← catalogue

The Actress in High Life

by Sue Petigru Bowen · English · Gutenberg #17191 · 592,071 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Actress in High Life
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Actress in High Life

Author: Sue Petigru Bowen


        
Release date: November 30, 2005 [eBook #17191]
                Most recently updated: December 13, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17191

Credits: E-text prepared by Mark Meiss from page images and corrected digital text generously provided by the Wright American Fiction Project of the Library Electronic Text Service of Indiana University


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ACTRESS IN HIGH LIFE ***


E-text prepared by Mark Meiss from page images and corrected digital text
generously provided by the Wright American Fiction Project
(http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2/) of the Library Electronic
Text Service of Indiana University



Note: Images of the original pages are available through the Wright
      American Fiction Project
      (http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/web/w/wright2/)
      of the Library Electronic Text Service of Indiana University.





THE ACTRESS IN HIGH LIFE:

An Episode in Winter Quarters.

(Sue Petigru Bowen)







  "Grim-Visag'd War hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
   And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
   To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
   He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
   To the lascivious pleasing of a lute."


New York:
Derby & Jackson.

1860.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, in the Clerk's
office of the District Court of South Carolina.
C.A. Alvord, Printer, New York.




THE ACTRESS IN HIGH LIFE;

AN EPISODE IN WINTER QUARTERS.




CHAPTER I.


  I was a traveler, then, upon the moor,
    I saw the hare that raced about with joy,
  I heard the woods and distant waters roar,
    Or heard them not, as happy as a boy;
    The pleasant season did my heart employ.
  My old remembrances went from me wholly,
  And all the ways of men so vain and melancholy.

                                          Wordsworth.


Gentle Reader: Wherever you may be, in bodily presence, when you cast
your eyes on this page, let it for a few hours transport your
complying spirit to a remote region and a bygone day. We may alter
names without injury to our story; but every real character, or event,
has its own time, place, and accidents; to tear it from them is like
transplanting a tree from its native spot; it must be trimmed and
pruned, and robbed of its due proportions and its natural grace.

Here, then, on this lovely day, near the end of the year 1812, you are
in Alemtejo--the largest, poorest, and, in every sense, worst peopled
province of Portugal. As its name implies, you are, as to Lisbon,
beyond the Tagus. Hasten eastward over this sandy, arid plain, covered
with a forest of stunted sea-pines, through whose tops the west wind
glides with monotonous and melancholy moans, fit music for the
wilderness around you. Nor need you loiter on this desolate moor,
scantily carpeted with heaths of different kinds and varying hues. The
drowsy tinkling of the cowbell amidst yonder brushwood, the goats
sportively clambering over that ledge of rocks, and those distant
dusky spots upon the downs, which may be sheep, tell you that all life
has not left the land. You may, perchance, on your journey, see a
goatherd or a shepherd here or there; by rarer chance may meet some
wayfarer like yourself, but as likely a robber as an honest man; and
may find shelter, at least, in one of the few and comfortless
_vendas_, the wretched inns the route affords.

You need not pause to gaze on many a wild scene, some beautiful, and
even here and there a fertile spot; nor loiter in this provincial
town--rich, perhaps, in Moorish ruins, but in nothing else--but hasten
onward till you reach that elevated point, where the road, one hundred
miles from Lisbon, winds over the ridge of yonder hill. The chilly
night winds of the peninsula have gone to sleep. Here, even in
midwinter, the sun at this hour shoots down scorching rays upon your
head. Seat yourself by the road-side, on this ledge of slate-rock, at
the foot of the cork-oak, which so invitingly spreads out its
sheltering arms. Here while you take breath, cast your eyes around
you.

You are no longer in the midst of broken, desolate wastes. To the
south-west rises the Serra d'Ossa--its sides clothed with evergreen
oaks, and a dense growth of underbrush sheltering the wolf and the
wild boar, while the northern slope of its rocky ridge is thatched
with snow. Before you is spread out the valley of the Guadiana.
Sloping downward toward the mighty stream, lie pasture, grove and
field, gaily mingled together. There, to the east, sits Elvas, on a
lofty hill, whose sides are covered with vineyards, oliveyards and
orchards, and just north of it, on a yet loftier peak, with a deep
narrow valley lying between them, stands the crowning castle of La
Lippe, the strongest fortress in Portugal. Far beyond, but plainly
seen through the clear atmosphere of the peninsula, now doubly
transparent since it has been purified by the heavy rains which here
usher in the winter, rises the blue mountain of Albuquerque, far away
in Spanish Estremadura. Whichever way you look, Sierras, nearer or
more distant, tower above the horizon, or fringe its utmost verge.

