Livro Rinconete and Cortadillo

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1917. Not illustrated.

Excerpt: ... RINCONETE AND CORTADILLO On One of the hot days of the Summer, two lads happened to find themselves in the tavern of "The Little Mill," which is situated, as we go from Castile to Andalusia, at the end of the famous plains of Alcudia.

One of them was from fourteen to fifteen years of age while the other was not over seventeen. Both were of pleasant countenance, but very ragged and dilapidated. They had no cloak, their breeches were of linen, and their stockings their very flesh.

It is true that their shoes remedied these defects, for those of one were alpargates worn and torn, and those of the other fancy and without soles; so that they served him more as fetters than as shoes.

One wore a green hunter's cap; the other a hat without band, low of crown, and broad of brim. On his back, and fastened round his breast, one carried a shirt of chamois color rolled and tied in a small bag.

The other was free from encumbrances and had no alforjas, but he seemed to carry a big parcel in his bosom, which--as it turned out afterwards--was a collar of the kind called Walloon, starched with grease and so torn and threadbare that it was nothing but threads.

In it were wrapped and preserved some playing-cards of an oval shape: for with constant use the corners had been worn out, and, in order to make them last longer, they had been trimmed, and the cards remained of that shape.

Both lads were sunburnt, their nails were uncut, and their hands not very clean. One had the half of a sword and the other a knife with a yellow handle, usually called a vaquero.

The two came out to spend the siesta in a porch or shed in front of the tavern and, sitting down opposite each other, he who seemed to be the elder said to the younger: "To what part of the country does your worship, sir...