"How can I help it?" said Shortridge, looking much out of countenance; "I have been into a dozen houses, and these rooms are the largest and least comfortless I can find."

"I would pitch my tent in the praca, and pass the winter in it," said L'Isle, "sooner than share with these people the pig-sties they call their houses."

"But a lady is not quite so hardy or fearless as a soldier," said Mrs. Shortridge, "and needs more substantial shelter and protection than a canvas wall."

"I have some thoughts of getting rooms in the barracks," said Shortridge; "but it is not pleasant for a lady to be in the midst of the rank and file."

"Of course not. By the by," said L'Isle, as if he had just thought of it, "I intend, as soon as I get quite well, to take quarters at the barracks; I lodge too far from the regiment now. I may as well hasten my removal, and transfer my present abode to you. My house is large, well situated, and not more dilapidated than every thing else is in this country. It will suit Mrs. Shortridge as well as a Portuguese house can suit an English lady."

"But I cannot think of turning you out of it," said Mrs. Shortridge. "You are still an invalid, and need every comfort and convenience about you."

"I am nearly as well as I ever was in my life," answered L'Isle; "a little like the lean knight of La Mancha, it is true, but time and good feeding will soon cure that. And, let me tell you, good feeding is the order of the day here just now. I am only afraid we will eat up the country around, before the opening of the campaign. But my present house has a fault to me, which will be none to you. There is no stabling for my horses, unless I follow the Portuguese custom, and lodge them in the ground-floor of the house. I have to keep them at the barracks, and like to be so quartered that I can put my foot in the stirrup at a minute's warning."

The commissary and his wife made many scruples at accepting his offer, but L'Isle overruled them, and at length it was settled that he should march out at the end of three days, and Mrs. Shortridge and suite should garrison the vacant post.

"And now I will leave you," said L'Isle; "I will finish my visit when you are more suitably lodged. I know how annoying it must be to a neat English woman to receive her friends in such a place as this." And he left Mr. and Mrs. Commissary full of gratitude for his attentions, and of a growing conviction that they were people of some importance and fashion.

The military gentlemen in Elvas had, most of them, abundant leisure on their hands, and, like the Athenians in St. Paul's day, spent their time in little else "than either to tell or to hear some new thing every day." Colonel Bradshawe, strolling about the praca with this praiseworthy object, had the luck to meet with Adjutant Meynell, and at once began to pump him for news. But the adjutant, being a man of the same kidney, needed no pumping at all. He at once commenced laying open to the colonel, under the strictest injunctions to secrecy, the thing weighing most on his mind, which was the curious little conversation he had just held with his own colonel, not forgetting to give a few extra touches to the expressions of satisfaction that the news of Mrs. Shortridge's arrival had called forth. After sifting and twisting the matter to their own satisfaction, they parted, and the colonel continued his stroll, chewing the cud of the last news he had swallowed. An hour or so after, whom should he meet with, by the greatest good luck, but the commissary himself. Now, Shortridge was rather a favorite with the colonel, being a man who knew how to make himself useful. For instance, he was the very agent who had so judiciously declined purchasing the refuse sherry wines which Soult, Victor & Co. had contemptuously left on the market; while, with equal judgment and promptitude, he had laid in for the mess an abundant stock of the best port, malmsey and Madeira. Two such cronies, meeting for the first time for ten days, had much conference together; in the course of which the colonel learned all about the straits Mrs. Shortridge was put to for lodgings, and how she was to be relieved through the considerate kindness of L'Isle. This led to a minute account of the occasion on which their acquaintance began, and rather an exaggerated statement of the social relations existing between the aristocratic colonel and the Shortridge firm.

"I have been sometimes galled and ruffled by his haughty manner," said the commissary; "but now I know it is only his manner. He is very considerate of other people, and is getting more and more agreeable every day."

The commissary not having, like the colonel, nothing to do, now took his leave; a little surprised, however, seeing how glad Bradshawe had been to meet with him, at his not inviting him to dine that day with the mess, as he had often done before.

It was observed at the mess table of the —— regiment, that the colonel was in particularly fine spirits to-day. Always companionable, he this day enjoyed his dinner, his glass, and his jokes, and other men's jokes, with peculiar gusto. At length, however, the table grew thin. Duty, pleasure, satiety, and restlessness, took off man after man, particularly of the younger officers, and the colonel was left at last to the support of three or four of his special confidants, the stanchest sitters in the regiment.

Gathering them around him, he called for a fresh decanter, filled their glasses, and ordered the last servant out of the room. After slowly draining his glass, and dwelling awhile on the rich flavor of the wine, he remarked: "We certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Shortridge, for the good faith in which he executes these little commissions. They are, we should remember, quite beside his official duties. I never tasted better Madeira of its age in my life—it almost equals my lord's best, which is ten years older; and I do not think that Shortridge made more than two fair profits out of us. I met him, by the by, to-day, and would have had him to dine with us; but, for certain reasons, I think his best place, just now, is at home, watching over his domestic relations."

"What is there in them," exclaimed one of the party, "that needs such close watching?"

The colonel seemed for a moment to debate in his own mind the propriety of making a revelation, then said: "We are all friends here; and, while it is desirable in our profession, and in all others, to know thoroughly the men we live among, still there are many little things that are not to be published on parade, like a general order."

His discreet auditors assenting to this truth, he then gave a full detail of Adjutant Meynell's morning conversation with his colonel, painting broadly and brightly L'Isle's surprise and delight on hearing that Mrs. Shortridge was in Elvas. "What do you think of that, Fox?"

Captain Fox thought L'Isle very imprudent. "But he is young yet, and lacks secrecy and self-command."

"I had not well digested what Meynell had told me," continued Bradshawe, "when I met Shortridge, and lo! L'Isle had already found them out in their dirty lodgings," and the colonel went on to repeat and embellish Shortridge's narrative of L'Isle's kind attention, and the origin of their intimacy. Various were the comments of the company on the affair. But they all agreed to the justness of their colonel's criticism, when he remarked: "That scene in the Patriarchal Church must have been exceedingly well got up. I should like much to have been by. Have you ever remarked that a woman never faints out-and-out, when there is no man near enough, and ready enough, to catch her before she falls to the ground?"

This was a physiological fact, as to female fainting, that some of the company admitted was new to them.

"Now, you are all sharp fellows," said Bradshawe, with a patronizing wave of the hand; "and some of you profess to be men of intrigue; yet I doubt whether any one of you can tell me why the house is not handed over to Shortridge until at the end of three days."

One suggested one reason; another, another. But wine had failed to sharpen their wits, and he scornfully rejected their solutions.

"Three days may be needed," said he, gravely, "to fit a double set of keys to every lock in the house. Shortridge will have one. L'Isle may keep the other, and with it the power of letting himself in and out at any minute of the twenty-four hours."

How stupid did his companions think themselves. The thing was now patent to the dullest apprehension.

"It is curious," continued the colonel, "that Shortridge, so keen a fellow in all business transactions (for both we and the government have found him too sharp for us before now), should be in these little delicate domestic relations such an egregious gull. You all know I do not view these little matters from the parson's point of view; but still, there is a propriety to be observed. To think," continued Bradshawe, with a countenance of comic horror, "of his proposing to make our friend Shortridge lie in a ditch, for his accommodation! Our punctilious comrade is getting to be a very bare-faced fellow. Just snatched from the brink of the grave, too," added he, in a sudden fit of pious indignation. "What a deliberate, cold-blooded fellow!"

Having thus, by fitting a few chance hints to each other, brought out a pretty piece of Spanish intrigue, that would have delighted Calderon or Lope de Vega, the colonel emptied the decanter by filling the glasses all round, and each man emptying his glass, the company dispersed.



CHAPTER V.

I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudence, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.—Love's Labor Lost.

L'Isle, meanwhile, after spending an unwonted time at his toilet, drew himself up to the utmost of the five feet ten which nature had allotted to him, to shake off the stoop which he imagined himself to have contracted during his long hours of languor and suffering. He then inspected himself most critically in the glass, to see how far he had recovered his usual good looks. But that truthful counsellor presented to him cheeks still sunken and pallid, and sharpened features. The clear gray eye looked out from a cavern, and the rich nut-brown hair hung over a brow covered with parchment. His lean figure no longer filled the uniform which once fitted it so well. He stood before his glass in no peacock mood of self-admiration; but was compelled to own that he was not, just now at least, the man to fascinate a lady's eye; so he resolved to take Lady Mabel by the ear, which is, in fact, the surest way to catch a woman.

Lord Strathern kept his promise: to have no noisy fellows at dinner to-day. Perhaps an occasional visitor, who hovered near, the gout, made him more readily dispense with his more jovial companions. The only guest, beside L'Isle, was Major Conway, of the light dragoons.

