gates flanked with grinning dragons made out of pumice stone, that sanguine and youthful spirit may get such an overthrow as will cripple it for years. At present, my young companion, you are of no account in the world. Now go your ways, like a good boy, and sell the wind-galled, curb-hocked, and bespavined old bone-bag that bears you.”

“Good Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said stoutly, “I have no fear of my reception before the duke. My sword is not much, but he shall have it for his use.”

“Much!” said the Englishman; “much is a large word for nothing. Get an orange basket, my son; and I pray you not to come into the presence of his grace before you have grown a beard. He is a whimsical old fellow, and yet so haughty that he might cut off your ears if you caused him to laugh excessively.”

“Pray have no qualms, Sir Richard. I will speedily obtain an audience of this grandee, and will look to it that he does not laugh at me too much.”

Being extremely upon my mettle, I rapped smartly with the hilt of my sword upon the massive gate.

When the Englishman saw that no heed was paid to my repeated blows, he laughed in a short, dry fashion, which gave me a feeling of discomfort.

“By your leave, you man of wisdom,” said he, “and advancing my poor opinion with that reserve that is its merit, I believe I spy a chain and padlock to this gate.”

I was fain to confess myself puzzled when my eye fell on these accompaniments.

“I am thinking, my son,” said Sir Richard, “although, to be sure, it is no more than a whim or a notion of mine, that you might be called to wait six days for an answer to your summons, for by its situation I should judge it to be a gate that is opened once a week; of a Wednesday, for the kitchen-maids to sally out at and wash their linen down below in the Tagus. And I would respectfully urge, although this again is no more than a whim or a notion, that the grand entrance is along this path half a furlong to the left; at least, if it be not so, it hath changed its place since I was here last June.”

It put me out of humour to reflect that I had not used my observation more shrewdly, for as soon as I received this information, which the Englishman conveyed to me in a mocking manner, I was able to perceive that behind the gate the patio was empty, instead of thronging soldiers and activity. Therefore we turned our horses into the path he had proposed, and stayed them presently before a gate far handsomer. And no sooner had I set my sword to this than it fell back before my hand and a very grave personage was standing with his hat off before my bridle-rein and inquiring my good pleasure.

That he was a person of consideration was clear enough. His mien was extraordinarily dignified, and to all that I said he listened politely; but when I asked for an audience of the duke he referred me to one of a surpassing stoutness, who came waddling up to us as we discoursed together. This gentleman, although extremely heavy and slow of speech, proved just as civil, and gave me to understand that he was no less a person than Don Luiz, the duke’s gentleman-usher. But when I spoke of an audience he bowed very low, and yet looked at me in a kind of sorrow, for he said,—

“Sir, you crave the impossible. The levee was yesterday, and a week must pass before you can be admitted to the next.”

“Sir,” I said, “I have travelled from the Asturias upon no other errand.”

Don Luiz shook his head, and deplored the fact that this could not help the matter. And all this time the Englishman was laughing in such a manner that I feared he must pitch straight off his horse.

“I would have you to believe, Don Luiz,” said I, with an urgency that was increased by the behaviour of the Englishman, “that I am one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, a name antecedent, if you please, to the Moorish invasion, and as favourably looked on as any in the northern provinces.”

Still, in spite of the earnestness with which I mentioned this, the portly and consequential Don Luiz stood as mute as a stone, not so much as twitching his lips or abating his glance in any particular. Indeed it would seem, from the manner in which he enfolded me in his sleepy looks, that the style of my clothes and their condition were a more imminent matter than my business and descent.

“Next week, sir,” was all he deigned to reply, and pointed to the gate for his final answer. Feeling myself to be powerless against this refusal, which was yet very arbitrary, resentment began to stir in me.

“Don Luiz,” I said firmly, “I cannot leave the precincts of this castle until I have had audience of its master. I have journeyed expressly from the Asturias to speak with him, and I can assure you it is not my custom to permit anything to interpose between my mind and its declared intention.”

Yet, notwithstanding the importunity of my tone, it left Don Luiz quite impassive. Indeed ere long he undertook to show me another side to this affair. He summoned two or three of the soldiers that were marching up and down the patio, and in short terms ordered them to conduct me to the gate. And I think I should have been taken there in this ignominious fashion had not at this moment Sir Richard Pendragon, who all this while had been consumed with hilarity, addressed the portly gentleman-usher.

“Don Luiz,” said he, “I would have you pay no heed to this poor mad varlet that is my squire. You see, Don Luiz, this immoderate, raving squire of mine once travelled in my suite to the Asturias, and in those altitudes he beheld a maid of pedigree to whom his wayward fancy turned. And that matter deranged any little wit he did enjoy; for he kissed her in those altitudes underneath the moon, and since that evening he has been a babbler. His conversation is now composed of pedigrees, maidens, Asturias, and moonshine of a highly grievous nature. It is pitiful, Don Luiz, yet to my mind there is a kind of poetry in it also.”

Now Sir Richard Pendragon feigned this monstrous tale with such a simplicity of look, and recited it with such a proper voice, that Don Luiz was moved to credulity, and said, “How whimsical! Yet indeed, sir, it does not surprise me, for I could discern from his address that he had a maggot in his brain.”

“Faith, yes,” said Sir Richard, with a solemnity at which I marvelled, “and it twists his poor mind into such odd and strange devices as you would never believe. Why, if he sits at home at the castle, he either plays mumchance all day by the buttery door or devises some ridiculous melody upon the virginal that makes all the cook-maids shed tears, or, stranger than that, Don Luiz, he will sit for hours playing snapdragon with the wishbone of a fowl. And when I say to him, ‘Wherefore, Miguel, should this quaintness be your chief employ?’ says he, with his eyes full of tears, ‘Why, excellency, if I used my fingers it would be sure to burn my hand.’ Did you ever hear an honest Christian Spaniard speak the like, Don Luiz?”

“By my faith, sir, I did not,” said Don Luiz, betraying some tokens of impatiency. “Might I trouble you, sir, to the extent of asking your business?”

“To see your master, the duke, in audience.”

“Then, sir, my answer must, with all respect, hold the same with you as with your twisted and unhappy squire.”

“I am afeared, Don Luiz,” said my strange companion with a look of insolence that became him remarkably well, “your wits are so accompanied by sack and butter that you do not take me in this affair. I will see your master at once.”

“On Tuesday next, sir,” said the gentleman-usher. “Before then an audience is out of the question.”

“I say I will see your master immediately,” said the Englishman. “Do you go straightway and inform him that a messenger is at the gate who hath ridden express from the King and is demanding audience.”

“The King!” exclaimed Don Luiz, while I held my breath at such a piece of audacity.

“The King,” said Sir Richard Pendragon sternly. “The King, my master, who holds the Duke of Montesina and all his minions in the hollow of his hand. Do you go straightway and tell him that, Don Luiz.”

Upon this assertion the chamberlain delivered a humble apology, called to the grooms to take our horses, conducted us to an antechamber with the greatest promptitude, and went forth himself to bear the matter to his master. As soon as I was alone with my companion in the fair apartment we had entered I began to tremble violently, and said to the outrageous foreigner,—

“This is indeed a fine pickle, Sir Englishman! We shall certainly be thrown into a dungeon, or perchance shall lose our heads. No prince of Spain will forgive you unless you make good your words.”

“You are a mad varlet,” said the Englishman; “you are as mad as nine men’s morris.”

“The madness is with you, sir, in this grievous and terrible matter.”

“Ah, my young companion,” said the Englishman, “what a vain fellow thou art to go in quest of the Princess Fortune without a knowledge of the world. The time is ripe for me to give you a watchword, my son; your excellent father appears not to have mentioned it. Learn to speak in a loud voice. Fail in no enterprise from a disregard of that motto, and in lieu of a vulgar death upon the gallows, which is the natural destination of every snuffler that goes about paltry chewing his words, you will die an eminently Christian death upon the field of battle, or in your bed with your favourite bawd soothing your pillows with hot and bitter tears.”

Before I could derive any store of fortitude from this advice wherewith to meet the grave ordeal that was now before us both, Don Luiz returned with the information that the duke, his master, was graciously pleased to receive us in audience.

Now, whether it was the sting of the rebuffs that I had already suffered during that ill-fated day, or the notion that I was become as a branded madman by the tongue of calumny, or whether it was the odd manner of our entrance, I cannot say, but what I know is this—I felt the sweat creep upon my brow as I made my way into the presence of this august grandee. I followed close upon the heels of Don Luiz and my most singular companion. We passed through several spacious and gorgeous apartments which were clad in great richness. Never had I seen so much magnificence before. The mere presence of so much splendour seemed to daunt me, for notwithstanding my birth and my father’s honour, in my country suit all dulled with dust, and my old boots, I felt myself to be but little better than a rustical fellow in surroundings of this kind.

Yet the Englishman, although his dress in its inconsistency was scarcely above my own, and though his pretext was so abominably false that it had only to be exposed to place his life in jeopardy, was just as much upon his ease in this dangerous place as if he had been abroad in the plain. Without removing his bonnet or showing the least concern for the dignity of the palace, he uttered a ribald joke in the ear of Don Luiz and spoke to him of the weather.

When at last we were ushered into the presence of the duke I tried to muster my courage, for I felt that the great moment of my life was come. Striving to make an honourable appearance I bore my head high and held myself in the most martial manner I could assume, and through the haze that oppressed my eyes I strove to stand worthy of my quest and the noble lady I was come to serve. You will understand, gentle reader, that all depended on the fair impression I must contrive to make upon the great nobleman who was about to receive me. Yet I was fain to reflect that I must have done better justice to my birth and breeding, which were all the credentials I had to offer, had I not been so unluckily accompanied. I am sure no one could have been more deeply sensible of the disadvantage of such a companionship. The flippant behaviour of Sir Richard Pendragon must have sorely abated the grace of my bearing, since such a mode of entry as he adopted before a great personage must have been wholly to the detriment of any who followed in his train. Indeed this extraordinary person was humming a catch as he swaggered like a common ruffler, with his bonnet on, into the presence of his grace, the Duke of Montesina.

The private chamber in which the duke sat was smaller than the others through which we had passed. It was draped heavily with gorgeous tapestries, and instead of rushes upon the floor there was a rich Arabian carpet. The first thing I perceived was a noble painting of the Holy Virgin. The duke was sitting in a gilded chair placed on a daïs near a window through which streamed the beams of the bright sun. He was engaged upon a refection of light wine and oat cake, and was alone save for a dwarf who mowed at us behind the chair of his master.

The duke was an old man with a beard of silver, frail, and little in his person, and of an ascetic, yet, as I make bold to think, a somewhat peevish countenance. He rose upon our entry and bowed in so sublime a manner as at once to make it clear that here was the pink and mirror of a Spanish gentleman; one whose mind was grave and lofty, and whose person was garnished with fine graces. A piece of old punctilio he was, according to my companion, yet when he left his chair and took a few steps towards us, to confer upon us an additional grace of welcome, his form seemed to have been wedded to silk and silver all its days, such was the ease with which it bore them; he seemed to move to music; while when he brought himself to business, it appeared to my disordered mind, dazzled as it was with so much glamour, that his lightest word became a proclamation and his frown an executioner. Sir Richard Pendragon, however, was far from having this awe of him. It filled me with dismay to see this person of foreign nationality passage with the duke for all the world as if he were of an equal condition.

“I trust I find the grace of your lordship in pretty good health,” said the English giant; and it relieved me much to observe that he had the good manners to pull off his bonnet, and to bow not ungracefully when he addressed the duke in this fashion.

“I find myself in good health, I thank you, sir,” said the duke coldly and simply. “You bear a communication from my nephew Castile, I understand?”

“I am glad your excellency understands that,” said the Englishman, “for burn my five wits if I do!”

“Will you deign to explain this matter?” said the duke, and it turned me faint in my spirit to see a sudden light of anger flame across his eyes.

“If I mentioned your nephew Castile, may I never drink sack out of a bombard again,” said the Englishman.

“Bimbos,” said the duke, turning to the dwarf, who was grinning like a jackanapes behind him, “do you go to Don Luiz and bring him here instantly.”

It was clear that the duke was a man of choler by the irascibility of his words.

Don Luiz came immediately. There was trepidation in his mien.

“This person,” said the duke, “informs us that he bears no communication from our nephew the Castilian.”

“Under your favour, excellency,” said the Englishman, “your mind although virtuously given and an ornament to your age and country, appears to have led you into some sort of confusion. English Richard, honest man, never spoke of Castile your nephew; he would scorn to speak of such a scurvy rogue, but rather did he mention your lordship’s lord and master.”

“My lord,” said the fat Don Luiz, speaking with a most ponderous impressiveness, “my words shall be these. This gentleman informed me at the gate that he was the bearer of a message from the King, and on that ground demanded audience in quite a peremptory manner.”

