“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.