Among these scenes of nature's handiwork, a production of human art
demands your attention. See, on your right, the beginning of the
ancient aqueduct, reared by Moorish hands, which leads the pure
mountain stream for three miles across the valley to the city seated
on the hill. Here, the masonry is but a foot or two above the ground;
below, the road will lead you under its three tiers of arches, with
the water gliding an hundred feet above your head.

But here comes a native of this region to enliven, if not adorn, the
landscape. This lean, swarthy young fellow, under his _sombrero_ with
ample brim, exhibits a fair specimen of the peasants of Alemtejo. His
sheep-skin jacket hangs loosely from his shoulders, and between his
nether garment and his clumsy shoes, he displays the greater part of a
pair of sinewy legs, which would be brown, were they not so well
powdered with the slate dust of the rocky road he travels. With a long
goad he urges on the panting beasts, yoked to the rudest of all
vehicles--the bullock cart of Portugal. Its low wheels, made of solid
wooden blocks, are fastened to the axle-tree, which turns with them,
and at every step squeaks out complaining notes under the burden of a
cask of the muddy and little prized wine of the province, which is
seeking a market at Elvas.

The carter is now overtaken by a peasant girl, who, with basket on her
arm, has been gathering chesnuts and _bolotas_ in the wood. They are
no strangers to each other, and she exchanges her brisk, elastic step,
for a pace better suited to that of the toiling oxen. The beauty of
this dusky belle consists of a smiling mouth, bright black eyes, and
youth and health. Though fond of gaudy colors, she is not over
dressed. A light handkerchief rather binds her raven hair than covers
her head. Her bright blue petticoat, scanty in length, and her
orange-colored spencer, open in front, both well worn, and showing
here and there a rent, but half conceal the graces of her form, and a
pair of nimble feet, scorning the trammels of leather, pick their way
skillfully along the stony path. That she does not contemn ornament,
is shown by her one small golden ear-ring, long since divorced from
its mate, and the devout faith which glows in her bosom is symbolized
by the little silver image of our lady, slung from her neck by a
silken cord, spun by her own silk worms, and twisted by her own hands.
In short, she is neither beautiful, nor noble, nor rich; yet her
company seems instantly to smooth the road and lighten the toils of
travel to her swain. He helps himself, unasked, out of her basket, and
urges her to partake of the stores of his leathern wallet--hard goat's
cheese--and the crumbling loaf of _broa_, or maize bread. Soon in deep
and sweet conference, in their crabbed, but expressive tongue, he
forgets to make occasional use of his goad, and thus keeping pace with
the loitering bullocks, they go leisurely along. Let them pass on, and
wait for better game.

Turn and look at this cavalcade toiling up toward you. A sudden bend
in the road has brought it into view, and its aspect, half native,
half foreign--its mixed civil and military character--attract
attention. Two mounted orderlies, in a British uniform, lead the way,
and are followed by a clumsy Lisbon coach, every part of it well laden
with luggage. It is drawn by four noble mules, such as are seldom seen
out of the peninsula, deserving more stylish postillions than those
who, in ragged jackets, greasy leathern breeches and huge jack boots,
are urging them on. Two men sit at ease on the coach box. One, a tall
young fellow, looks at a distance like a field-officer in a flashy
uniform, but is only an English footman in a gaudy livery, who needs
the training of a London winter or two, in a fashionable household, to
make him a flunky of the first water. The other, an old man, with a
severe countenance, is plainly dressed, but, with a less brilliant
exterior, has a more respectable air than his companion. He, too, is
the man in authority as, from time to time, he directs the party and
urges them on in somewhat impatient tones.