A party of four is an excellent number for conversation, especially if there be no rivalry among them. The major had served long in India, but had arrived in the Peninsula only toward the end of the last campaign. He wished to learn all he could of the country, the people and the war; and nearly five years of close observation, industrious inquiry, and active service had rendered L'Isle just the man to gratify his wishes. Lord Strathern, too, in a long and varied military career, had seen much, and the old soldier had not failed to lay in a stock of shrewd observation and amusing anecdote. So that, to a young listener like Lady Mabel, eager to learn and quick to appreciate, two or three hours glided away in striking and agreeable contrast with the more jovial and somewhat noisy festivities of yesterday and many a previous day. L'Isle made no attempt to engross her attention. Major Conway had left a wife in England, which shut out any feelings of rivalry with him. L'Isle was thus quite at his ease, and showed to much advantage; for it is surprising how agreeable some people can make themselves when they are bent upon it. He combined the qualities of a good talker and a good listener; was communicative to the major; yet more attentive to his lordship; and most careful, above all things, to turn the conversation to topics interesting to Lady Mabel, who, while listening, asking questions, and offering an occasional remark, was fast coming to the conclusion that L'Isle, young as he was, was by far the best informed and most considerate man in the brigade. She more particularly wondered how, while tied down to his military duties, he had found time to master the languages, history, topography, and even the antiquities of the peninsula. He knew personally many a Spaniard and Portuguese who had made himself conspicuous for good or ill, at this fearful crisis of his country's history. He thoroughly understood the people, with all their virtues and their vices, that perhaps outweigh those virtues; yet he seemed by no means to despise them. Amidst the too common baseness and corruption, he could paint vividly their nobler traits, and illustrate them by many a pointed anecdote and thrilling narrative. Lady Mabel could not help thinking what a delightful companion he would be on a tour through these countries, if she found so much pleasure in merely listening to his account of what he had seen and witnessed there.

"Traveling is my passion," said Lady Mabel. "From childhood I have longed to see foreign lands, and to find myself surrounded by outlandish people. I suppose it is owing to my having been kept close at home, yet encouraged to follow the footsteps of travelers over page after page of their rambles. My journey hither, through the wilderness of Alemtejo, has but whetted my appetite. And there is something peculiarly fascinating in the idea of traveling in Spain, the land of adventure and romance."

"Just now is no good time for such a journey," said L'Isle; "there are too many French and other robbers besetting the roads."

"There would be too little of romance and too much of adventure in meeting with them," said she. "It is most provoking to be thus tantalized; the cup at my lips, and I cannot taste of it; Spain in sight, and I cannot explore it. I am eager to visit the Alhambra and Escurial, and other show-places, and take a long ramble in the Sierra Morena. I would wish to engage the most skillful arriero in all Spain, and, mounted on his best mule, roam all over the country, through every mountain-pass, and across every desolate plain, and make a pilgrimage to every spot hallowed by poetic or historic fame. I would search out, as a shrine of chivalry, each field on which the Cid displayed the gleaming blade of Tizona, and on which the hoofs of his Babieca trampled on the Moor. I wonder if my guide could not show me, too, the foundation-stones of the manor-house of the good knight of La Mancha, the site at least of the bower of Dulcinea del Toboso, and Gil Blas' robbers' cave?"

"Just at this time," said L'Isle, "the cave of Captain Rolando and his comrades, being in the north of Leon, is particularly inaccessible, for there are some ninety thousand similar gentry wintering between us and it."

"Those fellows have been very quiet of late, and it will probably be some time before they are stirring again," said Lord Strathern.

"We will give them reason to bestir themselves as soon as the corn is grown enough to fodder our horses," answered L'Isle. "Meanwhile, Lady Mabel, there is much worth seeing in Portugal. All is not like the wilderness of Alemtejo. If you will believe the Portuguese, it was not to the imagination of the poet, but to the eye of the traveler in Lusitania, that we owe the poetic pictures of the Elysian fields. All the Portuguese agree that their country is crowded with the choice beauties and wonders of nature, and they certainly should know their own country best. I have seen enough of it to satisfy me, that though but a little corner of the smallest of the continents, it is a lovely and remarkable part of the earth. Its beautiful mountains, not sublime, perhaps, like the Alps and Pyrenees, but exquisitely rich and wonderful in coloring, with a variety of romantic and ever-shifting scenery, are perhaps unrivaled in Europe; its grand rivers, often unite on their banks the wildest rocks with the loveliest woodland scenes; its balmy climate fosters in many places an ever green foliage and a perpetual spring."

"From your description of the country," said Lady Mabel, "one might take you for a Portuguese."

"Yet they themselves have little perception of the real beauties of nature," said L'Isle. "They will lead you away from the loveliest scene in their land, to point out some curiosity, more to their taste; some miraculous image, some saintly relic brought by angels from the Holy Land, or, perhaps, some local natural phenomenon, which has a dash of the wonderful about it. For instance, when at Braga, three years ago, with my hands full of business, and anxious at the same time to learn all I could of the country around, my Portuguese companion compelled me to waste a precious hour in visiting a famous spring in the garden of a convent of St. Augustine. The water, you must know, is intensely cold, and if a bottle of wine be immersed in it, it is instantly turned into vinegar."

"Did you see that?" asked Lady Mabel.

"When I called for a bottle of wine, the good fathers told me they had given all they had to a detachment of Portuguese troops that marched by the day before—a charity more wondrous than the virtue of the spring."

"Yet it is a pity you could not test the virtues of this wonderful spring," said she.

"Not more wonderful," said L'Isle, "than the fountain in the village of Friexada. Its water, too, is excessively cold, and of so hungry a nature, that in less than an hour it consumes a joint of meat, leaving the bones quite bare."

"You of course tested that," said she.

"Unluckily," said L'Isle, "our party had only one leg of mutton in store, and were too hungry to risk their dinner in the fountain's maw."

"You are a bad traveler," said Lady Mabel, "and seem never to have with you the means of testing the truth of what you are told."

"I take with me a good stock of faith," said L'Isle, "and believe, or seem to believe, all that I am told. This pleases these people wonderfully well, and keeping them in good humor is the main point just now. There is, however, near Estremoz, which place you passed through coming hither, a curiosity of somewhat a similar kind. It is a spring which is dry in winter, but pours out a considerable stream in summer. Its waters are of so petrifying a quality, that the wheels of the mills it works are said to be soon turned into stone."

"I trust, for your credit as a traveler," said Lady Mabel, "that you will be able to say that you, for once, proved the truth or falsehood of what you heard."

"I did, and found them incrusted with stone. But that is not so curious as the prophetic spring of Xido, which foretells to the rustics around a fruitful season, by pouring forth but little water, or a year of scarcity by an abundant flow. These are little things; but were I to run over each class of objects of curiosity or interest this country affords, I would soon convince you that you were already in a land of wonders and rare sights."

"But even here I am trammeled. Papa did not come out here to examine the curiosities of the country, or to hunt out picturesque scenery, Moorish antiquities, or Roman ruins, and I cannot go scampering over the neighborhood with an escort of volunteers from the brigade or the Light Dragoons. It is true that Mrs. Captain Howe, who is a great connoisseuse in nature and art, has promised to be my guide in exploring the country as soon as she gets rid of her rheumatism. But from the number of her flannel wrappers, I infer that there is no hope of her soon extending her explorations beyond the walls of her room."

"You must indeed feel the want of a companion to free you from the awkwardness of your situation; here with no company but those rude comrades his majesty has sent out hither."

"My want is so urgent that were it not for my loyalty, I would now exchange a crack regiment for a companionable woman."

"I am glad, then, to be able to tell you that a lady has arrived in Elvas, who may be very useful in filling up this awkward gap in the circle of your acquaintance!"

"A lady? An English lady? Who is she?"

"An English lady. One old enough to be your chaperon, and young enough to be your companion. She has some other merits too, not the least of which, in my estimation is that she professes to be a great friend of mine."

"A crowning virtue, that," said lady Mabel.

"It does not blind me, however, to two or three faults, and a misfortune she labors under."

"What then are her faults?"

"The first is, that she is, it must be confessed, rather simple."

"Simplicity may be a virtue. We will overlook that."

"Then she sometimes clips the king's English!"

"There is no statute against it, like clipping his coin."

"She is afflicted, moreover, with an inveterate love of sight-seeing."

"That is a positive virtue. I have fellow-feeling with her. She would be no true woman if she ever lost her chance at a spectacle. But what is her misfortune?"

"She is the wife of a commissary," said L'Isle with a very grave face.

"Why L'Isle," said Lord Strathern, "has Shortridge brought his wife to Elvas?"

"Yes, my lord, they came last night. Yes, Lady Mabel; the woman who marries a commissary can hardly escape being the wife of a knave!"

"But I really believe," said his lordship, "that our rascal is the most honest fellow in the commissariat department."

"That is not saying much for his honesty."

"I hope for the honor of human nature," interposed Major Conway, "that there are honest men among commissaries?"

"It is no imputation on human nature to think otherwise," said L'Isle; "You might as soon hope there are honest men among pickpockets. For some good reason or other, honest men cannot follow either trade."

"That is one of your prejudices, L'Isle," said Lord Strathern, "and in them you are a true bigot. You are too hard upon poor Shortridge and his brethren. Shortridge is a very good fellow, though a little vulgar it is true. And he always cheats with a conscience, and so do many of his brethren."

"I shall have no scruples of conscience in making use of Mrs. Commissary, if I can," said Lady Mabel. "I hope she is of a sociable temper?"

"Quite so. And moreover, I forgot one trait that will make her particularly accessible to you. She is very fond of people of fashion, and a title secures her esteem.

"Then she belongs to me, for I shall not be wanting in attention to your newly arrived friend. How comes she to be your friend?"

L'Isle told Mrs. Shortridge's adventure in the Patriarchal church; mentioned the straits she was now in for lodgings, and his intention to yield his present quarters to her.

"Why Colonel L'Isle," exclaimed Lady Mabel, "you must be the very pink of chivalry. I do not know which most to admire, your gallant rescue of the dame, or your self-sacrificing spirit in finding her a home."

"You will make Shortridge jealous, L'Isle, by taking such good care of his wife," said Lord Strathern.

"Our sharp friend has too much sense," answered L'Isle, "to be guilty of such folly as that."

