quently against the nobles and the Huguenots; sometimes against the king; but never against the cardinal or the Spaniard. From this custom, therefore, it arose that on the aforesaid first Monday in the month of April 1625, the townspeople, hearing a noise, and seeing neither the yellow and red flag, nor the livery of the Duke of Richelieu, rushed toward the village inn, the Jolly Miller. Having reached it, every one could see and understand the cause of this alarm. A young man—
But let us trace his portrait with one stroke of the pen. Fancy to yourself Don Quixote at eighteen—Don Quixote in everyday attire, without his coat of mail or greaves—Don Quixote clothed in a woolen doublet whose original azure was changed to an indescribable shade, a tint between the dregs of wine and celestial blue. The face lanky and tanned; the cheek-bones high, denoting acuteness; the muscles of the jaws prodigiously developed—an infallible mark by which the Gascon may be recognized, even without the cap, and our youth wore a cap, adorned with a flyaway feather, the eye full and intelligent; a Roman nose, but fine formed; the whole figure too bulky for a youth, yet too small for a full-grown man, but one whom an inexperienced eye would have taken for the son of a farmer on a journey, had it not been for the long sword, which hanging from a leathern belt, clanked against the heel of its owner whilst he was walking, and against the rough coat of his steed when he was mounted—for our youth had a steed, and this steed was at the same time so remarkable as to attract attention. It was Béarnese galloway, of about twelve or fourteen years of age, tawny as an orange, without any hair on its tail, but abundant lumps upon its legs, and which, whilst carrying its head lower than its knees, making the application of a martingale useless, yet managed gallantly its eight leagues a day. Unfortunately, these useful qualities of the steed were so well concealed under its staring hide and eccentric gait, that at a time when every one knew something of horses, the apparition of the aforesaid nag