If you are familiar with the country and the times, you may imagine
that some British general officer has been so long in the peninsula,
that he has adopted the style and equipage of Cuesta, and some other
Spanish leaders, and fallen into their habits of slow and dignified
motion. You will think it high time for him to be sent home, that some
one less luxurious and stately, but more alert and energetic, may fill
his place. One look into the coach will undeceive you. Its chief
occupant is a lady, whose years do not exceed nineteen; and she is
evidently no native of Alemtejo, nor of Portugal; and might have been
sent out hither as a specimen of what a more northern country can
occasionally produce. While she looks out with deep, yet lively
interest on the scenery before and around her, you naturally gaze with
deeper interest only upon her. Her companion is her maid, some years
older than herself, who might be worth looking at, were her mistress
out of the way.

One of the orderlies, turning in his saddle, now points out the city
to the old man, who, in turn, leans over to the coach window, and
calls out, "My lady, there is Elvas!"

"And my father is in Elvas!" She leans eagerly out of the window; but
the front of the clumsy vehicle obstructs the view, and she calls out,
"Stop the coach, Moodie, and let me out. I will not go one step
further until I have taken a good look at Elvas."

The old man testily orders a halt. The footman opens the door, and the
lady springs lightly out, followed by her maid. Neglecting all other
objects in sight, she gazes long and eagerly at the city seated on the
hill. The interest she shows is no longer merely that of observant
curiosity, but is prompted by the gushing affections of the heart. In
Elvas, besides much new and strange, there is something known and
loved.

She now begins to question the orderlies as to the exact spot where
her father has quartered himself; but the old man interrupts her:

"You have traveled a long way, my lady, to get to Elvas, but you will
never reach it while you stand looking at it and spiering about it."

"Very true, old Wisdom. How comes it that you are always in the right?
Let us push on now, and in an hour," she exclaims, stepping into the
coach, "I will see my father, for the first time since I was
fourteen."

The coach moves on, but too slowly for her. Leaning out of the window,
and surveying the road, she calls out gaily, "Our way lies down hill,
Moodie, and they tell me that mules are so sure-footed that they never
stumble. Pray buy or borrow that long goad from the young gentleman in
the sheep-skin jacket. By skillful use of it you might mend our pace,
and bring us sooner to Elvas."

We will leave this impatient lady to hasten on to Elvas, whether
expedited or not by the use of the goad, to inquire the occasion of
her journey thither.

For five years the peninsula has been one battlefield, and the present
has been one of unceasing activity to the British troops. Beginning
the year by suddenly crossing the frontier and investing Ciudad
Rodrigo, they had taken it by storm in January, while the French were
preparing to relieve it. Equally unexpectedly crossing the Tagus and
the Guadiana, they had sat down before the strong fortress of Badajoz,
and to save a few precious days, in which Soult and Marmont might have
united their hosts to its rescue, they, in April, took it in a bloody
assault, buying immediate possession at the price of more than a
thousand precious lives. No sooner had the disappointed Marshals
withdrawn their armies to less exhausted regions, than the forts of
Almarez were surprised in May, and the direct route of communication
between them cut off. The British army then invaded Spain on the side
of the kingdom of Leon: the forts of Salamanca fell before them in
June, and in July the battle of Salamanca crushed the French force in
that quarter, and opened the road to Madrid to the British, who,
driving thence the intrusive king, acquired the control of all central
Spain. But, at length, in October, the castle of Burgos defied their
utmost efforts, unaided by a siege-train. The French hosts from north,
south and east, abandoning rich provinces and strong fortresses they
had held for years, gathered around them in overwhelming numbers; and
slowly, reluctantly, and with many a stubborn halt, the English
general retraced his steps toward Portugal. The prostrated strength of
both armies put an end to the campaign. The French gave up the
pursuit, being too hungry to march further, or to fight any more; and
the discipline and appetites of the British soldiers were indicated,
on their march through the forests bordering the Huebra, by the
fusilade opened on the herds of swine, which were fattening on the
acorns there. For a moment their commander thought himself surprised,
and that the country, for miles around, was the scene of one
wide-spread skirmish with the foe. Even hanging a few of his men did
not put a stop to the disorder. Late in November the troops were
permitted to pause for rest, in the neighborhood of Ciudad Rodrigo,
with their energies prostrated and their discipline relaxed through
the sieges and battles, the continual marches, the exposure and the
want of a campaign so long and arduous as this. Strange it seemed to
them, after going so far, and doing and suffering so much, that they
should end the campaign where they had begun it. Yet they had done
much: wrenching the larger and richer half of Spain out of the grasp
of the French, and changing their possession of the country to a mere
invasion of it.