Major Conway setting the example, L'Isle now thought it time to take his leave, and he returned to his quarters with the air of a man who thought he had done a good day's work.

"I think," said Lord Strathern to his daughter, "that L'Isle is improving in manners."

"His manners are good, Papa. Were they ever otherwise?"

"I mean that he is becoming more conciliatory, and more considerate of other people. He has scarcely differed from me to-day, and certainly did not undertake to set me right, or contradict me even once, a habit he is much addicted to, and very unbecoming in so young a man! It is certainly, too, very kind of him to give up his comfortable quarters to the Shortridges, in their distress, particularly as I know he despises the man."

Now do not blunder on to the hasty conclusion, good reader, that L'Isle, having, at first sight, plunged over head and ears in love with Lady Mabel, had resolved to win and wear her with the least possible loss of time; that he was now investing the fortress, about to besiege it in form, and would hold himself in readiness to carry it by storm on the first opportunity. He acknowledged to himself no such intention; and he doubtless knew his own mind best. Without exactly holding the opinion of Sir John, as set forth by his follower, Bardolph, that a soldier is better accommodated than with a wife—he had often strenuously maintained, in opposition to some love-stricken comrade, that, in the midst of a bloody war, a soldier can give no worse proof of devotion to the lady of his choice, than urging her to become a promising candidate for early widowhood. He preached exceedingly well on this text, and it is but fair to believe that he would practice what he preached. No! in the interest he took in Lady Mabel's situation, he was actuated by no selfish or personal motives. He acquitted himself of that. Had he come across Lady Mabel's old Lisbon coach, beset by robbers, in her journey through the Alemtejo, he would have dashed in among them, sword in hand, like a true gentleman, and a good knight. Now, when he saw her surrounded by evils and embarrassments of a less tangible kind, the same spirit of chivalry brought him promptly to her aid.

Lady Mabel lost no time in adding Mrs. Shortridge to the list of her female acquaintances in Elvas, which, unlike that of her male friends was so short that this new comer was the only one available as a companion. This jewel of a companion, which elsewhere might have escaped her notice, was now seized upon as a diamond of the first water; and Mrs. Shortridge was happy and flattered to find herself the associate of a lady of rank, not to speak of her other merits.

It is not always similarity of character that makes people friends. It quite as often makes them rivals. To have what your companion wants, and to need what he can afford you, is a better foundation for those social partnerships, often dignified with the name of friendship. The great talker wants a good listener; the sluggish or melancholic are glad of a companion who will undertake the active duty of providing conversation and amusement; he whose nature it is to lead, wants some one who will follow; and the doubting man welcomes as a strong ally, him who will decide for him. As Dogberry says, "when two men ride on a horse, one must ride behind," and the social, compliant and admiring temper of Mrs. Shortridge fitted in so well with the animated, impulsive, and vigorous spirit of Lady Mabel, that something very like friendship grew up between them.

Lady Mabel's habits now underwent a change, which proved that her late mode of life, and her morning and evening levees of epaulettes, had been quite as much the result of necessity as of choice. Her father's house was still much frequented by her gay and dashing comrades. But whenever there was a large company to dinner, or any other cause brought many of the gentlemen to head-quarters, she made a point of having Mrs. Shortridge at hand to countenance and sustain her; and in return she would often mount her horse early and canter into Elvas, followed only by a groom, to shut herself up with Mrs. Shortridge for a whole morning, doubtless in the enjoyment of those confidential feminine chats, for which she had longed so much. On these occasions the representatives of the ruder sex seldom gained admittance, except that L'Isle would now and then drop in for an hour, he being too great a favorite with Mrs. Shortridge to be excluded; and, for a time, he showed no disposition to abuse his special privilege.

It was on one of these occasions that L'Isle discovered that with all his assiduity in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the peculiar and interesting land in which he had now spent more than four years—an assiduity, on the result of which he much prided himself, and which had done him good service in his profession—there was still one important point that he had quite overlooked. He knew absolutely nothing of the botany of this region, nor, indeed, of any other. He made this discovery suddenly on hearing Lady Mabel express the interest she felt in this science, and her hope of finding many opportunities of pursuing it in a country whose Flora was so new to her. He at once began to supply this omission by borrowing from her half a dozen books on the subject. In two or three days he reappeared, armed with a huge bunch of wild flowers and plants, and professed to have mastered the technicalities sufficiently to enter at once on the practical study of the science in the field. Unless he deceived himself, he was an astonishing fast learner. Lady Mabel told him that she had heard that poeta nascitur, and now she believed it from analogy; for he was certainly born a botanist. He rebutted the sarcasm by showing that he had the terms stamen, pistil, calix, corolla, capsule, and a host of others at the tip of his tongue; though possibly, had he been called upon to apply each in its proper place, he would have been like a certain student of geometry we once knew, who, by aid of a good memory alone, could demonstrate all Euclid's theorems, without understanding one of them, provided the diagrams were small enough to be hidden by his hand, so you could not detect him in pointing to the wrong angle and line.

January was gone, and the earlier of the two springs that mark this climate was opening beautifully. L'Isle displayed temptingly before Lady Mabel's eyes the wild flowers he had collected during a laborious morning spent on hill and plain, in wood and field, and urged her to lose no time in taking the field too, and making collections for the hortus siccus of which she talked so much, but toward which she had yet done nothing; while at the same time, she might, without trouble, indoctrinate him in the mysteries of this beautiful branch of natural history. Most of these flowers were new to her as living specimens. Her botanical enthusiasm was roused at the sight of them, and the offer of a pupil added to her zeal. When we know a little of any thing, it is very pleasant to be applied to for instruction by the ignorant, as it enables us to flatter ourselves that we know a great deal. And it is only the more gratifying when our voluntary pupil is otherwise well informed.

It was at once arranged that the party should take the field to-morrow. Mrs. Shortridge, it is true, had no particular taste for botany. If the flowers in her bouquet were beautiful, or fragrant, or both, she did not trouble herself about their history, names, class, order, or alliances; but pleasant company, fresh air, exercise, and new scenes were inducements enough for her.



CHAPTER VI.

For thee my borders nurse the fragrant wreath, My fountain murmurs and my zephyrs breathe; Slow glides the painted snail, the gilded fly Smooths his fine down to charm thy curious eye; On twinkling fins my scaly nations play, Or wind, with sinuous train, their trackless way. My plumy pairs, in gay embroidery dressed, Form with ingenious skill the pensile nest; To Love's sweet notes attune the listening dell, And Echo sounds her soft symphonious shell.

The Botanic Garden.

Betimes the next morning the botanical party were in the saddle. Mrs. Shortridge rode a mule, the especial favorite of the commissary, for her sure foot and easy gaits, and Lady Mabel was mounted on her Andalusian, on whose education Lieut. Goring had bestowed such pains: but on this occasion she ungratefully omitted to summon her equerry to attend her.

Descending the granite hill of Elvas, they rode westward across the fertile valley, their road shut in on either hand by luxuriant evergreen hedges; for here the dark clay soil was all under cultivation, and carefully laid out into garden, orchard, or field. They passed under the arches of the great aqueduct that stretched its tortuous length across the undulating vale; they paused to admire its peculiarity of style and structure, and the greatness of the work; to wonder at the crooked course it ran, and yet more at the little use the people of Elvas made of its waters for cleaning purposes. Then, hastening on, they found themselves, at the end of some five miles, in an open and elevated country. Dismounting here, they left the horses to the care of their servants. The riding skirts fell to the ground, the ladies stepped forth in walking costume, and the party commenced their ramble after flowers, plants, and scenery, directing their steps toward the high grounds to the northwest of Elvas.

For two or three hours they got on famously. There was much that was new, curious, and beautiful, to be gazed on and admired, wondered at, and collected. Lady Mabel, with the enthusiasm of a young botanist and a younger traveler, found treasures at every step. The gentle morning breeze came refreshingly down from the hills before them, laden with the perfumes of opening spring; the rich aroma of the gum-cistus, the fragrance of the wild rosemary, and many another sweet-scented plant, pervading the air, yet not oppressing the breath. Mrs. Shortridge expressed, rather strongly, perhaps, her delight at the contrast between the sweet-smelling country and the unsavory towns of the Portuguese. She quoted, with no little unction, the proverb: "God made the country, man made the town," as if she had never fully felt its force till now.

"We may say more broadly," observed L'Isle, "that God makes nature and man defiles it."

"I am truly glad," said Mrs. Shortridge, "that these filthy people have not been able to defile their whole land."

Gradually the sunbeams grew hotter, the mountain breeze became a sultry breath, the ground steeper and more rugged, and their accumulating floral treasures more and more cumbrous. Lady Mabel seemed to take delight in adding every moment to the load L'Isle carried. "You must know," she said, "that the pupil is always the packhorse on these occasions," and she insisted on Mrs. Shortridge bearing her share of the burden. This lady at first had talked incessantly, but had gradually less and less to say, and at length was reduced to silence from sheer want of breath. She had frequently to rest for a few minutes, and was coming fast to the conviction that rural excursions on a hot day, and flower-hunting over rough ground, were less pleasant than she thought at first. The hills, bare of trees, exposed them to the full power of the sun, yet were covered with a growth of tall heaths, mingled with patches of the cistus ladaniferus, which covers so much of the surface of the slaty hills of this region. The close growth and gummy exudations of this plant often made the thickets impenetrable, and forced the party to many a long circuit, in their efforts to reach the ridge of the high grounds. Mrs. Shortridge at length sat, or rather sunk, down upon a fragment of rock, and L'Isle came promptly to her aid.

