“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,—