“Two human figures sate therein, two young boys; chained by the leg, they crouched in the dirty straw.

“Hardly twelve years old seemed the one, the other not much older; their faces fair and noble, but pale and wan with sickness.

“They were all in rags, almost naked; and their lean bodies showed wounds, the marks of ill-usage; both of them shivered with fever.

“They looked up at me out of the depth of their misery; ‘Who,’ I cried in horror to Don Diego, ‘are these pictures of wretchedness?’

“Don Diego seemed embarrassed; he looked round to see that no one was listening; then he gave a deep sigh; and at last, putting on the easy tone of a man of the world, he said:—­

“’These are a pair of king’s sons, who were early left orphans; the name of their father was King Pedro, the name of their mother, Maria de Padilla.

“’After the great battle of Navarette, when Henry of Transtamare had relieved his brother, King Pedro, of the troublesome burden of the crown,

“’And likewise of that still more troublesome burden, which is called life, then Don Henry’s victorious magnanimity had to deal with his brother’s children.

“’He has adopted them, as an uncle should; and he has given them free quarters in his own castle.

“’The room which he has assigned to them is certainly rather small, but then it is cool in summer, and not intolerably cold in winter.

“’Their fare is rye-bread, which tastes as sweet as if the goddess Ceres had baked it express for her beloved Proserpine.

“’Not unfrequently, too, he sends a scullion to them with garbanzos,[173]and then the young gentlemen know that it is Sunday in Spain.

“’But it is not Sunday every day, and garbanzos do not come every day; and the master of the hounds gives them the treat of his whip.

“’For the master of the hounds, who has under his superintendence the kennels and the pack, and the nephews’ cage also,

“’Is the unfortunate husband of that lemon-faced woman with the white ruff, whom we remarked to-day at dinner.

“’And she scolds so sharp, that often her husband snatches his whip, and rushes down here, and gives it to the dogs and to the poor little boys.

“’But his majesty has expressed his disapproval of such proceedings, and has given orders that for the future his nephews are to be treated differently from the dogs.

“’He has determined no longer to entrust the disciplining of his nephews to a mercenary stranger, but to carry it out with his own hands.’

“Don Diego stopped abruptly; for the seneschal of the castle joined us, and politely expressed his hope that we had dined to our satisfaction.”

Observe how the irony of the whole of that, finishing with the grim innuendo of the last stanza but one, is at once truly masterly and truly modern.