“So I did, brother, so I did,” said the Englishman. “You cursed Spaniards are so dull that I am obliged to speak peremptory if I speak at all.”

“Further, my lord,” said Don Luiz, passing over this scandalous interruption with immense disdain, “he declared himself to be the emissary of that great King who at this moment held, as it were, your lordship’s grace in the hollow of his hand. Now, it was perfectly clear to me, your lordship, that there is only one king whose might is of this nature, which is him of Castile, your lordship’s nephew. Thus, under your grace’s favour, was I justified, I think.”

“Ods my life!” said the duke, addressing my companion with the greatest irascibility, “if I find you have perverted your speech in this particular, or that you think to make a toy of such as I, sirrah, I will undertake to show you how far you are astray by having you broke upon the wheel.”

When the angry duke spoke these last terrible words he exalted his voice into such an accent as rendered them truly affrighting to my ears. Straight I fell into a violent trembling on the Englishman’s account; but he, steadfast man, did not abate a whit of his easy smiling. As he looked at the threatful duke his red eyes seemed to be full of a furtive and whimsical humour.

“No, by my soul,” he said, “this is not politeness, at least as we of England understand that quality. Wheel? No matter where I travel in this unholy land of Spain, the parish that I come to is a scurvy one. Wheel? Duke or donkey driver, it is nothing to the matter, all are tainted with incivility. Wheel? Why, duke, my message is ‘Be thou of good courage,’ and He who sends it thee is that great King of Heaven who holds thee in the hollow of His hand. Do you pause and think upon it, duke.”

The duke obeyed him in this particular, for certes he paused and thought upon it much. And while this he did with a deal of gravity, the wheel rose up before my eyes and I could feel my bones being broken on it. For was ever such audacity since the beginning of the world!

CHAPTER XI
OF A GRIEVOUS HAP

Though an old little man, wizened like a pea, and peevish in his manners, the duke was wonderfully impressive in his look. He stood up as straight as a tree, and kept peering at the Englishman with a grave eye, as if in meditation upon the drastic form of his punishment. Yet all of a sudden, and quite strangely and oddly, a sharp kind of crackling and barking came out of him; as near, I suppose, to a chuckle of mirth as one of such dignity could allow himself to emit.

“Ha! ha!” he cackled. “Ods myself! good fellow, this is a roguish jest of yours. But daring, don’t you think, but daring? Yet a roguish jest.”

So great was my concern for the exceeding delicacy of the issue that at first the words of the duke seemed of no account. My mind could not address itself to their meaning, but could only marvel that so great a man should repeat his phrases.

“And why, sirrah,” asked the duke, “am I to be so especially of good courage at this season? My situation hath taken no kinder turn of late, so far as I can tell. Why must I be so cheerful then?”

“Because,” was the reply of this audacious foreigner, “Richard Pendragon, knight of England, hero of an hundred fields, is here to make you an offer of his service. This two and a quarter yards by a yard and a half of brawn and valiancy hath left a monstrous quantity of the kingly blood that flows beneath his doublet on the battle meads of Europe. How many a pretty daisy hath fed its damask on the azure blood of a Pendragon! This gentle knight in question is also pretty well at fighting, duke, for you shall search the three continents to match this modest swaggerer at sword, broadsword, sword and buckler, sword and target, and above all, and more particularly in a private brawl, with that peerless weapon, the Italian rapier of Ferrara steel. And mark you also, duke, there is a genius in his handling of the sweet Toledo blade. As for the mind of this incomparable character, it shines as brightly as his steel, for you will notice that his forehead rises perpendicular in the true Pendragon manner, and therefore he is a child of stratagem.”

You will suppose that I watched the passaging of the duke and this singular Sir Richard Pendragon with the gravest solicitude. There never was such a whimsically assorted pair: the small old man, the duke, one of the first gentlemen of his age, so well appointed in his dress, so fortunate in his person, so sedate in his mien for all his querulousness, which in one of less consideration might have incurred another name; the Englishman monstrous in his growth, gross and irregular in form and countenance, his clothes patched and pieced into the quaintest contexture. But beyond all this they were so opposed in address; the duke ever majestical in spite of his peevishness, with a highly musical civility in his speech, every word of which was simple, clear, and urbane, the ideal for a gentleman; while this Englishman’s, when it was not braggadocio and ruffling, with many uncomely foreign accents in it, ran into conceits and picturesqueness of every sort, and betraying a reverence for no man save the one who had all his worship.

Still the world is an incongruous place, as Don Ygnacio hath it, and reconcilable to none of the laws that we know. Therefore this grandee fell in with the whims of the mad Englishman, and kept turning the tail of an eye upon him, which yet seemed to have too much dignity to laugh outright at a cause so trivial; whilst to me, a gentleman of his own race and nation, who knew the consideration that belonged to him, and was careful to render it, he was as cold and unresponsive as one of the walls of his castle.

Presently Sir Richard Pendragon so delighted the old gentleman with one or two wonderfully cunning tricks of fence and manual dexterity, such as spinning his sword in the air and catching the naked point in his palm, and flicking buttons off the jerkin of the dwarf, that the duke clapped his hands for pleasure with the glee of a child, although he was one of the gravest rulers in Spain, and cried out heartily,—

“Brava, brava, sirrah! Now get thee to the buttery, and then do thou come back, and show us again.”

At the mention of the honest word “buttery” Sir Richard Pendragon turned upon his heel without delay, and made his way there with a haste that to my mind ill became one of his degree, although I had begun to doubt whether in his native country the title he bore was so eminently honourable as it is in ours.

“A very whimsical fellow,” said the duke to Don Luiz as the Englishman went forth. “He will serve to amuse us of a morning, and of an evening too. By my faith, Luiz, this is a good fellow.”

“A good fellow, my lord, as your lordship has deigned to remark,” said Don Luiz ponderously; “and I mind me that he has the name of a brave and cunning man. He gave your grace’s nephew of Castile a great deal of trouble a year ago with his bold and hardy band of adventurers. According to report he has the name of a skilful captain, who is as ingenious in his mind as he is warlike in his attributes.”

“That is well, Luiz,” said the duke. “I am pleased at this. See to it that he hath thirty crowns a month, and do you give him the command of our horse.”

Hearing this magnanimous and simple-hearted nobleman filled with the praises of one who, whatever his merit, was yet unacquainted with the true inner grace of the heart, my courage mounted in my veins, and hope whispered many things it pleased me mightily to hear. Yet, when I ventured to bespeak the duke, as I conceived in a mode highly proper, he returned immediately to that formal gravity of mien which he had worn when first I had come into his presence.

“Your lordship’s grace,” I began, “my name is Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, and of the natural blood of him who fought with Alban II. against the Moor at Loja, at Lucena, and an hundred fields. I am, I would have your lordship to believe, of the first families of our Asturias; and hearing of the uneasy situation of your lordship in the south, I have adventured from my native mountains to proffer to your lordship my sword and service.”

“Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas,” said the duke, “I thank you for them.”

“And, my lord, I would crave the gentle permission of your lordship to serve your daughter, if daughter hath your grace, and rumour hath not lied; for it is written among the precepts of my late father, Don Ygnacio, that I should serve her, if served she is to be, as faithfully as I am fain to serve her sire.”

Was ever man so cursed with the unlucky tongue within him! No sooner had I dropped a word about his daughter than a lively purple ran into his face, and that countenance which had been so gracious grew suddenly so arrogant that I was filled with qualms.

“Are you a prince of the sangre azul of Spain, Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas,” said he, “that you seek to serve my daughter?”

“Not a prince, my lord,” said I with proud humility, “but there is no choicer blood than ours in the Asturias.”

“Then, sir, since you are not a prince, and you have made mention of my daughter, our interview is at an end.”

“My lord, when I spoke of your lordship’s daughter, I spoke in humility. Wherein have I had the unhappiness to offend the grace of your lordship?”

“The offence is nature’s, sir, in not making you a prince,” said the duke with a surprising choler. “I give you good day, Don Miguel.”

He bowed low, and the portly Don Luiz opened the door.

I found myself in the antechamber without the least recollection of my coming there. Indeed, in such a degree was I embarrassed by the duke’s anger that at first I did not know where I was or what I did. I stood lost in wonder. I wondered at the duke, I wondered at myself, but most of all I wondered at the world and its courses. I could not believe that a man should be so affronted at so seemly a mention of his daughter. I could have shed tears at this rebuff, and the deplorable case in which I stood, but my father’s wisdom stole through my veins like a balm, and I remembered that adversity is one of God’s stratagems to test the temper of the least of His servants.

As I took my way to the gate of the castle with my feathers drooping, I encountered the more fortunate Sir Richard Pendragon smiling at his private thoughts and sucking sack off his beard.

“Hullo, good springald youth,” he said, “you have met your fall I perceive. But, my young son of the Spains, I pray you to remember that a man with a provincial manner should not speak to a duke of his daughter. Sell oranges and make your fortune, for I fear that make it otherwise you never will. But, my young companion, I pray you do not take it too much amiss. There are many blows on the sconce to receive as you go through the world. And let me tell you, Miguel, I am prone to a tenderness in cases of grave, persistent, and determined folly. And so, Miguel, I have a tenderness to thee. Fare thee well, my young companion, and here is a purse containing eight crowns and an old heirloom, for I am determined upon it that thou shall not suffer for a start in life.”

These words were spoken not unkindly, and I was grateful to this barbarian for speaking them; but I think I might have been grateful had a dog so much as looked at me just then. And to my great astonishment here was my old dogskin and my father’s patrimony and my mother’s ring come back to me. But rejoiced as I was to get them again, I deemed it wise that no questions should pass upon the subject.

I told a servant to fetch Babieca, and when he had brought him to me he looked upon me askance because I did not vail him for the deed. I rode forth of the gates with the sun shining in the blue with fierce magnificence, and pointed my unprosperous course towards the city of Toledo. As these latitudes were much farther to the south than any I had been in before, I found the sun was even more against me than on the ill-starred day I had started from my home. Thus in great dejection of mind and body, I returned across the bridge of Alcantara, and in my heart’s extremity cast a final glance at that noble and deluding house, seated imperial on its promontory, beyond the yellow stretches of the fields. It could hardly have been more fair to the eye than formerly, yet now, because my fortunes looked another way and I had met rejection, and this beautiful castle had been placed beyond my ken, it seemed to take, even as I gazed, a thousand fresh glamours from the sun, and grew so gorgeous and desirable as to mock me with each of its gay turrets and pinnacles.

Overcome by the bitterness of my reflections, I checked my horse as he picked his way delicately down the steep winding path, and turning about, stood up in the saddle to confront that haughty palace that offered me disdain. Raising my right arm, I cried, “Proud castle, mock me if you please, but the hour shall dawn when you shall honour Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas!”

Doubtless these words were vain, yet there was that in my heart that seemed to give them warrant; and whether they made good the right to be uttered will be made clear in the process of this history.

Upon coming into the town and reaching the Chapel of the Consummation, I found a shady prospect beneath its walls. Tying Babieca to a railing, I sat down to meditate upon the course of my affairs. It was clear that I had much to learn before I might move with security into the world. Sir Richard Pendragon, barbarous foreigner as he was, had taught me already that we must learn to decipher the human character and its manifold complexities ere the smiles of Fortune can requite those who crave them. But at least, thought I, as I sought consolation of my father’s never-failing wisdom, this is a vicarious world, in which our material state is nothing, and of all things only an honest mind is virtuous.

To such a degree did I console my heart with this reflection that for a time I was put in a mood of philosophy. I was even led to consider that my poverty was a worthy thing, a symbol of purity, for was it not an evidence that my devices had not been of an unworthy nature? But, alas! all too soon my ingenuity overthrew my fortitude: for I was reminded by these thoughts that eight pieces of silver was my patrimony; that I was a stranger in a foreign country; that I was unskilled in war and knowledge; that I was hungry; that my cloak was wearing thin; that to sleep upon the bare ground was to breed an ache in the bones; in fine, that I was penniless and friendless, and was at the end of my five wits to avert the soul and the body being torn asunder. Looking up, however, I beheld the placid, kindly face of the amiable Babieca; and then was I taken with a new resource.

CHAPTER XII
OF ADVERSITY. OF A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. OF A FAIR STRANGER

To rob oneself of a friend is to commit a felony against the heart; and where is the man who can afford to do that? The pangs of the heart, believe me, are less to be supported than those of the stomach; for I groaned under the stings of both in this the season of my adversity. A pennyworth of bread will avail against the one, but in that other case a man must outlive his recollection, and forget a thousand deeds of kindness to heal the breach left gaping in his gratitude.

This is why I looked so long at the gentle Babieca without making a decision. To part with him was necessary to the lives of us both, as I could furnish food and lodging for neither; but much as I looked into his quiet eyes, or gazed upon his shapeliness, or stroked his friendly nose, I was as barren of expedients as I was of fortune or good prospects.

