“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.