HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT


Being convinced that his end was nearly come, and having lived
long on earth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time),
the Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not
Valladolid, called for his eldest son. And so he addressed him
when he was come to his chamber, dim with its strange red hangings
and august with the splendour of Spain: "O eldest son of mine,
your younger brother being dull and clever, on whom those traits
that women love have not been bestowed by God; and know my eldest
son that here on earth, and for ought I know Hereafter, but
certainly here on earth, these women be the arbiters of all
things; and how this be so God knoweth only, for they are vain and
variable, yet it is surely so: your younger brother then not
having been given those ways that women prize, and God knows why
they prize them for they are vain ways that I have in my mind and
that won me the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights
Angelico swore he saw Valladolid once, and that won me moreover
also ... but that is long ago and is all gone now ... ah well,
well ... what was I saying?" And being reminded of his discourse,
the old lord continued, saying, "For himself he will win nothing,
and therefore I will leave him these my valleys, for not unlikely
it was for some sin of mine that his spirit was visited with
dullness, as Holy Writ sets forth, the sins of the fathers being
visited on the children; and thus I make him amends. But to you I
leave my long, most flexible, ancient Castilian blade, which
infidels dreaded if old songs be true. Merry and lithe it is, and
its true temper singeth when it meets another blade as two friends
sing when met after many years. It is most subtle, nimble and