Such toils need long rest. Privations and sufferings like theirs
should be repaid by no scanty measure of plenty and enjoyment. The
troops went into winter quarters chiefly between the Douro and the
Tagus; but, as an army in this country is always in danger of
starvation, a brigade was sent over into Alemtejo, at once, to make
themselves comfortable, and to facilitate getting up supplies from a
province which now had something in it: as, for four years, the French
had been kept out of it.

Accordingly, it was absolutely refreshing to see the liberal provision
made for the almost insatiable wants of this brigade--for among them
our story lies. They proved themselves good soldiers, to a man, in
their zeal to refresh and strengthen themselves against the next
campaign, by enjoying, to the full, every good thing within their
reach. The officers, especially, ransacked the country for every
commodity that could promote enjoyment; and what Alemtejo could not
furnish, Lisbon and London must provide. Nothing was too costly for
their purses, no place too distant for their search. Doubtless, the
veterans of the greatest of all great captains were permitted for a
time to run a free and joyous career in Capua; and this brigade,
besides having a little corner of Portugal to themselves, somewhat out
of sight of the commander-in-chief and of Sir Rowland Hill, enjoyed
the further advantage of being led by a good soldier in the field, and
a free-liver in garrison and camp, who looked upon his men in winter
quarters, after a hard campaign, somewhat in the light of school-boys
in the holidays, and was willing to see the lads enjoy themselves
freely.

Lord Strathern, a veteran somewhat the worse for wear, had entered the
army a cadet of a Scotch family, more noble than rich. At length, the
obliging death of a cousin brought him a Scotch peerage, and an estate
little adequate to support that dignity. High rank, and a narrow
estate, form an inconvenient union; so he stuck to the profession
which he loved, and, being a widower, entrusted his only child, a
daughter, to a sister in Scotland.

Though he had seen little of domestic life, he was an affectionate
man. The briskness of the last campaign, and the number of his friends
who dropped off in the course of it, strongly warned him that if he
would once again see his daughter, now attaining womanhood, it would
be well to lose no time about it. So, one morning, during the retreat
from Burgos, after issuing the brigade orders for the day, he penned
an order to his sister in Scotland, to send out the young lady, with
proper attendants, under the care of the wife of any officer of rank
who might be sailing for Lisbon. There she would be within reach, and
he might find leisure to visit her.

His sister would have protested against this had she had an
opportunity; but the order of the father, and the affectionate and
adventurous spirit of the daughter, at once decided the matter. On her
arrival, however, in Lisbon, her father was too busy establishing his
brigade in comfortable quarters, to meet her there; and the military
horizon giving promise of a quiet winter, he summoned her to join him
at Elvas.

The brigade had been for some weeks living in clover in their modern
Capua, when Lady Mabel Stewart joined her father. A Portuguese
provincial town, with its filthy streets and squalid populace, could
be no agreeable place of residence to a British lady. Lord Strathern
felt this, and, looking about him, found a large building in the midst
of an orchard without the walls of Elvas, and more than half-way down
the hill. It had been erected by one of the monastic societies of the
city, as a place of occasional retirement for pleasure, or devotion,
or both. The French had summarily turned them out of it five years
before, and so thoroughly plundered them, at the same time, that they
had not since found heart or means to repair and refurnish it.
Accordingly, it was a good deal dilapidated. But the refectory and the
kitchen took his lordship's eye. The former could dine half the
officers of the brigade at a time, and the latter allowed abundant
elbow-room to cooks and scullions, while preparing the feast. So, here
he established the headquarters of his brigade, and here Lady Mabel
Stewart made her appearance in the new dignity of womanhood, to
preside over his household.




CHAPTER II.


  Oh sovereign beauty, you whose charms
    All other charms surpass;
  Whose lustre nought can imitate,
    Except your looking-glass.

                      Southey, _from the Spanish_.


