If the hopes of Rodriguez were low, if his fancies were faint,
what material have I left with which to make a story with glitter
enough to hold my readers' eyes to the page: for know that mere
dreams and idle fancies, and all amorous, lyrical, unsubstantial
things, are all that we writers have of which to make a tale, as
they are all that the Dim Ones have to make the story of man.
Sometimes riding, sometimes going on foot, with the thought of the
long, long miles always crowding upon Rodriguez, overwhelming his
hopes; till even the castle he was to win in the wars grew too
pale for his fancy to see, tired and without illusions, they came
at last by starlight to the glow of a smith's forge. He must have
done forty-five miles and he knew they were near Caspe.
The smith was working late, and looked up when Rodriguez halted.
Yes, he knew Gonzalez, a master in the trade: there was a welcome
for his horses.
But for the two human travellers there were excuses, even
apologies, but no spare beds. It was the same in the next three or
four houses that stood together by the road. And the fever of
Rodriguez' ambition drove him on, though Morano would have lain
down and slept where they stood, though he himself was weary. The
smith had received his horses; after that he cared not whether
they gave him shelter or not, the alternative being the road, and
that bringing nearer his wars and the castle he was to win.
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