This man was one of the smugglers who most frequently visited the château, and it sometimes happened that the intermediation of the old _maître d'hôtel_ was dispensed with, and that he would be admitted to an audience of my father himself, which generally lasted a considerable time; for Garcias possessed that sort of natural eloquence which, mingled with a degree of caustic humour, was sure to command attention, and to engage without wearying. There was something, too, in his very appearance that attracted and interested. Certainly never was a more picturesque, I may say, a more striking figure seen, than he presented, as I have beheld him often, coming down amongst the mountains, whose child he seemed to be: his long black hair gathered into a net under his broad sombrero; his cloak of chequered cloth, mantling all the upper part of his figure, and only leaving free the left hip, with the steel hilt of his sword, and the right arm ready to make use of it; while his legs, whose swelling muscles told of their gigantic strength, appeared striding underneath, covered to the knees with the tight elastic silk breeches of the Aragonese mountaineers. The rest of his dress generally consisted of a brown cloth jacket, a crimson sash round his waist, containing his pistols and long knife, white stockings, and a pair of mountain sandals, made of untanned cowhide, laced up to his ankle. Such were the various persons that surrounded me in my youth; and such indeed were the only ones with whom I had any communication, except the young Jean Baptiste Arnault, who used to come frequently to see his sister. Her father troubled himself very little about her, after she was once fairly under the protection of my mother; but her brother was not so remiss, and, whenever he came, was received with kindness by all the family, nor suffered to depart without some little token of regard. For my own part, the memory of the service he had rendered me remained ever upon my mind, and showed itself in every way that my youthful imagination could devise; till, at length, the good simple-hearted lad, from the person obliging, began to feel himself the obliged, and both feelings mingling in his heart together, produced towards me the most generous and disinterested attachment.