It was indeed a wrench to sell this honest creature, and I let the best part of the day go by ere I could persuade myself to suffer it. Then, gathering up Babieca’s bridle, I led him through the town to make money of his qualities. Coming to the market square, I asked a water-seller to direct me to a dealer in horses. This he did—to one Cacheco, whom he recommended stoutly as a man of purity in trade.

I found the Señor Cacheco in a corner of the market-place, seated such an enviable distance in the shade that I saw the sagacity of his character at once; for I tell you, reader, that any person who can make good his claims to a spot so sheltered against the sweating market hordes is not by any means to be looked on lightly. His stock consisted of three or four ponies of an inferior sort and an ass that had the mange.

This worthy was greatly at his ease beneath a pony’s belly, a situation that gave him some protection from the flies. His face was one that hardly invited confidence in his rectitude, being nothing like so pretty as the reference I had received; besides he squinted villainously, and would not look at you straightly out of the middle of the eyes, but leered out of the corners. He got up slowly, yawned, stretched his limbs, approached me with a sidling gait, and asked if I wished to make a purchase.

“On the contrary, I have this horse to sell.”

“Oh, it’s a horse,” said he. “I would never have guessed that, I am sure, now. He makes such a noise when he draws his breath that I supposed he was related to the windmill family.”

I rated Cacheco for this impudence, and told him that he lied.

“He is as sound as a trumpet, you rogue, and I’ll defy the Devil to prove that Babieca is otherwise.”

“Take him to the Devil, then,” said the fellow coarsely, “and see if he will buy him. Besides, he hath a curby hock.”

I admitted that to be the case, but spoke about his pedigree.

“Pedigree!” cried the rude fellow. “My business is in horses, not in pedigrees. Am I a man of fortune, then, that I should buy a pedigree? I will give you five crowns.”

“Five crowns, you rogue! Why, he has been in my family for years!”

“An heirloom, I see,” said the horse-dealer. “Old Mutacho, the dealer in the antique, is over there across the market. You will find him fast asleep like a tortoise, with his head resting against the thigh piece of the Cid.”

In the height of this altercation I heard a titter of laughter. Feeling hot and discomposed already with an argument in which I showed to no advantage, I looked about to see from whom it might proceed. It surprised me to discover that I was providing a spectacle for one who appeared to make no secret of the fact that he was enjoying it.

“You are amused, sir?” I said, addressing this person sternly, for I felt myself upon the verge of a passion.

“Very,” said he, at his leisure and in a soft voice.

“May I ask, sir, in what particular I have the happiness to amuse you?”

“My dear friend,” said this person, more at his leisure than ever, “it would take me a long while to render it clear to you, and the heat is excessive; but if you will do me the honour to repair to my lodgings, I may be able to explain the whole matter over a bottle of wine. And may I pray you to bring the admirable Babieca, for next to the friendship of his master I am sure I shall value his before anything else in the world.”

Now, in the circumstances, such an address was extremely singular, but the courtesy with which it was accompanied was so fine, and the air and bearing of the person who employed it were so admirable, that I knew at once that I had been accosted by a man of birth. Taking off his hat, which was adorned with a long white plume, he bowed to the ground; and while I hoped that my demeanour was in nowise behind his own, I could not refrain from feeling how much honour his true Spanish politeness did him.

“You are of Castile, sir, I am sure?”

“Ah no,” said he, in a soft, lisping accent, “I can make no claim to be one of your adorable nation.”

“Then, sir, may I ask to whom I have the honour of paying my addresses?”

“Truly. I am Monsieur le Comte de Nullepart, Marquis de Outre le Mer, Sieur des Champs Elysées. And you, sir—and you?”

“I am one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, a name which has yet to declare itself, Sir Count, in this part of our peninsula, but which has been held in high esteem in our northern province of Asturias for many hundreds of years.”

“We are choicely met, Don Miguel, and if you will do me the signal honour of accompanying me to supper, I shall be the happiest man in the world.”

Upon an invitation of such courtesy you will readily suppose, good reader, it was not for me to refuse. For his musical speech, the delicate breeding of his air, the distinction of his dress, sombre and chaste, yet handsome and well fitting, all proclaimed his quality. His face looked melancholy, yet now and again a tender and sweet smile would suffuse it, and change it altogether as if by the magic of poetry.

The companion I had found in this strange and providential fashion would not hear of my parting with Babieca, although within five minutes of our acquaintance I must have revealed to him my bitter poverty, for he was such a one to whom the proudest bosom unfolds its secrets. There was some kind of enchantment in his face, and I took no shame from telling him that I was in the world alone, and that fortune had rebuffed me.

“Ah, Fortune, Fortune!” said he. “She is the Proud Princess whom we woo all our days, and who kills us with melancholy because she will have none of us. Did you ever meet one, my dear Don Miguel, upon whom she had smiled?”

“No, Sir Count,” said I, “I have yet to have that happiness. She did not smile upon my father, and she hath not smiled upon me.”

“The proud jade is a chimera,” said the Count of Nullepart. “We seek her all our days, and when at last we have come up with her, and we press her to our bosom—lo! she is not, and we find ourselves embracing the air. But come, my dear Don Miguel, we will eat in our inn, and leave philosophy until after supper.”

I know not, reader, what providence it was that brought the Count of Nullepart and myself together, but as I led Babieca to this inn at his behest, he linked his arm through mine, and he became my brother. The tender melancholy of his smile, the music of his speech, lulled my mind not only with the superiority of his condition, but also with the nobility of his intelligence. Strangely his course was pointed to that fonda at which I had eaten my breakfast in the doubtful company of Sir Richard Pendragon early that day. Perhaps, however, this was not so remarkable, because the hostelry of “The Three Feathers” was the largest and fairest inn in the whole of the city.

It was with very different feelings that I sat at table in the company of this true gentleman, to those with which I had waited on the good pleasure of one whose gentility depended on his name. The fare of which we partook had been prepared with delicacy; the innkeeper served us in person with a deference which had its root in a desire to please my companion; the wine was of the first quality and was chosen well; and the discourse that flowed from the lips of the Count of Nullepart was the most charming of all—that of one who knows the world and is minded to forget it.

“There are no adventures outside of the soul,” he said, toying with his cup of wine with white, slender, and tapering hands. “What are these poor five wits of ours in comparison with the infinite senses of the inner nature? We lock our teeth, yet taste nothing; we open our eyes, yet see nothing; we incline our ears, yet hear nothing; we excite our nostrils, yet smell no perfume; we prick ourselves with a dagger, yet there is nothing we can feel. It is the same with this Princess Fortune that we talk about: we seek her forever, yet find her not. There is no princess, my friend, there is no princess.”

“I think, Sir Count,” said I, “the point is debatable. My father went in quest of her, yet did not find her, and I have not found her myself; but one of these days I will—I am determined upon it.”

“And when you have done so, dear Don Miguel, you will press her to your bosom, and she will melt in the air.”

After our supper (which, according to my taste, was of the most perfect kind), the Count of Nullepart drew a flageolet from his pocket and played a melody. It was very graceful, low-voiced, and melancholy, and being his own composition, was performed with the true delicacy of the amateur.

The hours chased one another away, for the Count of Nullepart had a full mind and spoke of many things. When there came a lull in our converse he would take up the flageolet again and improvise other melodies. Or he would call for the dice and throw a main for amusement’s sake, for I had nothing better than Babieca to wager, and with our northern caution I was unwilling to risk my all on a single cast.

I know not what hour of the evening it was, but it must have been hard by to midnight, when our curiosity, which hitherto had been wholly engaged with one another, was diverted by the arrival of a guest. My companion was improvising an air on his instrument, when something of a commotion was heard at the door, and to our surprise a lady without attendance stepped into the inn and called for the servants in a loud clear voice.

The manner of her entrance caused the Count of Nullepart to lay his flageolet on the table, and to regard the fair intruder with a curiosity equal to that she had awakened in me. Fair she was indeed, since we could discern enough of her face to tell us so much. She was both young and frail, hardly more than a child, and she was habited in a coarse grey riding-dress that was covered with dust. But she had a most proud and fearless face; and when the landlord came forward in answer to her summons, in spite of her plain and almost rustic attire, she addressed him with so much insolence that she might have been a queen.

“Fellow,” she said, “my horse hath a shoe cast. Put him to bed with some oats and good straw, and do you see to it that a smith is summoned at five of the morning. At six I go upon my journey.”

The landlord bowed with proper humility, and declared that he would attend her commands.

“That is well,” said she. “And do you bring me some food, for I have not broken my fast since an hour before noon.”

When the landlord had gone about these behests, she sank down on a settle in a condition of extreme weariness, threw down her whip petulantly, drew off her riding gauntlets, and flung them upon the floor.

In the meantime the Count of Nullepart had filled his cup out of the last of the numerous bottles of wine to which we had yielded ourselves, and he now carried it across the room with a wonderful air.

“Madam,” he said, proffering this beaker with an indescribable grace, “if I may serve you, you will make me happy.”

“I thank you, friend,” she said, accepting the goblet, and sipping the wine without any hesitation at all.

“With your permission, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, “I will go forth and see to it that your horse is bedded worthily and hath a supper of oats.”

“Do so, friend, and I will thank you for your service.”

The little lady spoke with the sweet insolence of one who is accustomed to be served.

While the Count of Nullepart was away on this errand of courtesy, I was fain to cudgel my brains to find out who this fair stranger might be. That a young gentlewoman should ride into Toledo at midnight without attendance must have been an unheard-of matter. Yet again, her quality was not in anywise declared in her dusty and rumpled habit; but in its despite, her air, her bearing, the adorable beauty of her countenance, made her the most enchanting figure upon whom it had ever been my hap to set my eyes. To have encountered two such persons in a single day as the Count of Nullepart and this lady was a clear proof that fortune was not so entirely unpropitious as she seemed.

When the Count of Nullepart returned, which he did very soon, he set himself to bestir the landlord in the matter of the lady’s supper; and he besought her to accept a share of our table, which was the most favourably situated in the room.

The lady accepted every office that the count rendered her with the most charming and easy complaisance in the world, and when she came and took a seat with us, I observed with a thrill of delight that, fair as she looked from a distance, when she came near she appeared still more enchanting. Every line in the youthful face was moulded in the most sensitive manner. When a serving-maid had brought her supper, her eyes fell on the flageolet that lay on the table. She gave it to me, and said,—

“Play a melody. It will amuse me while I eat.”

I had to protest, shyly enough, I am afraid, that I had no skill in this instrument; whereon she lifted her eyes imperiously to the Count of Nullepart, and said,—

“You play a melody to amuse me while I eat.”

Immediately the count broke into one of the choicest of his performances, and did it so rarely, with such elegance and mastery, as to make it divine; and yet I believe it amused him vastly, that the sweet little madam in whose behalf his handsome face was empurpled, and at whose command the veins swelled in his neck, paid not the least heed to his efforts, but munched away ravenously at the bread and meat that was laid before her, and sipped her wine with perfect unconcern.

Since that distant evening in the inn, whenever I have met a lady who is reputed to be peerless in beauty, before committing myself to an opinion upon the subject of her charms, my mind has reverted to this delectable creature. And I have yet to observe one that could compare with this perfection of youthful womanhood. It did not matter into what courses her hunger led her, nought could lessen the austere fascination of a countenance which was tempered a little by the unconscious coquetry of its glance.

When she had eaten and had drunk her wine, she waved an imperious hand to the Count of Nullepart to cease his exertions; and although it was clear to us she had not heeded a note of his performance, she said calmly, “Friend, I thank you. You play very fairly well.”

Had the Count of Nullepart not been one of the greatest breeding, I am sure he must have been consumed with laughter.

The little lady then turned to me, and said with an air that it is the business of all to obey, “Fetch me the innkeeper, if you please.”

I obeyed the behest with alacrity; and when the landlord came into her presence, she ordered the best sleeping-chamber in the inn to be set in readiness for her use, since it was her goodwill and pleasure to take a few hours’ rest.

The innkeeper was obliged, with some agitation, to inform her that, so far from being able to place the best apartment at her disposal, he could not even place the worst, as one and all were in occupation.

“Then lay down a fresh truss of straw, and I will sleep with my horse,” she said imperiously.

CHAPTER XIII
OF OUR ENTRANCE INTO A NEW SERVICE

Against this order the Count of Nullepart laid an objection. He made the lady the offer of his own apartment; and this she accepted with a more gentle air than any she had previously used. While the landlord went to have this chamber put in readiness, she turned to my companion, saying with a slight hesitation that became her adorably,—

“Sir, you are my good friend.”

“Your servant, madam, if your highness will only have it so,” said the Count of Nullepart, with his amused air and that soft lisping speech which must have captivated the heart of any lady in the world.

“You call me out of my condition, sir,” said she. “You speak me above my degree.”

“Marry, do I?” said the Count of Nullepart, with a laugh and a shrug of the shoulders; “then will your highness furnish your true name and title, for I do but speak you as you seem, which I am sure cannot be more than you are.”

