I HEAR OF THE PRINCESS
UPON his own part Sir Richard Pendragon showed a wonderful calmness. He
wore the ring upon his finger with so great an air, and withal was so
polite that the forcing of a quarrel was put out of the question. None
the less it was clear that if ever I was to recover my father’s gift it
must be at the point of the sword.
It is always claimed, however, by the natives of my province, which
in the things of the mind is allowed to be the first in all Spain,
that a cool judgment must ride before violence. Therefore I was in no
haste to push the matter to an extremity. My mind was set that I could
only regain possession of the trinket by an appeal to the sword; that
soon or late we must submit ourselves to that arbitrament, but as the
night was yet in its youth, I felt there was no need to force the brawl
before its season. Thus, nursing my injury in secret I marked the man
narrowly as he sat his stool, with his hungry eyes forever trained upon
me sideways, and forever glancing down with furtive laughter, while his
great lean limbs in their patched, parti-coloured hose, in which the
weather had wrought various hues, were sprawled out towards the warmth
of the chimney.
As thus he lay it was hard to decide whether he was indeed a king’s
son or no more than a fluent-spoken adventurer. And in spite of the
flattering opinions he put forward of his own character, I was fain to
come to it that the latter conclusion was at least very near to the
truth. For one thing, the lack of seriousness in his demeanour did not
consort very well with the descendant of princes, whom all the world
knows to be grave men. He never so much as looked towards me without a
secret light of mirth in his eye; and this I was unable to account for,
as for myself I had never felt so grave.
“Sir Richard Pendragon, knight,” said he, for no particular reason,
unless it were the love of hearing his own discourse; “of all names
I believe that to be the most delectable; for it is the name of a
true man, of one addicted to contemplation, and of one who has grown
old in the love of virtue. Sir Richard Pendragon, knight--a name is
a small thing, but it has its natural music; Sir Richard Pendragon,
knight--yes, it runs off the tongue to a tune. I think, my young
companion, you have already admired it?”
“Indeed, sir, I have,” said I, with a certain measure of mockery, of
which, upon occasion, those of my province are said to be adept in the
use. “I conceive it to be a most wonderful name. Have you not said so
yourself?”
“If I have, I have,” said he, patting my shoulder with a familiarity
for which I did not thank him. “After all, the murder was obliged
to come out. Is it the part of valour to shun the truth? My young
companion, I feel sure you are one of those who respect that pious
opinion that is shared by P. Ovidius Naso and other learned
commentators upon the subject. Indeed, it is very well that a name
which stands so high in middle Europe is come into this outer part.
Quite recently I feared it to be otherwise. I met an itinerant priest,
not a month ago, bald, obese, and biblical, who said that to his mind
my name was deficient. ‘Fair sir, for what is it celebrated?’ was his
question. ‘For what is it celebrated, reverend one?’ was my rejoinder.
‘Why, where can you have lived these virtuous years of yours? It is
the name of a notorious pea-nut and straw-sucker.’ ‘That is verily a
singular accomplishment,’ said the reverend father in God. ‘Yes, your
reverence,’ I answered, ‘this old honest fellow can draw a nut through
a straw with the same complacency as a good churchman can draw sack
through the neck of a bottle.’ ‘That is indeed remarkable,’ said the
reverend father, and proceeded to demonstrate that as pea-nuts were
wide and straws were narrow, it was no light matter. ‘Yes, my father,’
said I, ‘that is a very just observation. But I am sure you would be
the last to believe that one who has a king’s blood flowing under his
doublet would bring his mind to anything trivial.’ ‘Doubtless your view
is the correct one,’ said the reverend sceptic, ‘but all the same, I
fail to see how a king’s blood would be able to compass a feat of that
nature.’ ‘There is none shall say what a king’s blood will compass,’
was my final rejoinder, ‘for there is a particular genius in it.’
Yet, my young son of the Spains, I have little doubt that the worthy
Dominican is still breaking his mind upon this problem behind the walls
of Mother Church; and such is the subtlety of these scholars with their
thumb rules and their logicality, that presently you shall find that
this innocent pleasantry has unhinged the brains of half the clerks in
Salamanca.”
