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.
“A thousand pardons, good Sir Richard!” said I incredulously, “but
I pray you to consider of your suggestion. Are you not given to the
practice of exaggeration?”
He plucked at his beard when he discovered that the warmth of his fancy
filled me with so much distrust.
“Well, you see, Miguel,” said he, “if it comes to that, perhaps I
am something of an exaggeration altogether. But at least I do not
exaggerate half so much as nature hath exaggerated me. I am a yard and
a half across and two yards and a quarter high.”
“I am ready to believe, good Sir Richard, that a capacious mind goes
with such an assemblance as yours.”
“Aye, but there is not the worst of that matter. Such a parcel of the
virtues wants a bucket of sack of a morning to keep it in health. And
sack is such a notorious inflamer of the fancy that I sometimes break
into poetry and all kinds of bombastical ideas. So, my son, I would not
have you heed above half what I say.”
It was in this easy fashion that we came to Antirun. The stars had long
been shining in the wilderness, yet we arrived without ill hap and
supped at the best inn in the place. But as there only chanced to be
one it was also the worst; and doubtless I might have pointed a truer
indication of its character had I described it as the latter. I shall
never forget the abuse that Sir Richard Pendragon showered upon the
landlord, and although the food was plenty and smoking hot and the wine
was tolerable, he swore his constitution was ruined.
“This is a most damnable peninsula, no doubt about that,” said he as he
proceeded to carve a great smoking turkey.
“Have you been long in our delectable land?” I asked, seeking to divert
his mind from the innkeeper, who was as pale as a ghost.
“Three years and forty days,” said he, “according to the calendar. But
I think I ought to tell you, Spaniardo, that is just three years and
forty days too many.”
“I trust that is far from being the case.”
“Yes, good Spaniardo, when I left the blessed island of England,
where they eat asparagus on the first of March, I was a smiling and
prosperous man; but now owing to this climate, my smile is hidden in my
beard, while my prosperity has had too many Spanish flies upon it to be
any longer a very prosperous affair.”
“Doubtless, sir, you have not travelled into our fairest places?”
“I have travelled this peninsula of yours from Sagres to Perpinan,
from Granada to the Asturias. And other than myself there only lives
one person better able to offer an opinion of its sand, its flies,
its pigs, its inns, its whims and whams, and its infamously dirty
furniture.”
“And who, sir, is he?”
“The Devil.”
“Wherefore one of his infamous character?”
“The Devil made it.”
“By my sooth that is what I can never believe.”
“It is what the Scriptures inform us, Spaniard.”
“Not so, by my faith.”
“There can be no doubt upon that subject, my son. Father Francis, who
was apprenticed to book and scholarship in the prettiest monastery
in Middlesex, and who reads Hebrew quite as well as I do myself, has
assured me on several occasions that ‘though the Scriptures aver that
the Lord created the goodliness of earth and heaven in six days, Spain
is not mentioned.’ The which makes me to contend that as your land
is not mentioned in Holy Writ, and as it differs so greatly from the
goodliness of earth and heaven, as English rectitude differs from
Spanish chastity, it must having so many tarantulas, fops, flies, and
Spaniards in it--and these latter, mark you, never use a word of honest
London English in their lives--it must, I say, being so afflicted with
such pestilence, be the invention of the Devil. And even for the Devil
it was invented very poorly.”
It was during our sojourn at this inn that we fell upon a wise course.
The sun at noon had been so much our enemy in travelling that we
determined to pursue our journey to Toledo in the night. Thus riding
under the coolness of the stars, we made good progress; and so happy
were we in the ease and swiftness of this mode, that each afternoon we
took a siesta apart from the heat of the day, and kept the road in the
darkness.
We had hardly an adventure that was worthy of the name. Indeed the
chief ones were those that Sir Richard saw in his imagination. For
if he so much as observed a peasant sitting his ass and smiling
peacefully, he would hold his sword arm ready, lest he should prove a
robber in disguise.
“For I would have you to understand, good Miguel,” said he, “you are
the one inhabitant of this precious continent to whom I am not afeared
to show my back.”
“Then if you please,” said I, “I would be well content if you make
no exception in my favour; for I am convinced that the least of my
countrymen are worthy of your trust.”
“My young companion,” said he, “I gather from your conversation that
you claim no acquaintance with any land beyond your own cursed sandy
peninsula.”
“Indeed that is the case, sir, and with your leave I will never seek to
dwell in one that is fairer.”
“Alack! it is precisely here where your mind has gone amiss. I am
convinced that were you only to set foot in England, you would take
such a disgust of your native peninsularity as I have taken of it.”
The love of my country incited me to a recollection of what my father
had told me concerning this strange island of which Sir Richard
Pendragon made such a boast.
“Does the sun shine overmuch in England?” I asked.