"Colonel L'Isle," said she, panting, "I could not take another step up hill for all the flowers in Portugal."

"I am only astonished at your getting so far up. You are not used to climbing mountains."

"When Lady Mabel is at home in Scotland," said Mrs. Shortridge, "I suppose she walks up a mountain every morning, to get an appetite for breakfast. So it is in vain to attempt to follow her. But here she comes."

Lady Mabel now joined them; and L'Isle, pointing out a belt of low woods that wound along the hollow ground at no great distance below them, offered Mrs. Shortridge his arm, and induced her to make an effort to reach its shelter.

On drawing nearer to it, they found themselves in a rough path, made by the flocks of the neighborhood, which led them at first through thickets of evergreen shrubs, and then abruptly down the rocky and almost precipitous bank of that stream, which a mile or two below reached and supplied the aqueduct of Elvas.

Here the clear, cool waters glided over a rocky bed, and when they had quenched their thirst, the ladies found time to look around. On either hand they were shut in by masses of rock, which, with their stratified and fractured lines, resembled walls, the rude masonry of giants. A projecting crag shut out from sight the stream above them; but, attracted by the sound of falling waters, they pushed their way by a few careful steps round it, and full in view, and close at hand, the stream fell over a ledge of rock in a beautiful cascade, descending at once twenty feet into a rock-girdled pool, which in the course of ages it had hollowed out for itself. Here the water ran eddying round, as lingering on a spot it loved, and loath to resume its onward course.

The perpetually falling waters fanned and freshened the noonday air; while overhead, on every ledge that gave footing to their roots, the myrtle and lauristinus, mingled with the oleander, the rhododendron ponticum, and other evergreen shrubs, fed by the fostering moisture of the atmosphere, almost to the size of trees, spread out their luxurious branches to shut out each straggling sunbeam, and deepen the shade of the narrow dell almost to twilight. It was a cavern, with its vaulted roof removed, laying it gently open to the light of day, without its glare. The wood-pigeon amidst the boughs mingled his plaintive notes with the murmur of the falling water, and the speckled trout sported in the pool—now displaying his glistening scales at the surface, then suddenly and coyly hiding in some deep and dark recess.

Lady Mabel stood in silent, motionless delight, drinking in with eye, and ear, and breath, the thrilling sensations crowding on her in this enchanted spot. The exclamation in which Mrs. Shortridge's admiring surprise found vent, jarred on her young companions' nerves, and seemed to break a mystic spell.

The ladies were still wondering at the chance which had led them to this spot, so cool, shady and refreshing after their fatigues, and so charming in its happy grouping of wild, picturesque, and romantic features on a miniature scale, when one of L'Isle's servants stepped from behind the projecting crag, and spread a cloth over a large fragment of rock, the stratified surface of its upper side making no inconvenient table. Then, bringing forward a large basket, he lost no time in setting forth the materials of a light but elegant repast. It was now evident to the ladies that their arrival at this place of refuge and delight, neighboring so closely the bare mountain-side, was not so accidental as they had imagined, and they united in thanking L'Isle for his foresight, and lauding his taste.

Smaller fragments of rock were placed as seats for the ladies, and though they had not all the conveniences of a well-ordered dining-room, they only enjoyed themselves the more for the want of them, while L'Isle busied himself in doing the hospitalities of what Lady Mabel christened "Fairy Dell." The inducements were strong to remain here until the heat of the day was past. Mrs. Shortridge had had her fill of heat and fatigue, in scrambling over the rugged mountain. Lady Mabel had to place her botanical treasures with their stems in the water, to revive their already withering bloom and rear their drooping heads, before she could cull from their unwieldy bulk the specimens she wished to preserve. So, after their meal, the servant was sent to order the horses up to the nearest point that admitted of riding, while the party reposed themselves in the shade and rested from their labors, luxuriously enjoying the scene, sounds, and atmosphere around them.

"How did you happen to find this lovely spot?" asked Mrs. Shortridge.

"The truth is, I yesterday morning went over the same ground we have gone over to-day, and a good deal more," answered L'Isle. "Following this stream upward, I came to this spot. If you would hunt out the peculiar beauties of Portugal, you must follow the course of its rivers and rivulets. True as this is of many countries, it is most true of this. You may observe, Lady Mabel, that almost all the plants you have collected, and some flowers you have not met with to-day, were contained in the collection I brought you yesterday."

"I see that," said Lady Mabel. "But to-day's work is not therefore the less satisfactory. The title botanist—and I suppose you have found out that I make some pretensions to that character—is not content with merely having flowers, leaves, and parts of plants in his hortus siccus, or even abortive specimens in his garden and his hot-house: he wants to see the whole plant where nature placed it, and study its character and habits there. Who is satisfied with seeing a Turk in London? To know him as he is, we look for him in Constantinople, or, better still, in some province across the Bosphorus, seated on his own carpet, in his own shop, or in his coffee-house; or, better still, in his harem, with his customers, or neighbors, or his family of wives around him. How much does the Esquimaux in London resemble the Esquimaux seated on his sledge, shouting at his team of dogs, and posting over his frozen and trackless route, with a horizon of ice around him? That is traveling, and this is botany; and of all sciences botany best suits the traveler. Every variation of latitude, climate, or season, even the smallest changes of soil, elevation, or exposure, brings him to a new region, where he may make new acquaintances, or meet old friends. Through a love for botany the wilderness blooms to us like a garden, and the solitary places are made populous and glad."

"Such an enthusiastic botanist must become an adept," said L'Isle. "I suppose you see in Portugal nothing but a land of rare and varied vegetation?"

"By no means. I am not wedded to one pursuit; or gifted with but one taste. I have eyes for other things beside flowers, and shall seize every opportunity of seeing and knowing something of the people of the country."

"The people, the real people," said L'Isle, "both of this country and of Spain, are the peasantry. They are chiefly agricultural countries, and the rural, or rather village population forms the bulk of both nations, and the best part of them."

"It is the peasantry, the dear, natural, picturesque peasantry that I most want to know."

"I am astonished to hear you say so, Lady Mabel. The ignorant, filthy, superstitious creatures!" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, with an air of infinite disgust. "Their fidalgos, as they call their gentry, are bad enough; but as for the common people, any familiarity with them, sufficient to enable you to know them, would be too disgusting. They may be picturesque; so let us confine them to their place in the picture. There alone it is that they do not bring their savor of garlic with them," and she here buried her pretty little turned-up nose in a bunch of Lady Mabel's most fragrant flowers.

"Give me those flowers, Mrs. Shortridge; you handle them so rudely, any one might see that you are no botanist. I had just laid them aside to be pressed. And as for the poor Portuguese, I mean to know them as well and despise them as little as I can, and even hope to learn something through them, if not from them. Colonel L'Isle, I have mastered already all the ordinary phrases of Portuguese salutation and compliment, which you know are much more various and cumbrous than in our direct, blunt English. I can already be as polite as the most courteous native, and that is, at least, the beginning of conversation. I can ask, too, for the necessaries of life, and inquire my road, should I chance to lose it. Let a woman alone for getting the tongues. I hold frequent conferences with Antonio Lobo, the peasant who keeps our orchard at head-quarters, and have daily talks with our Portuguese chamber-maid, and can find fault with her, not to say scold, in good set terms. The awkward creature gives me abundant provocation for scolding, and for not forgetting your advice about vociferation and gesticulation."

"You do well to remember it," said L'Isle; "it will help you on famously."

"I had some thoughts," she continued, "in order to lose no opportunity of familiarizing myself with these tongues, of saying my prayers in Spanish of a morning, and Portuguese at night. But a scruple of conscience deterred me from attempting, in prayer, to kill two birds with one stone."

"I think," said L'Isle, laughing, "that your scruple was not out of place."

"Yet you know that Charles V. held that God should never be addressed but in Spanish."

"A strange doctrine for a Papist, who was always praying to him in bad Latin," said L'Isle. "That opinion savors of heresy, and deserved the notice of the Inquisition."

"At all events," said Lady Mabel, "it is best not to pray to him in bad Spanish. But had I an opportunity of traveling through Spain and Portugal, and mixing freely with the people, I would show you how quickly both tongues could be mastered."

"I see little chance of your having that opportunity soon," said Mrs. Shortridge.

"I am afraid I must give up all hope of it. The Santa Hermandad no longer keep the roads safe; and all the knights of Alcantara and Calatrava to boot, of these degenerate days, would afford but little protection to a demoiselle errante."

"I will offer you a more trusty escort than that of those false knights," said L'Isle. "I will place myself and regiment at your command."

"That is truly kind. I accept the offer; and when I set out on my travels, will send you on with it a march or two ahead, to clear the way, and make all safe for us, while Mrs. Shortridge and myself will follow at ease with our civic retinue, confident that you will have removed every danger from the path!"

"That arrangement would make the journey less pleasant to me than I hoped to find it."

"I thought your object was our safety, not your pleasure," said Lady Mabel.

"And for my part," said Mrs. Shortridge, "I do not care to travel any road which requires a regiment to make it safe. I am inquisitive enough, but my fears would be stronger than my curiosity."

"Well," Lady Mabel said, "I begin to despair of ever gratifying my longing after a rambling life. It is probably all for the best. I dare say I would have become a mere vagabond. But I had embraced a wide field in my contemplated travels: romantic Spain, la belle France, classic Italy, and that dreamy, misty Faderland. But I suppose that this war will last always, and for all practical purposes I may as well roll up the map of Europe."

"Do you seriously imagine that this war will last forever?" L'Isle asked.

