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 pra?a. "This," said L'Isle, "is Ville Vi?osa, '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 pra?a, 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 Vi?osa 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 Vi?osa, 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.