“Its natural resources are of such immensity,” said the Englishman,
“that we do not care to have the sun shine upon us more than nine weeks
in the year. We like it to have freedom to visit barren lands like
Spain. At Madrid you vainglorious Spaniards showed me your tall spires
and palaces glittering finely in this element; but that is no more than
the reflection of heaven after all. The sun you will notice is a part
of the firmament, not of Spain. Now, in London, if a fog arises on us,
that element is native to our island kingdom; and though a modest thing
in itself there is none to dispute with us for its possession. There
you have the true sterling mettle of the English character.”
“Well, Sir Richard,” said I, being determined to challenge his swollen
ideas of his nation to the best of my power; “according to the ancient
chronicles, the beauty of our Spanish ladies hath been sung by poets
from the earliest times. Yet I could never hear that those of England
were so celebrated.”
“Thou never wilt, vainglorious one. Have I not told you that we English
are the chastest people on the face of the globe? But this is one of
those matters of delicacy in which you people of a foreign nationality
have not been bred to delight. In England the adorable fair are so
jealous in reputation that they would blush to have their names abroad
at the instance of a poet or any other rogue in a hose and jerkin. And
as for beauty, my youthful Don, the virtue of an English maid breeds
in her damask cheek the chaste tint of lilies, and therein is the fair
reflection of her soul.”
From this our discourse, reader, you will gather that although right
was upon my side, by some odd flaw of my constitution I was unable to
enforce it. This nimble-minded foreigner had always an answer to serve
his occasion, which upon its face was so fair-seeming that it stood
his need. But in many of his arguments he permitted himself such a
notorious subtlety that I could not but wonder how one who had taken
virtue for his guide could walk upon paths so perilous.
It was seven o’clock of the morning of the fifth day of our journey
that we came to Toledo. I shall ask those who have not seen it to
believe that it is a wonderful fair city, and an honour to the land
that made it so; while those who have will stand my surety, for I do
not see how the eye of man can hold two views upon the subject. And I
mention the noble grandeur of this city without any reference to my
heart and sentiment, for, as you are presently to hear, I spent some of
the darkest hours of my life behind its walls.
We halted at a large inn that lay between the mighty ancient palace of
the Moors and the church of San Juan de los Reyes, and had an admirable
breakfast. And we were in need of it, since we had been riding hard
all night. Now, we had no sooner come to this inn, which was more
considerable than any in which we had lain, than I was sensible of a
change in the demeanour of my companion. In our journey through the
wilderness he had conversed with me familiarly, had treated me as equal
as in accordance with my birth; but no sooner were we come into this
fair city and this good inn than he fell into hectoring speech, as
though I were a menial, and whispered to me privily to call him my lord.
“But, Sir Richard Pendragon,” I protested, “your degree does not
warrant me in it.”
“By my hand!” said he, “you must not talk of degree to me, you varlet.
Do you not know that in England any person who has a king’s blood under
his doublet is called a lord by courtesy.”
To this I demurred not a little, but Sir Richard Pendragon would brook
no denial.
“A king’s blood,” said he, “takes a courtesy title wherever it goes. If
I lie in Dresden I am called your excellency; at Rome, monseigneur; the
same at Paris; in Persia, in Russia, in Turkey, throughout the length
and breadth of Europe and Asia I am allowed my merit.”
In the end I was fain to submit to these considerations, although I
confess it irked me sorely to apply such a title to one who, according
to his style, was no more than a knight. But I had to content myself
with Sir Richard Pendragon’s own reflection that a king’s blood
is subject to no precedent, and by its own virtue confers its own
nobility. And certainly had he been a prince of the blood-royal of his
country, his conduct at this inn could not have been more remarkable.
I had to eat at another table; he even went so far as to swear at me
roundly in a foreign jargon; yet the thing that hurt me was, that he
was careful to let those who heard him know that his servant was a
scion of an old and honourable Spanish family.
“I think, good Don,” he said in my private ear, “your condition would
warrant me in looking upon you as what the French call an equerry. It
would not come amiss if you served behind my chair at meals, laying a
white cloth across your arm and setting the various dishes before me
with a solemn demeanour. And I would have you say ‘yes, my lord,’ and
‘no, your lordship,’ in a rather louder voice, in order that there
should be no mistake about it. It will not sound amiss in the ears of
innkeepers in a large way of trade, and that sort of people.”
After our meal, which in these circumstances had not given me so much
satisfaction as I had hoped, we made for the castle of the duke, five
good leagues off. Our way was set across the noble bridge of Alcantara,
whose arches span the Tagus. With a proud heart I commended this fair
thing to the notice of my companion; and though he stroked his beard
and confessed it was not amiss for Spain, he declared it could not
compare with what was modestly called the Fleet Ditch that was in
London.
As we crossed this bridge we could see clearly, a long distance away,
the white castle of the duke, sitting grand and solitary upon one of
those brown and rugged hills that make a girdle round the city. And the
sight of this brave pile, standing proud upon its promontory, clad in
the young beams of the sun, set all my heart in joy; for the contour of
the great house that was before me was in tune with my aspirations and
lent a proper semblance to my dreams.