er.

"Will the Senor state his case?" he said, bowing to the young man.

"I came to this venta, the proprietor of which, and all his relations,
may God confound for liars and thieves! When I entered I paid for one
week's good straw and barley in coined silver of Mexico. The unshorn
villain stole the feed from under my horse's nose so soon as my back was
turned, and then to-night, upon my complaining, set his rascal scullions
on to vilify my country, or at least a country which, if not mine, is
yet no concern of his or theirs. Whereupon I tendered to all the cleaner
of them my cartel, offering to fight them with any weapon they might
name, and in any place, for the honour of Scotland and the Presbyterian
religion!"

Though he had never heard of either of these last, the grey-bearded
umpire gravely wagged his head at the statement of the Scot, nodded in
acknowledgment, and turned with equal gravity and distinction to the
Gallegan as the representative of the opposite faction. He motioned him
to proceed.

"This man," said the Galician, speaking in the harsh stuttering whisper
affected by these Iberian hewers of wood and drawers of water, "this man
for these ten days past hath given all in the _Venta_ bad money and
worse talk. To-day he would have cheated _Dueno_, and we, like true men,
took up the cudgels for the good patron."

"Hear the bog-trotting cowards lie!" cried the Scot, fiercely. "Save for
the barley, I paid no money, good or bad. All I had remains here in my
belt. If I gave bad money, let him produce it. And, save in the matter
of his beast's provend, who gives money at the entering in of a hotel?"

"Least of all a Scot," put in the Englishman, who had been following
with some difficulty the wordy warfare.

"Then because he would not exchange good money for the bad, and because
of his words, which carried stings, we challenged him to fight, and he
fought. That, worthy Senor, is the beginning of the matter, and the
end."

"Sir," said the Scot to the Old Castilian, "there was no question of
money. None brought my reckoning to me----"

"No," sighed the landlord, from beyond the bottle-encumbered counter
where he had taken refuge, "because he threatened to let daylight into
the vitals of the man who carried it to him."

"But as to the insults to his country?" asked the old Castilian, "you
ought to have borne in mind that for that cause will a man fight quicker
than for his sweetheart."

"So it is, Seno