"Friend, I am from Barbadillo, but I would rather belong to the country of the Moors than to that wretched village, which, without doubt, God cursed as a punishment for the strife between the Infantes of Lara, which commenced in it. Then she, you say, who caused all this row is from Barbadillo? I swear she couldn't be from any other place."
This agreement in their views gained for Bartolo the sympathy of the soldier.
"What! you know nothing of the cause of the fight?" said the latter.
"You will please me much by relating to me what took place; I know you will do so, for you are more polite than this vulgar crew," replied the peasant.
"Then you must know," said the soldier, "that two servitors of the Cid are in love with a girl from Barbadillo, and they have fought and cudgelled each other as the result of a dispute as to which of them should have her."
"I swear that she must be no great things of a girl when she throws eyes at both of them. The women of Barbadillo, my friend, are just that kind; there's the daughter of old mother Valeta, who, they say, fell in love with four."
"According to that, comrade, you should not choose a wife from that place."
"It is from it that I have mine; but I have come with her to live in Burgos, for I am very fond of knowing what is going on in the world, such as one can learn who lives in a city, and I go every day to the forge of Master Iñigo to hear the news that's going round. My wife goes with me, though I find it hard to get her to do so, but wish to polish her up a bit, and it happened the other day that a knave of a squire began to make love to her while I was talking to Iñigo, and she told me, for I saw nothing of it, that she broke the fellow's teeth with a blow of her fist You see by that what an honest woman my wife is."
"Honesty be hanged!"
"What do you mean, friend?"