Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/144

142 The slight air of superciliousness with which he began his story was not displeasing to me; it was like a continuation of the Romancero of which the young nobleman had been singing a verse a short time before. He continued with more simplicity.

"Unfortunately, I was born poor, though of noble blood. More than once during my infancy have I been awakened from sleep by the rude ice-wind which whistled without obstruction through the ruined manor-house in which my mother and I dwelt. As a compensation, God gave me a good appetite, which made me forget the cold. I shot up apace; my noble birth interdicted me from all manual labor and servile employment; and to leave my mother, who was now growing old, and take service in the army, was a step which was not in accordance with my inclination. However, I could not long remain a stranger to the civil war which was then raging in the Basque Provinces. Don Carlos, you are perhaps aware, often forgot, to pay his officers and soldiers, and all that I gamed in his service was the honor of being a creditor of his noble highness. Returning to my maternal abode, I was grieved to find it more dilapidated than ever, and to feel still more the anguish which rent my mother's heart, for I saw her sinking day after day under the double burden of old age and poverty. One evening a peddler came and demanded hospitality of us, and as he only asked for shelter, we granted it. His wandering life had enabled him to pick up all sorts of news, and I learned from him that one of our neighbors had made a wealthy marriage in New Spain.

"'What a capital thing it would be,' said he, 'if a young nobleman like you could be so lucky in that