In this rustic place we enjoyed a good supper and a peaceful night’s repose. We had journeyed long that day, and seldom have I known an honest sleep taste more delicious. But by now we were well in the King of Castile’s country, and the next morning, as we took our way, the vigilance of the Englishman grew double. The Count of Nullepart and myself were tolerably easy that none would guess our mission. Not so Sir Richard Pendragon. He declared his experience of Castile to be such that walls had ears, blind men saw, and dead men told tales. Indeed, it was clear from the lively concern that Sir Richard displayed that his former passages with the King of Castile had not been pleasant ones. Precisely what they were we could not learn from him who had suffered them, yet that they had been grievous and considerable we had the authority of his demeanour. On the second day, as we came into the road to Madrid, we saw high up in the distant hills one of the noblest castles of this infamous king. At the sight of it, with the westering sun touching the embowery of its trees with gold, Sir Richard Pendragon reined in his horse, took off his hat, and spat on the earth; and then, in what must have been the roundest London English, for it sounded very rude and barbarous, he cursed the King of Castile, he cursed his mother and his female relations, even unto his wet nurse and his most distant kinsfolk. “The first trick is yours, Spanish John,” he said. “I allow it; I admit it; my early nurture has been too gentle to cope with low deceit. But harkee, John Spaniard, the next trick will go to t’other player, or my gracious sire was not the King of England.” “Do I gather, most worthy Sir Richard Pendragon,” said the Count of Nullepart in a melodious voice, “that your former passages with King John of Castile have been of a grievous character?” “Yes, good mounseer,” said Sir Richard Pendragon, giving his tall horse such a kick in the ribs as astonished that extraordinary quadruped; “you may gather it. If my good mind walks not abroad in bad dreams, I have been mishandled, mounseer, I have been mishandled. And let me tell thee, good mounseer, English Dick hath never been mishandled previously, except once at the instance of virtue, which was upon the knee of the sainted lady who is now in heaven.”