“Yes, sir, you speak me out of my title, but I can see it is the fault of a courteous mind. But I cannot publish my degree to the world, sir, neither can I publish my name, so perhaps it were better that you addressed me as madam.”

“Well, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, “I believe you to be in need of true servants, for you travel alone and in dangerous places.”

“A woman, sir, is ever in need of true servants,” said this adorable creature, that was hardly more than a child, looking upon the Count of Nullepart with large and unfearing eyes.

“You have either mixed in the world, madam,” said he, “or you were born with knowledge, or this may be better sooth than you are aware; for, as you say, every woman is in need of true servants. I make you the formal proffer, madam, of my sword, my goodwill, and my devotion.”

Without more ado the Count of Nullepart rose from the table, and drawing his fine Spanish blade, fell on one knee before her. With the simple dignity of a princess, she held out her hand, and with charming humility the Count of Nullepart bore it to his lips.

“This is a good providence,” said she, with a bright colour in her cheek, “for never was a woman in such sore need of good servants.”

Immediately these words were spoken I also rose, and inspired by the count’s example, drew my sword, and offered my service also. She accepted them with beautiful grace and composure.

“I fear, my friends,” said she, “you will have arduous labours. I am beset with every difficulty, and I have a great work to perform.”

“Your servants will be the happier, madam,” said I. “They will not be wanting in the hour of need.”

Suddenly she rose with truly regal proudness, and looked at the Count of Nullepart and myself with earnest, questioning glances.

“Have you led armies, sir?” she asked of my companion.

“Ah, no, madam,” said he with an arch smile; “except in my own soul.”

“And you, sir, have you led armies?” she asked of me.

“No, madam,” I said, “I have yet to do so; but there are those of my name who have fallen in battle, and when occasion calls, may I stand true to my inheritance!”

“And you know not the field,” said she, “nor yet of the practice of war?”

“No, madam, but I have renounced my native mountains that I may gain that knowledge.”

“It is well, sir, for in your new service you will see shrewd blows given.”

“And shall hope to give them, madam.”

“Yes, sir,” said she, with the gravity of a minister of state, “you have a martial look; I doubt not the valiancy of your disposition.”

The innkeeper came now to inform her that the sleeping-chamber had been set ready for her use.

“Before I give you good-night, my friends,” she said in her proud, clear speech, “I would have you, sir, play me another of your melodies upon the sweet instrument of which I cannot remember the name.”

To this command the Count of Nullepart assented with an excellent grace, although on the previous occasion she had hardly deigned to listen to his playing. This time, however, she followed the music with flushed cheeks and parted lips, which showed she was yet something of a child at heart, although a woman in affairs.

“I thank you, friend,” she said gravely; “you are indeed a sweet musicianer. It will be a part of your service to play to me every evening before I retire.”

I know not whether it was the service we had proferred to her, or the wistful notes of the music that had melted her, but now she seemed to be transformed from the great lady of affairs to the romantical maid.

“You will attend me, my friends, through bloodshed and darkness,” she said; “and whenever my voice is raised, and wherever it may be heard, you will obey its call?”

“We have sworn it, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart.

“I see dark days; I fear an old house is poor and enfeebled, and is tottering to its ruin. But it is a good providence that sends such friends to its succour, and they shall be remembered in my prayers. At six of the morning we get upon our road. I now give you good-night, my friends; but in the meanwhile I would have you sleep warily, for at any hour I may inquire if you are of a good vigilance.”

I cannot say with what enchantment we watched this fair and imperious thing ascend the stairs of the inn to her chamber.

“That is a sweet quean,” said the Count of Nullepart, calling for a new bottle of wine.

“And a brave, forsooth,” said I. “What, I wonder, can be her degree?”

“To-morrow,” said the Count of Nullepart, “will unmask this fair unknown.”

“How singular it is,” said I, “that she should ride unattended over the country and in these unseasonable hours.”

“To-morrow we shall understand it all,” said the Count of Nullepart. “Then shall we learn to what high destiny we are called.”

“I am deceived,” said I, “if there is not to be a great work toward. By my faith, how beautiful she is!”

“Aye,” said the count, with one of his melancholy glances, “she is indeed the Proud Princess. Therefore I expect to-morrow will not dawn for us. We shall fall asleep over our wine, you and I, my dear Don Miguel, and awake to find that there is an end to our dreams. We shall find the bird flown.”

“She will have to fly out at the window, then, Sir Count.”

“Yes; doubtless she will prefer to do that. For there never was a bird so beautiful, so graceful, so touched with the soft hues of romance that the soul of a man was able to keep it before it to gaze upon. This is some princess out of an Arabian story. We shall find, dear friend, that there is no flesh and blood in her. She came to us out of the air, and to-morrow at dawn we shall find her resolved again into that element.”

“In the meantime we will be of good courage, Sir Count, and dream upon her—”

“In all her lily-white daintiness, which was never so dustily and coarsely clad.”

The Count of Nullepart took forth his music yet again, and played a final melody; one which in grave sweetness and fantasy and delicacy of passion was more than equal to all the others. We then drained our cups and fell into slumber presently, with our heads on the table at which we sat.

I suppose we must both have been dreaming of that vision that had made poetry of our ideas, and I suppose that proud and beautiful face, which was yet so bright with youth, and so grave with its coquetry, may even have revealed itself through the mists of the brain, for at some hour towards two of the clock of the summer’s darkness we sprang to our feet with that imperious voice in our ears.

“To me, my friends, to me!” was the cry we heard.

Together we sprang from the settle, and ran to the stairs.

“To me, my friends, to me!” we heard the cry again. It was clear and spreading, yet withal it was the voice of a child.

Running pell-mell up the dark stairs, for as yet the dawn had made no sign, we found standing at their head, as staunch as a spear, the small princess we were pledged to serve. Above her head she held a taper.

“I thank you, friends, I find you vigilant,” she said in a voice she might have used upon two honest hounds that had pleased her well with their fidelity. She gave us the tips of her slender fingers to caress, and then returned to her chamber with a calm disdain that filled us with a kind of passion.

During the remainder of the night there was no more sleep for her two faithful servants, who went back to their table and passed the hours till dawn casting the dice and descanting upon her beauty.

At the first beams of day we went forth into the streets of the sleeping city, walking arm-in-arm and discussing the adventures that were likely to befall us. The Count of Nullepart was a man of some thirty years of age, and so deeply versed in the ways of the world that he viewed this odd matter in the light of a diversion rather than as a truly momentous affair.

“I do not love you the less, Don Miguel,” he said, “because you are entranced by this fair unknown. But you must not take it amiss if I follow your ravishment at a respectful distance. She is indeed a sweet thing, and of an infinite caprice, and we must indeed be grateful for her boldness, wherever it may lead. It may enable us to forget the world for a season; and above all, my dear Don Miguel, is not that the aim of a ripe philosophy?”

It surprised me that my comrade should permit himself such a whimsical indifference upon this subject; yet, after all, I was moved to the reflection that it was not so surprising neither, as he appeared to be of her kin.

The way led us directly to the market square, whereupon the Count of Nullepart insisted upon proceeding to the identical spot in which we had first become acquainted.

“That was an unequal combat, my dear Don Miguel, you waged with the horse-dealer,” he said, laughing. “I never derived a greater pleasure from anything than the manner in which your own delicate and gentle wits endeavoured to surmount the nimble ones of that hard-featured rogue.”

“I believe,” said I, “that yesterday was the turning-point of my life. In the forenoon I suffered a grievous hap; in the afternoon I gained a dear friend; and in the evening I set my eyes upon the mistress who is to be the pole-star of my fortune.”

Having uttered this prophecy, I recited to my companion the noble words of Don Ygnacio touching this matter. He smiled his approval of them, and assured me that my father must have been a great gentleman. We then retraced our steps to the inn, lest we should keep our wonderful lady waiting. Yet as we made towards it, the Count of Nullepart in his whimsical fashion vowed we should find her flown.

CHAPTER XIV
OF THE JOURNEYING BACK TO THE HOUSE OF MY REJECTION

However, the Count of Nullepart was wrong in this particular. For on returning to the Three Feathers, we found her supping porridge with the greatest zest, with two servants to wait upon her. We were in time to hear her rate the landlord soundly because her couch had been hard; also to hear her put innumerable questions to that honest fellow as to whether her horse was shoed? what kind of smith it was that shoed it? was the shoe likely to give comfort to the horse? and was it calculated to cause no injury?

“Not that the horse is mine, fellow, you understand that?” said the little lady, who looked as fresh as peach bloom, and who appeared to keep her small head full of practical affairs.

“Oh yes, your ladyship, I quite understand that,” said the innkeeper, with an air of the profoundest intelligence.

“I suspect you stole it, madam, from the Mother Superior,” said the Count of Nullepart, taking up the conversation with a silken air.

“Why should you suspect that, sir?” said she, flashing upon the count the instant glance of a hawk.

“I have two eyes, madam,” said he, smiling, “something of mind, and my five wits—although I have no respect for them, and deplore their use—are yet pointed as finely as five daggers. I am sure you stole your horse from the Mother Superior.”

“How so, sirrah? And why so? And what do you mean?” said the lady, flinging her questions at him scornfully, and tapping her foot on the ground with petulance.

“I have been thinking upon you during the night,” said the Count of Nullepart, “and have allowed myself to conclude that you are run away from your convent on the horse of the Mother Superior, which fetches home the eggs and butter from market.”

“Well, sir, and if I am run away,” said the lady haughtily, “I would not have you mention it in this public place. I have many reasons for running away, and the first of them is my father’s peril.”

“May I ask you, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, with a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth, “will it alleviate your father’s peril, which I do not doubt is great, that you run away from your convent on the horse of the Mother Superior?”

“Why, sir, indeed it will,” said she. “All his days, my father, his lordship’s grace, hath been but as a child in statecraft; and being, as he conceives, insufficiently able to mismanage his own policy, he must needs in matters of great pith and delicacy call in the aid of an old fat man to embroil them further.”

“And so, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart gravely, “you must needs run away on the Mother Superior’s horse—the only horse, by the way, I believe she possesses, which itself is slightly lame of the spavin—in order that you may bear your infinite wisdom and your ripe experience to the councils of your august male parent, his lordship’s grace, the Duke of Where-is-it?”

“For what reason, sir, do you adjudge my father to be of that degree?”

“I adjudge it, madam, from the demeanour of his daughter. I called you highness at a venture, and you corrected me. But unless these five wits of mine, whose sharpness is forever disgracing me, have fallen into disuse, there is not less than ducal blood in your veins, although ‘highness’ be not the nature of your title.”

“Your wits are shrewd, sir,” said the lady, “and your mind is subtle. You have unmasked me, sir, you have torn away my cloak; and although I do not thank you for it, after all, I don’t grieve much. My father is the Duke of Montesina, dwelling at five leagues’ distance, and he is in unhappy case.”

You may conceive, reader, with what concern I heard these words. Fortune had indeed reserved for me a precious trick. I was to journey back to the house of my rejection in the suite of one upon whose service I had staked every hope. Overwhelmed by as great a conflict of feeling as I had ever known, I could not forbear from disclosing my ill adventure of the previous day. I am by no means clear that such an act was becoming in a gentleman thus to unbosom himself to this daughter of a high grandee, who on her account had used him without civility. But as I laid bare my misfortunes to this imperious lady I seemed to fail altogether in mastery of myself, being unable to command my unlucky tongue.

However, the consequences of such an indiscretion were in nowise unhappy. This noble lady listened to my words; and when I had spoken to her of my dismissal, merely because I had hoped to serve her, such a flame darkened her cheek, her eyes flashed so finely, her lips grew so tremulous with anger, and she gave me her hand with a gesture so pitiful and yet so superb that I found myself to be trembling with joy.

“Oh, that old man!” she cried. “Oh, that old man, he will be my death! But I see the hand of that fat man in this. If that fat man walk not warily, I will have him thrown into a dungeon with his bulk and everything else.”

Such a resolute anger as possessed her at this recital of my tale I never saw. I could not help recalling that of her father at the moment he supplied the present occasion for it. And it so chanced that the innkeeper, who was still standing by and paying his service to her, was himself a fat man with a goodly paunch. Therefore she caused him to supply the room of the offender, whoever he might be, and he was doubtless Don Luiz, the Duke’s gentleman-usher; for in a true manner of femininity, which filled the Count of Nullepart with joy, she addressed the whole of her dislike to grossness to this unfortunate fellow.

“I hate a fat man,” she said, looking at the stout landlord ruthlessly. “I am always filled with disgust by such enormous bulks. If I ever come to the state of power, I will have every fat man broke upon the wheel; and when I take over the governance of my father’s province, as I mean to do this very afternoon, I will at once enact an ordinance whereby every fat man within my dominion shall receive an hundred blows with a stick.”

