"Undoubtedly, monsieur."
"I believe he is every inch a true soldier; and were he here, would be welcome to share the contents of my sabre-tache; but as he is not, we will divide them honestly at the kettle-drum head. Here, you see, is a roast fowl, famously stuffed with sage and garlic, which yesterday afternoon I carried off from the dinner-table of a fat canon of Torbiscoso, when just about to carve, and very much aghast the padre looked when I seized it unceremoniously. Here also is a bottle of pomard,—rare stuff, as you will find. I took it out of D'Erlon's holsters not above four hours ago. He always keeps a bottle in one, and a pistol in the other. A knowing old campaigner, ventre St. Gris! And now, since you have reminded me of the sabre-tache, let us to luncheon."
The poniard and the fowl were shared together, and had any stranger beheld them as they jogged along, he would never have imagined that they had been engaged in mortal strife an hour before.
"Ah, this horrible garlic! the taste of it would madden a Parisian chef de cuisine," observed De Mesmai. "I drink to the health of senor, the reverend canon of Torbiscoso, who has provided for us this especial good luncheon. Come, my friend, you do not drink; you are as melancholy as if you had lost your love, while I am as merry as if I had just buried my wife. But why should I be cast down in spirits? The old count cannot do without me, and will soon get me exchanged; he might as well lose his head as Maurice de Mesmai. I save him a world of trouble by drinking his wine, smoking his cigars, making up his despatches, in which I take especial care that my name is always duly commended to the notice of the Emperor. I study the localities for camps, and always make them in the neighbourhood of convents. A-propos of convents: I love better to capture and sack them than any thing else. 'Tis such delightful hide-and-seek sort of work, to pull the fair garrison from the nooks and niches where they hide from us. I have had a score of nuns across this very saddle-bow; and, but for your cursed interruption,—excuse me, monsieur,—would by this time have had the abbess of the Jarciejo convent. An immensely fine creature, upon my honour, with a neck and bust beautiful enough to turn the heads of messieurs their eminences the cardinals. A glorious creature, in fact, and as kind a one as may be met with on a long day's march. I had marked her for a prize, and D'Erlon had never dared to say me nay; otherwise he would have had to provide himself with another aide."
De Mesmai seemed to have recovered that buoyancy of temper so natural to Frenchmen, and he chatted on in this gay and unconnected manner, and sung snatches of military and tavern songs until they arrived, when evening was approaching, at Villa Macia, where it was necessary that they should halt for the night. Here they received information that Sir Rowland Hill, with the troops returning from Almarez, had passed through two days before. In so small a village there was no alcalde to order them a billet, and no inn at which they could procure one otherwise; and while standing in the street, irresolute how to act, they were surrounded by a crowd of swarthy villagers, who greeted Ronald with many a hearty viva! but regarded the disarmed Frenchman with louring looks of hatred and hostility, to which he replied by others of defiance and contempt. El cura, the rector or curate of the place, a reverend-looking old churchman, with a bald head, a few grey hairs, and a wrinkled visage, approached them with his shovel-hat in his hand, and invited them to partake of the shelter afforded by his humble roof, to which the Gaul and the Briton were alike welcome. The horses were accommodated in an out-house behind the cottage, while the curate introduced his guests into his best apartment,—a room floored with tiles, which had just been cooled by the application of a water-sprinkler. Nets of onions, oranges, and innumerable bunches of grapes hung from the rude rafters of the roof, waving in the fresh evening breeze which blew through the open window. Drawings of various kinds, particularly landscapes, adorned the walls of the room, in which, if poverty was every where apparent, there was an extreme air of neatness and cleanliness, not often to be met with in houses of such a class in Spain.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CURATE'S STORY.
"Loose me, sire! and ill betide thee!
Curse upon thee! let me go!
Wert thou other than my father,
Heavens! I would smite thee low!"
The Cid: a Spanish Romance.
"Te Deum laudamus! we shall have a rest at last!" exclaimed De Mesmai. "I thought I had forgotten my Latin; and yet my old rogue of a tutor rubbed it hard into me with a tough rod." He clattered through the room with his heavy jackboots and jangling spurs clanking on the floor; and seating himself in the curate's easy chair, stretched out his legs, and half closing his eyes, contemptuously surveyed the place. He threw his heavy casque on the table, crushing the leaves of a large bible, which el cura had been reading.
"Diable! my head is ringing like a kettledrum with the violence of that unlucky stroke. Monsieur, the basket-hilts of your Scottish regiments are confoundedly heavy, and their fluted blades give most uncomfortable thrusts," said De Mesmai, passing his hand over his round bullet head and thick and black curly hair, which clustered around a bold high forehead. His features were very handsome, strongly marked, and classically regular. Campaigns in Italy had bronzed and scarred them in no ordinary degree, and there was a bold recklessness in his eye and a fierceness in the curl of his moustaches, which seemed quite to appal the poor old curate, notwithstanding the presence of Ronald Stuart. "Vive la joie! let us drink and be merry. I am a prisoner of war,—sacre! a prisoner! 'Tis something new; but thanks to D'Erlon, and Madame his dear little countess, who will never be able to mount horse without me, I will not be long so. Vive la joie, Monsieur le Curé—Senor Cura—or what do you style yourself among the rebels of Joseph Buonaparte,—what are we to have for supper?"