The arrival of Lady Mabel Stewart was a god-send to the young officers
of the brigade. Already the sources of interest afforded by the
country around, began to fail them. Few men can long make a business
of mere eating and drinking; red-legged partridges were getting scarce
in that neighborhood, and boar hunting in the mountain forests was
distant, laborious, and too often, fruitless of game. The scenery of
the country, the costume and habits of the people, now familiar to
their eyes, palled upon their tastes. They wanted something new to
interest them, and were particularly delighted when this novelty came
from home. But, above all, the black-haired, dark-eyed daughters of
this sunny region grew many shades browner in their eyes. We look not
at the daffodils when the lily rears its head. A new and higher order
of beauty, rare even at home, now demanded homage, and it was freely
paid.

Lord Strathern, a social and jovial man, had always been a favorite
with his subalterns, but now his popularity attained its acme. His
open house became headquarters, even more in a social than a military
sense. It was a little court, and Lady Mabel played the queen regnant
there.

Justly proud of her, her father encouraged this, taking all the
attention she attracted as compliments to himself; and the gentlemen
displayed great ingenuity in devising various excuses for being in
frequent attendance at headquarters, in the service of her ladyship.
Lieutenant Goring, the best horseman in the ---- light dragoons, a
squadron of which had been sent hither with the brigade, to fatten
their emaciated steeds on the barley and maize of Alemtejo,
established himself, uninvited, in the post of equerry, and sedulously
devoted himself to training the beautiful Andalusian provided for Lady
Mabel's own saddle. Of course, he had to be in attendance when she
took the air on horseback. Major Warren, from a free, heedless
sportsman, who followed his game for his own pleasure, became
gamekeeper, or rather, grand huntsman, bound to lay the feathered,
furred, and scaly tribes under contribution to supply her table and
tempt her delicate appetite. A proud and happy man was he when skill
or fortune enabled him to lay the antlered stag or tusked boar at her
feet, and expatiate on the incidents of his sylvan campaign. He, of
course, must be often invited to partake of the social meal. Captain
Cranfield, of the engineers, had just returned from Badajoz, where he
had been repairing shattered bastions, and patching up curtains sadly
torn by shot and shell. He found Lady Mabel busy renovating,
modernising and adorning the rude and comfortless apartments of her
monastic quarters. Immediately his pencil, his professional ingenuity
and skill are devoted to her service. He appoints himself architect,
upholsterer and improver-general to the household. He designed elegant
curtains, with graceful festoons for the misshapen windows, tasteful
hangings to conceal bare walls of rough-hewn stone, picturesque
screens to hide unsightly corners; and arranged and put them up with
as much skill as if, with a native genius for it, he had been bred to
the business. The commonest materials became rich chintz and costly
arras in his hands, mahogany, or rose-wood, at his bidding. One
morning so spent put him on an easier footing with Lady Mabel than a
dozen casual meetings; and he quite got the weather gage of both
equerry and huntsman, securing frequent and easy intercourse, while
advising and assisting her in his inter-menial capacity, whereas these
gentlemen's spheres of official duty lay properly out of doors. But he
soon found a dangerous rival to take the wind out of his sails, in the
person of Major Lumley, who, possessing great taste and skill in
music, accidentally heard Lady Mabel singing in one room, while he was
conversing with her father in the next. "She has," thought and said
the major, "the sweetest voice in the world; and it only needs a
little more cultivation to make it heavenly!" Lord Strathern thought
so too. The major's instructive talents were put into requisition,
and, from private practice, her father led her on, somewhat reluctant,
to more public display, and soon the major and herself discoursed
exquisite music to the ears of a score of officers, at a musical
soirée. If, with the powers, she did not acquire the confidence of a
_prima donna_, it was not his lordship's fault. Had propriety
permitted, he would have brought up the brigade in close column of
divisions, to hear Lady Mabel sing; and he could not help saying to
the gentlemen beside him: "I have heard you young fellows talk about
the nightingale, and have even known some of you spend hours in the
moonlit grove, listening to their music, but my bird from foggy
Scotland can out-warble a wood full of them." And no one felt disposed
to contradict him.

How many others, irresistibly attracted, sought, each in his own way,
to make himself agreeable, we will not undertake to say. Perhaps
Ensign Wade, who, not yet eighteen, had just been rubbing off the
school-boy in the last campaign, was the most madly in love with her;
unless he was surpassed by little Captain Hatton, who, being but five
feet three, had, to the great injury of his marching powers,
magnanimously added an extra inch to his boot heels, that Lady Mabel
might not look too much down upon him, when so happy as to stand
beside her.

