These were almost my final passages at this inn, since in less than twenty minutes my new master and I were breasting our way to the south. Yet I mourn to tell you, reader, that as soon as we were in the saddle there came the bitter curses of the landlord to our ears. Neither of us had requited him with so much as a peseta in return for our benefits. But in this matter I must declare Sir Richard Pendragon to be by far the more reprehensible. He had dwelt full twenty nights under the roof-tree of this inn, whereas I had dwelt but one. Besides in his pouch was the wherewithal, but I regret to state that the inclination was not in his heart; whereas with me, as I will leave you to suppose, the contrary was the true state of the case. Indeed, I learned that the Englishman had a conviction of a deep-seated sort upon this subject. For when I heard the innkeeper’s outcry I felt unable to suffer it, and begged my companion to make me a loan of the amount of my score, that my debt at least might be expunged. To the which he replied that I appeared to have an incredible ignorance of human nature, and the more particularly that part of it that included innkeepers. He said he would prefer to cast his money in the sea than put it to such misuse. “To rise a little earlier than an innkeeper,” said he, “is a civil practice and has the sanction of Heaven. I would have you to know, Miguel, that my hair has been bleached before its season for consideration of the poor souls that this monstrous race has brought to ruin. Young men, old men, virgins, widows, matrons, small children of both sexes--oh! I tell you, Miguel, to think of this breeds a dreadful sickness within me. I will always rise, please Heaven, a little earlier than an innkeeper, for this iniquitous tribe has been the sworn enemy of my family for a thousand years. Was it not the landlord of ‘The Rook and Flatfish’ in the Jewry, a little bald fellow with an eye like a kite, that mulcted my revered ancestor, Sir Andrew Pendragon, in the sum of two shillings and ninepence--think on it, good Don!--for a pint of sack and a gurnet when the true price was never more than twelvepence halfpenny in a time of famine. And this is only to mention one matter out of an hundred in that sort. Oh, believe me, Miguel, we Pendragons have suffered miserably at the hands of innkeepers all through the course of history; but if the present wearer of this name does not redress a few of these injustices, call him not a true man, not a good fellow, but a rogue on whom the sun shines by courtesy.” I was glad to find that Sir Richard Pendragon had these deep reasons for his action in this affair. Evidently he had meditated to a purpose upon the subject, and in the name of his own race, of which he was the last representative, was determined to be avenged upon its hereditary foes.