The rough voice of the landlord was now calling Casilda lustily. But the little wench would not leave me until she had brought some oats for Babieca’s breakfast, which otherwise the honest horse was like to go without. And even as she left the stable at last, crying, “Go with God, señor; my prayers and my constant heart are yours forever,” she ran back again to whisper with the most urgent instancy, “Be wary, señor, of that foreign man. I would not have you trust him at all. He is much less of a caballero than he speaks, and very much more of a thief.”
I had to reprove the little quean for this counsel, lest I should prove untrue to my master’s service. And although by this time the innkeeper was promising to visit her with a cudgel if she did not come to him directly, she ran back to me yet again, jumped into Babieca’s stirrup, just like a cat, and snatched another embrace, declaring that in spite of every innkeeper in the world, her leave of me should be one of kindness.
These were almost my final passages at this inn, since in less than twenty minutes my new master and I were breasting our way to the south. Yet I mourn to tell you, reader, that as soon as we were in the saddle there came the bitter curses of the landlord to our ears. Neither of us had requited him with so much as a peseta in return for our benefits. But in this matter I must declare Sir Richard Pendragon to be by far the more reprehensible. He had dwelt full twenty nights under the roof-tree of this inn, whereas I had dwelt but one. Besides in his pouch was the wherewithal, but I regret to state that the inclination was not in his heart; whereas with me, as I will leave you to suppose, the contrary was the true state of the case.
Indeed, I learned that the Englishman had a conviction of a deep-seated sort upon this subject. For when I heard the innkeeper’s outcry I felt unable to suffer it, and begged my companion to make me a loan of the amount of my score, that my debt at least might be expunged. To the which he replied that I appeared to have an incredible ignorance of human nature, and the more particularly that part of it that included innkeepers. He said he would prefer to cast his money in the sea than put it to such misuse.
“To rise a little earlier than an innkeeper,” said he, “is a civil practice and has the sanction of Heaven. I would have you to know, Miguel, that my hair has been bleached before its season for consideration of the poor souls that this monstrous race has brought to ruin. Young men, old men, virgins, widows, matrons, small children of both sexes—oh! I tell you, Miguel, to think of this breeds a dreadful sickness within me. I will always rise, please Heaven, a little earlier than an innkeeper, for this iniquitous tribe has been the sworn enemy of my family for a thousand years. Was it not the landlord of ‘The Rook and Flatfish’ in the Jewry, a little bald fellow with an eye like a kite, that mulcted my revered ancestor, Sir Andrew Pendragon, in the sum of two shillings and ninepence—think on it, good Don!—for a pint of sack and a gurnet when the true price was never more than twelvepence halfpenny in a time of famine. And this is only to mention one matter out of an hundred in that sort. Oh, believe me, Miguel, we Pendragons have suffered miserably at the hands of innkeepers all through the course of history; but if the present wearer of this name does not redress a few of these injustices, call him not a true man, not a good fellow, but a rogue on whom the sun shines by courtesy.”
I was glad to find that Sir Richard Pendragon had these deep reasons for his action in this affair. Evidently he had meditated to a purpose upon the subject, and in the name of his own race, of which he was the last representative, was determined to be avenged upon its hereditary foes.
As we continued our way across the sandy plain or desert, the heat grew so severe that in the afternoon we were compelled to seek the shade of the first tree that offered. Under this pleasant canopy of leaves Sir Richard flung himself prone, with his enormous length stretched out to the full, and a kerchief laid across his face to defend it from the flies. He soon fell to snoring in a furious manner. No repose came to me, however, for my strange situation ran in my mind continually, turning my thoughts into a queer sort of vertigo which left me uncertain whether to be of good courage or to yield to despair.
CHAPTER IX
OF OUR ROAD TO THE SOUTH
When my companion awoke the sun was a little lower and we were able to pursue our journey. He discovered himself to be of a cheerful disposition, with a nimble fancy, and, for one of his nation, something of wit. He had also a lively imagination which on occasion grew quite delectable. Yet, being called to hold a subordinate place in his company, he allowed his humour to assume so rough an edge towards my country as was hardly to be borne by a true Iberian. He passed much of his time in reviling the land of Spain, swearing at everything in it, and drawing an unworthy comparison between this peninsula of ours and his distant England, for which I had his word that as a place of abode it was somewhat more desirable than paradise. Yet every now and again, just as I would be falling to consider how I could possibly suffer him further, he would break out into some odd history of his surprising deeds in many lands. And then to hear him speak of these adventures in his arch fashion, you would have thought such a valiant person had never walked the earth since Ruy Diaz.
That he was a man of a signal talent was published in his mien; that he was one of the first swordsmen of the age I had had the proof; yet I had but to attend his talk for half an hour in patience and approval, and with a regular nodding of the head, than he would be so carried beyond all latitude by the glamour of his own ideas, that he would ask me to believe that since he had been to Africa the Arabs and other dark men of that nation no longer addressed their prayers to the moon, but to one whom, he said, with a modest side-look, must remain without a name.