OF A GREAT CALAMITY
I HAD not even time to mutter my prayers, which, considering what lay
before me, were never so sorely needed, ere I was in a sweet oblivion.
Upon returning from this pleasant bourne a joyful sense of refreshment
stole over my veins, for my slumber had been dreamless, and for several
hours the sun had been in attendance on the morning.
The first thing I observed was my companion of the previous night. He
was seated on his stool, and was blowing with his mouth upon a basin of
porridge.
“Landlord,” I heard him roar, “if you do not bring me a cup of sack
to cool my throat, which I have blistered already with your damnable
gruel, the worms will have fresh meat in their larder.”
He pointed this threat by thrusting his dagger into the loose earth
which formed the floor.
“Ha! Spaniardo,” said he, observing that I had opened my eyes, “do I
perceive you to be awake already? You have slept round the clock. What
a notable gift is that of youth.”
“I give you good morrow, Sir Richard Pendragon,” said I, rubbing the
sleep out of my eyes and slowly recalling my situation.
Hardly had I done so than I remembered that eight crowns was my
fortune, in an old piece of goatskin. Instantly I pressed my hand where
I had placed it last. How shall I record the terrible pang that seized
me when I pressed and felt in vain.
I got up and looked all about my corner; looked under the settle on
which I had lain; examined the dry earth which composed the floor;
felt in all my pockets yet again, and even groped among the ashes of
the newly kindled fire. But my purse was not. I cannot tell you what a
desperate pang overcame me when I discovered that I was bereft of every
maravedi I had in the world.
By the time I had concluded these investigations the Englishman,
who had been far too much employed with his breakfast to heed these
actions, had taken himself off out of doors. I was glad to find him
gone; and I proceeded to conduct my search in every corner of the
place, in the vain hope that it had fallen from me in those energetic
passages of the previous night. But I should have done as well to look
in a sandpit for a precious stone.
I was standing with my hands tucked in my doublet, and trying ruefully
enough to confront my position, when the innkeeper entered. I was
hungry, yet I had no money with which to purchase a breakfast. Further,
I had not a friend; I had not a home; I was in a country as foreign to
me as a distant land; and I hardly dared in this predicament to turn to
a stranger to crave a word of kindness. And now did I feel so tender in
my years, and so plainly did I discern that my experience of mankind
was insufficient for my needs, that even as I stood I felt despair
spread over me in a manner that I should have thought impossible. So
far was I from my valiancy of the previous evening that I nearly shed
tears before the innkeeper when I mentioned to him my loss.
Now here you shall mark the difference between a man who has breeding
and a man who has not. No sooner did I confide my loss to the innkeeper
and that I was left as penniless as a beggar, than this notorious
coward, who the previous night had called for my aid, pulled the wryest
mouth I ever saw and looked upon me rudely.
“Does Pedro understand by this,” he said in a desperate tone of injury,
“that you will not pay him for your lodging and the quantities of wine
and victual you had of him last night?”
“Not _will not_, landlord--_cannot_,” said I miserably, not having now
the spirit to defend myself from his reproaches. “I grieve to say I
have not so much as a penny in the world. The amount of my score must
stand as a loan you have made to me, and I will not sleep of a night
until you are repaid. I will charter a messenger to bring you your just
due as soon as I can obtain it.”
“Why, what words are these?” the innkeeper whined. “Loan--sleep of a
night--a messenger! Oh, by the Virgin Mary, I have been robbed and
cheated! Look here, you who pretend to be a gentleman, I will have
it out of you. Pedro has been mishandled by such as you before this
morning. And oh, good Our Lady, how he did cozen you, Pedro, when you
told of this foreign cut-throat who for three weeks has used you the
same.”
It made my ear burn, reader, that I, Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda
y Boegas, of the sangre azul of my native Asturias, should stand
before this common fellow in the light of a rogue. Yet in spite of
the innkeeper’s hard words I strove to bear myself with patience
and dignity, for it was ever my father’s opinion that Fortune is a
capricious mistress, who will oft humiliate her wooers not so much to
do them hurt, but to make proper trial of their fortitude. Yet it was
not my spirit alone that was to be vexed in this affair; my body was to
be mortified also. Having slept many hours, and being in the flush of a
vigorous youth, I grew bitterly hungry.
“Not a sip, not a crumb,” snarled the landlord, when I asked modestly
enough that my breakfast and that of my horse might be scored up with
the rest.
Now here it was that the brave little serving-wench, who the previous
evening had saved my life, came up to her master.
“Give the young gentleman his wine and his porridge,” said she, “and,
master, I myself will bear his charges.”
“You, good wench!” I asked incredulously, for she was so ragged that
she looked in worse case than myself.
“Yes, young gentleman, I can pay,” she answered proudly. “I make it a
practice to save a hundred maravedis of my wages a year.”
“Very well then, Casilda,” said the innkeeper. “Fetch me fifty of your
maravedis, and you may bring this young rogue his breakfast. But you
are a little fool, I say, for he is but a travelling cheat who will
never repay you.”
No sooner had her master spoken thus to my disparagement than the
kindly creature, who was really very handsome if you will believe me,
reader, stood up most majestically upon all her few inches, and said
like a little queen,--
“Shame upon you, master! He is no cheat, but a very gentleman, with the
sweetest face and an honest and kind expression, just like Victor, our
old mule. I would trust him to the utmost of my wages; and if I do not
see my money again, I shall know that fortune has used him ill.”
