Page:A Set of Rogues.djvu/69

 empty her pockets to give to any one with a piteous tale, how she would get from her horse to pluck wild-flowers by the roadside, and how, one day, overtaking a poor woman carrying a child painfully on her back, she must have the little one up on her lap and carry it till we reached the hamlet where the woman lived, etc. On the fifteenth day we stayed at St. Denys, and going thence the next morning, had travelled but a couple of hours when we were caught in a violent storm of hailstones as big as peas, that was swept with incredible force by a wind rushing through a deep ravine in the mountains, so that 'twas as much as we could make headway through it and gain a village which lay but a little distance from us. And here we were forced to stay all day by another storm of rain, that followed the hail and continued till nightfall. Many others besides ourselves were compelled to seek refuge at our inn, and amongst them a company of Spanish muleteers, for it seems we were come to a pass leading through the mountains into Spain. These were the first Spaniards we had yet seen (save the Don), and for all we had heard to their credit, we could not admire them greatly, being a low-browed, coarse-featured, ragged crew, and more picturesque than cleanly, besides stinking intolerably of garlic. By nightfall there was more company than the inn could accommodate; nevertheless, in respect to our quality, we were given the best rooms in the house to ourselves.

About eight o'clock, as we were about to sit down to supper, our innkeeper's wife comes in to tell us that a Spanish grandee is below, who has been travelling for hours in the storm, and then she asked very humbly if our excellencies will permit her to lay him a bed in our room when we have