It was said in that Castilian village that Sancho had loved Madame Isabella, D'Alvimar's mother, and even that she had not been indifferent to his passion. In this way they explained the attachment of that taciturn and morose man for a cold and haughty youth, who treated him, not as a valet properly so-called, but as an unintelligent inferior.
Thus Sancho, meditative or brutish, passed his life grooming horses and keeping his master's weapons sharp and bright. The rest of the time he played, slept or mused, avoiding familiarity with the other servants, whom he looked upon as his inferiors, and forming no intimacies, for he was suspicious of everybody, ate little, drank little, and never looked a person in the face.
D'Alvimar dressed himself therefore and went out to inspect his surroundings, although it was hardly daylight.
The manor house looked upon a small pond, from which a broad moat issued, to return to it at another point after making the circuit of the buildings, which consisted, as we have said, of a conglomerate mass of architecture of several periods.
1st. An entirely new white pavilion, small in size, covered with slates—a great luxury in a province where even tiles were rare—and crowned with a double mansard roof with carved spandrels adorned with balls.[11]
2d. Another pavilion, very old but completely restored, with a roof of oaken tiles, and resembling certain Swiss chalets in shape. This building, which contained the kitchens, offices and guest chambers, was arranged after the fashion of the wild old days of unrest. It had no outer door, and could be entered only through the other buildings; its windows looked on the courtyard, and its façade, turned toward the fields, had no other openings than two small square holes in the gable, like two suspicious little eyes in a silent face.
3d. A prism-shaped tower with an ogival door of delicate workmanship; the tower had a slated roof, also pentagonal, and surmounted by a belfry and a slender weather-vane. This tower contained the only staircase in the château, and connected the old and new buildings.
Other low structures attached to the main pile stood on the edge of the moat, and were occupied by the indoor servants.
The courtyard, with its well in the centre, was surrounded by the château, the pond, another building of a single story, with mansards and stone balls, used for stables, hunting equipments and visitors' servants; and lastly, by the entrance tower, which was smaller and less beautiful than that at La Motte-Seuilly, but was flanked by a wall pierced with loop-holes for falconets, covering the approaches to the bridge.
This trivial fortification was sufficient because of the two moats: the first around the courtyard, wide and deep, with running water; the second around the poultry-yard, marshy and stagnant, but protected by stout walls.