The poor innkeeper, who for one of his tribe was an honest fellow, began to tremble horribly and to sweat like a horse.

“Annually,” she said, with such a truculent look that I marvelled how so fair a countenance could compass it, “an hundred blows.”

“Poor fellows!” said the Count of Nullepart. “Poor fat men, won’t they cry out!”

“There will never be such crying heard in Spain for many a year. I will have it ordained that the sticks be edged with sharp pieces of wire. Get you from my sight, you foolish, fat, lubberly fellow, else you shall be the first to receive your merit.”

The innkeeper needed no second admonition to retire, for upon this speaking her ladyship ordered the Count of Nullepart to procure her riding-whip from the corner of the room. When the Count of Nullepart brought forth this implement with an extremely grave face, it looked so formidable as to justify the landlord in his flight. Yet how one fashioned so delicately would have been able to wield such an enormous weapon was beyond the comprehension of both the Count of Nullepart and myself.

The instancy of the lady’s anger being past, she turned to the Count of Nullepart, who still preserved the utmost gravity in his mien, and said in a proud voice, which yet had nothing of its recent displeasure, “I am led to think, sir, you have a wise and a subtle mind. I will see to it that you are admitted into my counsels. What, sir, is your name and your degree?”

The Count of Nullepart informed her of his titles in his melodious accent.

“I am not displeased, sir,” said she, “that you are a man of birth. But I had already adjudged it by your address. Now, my friends, as soon as you have broken your fasts we will to horse. Five hot and dusty leagues lie before us up the side of a steep mountain. We must not tarry, else we shall not find the sun to be our friend.”

We did not venture to court her disapproval, which certainly, as we had just had the proof, could be of the most imperious nature, by lingering over our matutinal wine and meat. For myself, I ate my breakfast in a state of high excitement. I could do nothing but think of the subtle trick that fortune had set upon me. I was overjoyed to feel that by the stroke of Providence I was to be permitted to prove my quality. All my dreams, my ambitions, the wide vista opened to the view by my father’s wisdom and prophetic foresight, were suddenly offered an ample field in which to bear a golden fruit.

It was between six and seven o’clock of the summer’s morning when the horse of our youthful mistress was led out of its stall. It proved to be a shambling old white palfrey, as halt as a cow, and nearly as blind as a stone. Before the lady would suffer herself to be mounted she must needs examine its new shoe, which, happily for the smith, whoever he might be, had been laid on craftily enough to obtain the sanction of her goodwill and pleasure.

By the time this ancient quadruped had been led forth into the inn yard, and had fully justified the title of “a notorious milk and butter carrier,” as applied to it by the Count of Nullepart, I had determined, come what might, to be the foremost in helping our mistress into the saddle. I had contrived it that I should stoop to her and put out my hand with great alacrity, yea, I had even got so far as to clasp her boot in my palm, when, of a sudden motion, the Count of Nullepart took her round the middle without more ado, and deposited her, whip and all, upon the back of her palfrey with as little concern as if she had been a bundle of feathers.

I think we were both proud men as we rode forth of the inn yard in such society. Yet, if I must speak the truth, I was on ill terms with myself for having lacked the count’s boldness. Still, the manner in which he had taken her out of my grasp came very near to violence. And so far was she from checking him for his forwardness that she appeared, with some perversity as I conceived, to hold it nothing to his detriment. For all through the city she requited what I was forced to consider a rude importunity with the favour of her entire conversation.

“Do I take it, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, “that your father, his lordship’s grace, has the whole of this fair city for his dominion?”

“No, sir,” said the lady, with petulance; “it is under the sway of the Archbishop of Toledo, a crafty and meddlesome priest. If my father had had a better thrift, so that his coffers had a richer lining, and the sharpest of his enemies were not like to be at his gate, I would urge him to wrest this fair town from this hateful churchman and put the old rascal to the sword.”

As she spoke these words in her fine clear speech, she swept a glance of so much splendour over the crowding gabled roofs, the trees and bazaars, and the tall spires of the churches, as plainly showed that that sweetly delectable form harboured a spirit that was bold and warlike. Nor was her utterance a light one. She did not speak for several minutes, for her words had caused her to fall into a muse.

“One of these days,” she said at last, “I shall bring an army into this city; one of these days this fair town shall be mine. You see, my friend, I stand next to my father; I am heiress of all his demesne. And I do tell you, my friend, that when the Countess Sylvia comes to her inheritance, and good soldiers and good treasure are at her beck, she will ride on a milk-white courser at the head of more than a thousand beautiful fighting soldiers, each clad in a corslet of steel as bright as a mirror, with a long white plume in his cap, and the motto of her house painted in scarlet upon a cloth of white camlet upon his breast. And she shall sack this fair city, and see to it that all Jews, heretics, and Moriscoes are put to the sword. And this snuffling old priest, this archbishop who at present holds the city in her despite, she will nail by the ears to that gate yonder—do you not see it, my friend, peeping out of the cork trees beside yonder fountain which hath the water playing?”

“Upon my soul,” said the Count of Nullepart, holding in his horse to give a better scope to his gravity, “I never heard a speech so full of statesmanship. Do I speak the future Queen of Castile, I wonder? Do I speak the future Queen of all Spain?”

“My thoughts are not concerned with so large a title, sir; I do but desire that my father defend his right and that I defend mine.”

“Yet you would quell the archbishop, most noble countess,” said the Count of Nullepart, laughing softly.

“That is not because I am covetous, sir, but because I have my ideas. It is a presumption for a priest to hold a city. Let him keep to the burning of heretics, and draw a revenue from the Holy Synod, not hold a demesne in fee to the prejudice of his betters.”

“Well, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart, beginning to shake in his saddle, “more advanced views I never heard put forward by a lady of eighteen. If the ladies of future ages are to be of such stern clay as yours, I foresee that there will be neither religions, dynasties, nor empires upon the face of the globe. I foresee the day to be at hand when everything of my unfortunate sex will be put to the sword, and trunk hose will cease to be the pledge of a valiant simplicity.”

The Count of Nullepart, who for all his melancholy and sad look, was much addicted to laughter, kept chuckling in a stealthy manner at these speeches of our fair companion. And she, dear soul, was far from observing him, being engrossed too deeply in her own designs; besides, such an air as she wore would have rendered it impossible for her to believe that any person could have been excited to mirth by her conversation.

You will suppose that I felt myself out of countenance a little by not receiving a share of the lady’s notice; but however much I might chafe at my inability to inspire it, fortune presently played into my hands. The Count of Nullepart, already installed as the favourite, either failed to appreciate or did not choose to consider that the eminence to which he had ascended carried its responsibilities. For, as we wound along the steep paths which led to the castle, we passed, under the shadow of a rock, a strapping rustic peasant girl with a laughing face, bright eyes and cheeks, and a nosegay at her bosom. As we came upon this handsome wench, the Count of Nullepart gazed at her long and particularly, and even permitted himself to express an open approval of her beauty. From that moment our fair companion paid him no more regard. Immediately she turned to me, riding upon her left hand, and proceeded to converse in a most grave and dignified manner.

All the rest of the way I had that arch and imperious voice to myself. Several times its owner pointed with her riding-whip to the fair prospect that was unfolded from this steep hill. I can never forget this picture of the corn-fields, the oak trees, the cattle browsing upon the mountain slopes, which were clad in the fierce white sun. Little rivers ran down shining and sparkling to the Tagus, that fine broad ribbon belted with diamonds which ran to hide itself in the fair city below.

“One day all this will be under my sway as far as the eyes can scan,” said the Countess Sylvia, “and that goodly city that lies below shall be the capital of my dominion.”

When we rode up to the gate of the castle I was put in mind of my previous misfortune. My heart began to beat as the scene returned upon me. I saw myself rejected for the second time, or perchance cast into a dungeon. Yet it was only for a moment that I permitted myself to embrace these fears. For I reflected that this weakness was no part of valour, and that at my side was one who, young as she was, was a beautiful and fearless protectress. In the eyes of her whom I was pledged to serve was that which put vacillation to the blush.

At the first blow I gave to the gate it swung back as before; yet upon our admission, in spite of the presence of the Lady Sylvia, the same formalities had to be enacted as on the previous occasion. She was unknown to the soldiers at the gate, and we had to await, upon her part with the greatest impatiency, the arrival of the captain of the guard.

He received her ladyship with a profound obeisance which did but add fuel to her displeasure. She turned upon him in the most instant manner, and cried, pointing to those who had declined to allow her to proceed, “Put those soldiers in durance. Let them receive a bastinado apiece.”

“But may it please your ladyship,” said the captain of the guard, “they have only been in the service of his grace a twelvemonth; and never having had the honour of seeing your ladyship, they knew you not.”

“If you venture to pass words with me, sirrah,” said the Countess Sylvia, “you shall go to a dungeon yourself. By my life, it is well I am come home! Even you dogs of soldiers have forgot your duty; but, by my good soul, I will have it rectified.”

With the arrogance of a queen she disdained the service of the Count of Nullepart, but allowed me to lift her from the saddle. Gathering up her coarse grey garments, she bade the cowed and abashed captain of the guard, a swollen and overbearing fellow with a pair of mustachios that were capable of striking terror into the boldest heart, and who might have concealed his mistress altogether in the capacious folds of his gaberdine, conduct her to her father.

Asking leave of none and standing upon no formality, we all three passed directly to that apartment of which I had had such a bitter experience. I must confess, to my shame, that, as again I entered it and beheld all those objects that were imprinted on my mind so indelibly, I was sensible of a grave uneasiness.

As on the previous day, the duke was seated on his high chair, with the dwarf at his back. At the appearance of his daughter he rose with a sharp exclamation of surprise. He came forward to greet her, and she met him gently with all her anger cooled, and received his embrace with every mark of pleasure.

“But this is most singular,” said the duke, when he had bestowed these marks of his affection. “What do you here, my delightful one? How have you travelled? In what manner have you been accompanied?”

“My lord,” she answered, “I am here of your kingdom’s business. I have travelled upon an old horse I took of the Mother Superior; and I have been accompanied part of the journey by my five wits, and the other part of it by these two honest gentlemen, whom I now present to your lordship’s grace.”

“Oh and soh!” said the duke, after accepting our obeisances with a disapproval he could ill conceal. “This is a very ill and froward matter.”

It alarmed me to see his face grow red and to hear the harsh manner in which he spoke these words. He put his daughter in no fear, however.

“Yes, your lordship,” she said calmly. “Being arrived at the age of eighteen years, and knowing well that a wise and mature mind was needed to direct your affairs, which the old fat man, your lordship’s chief councillor, hath embroiled for so long a season, I deemed it time, being arrived at eighteen years I say, to repair to the service of your lordship.”

I think a great man can seldom have been gravelled so badly as was the duke at these words. He could but open his mouth and gasp.

“But—but—but—” he cried in a splutter, “you leave your convent without permission, you ride alone into dangerous places, you take up with strangers along the road, and you dare—you dare, madam, to bring them here to me! By my hand, madam, this is intolerable. You shall go back to your convent immediately, and you shall be whipped.”

There never was such a staunch glance, I think, as that with which the Countess Sylvia met the petulant anger of her parent.

“This is feeble talk, my lord,” she said boldly. “I have not adventured a five days’ journey upon an old horse of most ridiculous paces to hear such speaking as this. Many rumours have reached me in my convent of what was toward in the world. I have even heard of the design of the infamous King John to turn you forth of this castle, which you and yours, my lord, have held by right of main for four hundred years. Answer me, my lord, is not this so? is not this King John of Castile about to take your manor?”

“Do not speak to me, madam,” said the duke. “You shall go back to your convent at once. And as for these precious villains that you have picked out of some infamous venta, they shall spend the rest of their lives in a prison.”

The angry duke, having directed a glance of the most desperate contempt at the Count of Nullepart and myself, sent the dwarf for Don Luiz, even as he had done on the previous occasion.

“Ods, my life, madam,” he said, “I think you must be mad!”

When that slow-moving, austere, and portentous Don Luiz, who was yet so girt about with arrogance and dignity, appeared in the wake of the natural, it was plain enough that he was no other than that fat man the recollection of whom had moved the little countess to such a deep disgust. As he entered with a grunt and a wheeze, she clenched her hands and looked upon him with the most disdainful effrontery, although she spoke not a word.

“Here is a matter, Luiz; here is a matter,” cried the duke, breaking out into a wail. “Mark yon little venom there; do you mark her? Run away, Luiz; run away from her convent. Do you have her taken back immediately, and she is to be flogged soundly.”

“Your grace shall be obeyed,” said Don Luiz heavily.

“And further, Luiz,” said the old grandee, who apparently was stimulated by the presence of his trusty gentleman-usher, “these two villainous rapscallions whom she hath picked out of some hedge tavern to accompany her, and who, as you see, have had effrontery to beard us in our own apartment, do you see to it, Luiz, that they are kept in a solitary dungeon for the remainder of their lives. Or I put it to you, Luiz—I shall cherish your advice upon this matter—would it be properer to have them hanged at once for such a piece of mischief?”

