A cloud intervenes, and when again you turn to watch their progress, the objects of your anxiety have disappeared.  Still more narrow becomes the path along which you yourself are toiling, and its turns more frequent.  You have already come a distance of two leagues, and still one-third of the ascent remains unsurmounted.  You are not yet in Galicia; and you still hear Castilian, coarse and unpolished, it is true, spoken in the miserable cabins placed in the sequestered nooks which you pass by in your route.

Shortly before we reached the summit of the pass thick mists began to envelop the tops of the hills, and a drizzling rain descended.  “These mists,” said Antonio, “are what the Gallegans call bretima; and it is said there is never any lack of them in their country.”  “Have you ever visited the country before?” I demanded.  “Non, mon maitre; but I have frequently lived in houses where the domestics were in part Gallegans, on which account I know not a little of their ways, and even something of their language.”  “Is the opinion which you have formed of them at all in their favour?” I inquired.  “By no means, mon maitre; the men in general seem clownish and simple, yet they are capable of deceiving the most clever filou of Paris; and as for the women, it is impossible to live in the same house with them, more especially if they are Camareras, and wait upon the Senora; they are continually breeding dissensions and disputes in the house, and telling tales of the other domestics.  I have already lost two or three excellent situations in Madrid, solely owing to these Gallegan chambermaids.  We have now come to the frontier, mon maitre, for such I conceive this village to be.”

We entered the village, which stood on the summit of the mountain, and as our horses and ourselves were by this time much fatigued, we looked round for a place in which to obtain refreshment.  Close by the gate stood a building which, from the circumstance of a mule or two and a wretched pony standing before it, we concluded was the posada, as in effect it proved to be.  We entered:  several soldiers were lolling on heaps of coarse hay, with which the place, which much resembled a stable, was half filled.  All were exceedingly ill-looking fellows, and very dirty.  They were conversing with each other in a strange-sounding dialect, which I supposed to be Gallegan.  Scarcely did they perceive us when two or three of them, starting from their couch, ran up to Antonio, whom they welcomed with much affection, calling him companheiro.  “How came you to know these men?” I demanded in French.  “Ces messieurs sont presque tous de ma connoissance,” he replied, “et, entre nous, ce sont des veritables vauriens; they are almost all robbers and assassins.  That fellow, with one eye, who is the corporal, escaped a little time ago from Madrid, more than suspected of being concerned in an affair of poisoning; but he is safe enough here in his own country, and is placed to guard the frontier, as you see; but we must treat them civilly, mon maitre; we must give them wine, or they will be offended.  I know them, mon maitre—­I know them.  Here, hostess, bring an azumbre of wine.”