"Why, what are you thinking about?" said the other; "do you take me for

some paltry squire? I carry a better larder on my horse's croup than a

general takes with him when he goes on a march."

Sancho ate without requiring to be pressed, and in the dark bolted

mouthfuls like the knots on a tether, and said he, "You are a proper

trusty squire, one of the right sort, sumptuous and grand, as this

banquet shows, which, if it has not come here by magic art, at any rate

has the look of it; not like me, unlucky beggar, that have nothing more

in my alforjas than a scrap of cheese, so hard that one might brain a

giant with it, and, to keep it company, a few dozen carobs and as many

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more filberts and walnuts; thanks to the austerity of my master, and the

idea he has and the rule he follows, that knights-errant must not live or

sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the

field."

"By my faith, brother," said he of the Grove, "my stomach is not made for

thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods; let our masters do as

they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those

enjoin; I carry my prog-basket and this bota hanging to the saddle-bow,

whatever they may say; and it is such an object of worship with me, and I

love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing

it over and over again;" and so saying he thrust it into Sancho's hands,

who raising it aloft pointed to his mouth, gazed at the stars for a

quarter of an hour; and when he had done drinking let his head fall on

one side, and giving a deep sigh, exclaimed, "Ah, whoreson rogue, how

catholic it is!"

"There, you see," said he of the Grove, hearing Sancho's exclamation,

"how you have called this wine whoreson by way of praise."

"Well," said Sancho, "I own it, and I grant it is no dishonour to call

anyone whoreson when it is to be understood as praise. But tell me,

senor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine?"

"O rare wine-taster!" said he of the Grove; "nowhere else indeed does it

come from, and it has some years' age too."

"Leave me alone for that," said Sancho; "never fear but I'll hit upon the

place it came from somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having

such a great natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let

me smell one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour

and soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that

appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family,

on my father's side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La

Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing

that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to

try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or

badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the

other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had

a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan.

The owner said the cask was clean, and that nothing had been added to the

wine from which it could have got a flavour of either iron or leather.

Nevertheless, these two great wine-tasters held to what they had said.

Time went by, the wine was sold, and when they came to clean out the

cask, they found in it a small key hanging to a thong of cordovan; see

now if one who comes of the same stock has not a right to give his

opinion in such like cases."




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