"Why not forever, or, at least, for a long life time? It began before I was born, and may continue long after I am dead. I have no recollection of a state of peace, to make me think it the natural condition of nations."

"We are luckily not limited to our own experience in drawing our conclusions. Take my word for it, these wars are drawing to a close. I am only afraid that they will end before I am a Major-General."

"Why! Do you expect them to go on making a series of blunders at headquarters, like that in the affair of that unlucky Spanish village?"

"A series of blunders," L'Isle answered, "would be quite in accordance with the routine at the war-office, at least. So my expectations are not so unreasonable as you may imagine."

"Then let them blunder on as fast as possible, and make you a major-general, and a knight of the bath, too, if it please the king. Many of your family were knighted of old, and Sir Edward L'Isle will sound well enough until it be merged in the peerage. But mean while hasten to drive these French out of Spain, as the czar is driving them out of Russia; make Spain too hot, as Muscovy is too cold for them, that I may begin my travels at an early day."

L'Isle, out of countenance, made no answer to this sally. He did not like being laughed at, especially by Lady Mabel.

The rays of the declining sun now touched the tops only of the luxuriant shrubbery, that overhung this fairy dell. The heat of the day was passed, and clambering up the steep path to the more level ground, the party found their servants at hand with the horses, and rode slowly back toward Elvas.

Near the foot of the range of hills, L'Isle suddenly caught sight of three red coats, and saying, "I wonder what those fellows are doing so far from their quarters," he turned his horse out of the path, and rode toward them. They presently saw him approaching, and much to Lady Mabel's surprise and amusement, in which last feeling, Mrs. Shortridge joined, instead of waiting for him to come up, they immediately ran off different ways, seeking concealment from the thickets and hollows. Selecting one of them for the chase, L'Isle pushed his horse boldly over the rough ground. But the soldier, finding the pursuit too hot, pulled off the coat which made him conspicuous, and folding it into small compass, pushed through an overgrown hedge and vanished. L'Isle was soon at fault, and had to give up the chase. He returned somewhat out of humor, with his horse somewhat blown.

"You are a bold rider," said Lady Mabel, "but those red foxes are too cunning for you. What made you chase them? What harm were they doing?"

"None that I know of—and had they let me speak to them I would have suspected none. But a soldier is always at mischief when he avoids being seen and identified by his officer. The men are allowed too much liberty in rambling over the country. No wonder we have so many complaints lodged against them."

"You had better speak to papa about it," said Lady Mabel, in simple confidence that so doing would set all to right.

"So I have, more than once. But he does not agree with me, and is opposed to what he calls needless restraint."

"Oh, if papa thinks so, you need not worry yourself about the matter. It is his business, and doubtless near forty year's experience has taught him what amount and kinds of restraint are needed, and what is merely burthensome and oppressive. I have heard him discuss these matters more than once."

She seemed so little disposed to think her father might be mistaken, that L'Isle did not venture to hint further the possibility of it. In that father, Lady Mabel had full faith, and also some of the faith of inexperience in the beautiful theory which teaches that the general knows best, that after him the second in command approaches nearest to infallibility, and so on through every gradation of rank, in all services, civil and military. Had she made an exception to the application of this rule, it would have been in her father's case; for she inclined to the belief, that notwithstanding the reputation and higher rank of the military men who stood between him and the commander-in-chief, her father was, after Wellington, the strongest bulwark against the torrent of invading French.

"I dare say that many of these poor fellows," observed Lady Mabel, "though they are but common soldiers, enjoy a stroll into the country as much as we do. In a rude way they admire picturesque beauty, and observe with interest, bird, beast and plant of a country so different from their own."

"I suspect," said Mrs. Shortridge, "they look chiefly for the picturesque spots frequented by the pigs and poultry of the peasants, and have a keen eye to detect where the fruits of the orchard are stored, and where the wine skins hang."

Lady Mabel was indignant at this suggestion. "It is a libel on the British army in general, and on our brigade in particular. They are soldiers, not robbers; and the king's troops are too well cared for to be driven to plunder for a living."

"But they may rob from love of mischief, of excitement, of excess, from mere idleness, or old habits," said L'Isle. "In recruiting we adopt a physical, and not a moral standard. A sound body, five feet some inches long, is all we look for, and we are glad to get it. A great many rogues fulfil these requisites, and get into the ranks; and though we charge ourselves with the moral as well as the physical training, we are not always successful. The sack of Badajoz, and of Ciudad Rodrigo bear witness to this."

They reached Elvas without further incident, and this proved but the first of many excursions made from time to time to points around that place. Thus, altogether with a view to her profit and pleasure, L'Isle contrived to withdraw Lady Mabel frequently from the military throng at headquarters, and, with Mrs. Shortridge's aid, appropriate her to himself.

By this adroit manoeuvre, L'Isle did not gain the good will of some of his brother officers, who found their share of her ladyship's society much curtailed. What cared L'Isle for that? No more than colonels usually care for the inclinations of subalterns. Many were the pleasant morning rambles on horseback and on foot that he took with the two ladies; and this mode of life agreed with him wonderfully well. Before long he recovered strength and activity to achieve some tall climbing after rare plants among the rocks and crags, which would have gained him great credit in an escalade. Occasionally too, while Mrs. Shortridge prudently, or indolently, kept the more level ground he would contrive to lead Lady Mabel to some elevated and perilous spot—and she boldly putting herself into difficulties, and not always seeing the way out of them, had to rely on his aid, and the supporting arm he delighted to afford her. And they gave to love for botany the credit of it all.

The zeal with which Colonel L'Isle followed up this new study, did not escape Colonel Bradshawe's watchful eye. So his satirical tongue had many a comment to make on the change in L'Isle's habits. To his own cronies Bradshawe dubbed him the bushman, not as being neighbor to the Hottentots, but from his often riding into Elvas, equipped like one of Malcolm's soldiers, marching from Birnam wood to Dunsinane.

"Our would be Achilles, laden with that huge bunch of materials for Lady Mabel's hortus siccus, thinks himself like Hercules with the distaff. To me he looks like a florist's apprentice, selling his flowers at a penny a bunch. It must be confessed though that the fellow has talents and tact. How completely has he contrived to shut out rivalry, by availing himself of my lady's weakness in imagining herself a great botanist, and providing her with a zealous and admiring pupil in his own person. And then to use so adroitly his accommodating temporary female friend in decoying his lawful love into the trap. She is certainly the finest girl of her day, and acres are good things, even though they be Scotch acres; for in the same proportion they are broader as well as more barren than English acres. The whole thing is admirable. It is a combination of means to a combination of ends, evincing genius of high order. Were I at the head of the war office, I would promote him on the spot."

"Poor Shortridge!" sighed Colonel Bradshawe, dropping at once from a tone of the highest admiration to one of deep commiseration, "can he possibly be blind to what is going on? And what is Lord Strathern dreaming of! What a pity one cannot interfere in these little matters, and put our friends on their guard! But Shortridge is so obtuse, and my Lord so self-willed and wrong-headed, that it would only make matters worse. Indeed, it is too late to help Shortridge, poor fellow! and we must console ourselves with the wise conclusion of the great bard:

"He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, Let him not know it, and he's not robbed at all."



CHAPTER VII.

Whanne that April with his shoures sote The droughte of March hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veine in swiche licour, Of which vertue engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eke with his sote brethe, Enspired hath in every holt and hethe The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne, And smale foules maken melodie That sleepen all night with open eye, So pricketh hem nature in hir corages; Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken strange strondes, To servo halwes couthe in sondry londes.

Prologue to Canterbury Tales.

"Why, Ma belle, you are an indomitable excursionist!" exclaimed Lord Strathern one evening, when the botanical party, after a hard day's work in pleasure-hunting, returned to a late dinner at headquarters. "I wonder Mrs. Shortridge is not worn out in accompanying you."

"I take it easily, my Lord," said Mrs. Shortridge, "keeping the broadest and smoothest path I can find, like the wicked in Scripture, while Lady Mabel rambles about on either hand, having, I think, a liking for rough ground. Like the mountain goat, if she will forgive the comparison, she prefers the crag to the plain. If your Lordship saw the hardihood with which she puts herself into all sorts of perilous situations, until, at times, it needs all the aid Colonel L'Isle can give to extricate her, I fear you would put a stop to our jaunts."

"As yet my wardrobe has been the only sufferer," said Lady Mabel. "I have just taken off the third dress I have damaged past remedy."

"If you had been a boy, Ma belle, instead of a girl, you would have made a rare sportsman!"

"A sportsman, indeed! By this time I would have held a commission in his Majesty's service. Why, papa, I am a year older than ensign Wade, have almost as much beard to my chin, and, but for my sex, would make quite as good a soldier."

"I am content, however, to have you as you are, and would not exchange you for a regiment of the best boys in England."

"Better one daughter than a thousand sons," said Lady Mabel, "for they would make a cumbersome family."

"You are a cumbersome baggage yourself," said Lord Strathern. "Just see the endless litter of flowers, leaves, yea, branches of trees, with which you cumber the house. We will have to apply to the quartermaster for the use of a returning supply-train to convey your botanical treasures to Lisbon, and we will have to charter a vessel there to carry them home. Dr. Graham's study will not contain all you collect for him. You must have exhausted the neighborhood."

"In one sense I am afraid we have. Colonel L'Isle tells me that we have explored almost every part of the country immediately around Elvas."

"I am sorry we are tied down to this one spot," said her father. "As you have never been from home before, I would wish you to see as much as possible of this country. But I must stick close to the brigade, at hand for orders at any moment."