I know not what were the feelings of the Count of Nullepart, but I have to confess, good reader, that for myself I have seldom been thrown into a greater concern. From the light in which the duke chose to view this affair, our action in venturing to beard him in his own apartment at the instance of a mischievous truant, on so bare a pretext, did indeed savour of folly and presumption. And Don Luiz was fain to take the same view of our conduct as his master, for, after collecting his wits with wonderful solemnity, he answered, “I consider, my lord, you will do well to hang them.”

CHAPTER XV
OF SOME FROWARD PASSAGES BEFORE THE DUKE

“Don Luiz,” said our young mistress, speaking with a sternness that was remarkably dignified, “you will do well to hold your peace. You are now dismissed from that high position which you have occupied so unworthily for I know not how many years. Your emoluments are reduced by one half, and even then, Don Luiz, your fees will be above your services. From this moment I myself, Don Luiz, am to occupy the room of first councillor to his lordship’s grace; for I have to inform you that matters of the greatest instancy are like to be toward, and it will need a bold heart, a firm will, and a ripe judgment to direct his affairs.”

If the duke had been taken aback by the entrance of his daughter, his demeanour could not compare with that of his councillor when assailed by these calm words that were uttered so impressively.

“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, “these are words, madam, these are words. Am I lived to seventy years and three to be browbeat in mine own presence by a rib out of mine own flesh! By my troth, I will have you scourged, madam; I will have you scourged. Take her away, Luiz, or I shall fall into such a passion that I shall say something grievous.”

“My lord,” said the Countess Sylvia, “am I a cook-maid that I should be mentioned in this manner? Have I journeyed five days on an old horse, under the heat of the sun, to serve the grace of your lordship that I should be spoken to rudely by your lordship’s grace?”

“Bah and pooh!” said the duke. “Get you away, you wicked hulks. Go, do you hear me, naughty one! Out of my sight, I say! As for these foul villains by whom thou art accompanied, such a tight string shall be drawn about their throats as shall cause them to fling up their heels in the air.”

The Countess Sylvia, however, was undaunted by the choleric rage of his lordship’s grace. For she had a goodly anger of her own to set before him, which was accompanied by the stamping of her foot and exceeding large turbulent tears.

“Out of my presence, spitfire!” said the duke.

“My lord,” said the little countess, “I leave the presence of your lordship at no command save mine own.”

“Dost thou defy me, rude one?” said the duke. “Ods nick and nack! I will go to a main extremity. Luiz, do you remove her; cast her out, Luiz. Ods my good soul! must I be bearded in mine own presence by a rib out of mine own flesh.”

This starched and dignified grandee had long thrown his ceremonious mien to the wind. He walked up and down his apartment, pishing and tushing, snapping his fingers and almost weeping with anger.

“Dost thou hear me, Luiz? Put her out, I say, put her out! Or wouldst thou have me do it, Luiz, with the reverend hand of mine own paternity?”

Don Luiz approached the little countess warily enough, as though he were not so fond of his task. The proud madam drew herself up into an aspect of the most splendid fierce grandeur.

“Do not touch me, fat man,” she said. “Do not lay so much as a finger upon my gown, or, as I am a person, you shall swing, bulk and everything, from the topmost turret of this castle. From this day I am master here and mistress too.”

The abashed fat man stopped and hesitated and looked at the duke despairingly.

“Luiz, Luiz,” said his master, “why do you not take her by the shoulders and put her out of the room? Or would you have me do it, Luiz, by the might of mine own paternity?”

It was clear, although Don Luiz made no such confession, that he would have preferred that his august master should have put the countess out of the room by the might of his own paternity. But the Lady Sylvia’s baffled parent showed no disposition to come near her; and, fume as he would, there appeared to be nothing in his nature to compel the enforcement of his authority. Finding himself in the imminent danger of defeat, for Don Luiz still remained tardy and unwilling, he had recourse, as was only to be expected of a weak and inferior spirit, to those offenders who were not so well placed to outface his wrath.

“Luiz,” he said, “I would have you summon the guard, and arrest these two cut-throats that madam hath picked out of a hedge tavern; and do you see to it that they hang in a quarter of an hour.”

The gentleman-usher being much better able to execute this order than the former one, made haste to do so.

“My friends,” said our mistress, who in her anger, her defiance, and her turbulence had never looked so adorable, “come to the high ground behind the table near the window. Draw your swords and play them well if you are pressed. But, as I am a person, they shall not dare to touch you. For mark it, and, your lordship’s grace, do you mark it too, if one of these knaves so much as lays a finger against the doublet of my friends, I will slay him with mine own poniard.”

To make good her speech she turned to the dwarf and said in a voice of the highest courage, “Give me your dagger, sirrah.”

Instead of obeying, the dwarf, with a vacuous grin, looked towards the duke for a direction. Before he could withdraw his gaze the countess had struck him on the cheek with the butt of the riding-whip she still bore in her hand.

“Give me your dagger, sirrah,” she repeated in a voice that was full of passion.

The dwarf, a wretched, misshapen hunchback, obeyed her with a scowl and a whimper. At the same moment there arose the measured clank of arms. The Count of Nullepart and myself, acting upon the natural instinct that directed our minds rather than upon the wisdom of our mistress which had yet bade us do so, drew our swords and climbed to the daïs.

Almost as we reached this eminence, Don Luiz came into the room with some half a dozen soldiers, whose swords were also drawn and who wore corslets of steel. At this sight a kind of haze fell across my eyes. Yet such an exaltation came upon my blood as never before had quickened it; and I gripped my weapon as though it had been the waist of a mistress, and awaited the onfall with joy.

“Behind the table, close to the wall,” said the Count of Nullepart in a soft whispering voice which yet was perfectly calm. “Farther by the left a little, that we may play better. Straight at their faces. We shall get nothing out of these plaguy breastplates.”

The Count of Nullepart also, if I am not mistaken, was fallen into my condition. I could hear the ring of joy in his voice. It would seem that here was his moment also. He too seemed to hold his blade like a lover.

As a prologue to the fray, no sooner had the soldiers entered the room and had fallen to attend the duke’s instructions than the Countess Sylvia walked on to the daïs, and in the next moment had come to stand on the table itself, with her whip in one hand, her dagger in the other, and a good sword on either side of her.

From this singular eminence she gazed with an insolent contumely upon the forces that were being marshalled against us.

“Soldiers of the guard,” she said, as though she were speaking to an army, “your bare swords are your peril. His lordship’s grace is no longer your commander. He is an old man and a querulous; a dotard so shrunk in his wits that I hereby depose him. Myself as the mistress to his dominion do appoint myself to the regency. From this moment do I declare myself no less your master than your mistress. Here do I take my stance; here do I enforce my authority; and these virtuous gentlemen that keep at my side are your honourable captains. Sheathe your swords therefore, doff your bonnets, and like honest men do homage to your liege-lady.”

Now, I was never able to learn whether this wonderful speech was given—and you must believe me, reader, when I assure you it was no less wonderful in its mode than in its form—for the behoof of his grace’s soldiers or for that of his grace himself. At least it was not without an effect upon both. The guard looked at the duke in just such a fashion as Don Luiz and the dwarf had done; and he, like the dotard that at heart he was, began to whine and threaten and hurl abuse upon this noble intrepidity, and yet himself to stand irresolute.

“Ods wounds! I do not want to slay the little tiger-cat,” he whined. “Take the dagger from her. You, sirrah, take the dagger from her, but I pray you do not hurt her.”

The bearded warrior upon whom the duke called to execute this command seemed in nowise eager to enact a deed so delicate.

“Stand clear, you paltry ruffian!” said the little countess. “If you so much as touch my sleeve I will stab you.”

In good sooth a proper discretion was necessary. The eminence upon which her ladyship stood and her perfect valiancy rendered it work for a bold man to come near her. Again, there was her dagger to consider, also a keen pair of blades flanking her sacred person one on each side.

It is easy to believe that such a situation was not without its humour. But for the three chief actors in this play, who stood shoulder to shoulder upon the daïs, it was grave indeed.

“Sirrah, sirrah!” cried the duke. “You with your beard under your chin, down with her, I say! Take away her dagger; or must I stand in the presence of insubordination?”

The soldier approached warily under the goad of the duke’s wrath, and came up to our platform, with his mouth open wide like a stuck bear.

“Is there none that will heed me, Luiz?” cried the duke. “Is it come to this: must I conduct mine own business by mine own valiancy? Must I, sore smitten with the infirmity of my seventy years and three, take away this vixenish dagger with this ancient hand?”

“You are stricken in years, my lord,” said his daughter; “you are speaking foolishly. Go you to bed, like a wise old man; the leech shall bleed you; and that fat fellow who is swollen like a goose at Michaelmas, shall read you a psalm.”

“Ods mud!” cried her parent, spluttering himself into a state of incoherency, “will nobody pull her down? I ask you, will nobody pull her down? Will none obey me? Must I do it personally? Ods unicorns! must I correct her with mine own indignation?”

Instead of advancing, however, to do his own business, the duke was content to whine and complain, like an old dog that is wishful to bite, yet is unable. And it was most curious to watch this foiled grandee look first at Don Luiz, his right hand, and then at the soldiers of his guard. But these showed no disposition to help him in his pass. None had the desire to offer violence to their youthful mistress, who had so much more of valour than their aged master.

“Luiz,” cried the duke, “do you fetch that foreign man, that Sirrah Richard Red Dragon. He is the man to serve us. Ods myself! he will have no fear of three halfpence worth of bib and tucker, with a bit of steel to give it effrontery. Ods my good heart! he will not fear a minx and a wanton that is so rude as any jackanapes. Do you tell him to bring his stick along with him, Luiz; I will have her flogged in public for this. Ods my good soul! Luiz, I never was in such a passion before.”

Don Luiz went forth on his new errand with great alacrity.

“You are as weak as a chewed straw, my lord,” said little insolent madam. “Get you to your bed, like a good old man, and I will send you a priest with a fresh, young voice, and he shall sing you an anthem. You have no more valiancy than an old milch cow, my lord. You are as feeble as a gnat under a willow in a wet November. It is well I am come home. I believe your lordship’s grace would deliver up this house to the Castilian the first time he set his hand upon your lattice.”

It is hard to know what reply the duke would have offered to such an onslaught upon his old age, made by one of his own kith. But before he could frame it, in whatever it might consist, that huge man the Englishman entered the room with his sword drawn and snuffing like a tiger.

“If I am upon an errand of good steel,” he said, coming in with a swagger that filled the whole apartment, “I hope there is a proper valiance in mine adversaries, for I am in a humour to cut and thrust, to hack and mutilate.”

“Sirrah Richard Red Dragon,” said the duke, with most perfect dignity, “I would have you pull down that proud hulks off the table there, and I would have you chastise her with severity; and further I would have you seize those two malefactors by whom she is encompassed, and I would have you hang them within a quarter of an hour.”

Sir Richard Pendragon made one or two ferocious passes with his sword before laying this order into execution. He then cast his eyes, which were rolling in a truly terrible manner, towards where we held our ground. But instead of making the horrible onslaught we had been led to expect, he opened his mouth in astonishment. He then turned to gaze at the duke, who stood the picture of calm pride and dignity, and then back again to the no less calm and prideful countess.

“Ods my life! Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the duke, “I am minded to be severe; I will use severity. Pull her down; do not spare her. But I would have thee see to it, good coz, that she do not stab thee.”

In the meantime the English giant was still looking from the old duke to the youthful countess, from the youthful countess to the old duke. At last he threw his sword on the ground, pressed his great hands to his ribs, and broke into such a report of laughter that it rolled round the tall ceiling like the voice of the giant Fierabras.

“God’s tomb!” he roared. “If I do not spit blood I shall never need surgery! If a most desperate fluxion does not surmount my poor brains I am no man. If I do not perish of an overwrought mind I am a dog! By the holy ape of Barbary, I shall laugh till I shed large tears!”

“Ods nig and nog!” cried the duke, resuming his querulous manners. “Sirrah Red Dragon, will you reject me! Will you not do my bidding? Must I, who am old and a parent, pull down a she-wolf and correct her with the hand of mine own indignation? Ods nig and nog! is there no manhood in Spain?”

While the duke continued to fume and splutter in this unworthy fashion, the great English giant, and you must believe me, reader, when I tell you he appeared to be as enormous as the heroes and ogres in the old romances, continued to press on his ribs, and, even as he had himself predicted, to shed veritable tears of laughter. But presently the mien of the Countess Sylvia seemed to pacify this great coarse fellow. For, as she stood gazing from her eminence with majestic looks, small as she was and fragile, she was indeed a figure to touch the heart of a gallant warrior.