“You have indeed a ready wit and a subtle contrivance, sir,” said I at
the conclusion of this ridiculous tale, for it was plain that he looked
for some such comment upon it.
“You must blame my nation for that. Every Englishman is witty when he
has taken wine; he is an especially bright dog in everything after
the drinking of beer. You dull rogues of the continent can form no
conception of an Englishman’s humour.”
“How comes it, sir, that you find yourself an exile from this land
which, by your account of it, is fair unspeakably?”
“It is a matter of fortune,” he made answer.
“Is that to say you are on a quest of fortune?” said I, breathing high
at this magic word.
“You have come to the truth,” said he with a sigh and a smile and a
sidelong look at the sword that hung by his leg.
“Why then, sir,” I cried with an eagerness I could not restrain, “we
are as brothers in this matter. I also am on a quest of fortune.”
My words seemed to jump with the humour of Sir Richard Pendragon. He
looked at me long and curiously, with that side glance which I did
not find altogether agreeable, stroked his beard as if sunk in deep
thought, and said with the gravest air I had heard him use,
“Oh, indeed, my son, is that the case! So you are on a quest of
fortune, are you, my son? Well, she is a nice, a proper, and a valiant
word.”
“My father was ever the first to allow it,” said I. “She used him ill;
his right hand was struck off in a battle at a tender age, but I never
heard him complain about her.”
“She hath ever been haughty and distant with old English Dick,” said
my companion, sighing heavily; “but you will never hear that true
mettle abuse the proud jade. Fortune,” he repeated and I saw his great
hungry eyes begin to kindle until they shone like rubies--“oh, what a
name is that! She is sweeter in the ears of us of England than is the
nightingale. What have we not adventured in thy name, thou perfect
one! Here is this Dick, this old red bully, with his dry throat and
his sharp ears and his readily watering eye, what hath he not dared
for thee, thou dear ungracious one! He has borne his point in every
land, from the wall of China to the high Caucasian mountains; from the
blessed isles of Britain to farthest Arabia. Who was it drove the Turk
out of Vienna with a six-foot pole? Who was it beat the Preux Chevalier
off his ground with a short sword? Who was it slew the sultan of the
Moriscoes with his own incomparable hand? Who was it, and wherefore was
it, my son?”
In this exaltation of his temper he peered at me with his side glance,
as though he would seek an answer to a question to which no answer was
necessary.
“Why do I handle,” he proceeded, “the sword, the broadsword, the short
sword, the sword and buckler, and above all that exquisite invention of
God, the nimble rapier of Ferrara steel, with the nice mastery of an
old honest blade, but in thy service, thou sweet baggage with thy moist
lip and thy enkindling eye?”
“Ah! Sir Englishman,” cried I, feeling, in spite of his rough brogue,
the music of his nature, “I love to hear you speak thus.”
“Thirty years have I been at the trade, good Spaniard, and sooner than
change it I would die. One hundred towns have I sacked; ten fortunes
have I plundered. But by sack they came, and by sack they did depart.
It is wonderful how a great nature has a love of sack. Yet I have but
my nose to show for my passion. Do you observe its prominent hue, which
by night is so luminous that it flames like a beacon to forewarn the
honest mariner? Yet to Fortune will we wet our beards, good Spaniard,
for we of England court her like a maiden with a dimple in her cheek.”
Having concluded this declamation, Sir Richard Pendragon called the
landlord in a tone like thunder, bade him bring a cup of sherry for my
use, and fill up his own, which was passing empty.
“I will bear the charges, lousy one,” said Sir Richard with great
magnificence.
“Oh yes, your worship”--the poor innkeeper was as pale as a
corpse--“but there is already such a score against your worship--”
“Score, you knave!” Sir Richard rolled his eyes horribly. “Why, if
I were not so gentle as a woman I would cut your throat. Score, you
dog! Then have you no true sense of delicacy? Now I would ask you,
you undershot ruffian with your bleared eyes and your soft chaps, are
gentlemen when they sit honouring their mistresses in their own private
tavern, are they to be crossed in their sentiments by the lowest order
of man? Produce me two pots of sack this minute, or by this hand I
will cut a gash in your neck.”
