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Now, Jose Rosado was too old a hand, too jolly a host, to be long deceived. He whispered me his views as we stood near the leafy stable, and they were to the effect that the wayward son of the Aranjuez knew more about the child in the manger than any one else thereabouts.
But, having become acquainted with mine host's loquacity, I broke in with a question more to the point, "Who, Señor Jose, lives in the castle now?" He would have answered without a suspicion of my ruse, had not a bell just then rung solemnly forth, awakening the still night, and arousing Jose Rosado from his comfortable bench, promptly to his feet.
I looked in the direction whither he pointed, but I could see little in the dim moonlight save a white wall amid dense shadows. "And is Donna Isabella a very old lady?" I asked, because very old ladies are often charged with peculiar severity to very young ones. "No, no, no," said Jose Rosado, with a quick turn of the head to each no.
"Who's there?" and was answered, courteously, by a deep, gruff voice in Spanish, "It is I, señor, Jose Rosado." "Are you a guest of 'La Fonda'?" said I, for I had learned that this was the name of the inn, and was a little doubtful whether I had fallen into the hands of friend or foe. "Ha! ha! ha!" with a long explosion of guttural sounds, was my only answer.
This matter having been settled, I entered an hostelry near the same gate, which had been recommended to me by my host at Vendas Novas, and which was kept by a person of the name of Joze Rosado. It was the best in the town, though, for convenience and accommodation, inferior to a hedge alehouse in England.
As the Madonna passed us, Jose Rosado nudged me, and whispered audibly enough to make the crowd about us turn and stare, "Hist! here's the Donna Isabella, señor! She looks like a saint to-night!" I watched her closely as she went by me, and marked, under the meek expression assumed by the Virgin, a more characteristic one of severe resolution.
All this fine apparel, mine host informed me, was peculiar to Christmas, and I soon found the highway full of peasants in similar garb. As we got off, Jose Rosado resumed his story, which was brief enough to beguile us just to the church-door. "You ask me, señor, who lives in the castle now?