"I must be content," said Lady Mabel. "And, after all, it is better to see one place thoroughly, than to take a hasty glance at a dozen in the style of common-place travelers."

"I confess I am but a common-place traveler," said Mrs. Shortridge, "and would like to see a new place every day; though I have, I own, found more variety and amusement in exploring the neighborhood than I expected."

"You will shortly have an opportunity, Mrs. Shortridge," said L'Isle, "of visiting a very striking place by merely accompanying the commissary. He thinks of going to Evora to purchase cattle and grain for the troops, and Evora is well worth seeing, as well as the country you pass through in going thither."

"Ah! I would like the jaunt very much. But I did not know that the commissary was going thither."

"He is going, and you might accompany him," said L'Isle. "You could not indeed make the journey in your coach if you had one, for off this high road, from Lisbon to Madrid, there is scarcely a carriage-road in the country. But you are now quite at home, on the back of your sure-footed mule."

The truth was, L'Isle had himself suggested to the commissary that the country south of Evora was rich and productive, and that prices had not been raised there by the vicinity of the troops, and the demands of their market. At the same time he gave Shortridge to understand that he wished to get up a party to visit Evora, and Lady Mabel must be included in it.

"I will ask the commissary to-night when he is going," said Mrs. Shortridge; "and to take me with him, if he can."

Lady Mabel had listened with silent interest so far; but here she broke in upon their conference, just as L'Isle desired.

"Why, Mrs. Shortridge," she exclaimed, with a well-feigned air of one deeply wronged, "do you mean to desert me? After partaking of my pleasant excursions and botanical instructions (but I find you a very dull scholar), do you mean to go traveling about, in search of adventures and rare sights, without even asking me to be of the party?—I, who am afflicted with a mania for traveling which can only be cured by being gratified? But such is woman's friendship."

"My dear Lady Mabel, how do you know that my lord would trust you so far under my care?

"So far!" said Lady Mabel, scornfully. "Did I not come from Scotland hither, braving the perils of the sea and of the wilderness, the stormy Bay of Biscay, and the desert of Alemtejo, teeming with robbers and wild beasts? With no guardian but old Moodie, whose chief merit is that of being a suspicious old Scot, with the fidelity and snappishness of a terrier."

"I am surprised now that I sent for you," said Lord Strathern, "considering the difficulties in the way of your coming. But you are here, and I thank God for it. But you would find it a long, rough ride to Evora, and the weather grows hotter every day."

"Rough roads are nothing to us who travel on horseback," Lady Mabel said, with the air of a cavalier; "and as for the distance, it is not much over a morning's ride. Colonel L'Isle, could not you ride there in a morning?"

"With relays of good horses, and good luck to my neck," said L'Isle, with a laugh. "It is about fifty miles; but one need not go the whole way in one day."

"Of course not," she answered. "We will not ride post, but take our ease, and see the country at our leisure."

"I see you intend going, ma belle," said Lord Strathern; "so I may as well give my consent with a good grace. But is the commissary able and willing to take charge of more than one lady, Mrs. Shortridge, who has a will of her own? I trust, too, L'Isle, that after giving these ladies a taste for rambling, you do not mean to desert them now. They may need your escort. Small parties are never safe traveling about this country. Our friends just hereabouts, especially, (I am sorry to say it of them), are apt to fall in love with other men's goods, and have a strong throat-cutting propensity."

"Oh, there is nothing to fear, papa," said Lady Mabel. "Our troops occupy the country, and, if necessary, we will take Colonel L'Isle with us for further protection. Pray, Colonel L'Isle, how many robbers could you defend us from?"

"I would try to defend you against a hundred."

"But pray," said Mrs. Shortridge, "carry at least two servants, well armed."

"Certainly," said Lady Mabel; "we will do the thing effectually. They shall carry no baggage, but stuff their valises full of loaded pistols, as antidotes to Mrs. Shortridge's fears."

"I will join the party with pleasure, my lord. I suppose I can be spared from this post for a few days?" said L'Isle, well pleased to be urged to join in an excursion, secretly and ingeniously contrived by himself.

The ladies, delighted at the prospect of a pleasant journey and new scenes, were at once full of plans and preparations for their outfit on the road. Nor did they reckon without their host; for the commissary assented to their joining him the moment it was proposed. Colonel Bradshawe might amuse himself and his cronies by expressing astonishment at his blindness or complaisance, but Shortridge had good reasons for what he did. Since he had made money, both his wife and himself felt a strong craving for social promotion; and Colonel L'Isle and Lady Mabel were just the persons to lend them a helping hand in their efforts to ascend the social ladder. But with Shortridge this was just now but a secondary matter. The commander-in-chief had been lately giving a rough overhauling to the officials of the commissariat. Their numberless peculations, and short-comings at critical moments, had exasperated him into a conviction that they were necessary evils, and rascals to a man by right of office, and only to be dealt with as such. And Sir Rowland Hill, to whose division the brigade belonged, had learned this, among other lessons, from his great commander. Now L'Isle was known to have the ear of Sir Rowland, and the commissary was of opinion that, while Lord Strathern commanded the brigade, Lady Mabel commanded him, so that the good opinion and good word of those parties might avail him much on certain emergencies. If a friend at court be a good thing, two are still better; so he was all compliance, and let the ladies fix the next day but one for the journey.

Early on that morning, accordingly, the party assembled at headquarters, and their horses and mules crowded the little court of the monastic building. L'Isle had provided an arriero for a guide, with his three mules for their baggage. The kind, and quantity, too, of provision he had prepared for their journey, was a reflection on the resources and hospitality of the country they were to pass through. Nor had the commissary been negligent of creature comforts.

Lord Strathern placed his daughter in the saddle. "Remember, ma belle, your blood is not used to this feverous climate, and even your pretty neck may get broken in a mountain path."

Lady Mabel listened with dutiful attention to the warnings of experience against the dangers from the noonday sun, the chilly night wind, and fast riding over rough paths; but, full of anticipated pleasure, she perhaps did not remember them an hour after.

"You are much encumbered with baggage, L'Isle," said Lord Strathern; "and your party larger than I expected."

"My party, papa," said Lady Mabel, with an air of asserting her position. "I like to travel in good style. This is my retinue, and a very complete one it is. Colonel L'Isle is my dragoman, and interprets for me among the barbarous natives. The servants, armed to the teeth, are my guards. The commissary is my purveyor, and," she added, glancing at his rotund figure, "I have no fear of starving in his company. Mrs. Shortridge, though she does not look sour enough for the office, is my duenna, punctilious and watchful—" Here she suddenly broke off her discourse, and fixed her eyes on old Moodie, who now entered the court, leading in a powerful horse of her father's, with a pair of huge holsters at the saddle-bow. Being a small and an old man, he climbed stiffly and with some difficulty into the saddle; but, when seated there, his earnest face and resolute air made him look a hero of the covenant quitting the conventicle for the battle-field.

After watching him in silent surprise, she exclaimed: "Why, Moodie, are you going too? I did not know that you were so fond of traveling, and so inquisitive about these idolatrous foreigners and their country."

"I would gladly turn my back on them and their country; but my duty forbids it."

"But how will papa do without you?"

"Better than your ladyship can."

"But you have made yourself so useful, indeed necessary, as steward in this house, which needed one sadly."

"Perhaps, so, my lady. But I know where I am most needed. I do not mean to lose sight of you for twenty-four hours, until you are safe at Craiggyside."

Lady Mabel looked exceedingly provoked and much out of countenance at the surveillance he assumed over her. Did he think her still a child now, when she felt herself a woman? It was well she did not ask him that question, for Moodie thought this the time when she needed most watching. She was about to forbid his following her, but her father, laughing at her discomfiture, said, "Moodie told me last night that he would have to be of the party. He got his general orders before he left Scotland, and in this case my sister is commander-in-chief."

The party was now ready, and rode out of the court, L'Isle putting himself by Lady Mabel's side.

"What special part does this old man fill in your father's household?"

"Properly, none; though he has made himself steward by an act of usurpation. Just at this time he belongs to my household," said she, with mock dignity. "And, when at home, he is a very important person at Craiggyside, a place unknown to your geography, but a very important and delightful place, notwithstanding."

"I blush to acknowledge my ignorance. Pray put an end to it by telling me what sort of a place Craiggyside is."

"It is a villa and farm, the home of my aunt, with whom I live. There old Moodie fulfills his round of duties. He manages the farm, sells the crops, tasks the ploughmen, overlooks the shepherd, scolds the dairymaid, bullies the servants, and regulates all that come near him. He can be charged with no shortcomings, for he overdoes all he undertakes. Not content with controlling our secular concerns, he would gladly take upon him the cure of souls. But there he meets with stubborn resistance."

"He has a varied sphere of duty," said L'Isle, "and seems accustomed to have his own way. He does not wait for your orders, nor, indeed, seems to be very amenable to them. In short, notwithstanding the official title you have bestowed on Mrs. Shortridge, it is plain to me that the real duenna does not wear petticoats."

"His presumption is equal to any thing," said Lady Mabel, provoked at the suggestion. "But I will make him repent it shortly. He shall long remember this journey. But enough of him for the present. Let us make the most of this delightful morning hour. It will be hot enough by noon. I am now in the traveler's happiest mood, enjoying at once the feeling of adventure with the sense of security, which, you must admit, is a rare and difficult combination of emotions."