The unlucky wight had fled ere his guest had got half through this
speech, which even in my ears was frightful, with such roars of fury
was it given. When he returned with two more cups filled with wine, Sir
Richard looked towards me and laid his finger to the side of his nose,
as though to suggest that he yielded to no man in the handling of an
innkeeper.
By the time he had drunk this excellent liquor there came a sensible
change in the Englishman’s mien. The poetry of his mood, which had led
him to speak of Fortune in terms to kindle the soul, yielded to one
more fit for common affairs.
“Having lain in my castle,” said he, “and being well nourished with
sack, to-morrow I start on my travels again. Upon pressure I would not
mind taking a young squire.”
He favoured me with a look of a very searching character.
“I say,” he repeated solemnly, stretching out his enormous legs, “I am
minded to take a young squire.”
“In what, sir, would his duties consist?”
“They would be mild, good Don. Assuming that this young squire--if he
were a man of birth so much the better--paid me a hundred crowns a
year, cleaned my horse of a morning and conversed with me pleasantly in
the afternoon, I would undertake to teach him the world.”
“Why, sir,” said I, “surely it would be more fitting if your squire
received one hundred crowns from you annually, which might stand as his
emolument.”
“Emolument!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard. “One hundred
crowns! These be very quaint ideas.”
“Why, sir,” said I, with something of that perspicacity for which our
province is famous, “would not your squire have duties to perform, and
would they not be worthy of remuneration?”
“Duties!--remuneration!” said the Englishman, stroking his beard
furiously. “Why, can you not know, good Don, I am in the habit of
receiving a thousand guilders per annum for teaching the world to sons
of the nobility?”
“Indeed, sir! can a knowledge of the world be of so much worth?”
The Englishman roared at that which he took for my simplicity.
“By my soul!” he exclaimed, “a knowledge of the world is a most
desperate science. I have met many learned men in my travels, but that
science always beat them. Cæsar was a learned man, but he would have
had fewer holes in his doublet had he gone to school earlier. It is a
deep science, my son; it is the deepest science of all. What do you
know of deceit, my son, you who have never left your native mountains
before this morning? You, with the dust of your rustic province upon
your boots, what do you know of those who hold you in fair speaking
that they may know the better where to put the knife?”
“I confess, sir, I have thought but little of these things,” I said
humbly, for my misadventure with the beggar woman was still in my mind,
and my mother’s ring was no longer in the keeping of her only son.
“Then you will do well to think upon it, my young companion,” said the
Englishman, regarding me with his great red eyes. “You talk of fortune,
Spaniard, you who have yet to move ten leagues into the world! Why,
this is harebrained madness. You who have not even heard of the famous
city of London and the great English nation, might easily fall in with
a robber, or be most damnably cheated in a civil affair. Why, you who
say ‘if you please’ to an innkeeper might easily lose your purse.”
“I may be ill found in knowledge, sir, but I hope my sword is worthy,”
said I, determined that none should contemn my valour, even if my poor
mind was to be sneered at.
“Oh, so you hope your sword is worthy, do you now?” The Englishman
chuckled furiously as if moved by a conceit. “Well, Master No-Beard,
that is a good accomplishment to carry, and I suspect that you may find
it so one of these nights when there is no moon.”
All the same Sir Richard Pendragon continued to laugh in his dry
manner, and fell again to looking at me sideways. For my life I could
not see where was the occasion for so much levity.
“My father has taught me the use of the sword,” said I.
“Oh, so your father has taught you the use of the sword! Well, to judge
by the length of your beard, good Don, I am inclined to suspect that
your father had a worthy pupil.”
“I hope I may say so.”
“Oh, so you hope you may say so, my son! Well, now, I think you may
take it, good Don, from one who has grown old in the love of virtue,
that your father would know as much of the sword as a burgomaster knows
of phlebotomy. You see, having had his right hand struck off in battle
at a tender age, unless he happened to be a most infernally dexterous
fellow he forfeited his only means of becoming a learned practitioner.”
