drank it, I saw his face flush; he handed back the cup
reluctantly, and on that hint I offered him another, The strong
spirit was already beginning to work, and he accepted, and in a
few minutes began to talk more freely and with less of the
constraint which had before marked us all. Still, his tongue ran
chiefly on questions--he would know this, he would learn that;
but even this was a welcome change. I told him openly whence I
had come, by what road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where;
and so far I satisfied his curiosity. Only, when I came to the
subject of my visit to Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence,
hinting darkly at business in Spain and friends across the
border, and this and that; in this way giving the peasants to
understand, if they pleased, that I was in the same interest as
their exiled master.

They took the bait, winked at one another, and began to look at
me in a more friendly way--the landlord foremost. But when I had
led them so far, I dared go no farther, lest I should commit
myself and be found out. I stopped, therefore, and, harking back
to general subjects, chanced to compare my province with theirs.
The landlord, now become almost talkative, was not slow to take
up this challenge; and it presently led to my acquiring a curious
piece of knowledge. He was boasting of his great snow mountains,
the forests that propped them, the bears that roamed in them, the
izards that loved the ice, and the boars that fed on the oak
mast.

'Well,' I said, quite by chance, 'we have not these things, it is
true. But we have things in the north you have not. We have
tens of thousands of good horses--not such ponies as you breed