L'Isle was quite as well pleased as Lady Mabel with the prospect before him. He had, at Lord Strathern's request, assented to join a party, which he alone had gotten up, solely that he might put himself in the relation of companion and protector to Lady Mabel. The commissary and his wife were convenient screens, not at all in his way. Whether the part of guide, philosopher, and friend to such a pupil suited a man of four-and-twenty, he was yet to learn. No doubts of this kind troubled him, however, as the arriero led his mules down the hill, and the party followed the music of their bells, all in high spirits, except old Moodie, who, though a volunteer, continued to be a grumbler.

Two hours' riding carried them beyond the point to which the botanical excursions had led them in that direction. They were leaving the valley, and entering on the high and broken uplands, when Lady Mabel spied a low cross by the roadside. Though rudely formed, it was of stone, and not of wood, like most of those in such places, and a short inscription was carved upon it. Faintly cut, badly spelt, and with many abbreviations, it was an enigma to her scholarship, and L'Isle had to decipher it for her: "Andreo Savaro was murdered here. Pray for his soul." "It is only one of those monumental crosses," said he, "of which you see so many along the roads throughout the peninsula."

"Do they always add murder to robbery here?" she asked.

"Too often, but not always," answered L'Isle. "Nor is robbery the only motive which leads to the taking of life. A solitary cross by the roadside is usually in memory of the victim of robbers, or, occasionally, of fatal accident; but when you see crosses, two or three together, in villages or towns, or their immediate neighborhood, they oftener mark the scene of some deed of bloodshed prompted by revenge, not lucre."

"They are certainly very numerous," said she, "and form a shocking feature on the face of the country, indicating a dreadful state of society."

"I wonder these people persist in putting them up," said the commissary, "for they are of no manner of use."

"Use!" said Lady Mabel, "what is the use of a tomb-stone?"

"If you mean real use, I am sure I don't know," said Shortridge.

"I see that you are a thorough utilitarian," she replied; "and since these people will continue to commit murder on the high road, I suppose you would have them do it at regular intervals, so that by aid of these monumental crosses we might measure our journey by murders instead of miles. Come, Mrs. Shortridge, road-side murder is rife here, so the less we loiter on our way the better."

This remark had the effect mischievously intended. Mrs. Shortridge, turning somewhat pale, and twitching her bridle convulsively, urged her mule close up to the party.

They went on some miles across a desolate country, covered with heath, rosemary, and gum cistus, more fragrant than the many rank bulbous plants, which disputed possession of the soil with them. The road was rough with slaty rock, the air became beaming hot, and L'Isle told the guide to lead them to some place of shelter from the noon-day sun. Before them lay a high open plain, on which a large flock of sheep, dusky, and many of them black in hue, were feeding, and filling the air with their bleatings. On the right, beyond the plain, there was a grove of the Quercus Ilex, rugged, stunted, thirsty-looking trees, yet whose evergreen boughs gave promise of at least a partial shade. The arriero led the party toward it, but just as they approached the wood, several large and savage dogs flew out, and charged them with a ferocity that might have cost a solitary traveler his life. They were busy repelling this assault, when five or six men showed themselves from behind a thicket. Dark, sunburnt, smoke-dried fellows they were, with shaggy hair, and rudely clad, each man having a sheep-skin thrown over his shoulders, and most of them grasping long, rusty guns in their hands.

Mrs. Shortridge called out "robbers!" and entreated L'Isle to fire upon them. The commissary, too, but more coolly, pronounced them to be robbers, "when they find an opportunity to follow that calling; but, just now, they are watching their flocks."

"Shepherds! those ruffians, shepherds!" exclaimed Lady Mabel; "O! shades of Theocritus and Virgil, what a satire upon pastoral poetry!"

Shepherds, however, they were, who called off their dogs, after reconnoitring the party. The arriero inquired of them where water was to be found, and they pointed to a little hollow in the wood, an hundred yards off. He was leading the party that way, when L'Isle said to the ladies, "let us have a talk with these fellows."

"Certainly," said Lady Mabel, and she turned her horse's head toward them.

"Certainly not," said Mrs. Shortridge, and she reined her mule back, "I am too near them already. I will not dare to take my siesta with these fellows in the neighborhood, for fear of waking up in another place than Portugal." And she followed her melting husband, who was hastening out of the sun, in the hope of regaining his solidity in the shade at hand.

L'Isle and Lady Mabel rode close up to the shepherds. They had been resting under an oak, and the cooking utensils, some baggage, and two asses near at hand, looked as if they, too, were travelers. L'Isle addressed a tall, dark man, of middle age, who seemed to be the head of the party. As soon as these men heard their own language from the mouth of a foreigner, so fluently and correctly spoken, their faces lightened up with interest and intelligence. They gave ready answers to all inquiries, and L'Isle had to reply in turn to many a question as to himself, his companions, and the news of the war. The chief shepherd was particularly anxious to know the condition of the province of Beira, and what were the chances of a visit there from the French during the coming summer. His flock, he said, was one of those which winter on the heaths and plains of Alemtejo, and, to avoid the droughts which make them a desert in summer, are driven across the Tagus in the spring, into the Serra Estrella, when the snow has melted, and vegetation again covers that range of mountains.

One of his companions offered for sale two rabbits and some partridges he had shot on the moors, which L'Isle bought, like a provident traveler, who does not rely too much on the larder of the next inn.

Lady Mabel, with attentive ear, had gathered the sense of much that had been said, and L'Isle had interpreted what puzzled her. But being a woman, she was unwilling to remain a mere listener; so, elaborately framing a question in Portuguese, she addressed the head shepherd, seeking to know how far the migrations of these flocks resembled the Spanish mesta. The dark man gazed at her admiringly and attentively, repeating some of her words, but unable to make out her meaning. She bit her lip, while he, shaking his head, turned to L'Isle, and said, "what a pity so lovely a lady cannot speak Portuguese. She looks just like our 'Lady of Nazareth,' at Pederneira, only her hair is brighter, and her eyes are blue."

"What says he about my language and Nossa Senhora de Nazareth?" said Lady Mabel. "Tell him that I speak better Portuguese than she ever did, for all her black eyes and tawny skin."

"By no means," said L'Isle, smiling. "As you will have no opportunity to evangelize the man, it will do no good to outrage his idolatrous veneration for Nossa Senhora de Nazareth? You might shake his superstition, yet not purify his faith, but merely drive him to a choice between the church and infidelity."

They now left the shepherds to join the party. "I am provoked," said Lady Mabel, "to find how little progress I have made in speaking Portuguese. But it is not surprising what a complete mastery the rudest and most illiterate people here have over their tongue."

"And how polite and sociable they are," said L'Isle. "Unlike the unmannered and almost languageless English peasant, they are unembarrassed and social, fluent, and often eloquent."

"Yet these men," said she, "in habits, though not in race, are but nomadic Tartars at the western extremity of Europe."

"They differ too," said L'Isle, "from their immediate neighbors, the Spaniard, in being far more sociable and communicative. For instance, I have got much more out of my Portuguese shepherd than a certain French traveler got out of his shepherd of Castile."

"What do you allude to?" she asked.

"A French traveler, it is said, as he entered Castile, met a shepherd guiding his flock. Curious to know all the circumstances which give to the Spanish wool its inimitable qualities, he asked the shepherd an hundred questions: 'If his flock belonged to that district? What sort of food was given it? Whether he was on a journey? From whence he came? Whither he was going? When he would return?' In short, he asked every question a prying Frenchman could think of. The shepherd listened coldly to them all. Then, in the sententious style of a true Castilian, replied, 'aqui nacen, aqui pacen, aqui mueren,' (here they breed, here they feed, here they die,) and went his way without a word more."

The party spent some time here, dining and resting under the shade of these prickly oaks, the tree that yields the famous botolas, so largely used for food by men and swine, and on tasting which we are less surprised that in "the primal age,"

"Hunger then Made acorns tasteful; thirst each rivulet Run nectar."

Mrs. Shortridge had contrived to snatch a short siesta, in spite of her fears. Their horses were led up, ready for them to mount and proceed on their journey, when Lady Mabel, plucking a twig from a branch overhead, observed on it several specimens of the kermes. She could not resist this opportunity of displaying her scraps of scientific lore, and detained the party while she delivered a discourse on the coccus arborum, "which," she said, "infests this tree; the quercus cocci. This furnishes what the ignorant-learned long called grains of kermes, looking like dried currants, which they mistook for the fruit of a tree, while it is, in truth, the dried body of an insect. It affords a vermilion dye, not so brilliant, but far more durable than the cochineal of Mexico. There are in the Netherlands," she continued, "rich tapestries dyed with kermes, known to be three hundred years old, which still retain their pristine brilliancy of color. Only think, Mrs. Shortridge, of having carpets, shawls and cloaks of such unfading hues!"

"They would be of no use to me," yawned Mrs. Shortridge, "I would be even more tired of myself than of my cloak, before the end of three hundred years."

"Why," exclaimed L'Isle, "this indestructible dye must be the very stuff with which the old lady of Babylon dyed her petticoat; for it has not faded in the least since she first put it on, as we may see in this country, where she wears it openly, without even a decent piece of lawn over it, to suppress the brightness of its hues."

"As our lives are not so lasting as the dye Lady Mabel talks of," said the commissary, "let us make the most of them by taking horse at once, and hastening on, for we must pass through Villa Vicosa, and sleep several miles beyond it to-night."

Returning to the road, they presently reached a cultivated valley, and passed through a hamlet, scarcely seen before it was entered, so completely were the low stone walls of the houses hidden by the olive, orange, almond, and other fruit-trees surrounding them. The only inhabitants visible were two or three squalid children, playing in the road, and a woman lounging at her door, eyeing the party with mingled curiosity and suspicion, while a stout yearling calf pushed unceremoniously past her into the house, thus asserting his right as a member of the family.