“By my hand,” said the Englishman, abating his mirth into a true admiration. “If this is not a piece of true mettle I am a rogue. Why, thou sweet thing, thou art as red in the cheek as a carnation.”

“Sirrah ruffian!” said the little Countess Sylvia, exposing her stiletto; “I would have you ’ware me. I will kill you if you come near.”

“There, hearken to her, hearken to her!” cried the duke. “Did I not say she was a spitfire? Did I not say she was a proud and wicked hulks?”

“Come near thee,” said the English barbarian, “why, thou beautiful thing, thou art a rose, a flower! Thou hast a light in thy eye like a bud in June. I’ve a mind to buss thee for thy prettiness.”

“Is there no manhood abroad in the world?” cried the duke; “will no man pull her down?”

Instead of paying heed to the duke, Sir Richard Pendragon made the little Countess Sylvia a deep obeisance.

“This is the fairest rose in bud I have seen this moon,” he said, laying his hand across his doublet. “By this hand you have my love, pretty titmouse, and your whip and your dagger, they have it too.”

Upon this address a stern and sudden joy flamed in the eyes of the Countess Sylvia.

The English giant, who even from the low ground towered above her, table and all, was now come to stand before her. Without heeding the duke, the soldiers, or Don Luiz, he kept his eyes upon her face, as if enchained by its beauty, while all seemed so much amazed by the audacity of his behaviour in standing without arms within striking distance of her poniard, and yet to address her in such terms, that none moved a step nor dared to interrupt their intercourse.

“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia, “I know not who you are, or whence you come, or what is your virtue, or what is your detriment; but by my two eyes I judge you to be a true man and a valiant warrior. And here I stand the mistress of this castle and the whole of its furniture; and I am prepared to enforce my resolve by power of the sword if the need arise, for I grieve to inform you that my father, his lordship’s grace, hath fallen suddenly so senile in his years, that I am called to be his nurse as well as his daughter; therefore, Sirrah Red Dragon, whoever you may be, I would have you obey my behests. And they are these. Put out those spawn in their steel corslets, put them out, I say, into the antechamber; and then do you take that fat man there, who is so gross as a pig and so round as a barrel, and do you lock him up in an iron cage, and feed him upon husks, until you receive our further advice upon the subject.”

“By the Lord Harry!” cried Sir Richard Pendragon, beaming with joy, “this is as fine loud speaking as ever I heard. By this hand! this is Charlemagne in a kirtle and mutch!”

Indeed, scarcely had the Countess Sylvia spoken to this tenor than this gigantical foreigner, who was as great in his valour as he was in his girth, fell suddenly upon the fellow that was next to him, who, to be sure, was a somewhat puny man-at-arms, picked him up by an ear and a limb, as though he were a truss of fodder, and carried him out of the room bodily. Whereupon, the other warriors, who, like men of the ranks, must have a leader before they can act, now having none—for the duke was impotent before this new affront to his authority, and Don Luiz was too fat in the wits and swollen with base living to appear better than a cypher—knew not whether to offer resistance or to submit. And as it was ever the easier to adopt the latter than the former course, and as their choice in the matter was but small, when Sir Richard Pendragon returned and took up his sword, with the flat of it he drove them before him out of the chamber, like so many hogs along a lane.

CHAPTER XVI
OF THE GRIEVOUS MISHANDLING OF HIS LORDSHIP’S GRACE

You are now to remark, gentle reader, that this beautiful creature, whom three humble courtiers of fortune were about to serve with their faith, had, in addition to a nature of truly noble valiancy, a knowledge of affairs that was highly pertinent, and a wit that was wonderful indeed for one so tender in her years.

So soon as the English giant fell to driving the duke’s men-at-arms before him like sheep, she ordered the Count of Nullepart and myself to leave the daïs. We were advised to take up a new position between the door, Don Luiz, and the duke. And when the Englishman returned with a smile of humour about his mouth, yet breathing somewhat hard with his exercise, the Countess Sylvia addressed her three servants in a low voice.

“Forth of this, my friends. Let the door be secured behind us, so that they cannot break out; and as there is no other, they shall play with their thumbs for an hour while we prepare them a strategy.”

In the pursuit of this piece of wisdom, the four of us slipped into the antechamber, while the foolish old duke, who had appeared utterly to fail under the stress of these affairs, was still using so much querulousness to his trusty gentleman-usher that he did not observe the latest device of his daughter. Thus was he none the wiser for our escape, nor for the project that was presently to be set afoot for his undoing.

In the antechamber were the six soldiers who had been so mishandled by one purposeful man of brawn. They stood in a group, regarding us with unintelligent goatlike eyes. Her ladyship turned upon them, and said scornfully, “Do you go and summon the smiths out of the armoury, you paltry knaves. Send them here with their tools immediately.”

She then commanded the Count of Nullepart, Sir Richard Pendragon, and myself to stand with drawn swords before the door leading to the duke’s apartment, so that neither he nor his councillor should pass out before it was sealed.

“Why, madam, these precautions?” asked the Count of Nullepart.

“It is my intention to draw out every fang that this old bear hath in his chaps,” said the Countess Sylvia.

“How so, and why so, madam? Do you propose to wall up your old father, his lordship’s grace, and do him to death with good Don Paunch, his trusty fat man?”

“You ought to be wise, sir; you ask many questions,” said madam imperiously. “But perhaps it were not amiss if I unfolded my design to my good followers.”

“That is well spoke, thou sweet bud of the rose garden,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “Let us hear whether thy dear little poll be a proper comrade to thy valiance.”

“Stand you to the door then, friends, and this is my design. While his lordship’s grace is stewing and sweating in durance with that fat fellow, and braying like an old mule for his liberty, I will have every one of his three hundred men-at-arms answer to the roster. I will issue a proclamation, by which they shall learn that in the person of their mistress they have a new master; and each shall take the oath of his fealty in his new service. And I will cause the master armourer and the master treasurer to do the same, for I have to tell you, my friends, that henceforward this castle is to have only one generalissimo.”

“Marry and amen!” said the Count of Nullepart, bowing low before her.

“By my hand!” said the English giant, imitating the Count of Nullepart in this particular with as much grace as his inches and his nation could arrange, “Harry of England breathes again in this small thing. My sweet pretty ladyship, you have a right Pendragon at your elbow, under whose doublet flows the blood of kings. And if thy performance, perfect queen of the roses that thou art, be in anywise equal to thy disposition, one of these sunny mornings they shall crown thee Queen of all the Spains.”

“No, my good Sirrah Red Dragon,” said this beautiful creature, with a natural dignity that nought could surpass, “I ask no more than my right; I covet no dominion above my own. But that will I keep, God helping me! There is like to come a bitter enemy at the gate; yet when he rides up the hill and winds his trumpet, he shall find me within.”

“If there is not statecraft and good politics behind that cheek of damask,” cried the Englishman, “I am a micher and a thief in the night.”

“Madam,” said I, feeling the same enthusiasm, “Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas will yield you no lack in your affairs. They have a strong hand to guide them, which they appear to need, but upon the honour of my father, Don Ygnacio, and under the gracious permission of your ladyship, I will not forswear your service while blood flows in my veins.”

Hardly had I spoken than Sir Richard Pendragon began to roar like a heifer.

“That name again!” he cried. “Ods life I can feel a fluxion! A surgeon, or I perish!”

“Don Miguel,” said the Countess Sylvia with the gravest simplicity, and paying no heed whatever to this unmannerly outcry of the English barbarian, “I do need your good service, and I cherish it.”

Upon these words, spoken as became a princess, I fell to my knee and saluted the hand of this valiant and noble lady.

“If I am not blind like a newt, this is my former squire that ran away from me,” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “How came you again in this parish, youthful varlet? But as I am a good Christian man, I am glad to see thee. My young companion, I prithee, take my hand upon it.”

Although I gave him a smile of courtesy, I did not accede to his request. For I had a lively recollection of his hand.

The arrival of the smiths put a term to our speeches. As soon as they began to seal up the door with screws and nails, the duke and Don Luiz, immured within, were moved to try it. Finding that with all their shaking and rattling they could not come out, they set up a most desperate hullabaloo.

“Their throats will wear a little sooner than this honest wood,” said our mistress sternly.

She then bade the smiths cease their hammering while she spoke his lordship’s grace and his fat companion.

“My lord,” she cried in her strong and clear young speech, “abate your old foolishness for the space of one minute. I do but intend to lock up your lordship’s grace for the term of two hours, while I have deliverance made of your authority. I would have you play a game at mumchance with your trusty fat man, while I muster your three hundred men-at-arms and swear them to my service. If your lordship’s grace will not babble so, and you will request that fat fellow whose bulk is so large as a bag, who is so undecent in his appearance as any sow that grouts in a kennel, if you will request him not to brawl so much, you will be able to pass the time of day agreeably, and without that excitement that is so inclement to the mind.”

“You speak like a physician, madam,” said the Count of Nullepart. “Your words are as choice as though you held a diploma from the College of Surgeons.”

“Aye, she speaks shrewd,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, wagging his beard in cordial admiration of this beautiful and masterful thing. “She is fit to advise a kingdom; one of these days she shall speak from a throne to her respectful parliament. My dear and intimate friend, the Dowager-Empress and Queen-Mother of the Austrian nation, never spoke better sooth than she; never spoke it with a better use of tongue and of language; never spoke it with a more subtle penetration of wit or a more lofty and wise demeanour. I speak thee fair, sweet ladyship and countess, and he who addresseth thee hath the blood of kings under his doublet, don’t forget that. By my sword, if thou wert but of the English nation, I would ask thine hand in matrimony, thou lovely chit, and Betty Tucker, a good wench who can handle a tankard as well as another at the sign of the Knight in Armour public-house, next the town of Barnet, in the kingdom of Great Britain, should hang herself in her shift or strangle herself in her garters.”

Much of that which followed of our conversation next the door of the duke’s apartment was drowned by the incessant beating and brawling upon the panel of those behind it. But the wood was staunch, and already the smiths had the most of it screwed up. When they had finished their task, and the Countess Sylvia was assured that his lordship’s grace and his fat companion could not possibly come out, she dismissed the smiths, and sent for the captain of the guard.

“Caballero,” she said to this worthy, “I would have you assemble immediately our three hundred men-at-arms. Have them drawn up in line of battle in the great courtyard, and let them appear in full accoutrement. For I am about to speak to them, and to swear each mother’s son to fealty upon the sword.”

“She speaks like a queen!” cried the English giant, with a roar of delight. “Betty Tucker, if thine ear doth not burn with jealousy as thou drawest that pot of small ale for that low jack pudding with a ring in his lug, thou art no true woman. Thou little knowest, good Bet o’ the Bib and Tucker—a weak jest, yet of mine own contrivance—thou little knowest the imminent danger of our banns that were asked five years come Maundy Thursday at St. Clement’s Church in London City.”

“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia with a sternness that cowed the English barbarian, “cease your babblements. You are a big man, but you talk too much. Accompany me to the master armourer and help inhabit me in a corslet and a steel cap; and if you will not use the same bulk of language that you have of inches, you shall choose me a good honest blade that I may bear in mine hand.”

“By cock,” cried Sir Richard Pendragon, “she speaks as shrewishly as Betty when she hath been drinking cognac.”

The English giant, who might have borne the little Countess Sylvia within the sleeve of his jerkin, accompanied her to the armoury with a spreading yet withal something of a crestfallen air.

When they had passed the Count of Nullepart sat himself down on a settle, and with a face twisted with mirth took forth his instrument and strove to improvise a melody. Three times did he essay to do so and three times did he fail.

“I am laughing myself into my tomb,” said he. “That is why I am so thin and frail, my dear Don Miguel. All my days I have been cursed with a passion for laughter, and it wears me to the bone. Oh, my good soul! do you not hear his lordship’s grace beating his loud tattoos upon yonder panel?”

“Do you still believe, dear Count of Nullepart, that our adorable one will evanish into the air?”

“Yes, my friend, so far as she is any concern of ours. That English giant will carry her off.”

“Never, Sir Count, as I am a caballero. He is a barbarian, an uncivil Goth, a rude fellow. Besides, hath she not already punished the presumption of his speech?”

“She is a woman, dear Don Miguel, and remark me, she will do something whimsical. You and I, my dear, are men of the first ton, as they say at Paris, but this barbarous giant, this ruffling English swaggerer, is already the apple of that fine bright eye. Mark me, dear Don Miguel, he is the hero. Did she ask you to choose a piece for her head at the armoury and a sword for her hand; did she ask me? Not so, my dear friend. She asks this gigantic island Goth, this swaggerer. And there you have the whole of the female woman. Her mind resembles nothing so much as a game of dice. None shall dare to predict what is turned up in it: the double six at the first cast, at the second the double one.”

