Further on, his horse fell badly lame and he stayed day after day in a
miserable village, lounging under a cork-tree, learning patois. There
was a girl with great black eyes. He watched her, two or three times
spoke to her. But when she saw how he must haggle over the price of
food and lodging she laughed, and returned to the side of a muleteer
with a sash and little bells upon his hat.
All along the road fell these retardations. Then as the mountains
loomed higher, the spirit of contradiction apparently grew tired and
fell behind. For several days he traveled quite easily. "My Lady
Fortune," asked Ian, "what is up your sleeve?"
The air stayed smiling and sweet. In a town half mountain, half plain,
he made friends at the inn with Don Fernando, son of an ancient,
proud, decaying house, poor as poverty. Don Fernando had been in
Paris, knew by hearsay England, and had heard Scotland mentioned.
Spaniard and Scot drank together. The former was drawn into almost
love of Ian. Here was a help against boundless ennui! Ian and his
horse, and the small mail strapped behind the saddle, finally went off
with Don Fernando to spend a week in his old house on the hillside
just without the town. Here was poverty also, but yet sufficient acres
to set a table and pour good wine and to make the horse forget the
famine road behind him.
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