"Spit again!" said Quentin, angrily, as he conceived there was some sarcasm concealed in the word.
"It is a fable. Listen while I read to you what, I suppose, you never heard before."
And, opening his book, which proved to be the little pocket edition of the quaint old literary fables of Don Tomaso de Yriarte, he rapidly read over the story of the "Spit and Espada."
"Once upon a time there was a rapier of Toledo; a better was never seen in the Alcazar, or tempered in the waters of the Tagus. After having been in many battles, and belonging to many brave cavaliers, by one of the vicissitudes of fortune which lay the greatest low, it came at length to lie forgotten in the corner of a scurvy posada.
"There, desirous in vain to breathe a vein and flash once more in battle, it lay long unnoticed and covered with rust, till, by command of her master, a greasy kitchen-wench stuck it through a large capon, and thus forced that which had been a rapier of high renown, arming the hands of the noble and valiant, to degenerate into a mere spit!
"About this time, it likewise chanced that a clownish paisano, by the sport of fortune became a hidalgo at court, and as he must needs have a sword, he repaired to the booth of an espadero, who no sooner saw the kind of customer he had to deal with, than he knew that anything having a hilt and scabbard would do, and so desired him to call next day.
"Against the time of his coming he furbished up an old spit that lay in his kitchen, and sold it to our courtier as Tisona, the very same blade with which the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar made the Arabian Khalifs skip at Cordova, and the Moorish dogs at Jaen. Hence we see that the innkeeper was a very great fool, and the espadero a very great rogue."
"And what am I to understand by all this?" asked Quentin, who with some impatience had permitted the Spaniard to read thus far.
"Simply, senor, that though by the vicissitudes of fortune, I seem a spit at present, I may prove in the end to be a good Toledo blade; for we should never judge solely by appearances;" and pointing to a hole in his sheepskin zamarra, he laughed and added, "Farewell—I go towards the mountains."
"And I towards Spain: I have but two wishes—to reach Herreruela, and to avoid the French in Valencia."