L'Isle paused before the little church, just beyond the village, and pointed out to Lady Mabel a curious cross, the first of the kind she had met with, though common enough in the peninsula. It was composed of human skulls, on a pedestal of thigh bones, the whole let into the wall, and secured by a rough kind of stucco.

"Certainly these people have curious ways of exciting devotional fervor, and keeping death in memory," said Lady Mabel.

"One might suppose them to have remarked the grave-digger, who deals habitually with the moldering remains of humanity, to be the most God-fearing of men," said L'Isle; "so they seek to afford to every one the devotional incentives peculiar to the grave-digger. Yet their symbols serve rather to familiarize us with material death in this world, than to remind us of a spiritual life in the world to come. They often teach no better lesson than 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.'"

"I have been told," said Lady Mabel, "that in spite of these pious devices, the people have lost much of their devotional ardor and fullness of faith."

"Not the rustic population," said L'Isle; "the church still retains full sway over them."

"I cannot say," observed Lady Mabel, as they turned to proceed on their way, "that the Romish system is very attractive to me. But, viewing it as a sensuous worship, if ever I become a convert, it will be through the influence of its music." And dropping the reins on her horse's neck, she, with clasped hands and upturned eyes, began to chant:

"O Sanctissima! O Purissima! Ora, Ora, pro nobis," etc.

Music at once so sweet and orthodox from a heretic mouth, attracted the muleteer's attention, and turning, he sat sideways in his saddle to listen. This exciting old Moodie's suspicion, he pushed his horse close up to Lady Mabel's, and as soon as she paused, said: "My lady, what is that you are singing?"

"A hymn to the Virgin."

"A hymn to the Virgin!" he repeated, horror-struck.

"Yes; it is in Latin, you know. Have you never been to any of the churches in Elvas, to 'assist' at the service and enjoy the music?"

"God forbid that I should countenance any of their idolatrous rites."

"Their music, however, is excellent, and has a grandeur suited to the worship of God. You lose much in not hearing it, and may, at least, let me amuse myself by singing a Popish hymn."

"You may amuse yourself by turning Papist in time. What begins in jest often ends in earnest; and yours, my lady, will not be the first soul that has been caught by such gear as the sweet sounds and glittering shows of idolatry."

"But," said Lady Mabel, coolly, with a provoking insensibility to her danger, "there are, not only in Latin, but in Spanish and Portuguese, many of these hymns to the Holy Virgin—for, doubtless, she was a holy virgin—exquisitely happy, both in words and music. A devout nation has poured its heart into them."

"They are all idolatrous, every one of them. There is not a word of authority for the worship of her in Scripture, and the texts of God's book are our only safe guide."

Lady Mabel, while fanning a fire that never went out, was gazing around on the landscape. Suddenly she said: "You are a great stickler, Moodie, for the words of Scripture, yet these idolatrous people often stick to it more closely than you do."

"I will trouble you, my lady, to name an instance," Moodie answered, in a defiant tone.

"Do you see those men in that field, with three yoke of oxen going round and round on one spot?"

"I see them. But what of them?"

"While you and other heretic Scots are racking your brains to devise how to thresh corn by machines, these pious people, in simple obedience to the injunction, 'Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn,' are treading out their corn with unmuzzled oxen. What think you of that, Mr. Stick-to-the-text?"

"I think, my lady," he answered, doggedly, "that you had better read your Bible to profit by it; not to puzzle an old man less learned than yourself. But all things are ordered." Yet he loitered behind the party, to gaze with mingled curiosity and pity at these people, at once so benighted in theology and farming, the two points on which he felt himself strongest.

They had not ridden much further, when they drew near to the ruinous walls of a considerable town, situated in a fertile and delightful region, and retaining amidst its dilapidation many marks of grandeur. Entering through a ruinous gateway, they paused in the grand praca. "This," said L'Isle, "is Ville Vicosa, 'the delightful city.' What a pity we have but time to take a hasty glance at this ducal seat of the house of Braganza. Two sides of the praca, as you see, are occupied by the classic and imposing front of the palace in which the dukes of Braganza lived during the sixty years of the Spanish usurpation, before the heroism of the nation restored the royal line to the throne."

"Even in its declining fortunes," said Lady Mabel, "Villa Vicosa has not forgotten its connection with Portuguese royalty and nationality. Was it not the first place in Alentejo to resist the French robbers, who were lording it over them?"

"Yes. But it was neither loyalty nor patriotism that spurred them on. You must not look to the royal palace before you, nor even to that ancient and noble church, founded by the illustrious Constable, Alvarez Pereira, which you see yonder, aspiring to heaven, nor to the associations immediately connected with them, for the impulse which at length stirred up these people to resist the oppressor. You must rather seek it in that chapel, devoted to 'Nossa senhora dos Remedios,' and containing her miraculous image. They had submitted to robbery, insult, and outrage without stint. They had seen Portuguese soldiers seized on by regiments, and marched off to serve under French eagles. They had heard Junot's insolent order to their priests, commanding them to preach submission. They had witnessed the utter degradation of their country. They had just seen the plate of the churches, and the plunder of individuals, collected throughout the neighboring comarcas, escorted through the town, and, though groaning in spirit, they stood by with folded arms. But when the godless French soldiers went so far as to offer insults and indignities to Nossa Senhora dos Remedios on her own holy day, on which she yearly displays her miraculous powers, it was more than Portuguese nature could bear. They broke out into open resistance, at first successful—but which here and elsewhere led to woful slaughter of the patriotic but half-armed mob."

"Heretic as you are," said Lady Mabel, "you must admit, that as 'Our Lady of the Pillar' proved a tower of strength to the Saragossans in their first siege, so here, either the patron saints of the Portuguese, or their faith in them, has often done them yeoman's service."

"And often brought disaster upon them," L'Isle replied. "For instance, St. Antony is the patron saint of Portugal. I am not going to deny that he may have done them good service at times. But when the archduke, Charles of Austria, commanded the army, about 1700, the soldiers became exceedingly unruly, and demanded a native general. The king sent them St. Antony, in the shape of a wooden image. He was received with all the honors due to his rank. By royal decree a regular commission was made out, appointing him generalissimo of all the forces of Portugal, and he continued long in command; but, though an excellent saint, Antony proved a very bad general, and repeatedly brought the kingdom to the brink of ruin. They have lately been compelled to displace him. Now that Beresford does their fighting, St. Antony has full leisure to devote himself to intercession on their behalf, and, between the two, with some help from us, they are getting on pretty well."

The commissary now hinted that they had before them all that was worth seeing in "this musty old place," and the party passing out of the opposite gate pushed on as fast as they could over a rough road, running across a succession of hills, the off-shoots of Serra d'Ossa.

"Traveling in this country," said Lady Mabel, as she paused with L'Isle, to let the rest of the party come up, "is like sailing over rough waters, a perpetual up and down, neither speedy nor safe."

"Few countries exhibit a greater variety of surface than Portugal," said L'Isle; "it may be likened to the ocean the day after a storm, when a change of wind has intersected the mountain billows with every variety of little waves. The language, accordingly, is rich in terms expressive of these variations of surface. It has Monte, a mountain; Montezhino, a little mountain; Outeiro, a hill; Outeirinho, a hillock; Serra, a lofty mountain, with various inequalities of surface; Serrania, a cluster of mountains; Penha, a rocky precipice. So that you can hardly be at a loss for a word to express the character of any elevation. Meanwhile, let us hasten up this Montezhino, for both the sun and our night's quarters are on the other side of it, and the former will not wait for us there."

They presently caught sight of what seemed at first to be a very tall woman; but they soon perceived that it was a friar, who, with the hood of his black cloak thrown back on his shoulders, and the skirts of his dingy grey frock girded up under St. Francis' cord, was making such good time on his up-hill path, that they overtook him with difficulty at the top of the hill. He grasped in his hand what had a marvelous resemblance to the cajado, a seven-foot staff, pointed at one end, and with a heavy knob at the other, with which the Portuguese peasant always goes armed; and a formidable weapon it is in his skillful hands. The shortened skirt of the friar exposed a pair of muscular calves, that bore him well over the mountain road.

He turned to look at them as they drew near, and they saw that he was a young man, not much over twenty, tall and strong, and remarkably well made and good-looking.

Old Moodie cast a sinister look on him, and longed to strip him of his frock, and put him between the stilts of a plough.

"This is a noble specimen," the commissary remarked, "of that useless army the country maintains at free quarters. His ration would more than feed one English or two Portuguese soldiers for its defence."

"I would like to turn him loose on a Frenchman," said L'Isle, "armed, like himself, only with the cajado. What a recruit Beresford lost when this young fellow put on the uniform of St. Francis' brigade!"

L'Isle exchanged greetings with the young friar as he rode up abreast of him, and entered into conversation with him at the suggestion of Lady Mabel, who, partly to annoy her crusty watchman behind her, affected to be much interested in this young limb of the church.

The able bodied servant of St. Francis proved intelligent and sociable, and, while he eyed the travelers, particularly Lady Mabel, with much interest, let them know that he had left his conventual home at Villa Vicosa, on a visit to his mother, who lived at a village al, and that he would pass the night at near Ameixial, and that he would pass the night at the venda near the bottom of the hill. They being also bound thither, he joined them without ceremony, keeping up with them with ease, while he drew out the news by a number of questions, which showed that he was truly an active young friar, disposed to gather ideas as well as alms on his perambulations.