The Count of Nullepart had scarcely got through this prologue to his philosophy when little madam, his thesis, returned with a proud walk, wearing a steel cap that was so big that it fitted down over her ears, a corslet of the same complexion that fell down over her knees, while in her small hand was a piece of fine Toledo craftsmanship which yet could not be called too delicate for a lady. How she could stagger along at all under these accoutrements was a matter for surprise. Yet not only did she do so, but also she contrived to invest her gait with its natural dignity. At her side walked Sir Richard Pendragon, as near seven feet as no matter, while the peak of the little Countess Sylvia’s helmet appeared to ascend hardly above his leg. Yet, as in accordance with the Count of Nullepart’s prediction, they already seemed mighty close and pleasant with one another.

“My friends,” said the Lady Sylvia, “I have duly appointed Sirrah Richard Red Dragon to the high office of master of my horse, captain-generalissimo of my three hundred men-at-arms, and captain of my guard, at an emolument of two thousand maravedis a month, including his victual.”

“Three thousand, madam and ladyship, under your gracious pleasure and permission,” said the Englishman.

“Did I say three, Sirrah Red Dragon? Dear, my good soul! my memory is weak. Well, Sirrah Red Dragon, three it shall be.”

“To be disbursed in advance, worshipful madam and ladyship.”

“So be it, Sirrah Red Dragon. Your first emolument shall be paid to you so soon as the master treasurer hath delivered to me the keys of the coffers of his lordship’s grace.”

“And I crave the permission of your ladyship to suggest that sack be included in the terms touching the victual.”

“Sack shall be included, sirrah.”

“Unlimited and without stint, madam, I trow and trust, and to be delivered if I knock once on the buttery door.”

“Yes, indeed, good Sirrah Red Dragon, that is quite understood.”

The giant showed his teeth in a grin of broad humour and smacked his lips complacently.

“Is there no post of honour in your household, madam, for the least of your servants?” asked the Count of Nullepart in his softest accent.

“You will be keeper of accounts, sir, and also I will appoint you to the mastership of the treasury.”

“I thank you, madam, and make you my service,” said the Count of Nullepart.

“I have a mind to be master of the treasury myself, brother,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, pricking up his ears. “You shall be captain of the guard, brother, and I will take upon myself to hold the keys of the mint.”

“Would you traffic in your office, Sirrah Red Dragon?” said his mistress sternly. “I have a mind to remove you from the position of master of my horse, and reduce your emolument by a thousand maravedis.”

A threat of this gravity had an instant effect upon the Englishman, who fell to silence and the stroking of his beard; yet it was clear above all things he yearned to hold the keys of the mint.

Our mistress now led the way to the great courtyard of the castle, where the three hundred men-at-arms were to be assembled. How she contrived to walk ten paces in her habiliments I know not, for, in addition to the steel with which her slight person was encumbered, her long riding skirt trailed over her heels.

However, before she came to the courtyard she must needs dispatch Sir Richard Pendragon for a milk-white courser, if such a steed was to be found in the stables of his lordship’s grace; or failing a quadruped of that chaste hue, the master of the horse was to procure one as near to that condition as he could discover.

“Statecraft, dear lady, statecraft!” said the Count of Nullepart with an arch smile. “I perceive you are determined to present to your warriors the appearance of the goddess of battles.”

Sir Richard Pendragon being unable to discover a courser of milk-white hue was fain to lead a palfrey of a dubious dapple colour into the austere presence of his mistress. She directed a glance upon it of the most instant disapproval.

“Is there no worthier thing than this, Sirrah Red Dragon?” she demanded haughtily.

“None, good countess, ladyship, and madam.”

“Wherefore, sirrah, wherefore?” she demanded, beating her sword on her boot in a threatful manner. “You are the master of our horse, are you not, and you keep no milk-white courser for our use? How so, Sirrah Horse Master, wherefore and why?”

“Under your ladyship’s good favour,” said the giant humbly, “your good Dick, an old honest fellow, hath not been in his office more than twenty minutes.”

“Answer my question, sirrah,” stormed his mistress. “Why is there no milk-white courser for my use?”

Sir Richard Pendragon plucked at his beard furiously, and directed a sidelong look at the Count of Nullepart, who stood very upright and gazing before him as solemnly as an owl in a cold evening.

“I have the greatest mind, Sirrah Red Dragon, do you mark me,” said the Countess Sylvia, “to proceed on foot to swear my three hundred men-at-arms. I have the greatest mind, I say, to proceed on foot. This is no milk-white courser you have brought me; it is the colour of mud. Am I one of a low condition, Sirrah Red Dragon, that I should repair to meet my honest lieges on a horse that is the colour of mud?”

“Under your ladyship’s good favour,” said the giant modestly, “this matter shall be rectified. I will procure a courser for you that shall be as white as the driven snow. But you cannot have for asking, good ladyship and madam, as we English say; therefore your good Dick, an old honest fellow and a lover of sherris, must first hold a draft on the treasury of your ladyship. The which, as this old honest fellow submits duteously, the which would not be necessary were he entitled to hold the keys of your ladyship’s treasury, as becomes his true merit and his gentle nurture.”

“Peace, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress. “We will attend you in council after a while.”

The weight of her accoutrements rendered it necessary to lift the Countess Sylvia to the saddle, and there was almost a brawl among her three devoted followers before this could be arranged. The Count of Nullepart had the most address, the English barbarian had the most power, and I myself, if I may make bold to say so, had the most tenacity. Yet in the end, I believe, each one of us could claim a share in this courteous operation. The subject of this attention, although mishandled in some sort, yet retained a superb dignity and composure through it all; and so far was she from visiting this procedure with a reproof, that it did not seem to afford her the least displeasure.

In the great patio of the castle it was a glorious sight to see the duke’s three hundred men-at-arms ranged around in a single file. The bright sun wantoned brilliantly upon their arms and breastplates, and when the Countess Sylvia rode into their midst, almost obscured in armour except for the tip of her chin, the tip of her nose, a piece of a damask cheek, and two clear and masterful eyes that glanced from under their steel canopy with the brightness of the sword she bore in her hand, they raised a cry from their honest throats. For they had seen enough to be aware that beauty and genius reigned in that proud mien. She took her place in their midst with the Count of Nullepart, Sir Richard Pendragon, and Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas beside her with drawn swords. Such a flashing and noble glance as she directed along each row could never before have met these men-at-arms.

“Sirrah Red Dragon,” she said, “do you remove my headpiece that I may speak them better.”

When the English giant lifted the steel canopy off her ears, and these warriors, for the most part mercenaries, beheld so much beauty and disdain, they raised another cry in her honour, for indeed there never was a more superb thing.

“Lieges and virtuous bearers of my sword,” she said in her clear and spreading speech, “from this day I am your captain. I will lead ye truly through all the strait places. When the culverin bellows, the caliver barks, and the good Toledo blades flash and clang together, you will find me on my milk-white courser in the forefront of the battle, vindicating mine own right with mine own puissance. There is a great work toward, for our cousin John, the rude Castilian prince, bids us deliver this fair castle into his covetous hand. But I do tell thee, my honest lieges, it shall not be so. I have good servants; they shall strike shrewd blows; and if the rude Castilian enters this castle, if enter he must, he shall come in chains as a captive, or there shall not be a stick or a stone or a breathing soul to give him welcome.”

At this moment the English giant standing at her side raised his bonnet, adorned with a great plume, on the point of his sword, and cried out in a voice that drowned everything: “These be words, these be words! ’Tis queenly speaking! Give it tongue, friends and rascals! Let the little queen’s majesty know that ye heed.”

In his own great voice this mad fellow led their shouts.

“I thank you, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress, “and, my honest lieges, I say to you marry and amen. That ye will make true service I see by your shining glances, but I would have you swear your fealty in the olden manner upon this good sword. For I would have you to know that my father, his lordship’s grace, fell into a strange senility a twelvemonth since; there is such a distemper in his wits that he can no longer ride over his dominion. His old eye, which should be an eagle’s to look proud at the sun, now watereth readily on a small occasion. There is no virtue in his mind; his heart hath not the constancy to make him bold before an adversary. This rude Castilian prince, this wicked king, would override him as easily as he would a plain of mustard. Do you mark me, my lieges, his lordship’s grace is now a figure for your tears. He is a pitiful old man, a babbler of nothings, his mind is vanity. Therefore, my lieges, he and his trusty fat man, whose ribs are larded like butter, and who is so slow in his mind as a snail, will speak ye no more. From this day I am your duke and captain, your liege lord and liege lady. I will lead ye against the Castilian host, and if we do not prevail we will fall together with our swords in our hands.”

“Again, again, brothers, give it tongue!” cried the English giant, waving his plumed hat on the point of his sword, and leading the soldiers in their lusty cheers.

“Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress, when their cries had subsided, “I would have you cause all these good honest men defile before us, that they may be sworn upon our sword.”

“Would it not be properer, your majesty,” said the English giant, with a dangerous light of admiration in his eye, “if you first made them acquainted with their new captain-generalissimo, the captain of the guard and master of the horse, whose emoluments amount to the not inconsiderable sum of four thousand maravedis a month?”

“You speak sooth, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia; “I will do so.”

Again their respectfulness attended her while she recommended Sir Richard Pendragon to their notice in another clear and ringing speech.

“A worshipful knight, a true warrior—”

“—And the blood of kings under his doublet, an it please your majesty. I pray you, out of regard for virtue, to let them know that.”

The Countess Sylvia having condescended to inform her vassals of this fact, together with many others that the English giant interpolated into her discourse, somewhat to her impatiency, on matters touching his many and surprising deeds by sea and land, the magnificence of his talents and his ancestry, and diverse things of a like character, he was able at last to bring himself to do her bidding. And you must believe me, reader, it was one of the bravest sights in the world to see these fierce men-at-arms, clad in bright steel, defile before the palfrey of their mistress, and swear their devotion upon the good sword she held so staunchly in her hand.

CHAPTER XVII
OF OUR ATTENDANCE IN COUNCIL UPON A GREAT MATTER

When at last this gallant function had come to an end, and madam’s servants and retainers had been duly sworn and dismissed with goodwill, and even enthusiasm, upon their side, and a deal of majesty upon hers, she and her three chief officers—although for one of them, by name Don Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, neither emolument nor employ had been found up to this present—repaired from the heat of the sun to the coolness of a chamber within the castle to partake of wine and other refreshment.

“An it please you, madam, it might not come amiss,” said the Count of Nullepart, “if in my capacity of master of the treasury I ventured to propose that his lordship’s grace and his trusty fat man be disinterred from their present situation, which, saving the presence of your ladyship, may not be without its ignominy.”

“That is well spoken, friend,” said the Countess Sylvia. “Page. Where is this page of ours? What, have we no page? Come hither, page! Page, go you to the master armourer, and bid him, as he esteems his place, to send his smiths immediately to unseal the door of his lordship’s grace.”

“And of his trusty fat man,” said the Count of Nullepart.

“And of his trusty fat man,” said our mistress; “although that fat man is so foolish as a dish of butter.”

“Touching my emoluments,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, eating his meat almost as grossly as he did in the inn; “touching my emoluments, countess, madam, and ladyship, it has entered my mind that it would accord with my merit if in addition to my other honours I received the more signal one of mastership of your ladyship’s treasury.”

“Peace, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said his mistress sternly; “and do you endeavour to eat your roast pig like a Christian gentleman. Endeavour, sirrah, to imitate the courteous delicacy in his feeding of the worshipful Count of Nullepart. But peace, I say, for I would engage the officers of my household upon a great affair. This castle is in peril. I do fear that the rude Castilian and all his men will soon be knocking on the gate. Would you have me dig pits and lay snares, Sirrah Red Dragon, for you are our man of war? We have but three hundred men-at-arms, and our villainous cousin will reckon his host by the thousand.”

“By my hand,” said the Englishman, “this is a kettle of fish.”

He fell again into the habit of stroking his chin, and it was remarkable to notice how a certain licence that was formerly to be seen in his demeanour was suddenly found in it no more. “I am fain to observe, madam,” said he with his new gravity, that seemed to have worked a miracle within him, “that here is a pretty work to be done.”

“Done it shall be, Sirrah Red Dragon,” said the Countess Sylvia. “If we spend every drop of our blood and that of every liege that is pledged to our service, the Castilian shall not enter here; do you mark me, sirrah!”

“We must address ourselves,” said the Englishman, “to providing this garrison with arms and ordnance, sack and sugar, for I am sore to believe we shall have to stand a siege. Madam, we must look to our provision without delay, if we are to throw the gauntlet down.”

“It shall be done, sirrah; this Castilian shall have a welcome. How long, bethink you, sirrah, can we hold this place with our three hundred men-at-arms?”

“Two years, madam, with sufficient munitions of war. But these are to obtain.”

“To-morrow,” said the Countess Sylvia, who, considering that she knew no more of the world than her convent had taught her, showed a great talent for affairs, “the hinds shall drive in the cattle from our outlying farms; and arms and every sort of munition shall be purchased so long as our treasury can provide them.”