The Englishman laughed in his belly.
“My father had excellent precept,” said I, “although, as you say, the
Hand of God curtailed his practice.”
“Well now, my son,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, assuming a grave air,
which yet did not appear a very sincere one, “he who speaks you is one
whose practice the Hand of God has not curtailed. He was proficient
with sword and basket in his tenderest infancy. He has played with
all the first masters in Europe; he has made it a life study. With
all the true principles of this inimitable art he is familiar. He has
been complimented upon his talent and genius, natural and acquired, by
those whom modesty forbids him to name. And all these stores, my worthy
Don, of experience, ensample, and good wit are at your command for the
ridiculous sum of an hundred crowns.”
“I have not an hundred crowns in the world, sir,” I confessed with
reluctancy, for his arguments were masterful.
“By cock!” he snarled, “that is just as I suspected.”
There could be no mistaking the change in his demeanour when I made
this unhappy confession. It caused him to resolve his gross and rough
features into some form of contemplation. At last he said, with an eye
that was like a weasel’s,--
“What is the sum in your poke, good Spaniard?”
“I have but eight crowns.”
“Eight crowns! Why, to hear your conversation one would think you owned
a province.”
“A good sword, a devout heart, and the precepts of my noble father must
serve, sir, as my kingdom,” said I, hurt not a little at the remarkable
change that had come over him.
“I myself,” said he, “have always been governor and viceregent of
that kingdom, and had it not been for a love of canaries in my youth,
which in my middle years has yielded to a love of sherris, I must have
administered it well. But there is also this essential divergence in
our conditions, my son. I am one of bone and sinew, an Englishman,
therefore one of Nature’s first works; whereas you, good Don, saving
your worshipful presence, are but a mincing and turgid fellow, as thick
in the brains as a heifer, and as yellow in the complexion as a toad
under his belly. Your mind has been so depressed by provincial ideas,
and your stature so wizened by the sun, that to a liberal purview they
seem nowise superior to a maggot in a fig, or a blue-bottle fly in the
window of a village alehouse.”
“Sir Englishman,” said I haughtily, for since I had told him I had but
eight crowns in the world his manner of speaking had grown intolerable,
“I do not doubt that among your own nation you are a person of merit,
but it would not come amiss if you understood that you pay your
addresses to a hidalgo of Spain. And I must crave leave to assure
you that in his eyes one of your nation is but little superior to
a heathen Arab who is as black as a coal. At least, I have always
understood my father, God keep him! to say this.”
“By my faith, then,” said the Englishman, “even for a Spaniard your
father must have been very ill informed.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I sternly, “I would have you be wary of
the manner in which you mention my father.”
“I pray you, brother, do not make me laugh.” He trained his sidelong
look upon me. “I have such an immoderately nimble humour--it has ever
been the curse of my family from mother to daughter, from father to
son--as doth cause the blood to commit all manner of outrages upon mine
old head veins. All my ancestors died of a fluxion that did not die of
steel. But I tell you, Spaniard, it is as plain as my hand that your
father must have been a half-witted fellow to beget such a poor son.”
“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I cried, incensed beyond endurance, “if you
abuse my father I will run you through the heart!”
“Well,” said he, “this is good speaking on eight crowns, a provincial
accent, and a piece of rusty iron which is fitter to toast half a
saddle of mutton than to enhance the scabbard of a gentleman. And if
you make this speaking good, why, it will be still better. For this
is a very high standard, brother, you are setting up, and I doubt me
grievously whether even the Preux Chevalier would be able to maintain
it.”
He concluded with such an insolent and unexpected roar of laughter as
made me grow furious.
“I would have you beware, sir!” I cried. “Were you twice as gross in
your stature and three times as rude, I run you through the heart if
again you contemn the unsullied name of my noble father.”
“Your father was one-handed,” said this gigantical ruffian, looking at
me steadily. “He was as stupid in his wits as a Spanish mule, and I
spit in the face of the unbearded child that bears his name.”