It touched me to the soul to hear this rude and tattered little
creature speak up for me like this--for me, a beggar, without a friend
in the whole of the world. There was no reason, except that furnished
by a kind heart, why she should confide her savings to one unknown to
her, one from whom all things were averse.
While I ate my breakfast with not so good a relish as I had expected,
I could not but meditate upon so much goodness proceeding out of a low
condition, and, further, upon the humiliation of my state. I had not
got through with this food for the mind when the Englishman entered,
and in great sickness of the spirit I asked him how far it was to
Toledo.
“An hundred leagues or so,” he said lightly, as though such a journey
was no great affair.
I felt my heart sink. My beggary began to oppress me like a distemper,
for how was I to win such a distant place without so much as a piece
of silver in my coat? Wherefore, with many misgivings and with deep
discomfiture, I laid my case before him. And I asked counsel of him,
for in spite of his mad humours, for which his nation was to blame, he
was a man of birth, a man of excellent native shrewdness, and he knew
the world.
When I told him of my pass, he blinked his eyes a good deal, rubbed his
chin, and held his jaw in his hand with an air of deep perplexity.
“This is a devil of a matter,” he said very gravely. “You would not
suppose, Master Miguel, that this purse of yours took to itself a pair
of legs, walked out of your pocket, and started out into the desert to
admire the scenery?”
“I fail to see how it could do so.”
“I share your opinion, good Don; therefore I adjudge the landlord, who
is a scurvy fellow, to have picked it out of your pocket as you lay
asleep.”
“Ah no,” said I; “the unhappy man is sorely afflicted at the loss. I
cannot pay my score, and he has accused me of not having had the money
at all.”
“Has he so?” said Sir Richard Pendragon. “That sounds like a deep
rascal. I am convinced this accursed innkeeper has the eye of a picker
and stealer.”
“I pray you, sir, not to accuse the poor man. I feel sure he would not
stoop to such an act, and already he has been misused grievously.”
“Well, good Don, if you are clear as to his innocence--and I am not
sure of it myself--and you really had this amount of money?”
“Oh yes, to be sure I had--it was my patrimony.”
“And it did not walk out of the inn of itself, and that black-eyed
little wench has not touched it--and though she’s a rude quean I
believe she would not--and there is no hole in your pocket--is it
possible there is a hole in your pocket, good Don?”
“There is no hole in my pocket, sir.”
“And there is no cat or dog about the premises; and the innkeeper, by
an odd chance--for he is the first of his kidney that is--is an honest
man--you have either mislaid your purse, good Don, you never had it, or
as you lay asleep you must have dreamed of fortune and have swallowed
it.”
Although the Englishman’s gravity was so admirable, it helped me but
little; and when I got on my knees to creep all over the ground to
seek for my treasure, and met all manner of filth by the way, he too
began poking about with the point of his sword, yet met with no better
success than did I.
“It is a case for a physician,” he said, “for a man to dream of
fortune, and in the unnatural excitation of his mind to swallow all his
money.”
“I know not what to do,” said I miserably. “I have not a groat to take
me to Toledo.”
The Englishman rubbed his chin again; and this I observed was his habit
when he thought heavily.
“This is indeed a devil of a matter,” he said. “You see, if you had had
a little money you could have been my squire and I could have borne you
with me; but I do not see how one of my condition can take a squire
into his service unless he receives a fee for so doing.”
“Well, sir,” I said, feeling that now no choice was left to me, “I am
prepared to take service with you.”
“Are you so?” said the Englishman, rubbing his chin harder than ever.
“Yes, but you see, Master Miguel, a person of my quality does not
receive a squire into his service for the love of his eyes.”
“My blood, sir, is of the first condition,” said I humbly. “My father’s
pedigree is contained in the archives of Simancas.”
“Yes, fair shrew; but a pedigree will not grow apples, as we say in
our plain English manner. My own pedigree can be referred to between
the hours of eleven and three at the Herald’s College in the city of
London; but I should not have got so much as a cup of sack by it unless
it had been accompanied by a good sword. You see, Master Miguel, had
you had an hundred crowns you might have borne your knee by my saddle
and looked at the world; but since you have had the misfortune to
swallow every silver piece in your possession, body of God!--to use a
profane expression--I do not see what is to be done with you.”
“Oh, sir,” I said, oppressed with my despair, “I pray you to consider
of my situation. Bear me with you to this duke you mention, and half of
my first year’s emolument shall be yours.”
“Emolument! Why, my young companion, this duke is about as rich as
yourself. Still, it is an offer that betrays an honourable disposition;
and not being likely to receive anything more substantial in your
present pass, I dare say it behoves me to take it, and prove myself not
to be covetous. But all the same, Master Miguel, I could have wished
you had had a little something to eke out your charges by the way, for
I have noticed that living is very expensive in this part of the world.”
In this manner I sealed the momentous compact to enter the service of
the Englishman. You will readily conceive, good reader, that in this
matter the choice was none of my own. Indeed, had I not gone forth in
his company I might never have come to the duke at all. And at least,
although he was not of our peninsula, he was a man of birth, with a
fine genius for the sword, and a deep acquaintance with the world. Yet
I did not like to think what my father would have suffered could he
have known of my case, and how such blood as his had come to be the
body servant of one of a foreign nationality.
Shortly after this affair was settled we arranged to go upon our road,
and I went forth to the stable to put the saddle on Babieca. As I made
to do this, the Englishman called out to me in a loud and insolent tone
such as would not have come amiss to a groom or a varlet,--
“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.
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.