Here were lounging and siesta, rest for body
and mind, sweet "do well a very little!" Don Fernando would have kept
the guest a second week and then a third.
But Ian shook his head, laughed, embraced him, promised a return of
good when the great stream made it possible, and set forth upon his
further travel. The horse looked sleek, almost fat. The Scot's jaded
wardrobe was cleaned, mended, refreshed. Living with Don Fernando were
an elder sister and an ancient cousin who had fallen in love with the
big, handsome Don, traveling so oddly. These had set hand-maidens to
work, with the result that Ian felt himself spruce as a newly opened
pink. And Don Fernando gave him a traveling-cloak--very fine--a last
year's gift, it seemed, from a grandee he had obliged. Cold weather
was approaching and its warmth would be grateful. Ian's great need was
for money in purse. These new friends had so little of that that he
chose not to ask for a loan. After all, he could sell the cloak!
The day was fine, the country mounting as it were by stairs toward the
mountains. Before him climbed a string of pack-mules. The merchant
owning them and their lading traveled with a guard of stout young men.
For some hours Ian had the merchant for companion and heard much of
the woes of the region and the times, the miseries of travel, the
cursed inns, bandits licensed and unlicensed, craft, violence, and
robbery! The merchant bewailed all life and kept a hawk eye upon his
treasure on the Spanish road.
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