Hers was a curious position for a lady, and, yet, more for one so
young. She instinctively looked round for the countenance and support
which only female companions could give. But, of the very few ladies
with the brigade, Mrs. Colonel Colville was at Portalegre, where her
husband's regiment was quartered, the wife of Major Grey was shut up
with him in his sick room; Mrs. Captain Howe had come out from home
less to visit her husband than to cure her rheumatism in the balmy
climate of Elvas; and the wife of Captain Ford had just, very
injudiciously, presented him with two little Portuguese, who might
have made very good Englishmen, had they first seen the light in the
right place. If the brigade had suffered heavy loss in the last
campaign, the ladies of the brigade were absolutely _hors de combat_,
and could not furnish Lady Mabel even a sentinel in the shape of a
chaperon. She felt that this was awkward; but, said she to herself,
"If there were any impropriety in my situation here, Papa would not
open his house so freely to the officers of the brigade." For she
loved and admired him far too much to doubt his judgment on such a
point. Now, Lord Strathern had dined the better part of his life at a
regimental mess table; and when promotion at length removed him from
that genial sphere, he felt selfish and solitary, if he took his
dinner and wine without, at least, a corporal's guard of his brother
officers around him. So far from deeming his daughter's arrival a
reason for excluding them, she was a strong ally, and a delightful
addition to his means of entertaining his friends. So she found
herself suddenly the centre of a circle, composed of gentlemen only,
most of them unmarried, young and gay, and admiring her. In short,
Lady Mabel was finishing off her education in a very bad school,
worse, perhaps, than a Frenchified academy, devoted to the education
of the extremities, in the shape of music, dancing and gabbling
French, with a dash of mental and moral training in the development of
the sickly imagination of the head and the empty vanities of the
heart.

For a time the dilapidated condition of kitchen and refectory
restricted the scale of hospitality at headquarters. But Lady Mabel
soon completed her reforms of house and household, in which she found
old Moodie an able assistant. Captain Cranfield had to bring his
labors of love to an end, and Lord Strathern celebrated the event by
feasting a large party of his friends.

While the company was assembled, Lady Mabel led a party of the first
comers through the apartments, to admire the results of the labor and
taste bestowed upon them. Some of the more prying peeped into the
kitchen to see what was going on there.

"I am glad to see," said Captain Hatton, "that though this is a
monastic house, and this a fast day, we shall not have to dine
orthodoxly, on _bacalhao_ and _sardinhas_."

"Nor be bored with the long Latin grace," said Major Warren, "which
the very walls of the refectory are tired of hearing and not
understanding."

"Would rendering it into English reconcile you to its length?" asked
Lady Mabel.

"Not in the least. I think nothing so heterodox as a long grace, while
soup and fish grow cold."

"I am told," said Lady Mabel, ascending to the apartment above, "that
this was the abbot's own room."

"That is very likely," said Captain Hatton, "from its neighborhood to
the kitchen."

"It is not exactly the apartment," she continued, "which I would
design for a lady's withdrawing room. But, if it satisfied the holy
father before it was thus improved, it is too good for a heretic like
me. I sometimes feel myself a profane intruder here, and, when I call
to mind whom this building belongs to, and see so many red-coated
gentry stalking at ease through dormitory, refectory and cloisters, I
think of rooks who have fled the rookery, before a flock of flamingoes
who usurp their place."

"The pious crows," said Captain Hatton, "would forgive our intrusion,
did they see the bird of paradise that attracts us hither."

"Put a weight on your fancy, Captain Hatton," said Lady Mabel. "Such
another flight and it may soar away altogether. Pray observe the
admirable effect of those hangings, with which Captain Cranfield has
concealed the dark and narrow passage that leads to the oratory."

Major Warren was provoked at the general admiration of Cranfield's
taste and skill, and stung by the repeated thanks with which Lady
Mabel repaid his labors, so he endeavored to turn them into ridicule.

"It is a thousand pities, Cranfield, that these happy designs should
perish with their temporary use. Let me beg you to send a sketch of
them to Colonel Sturgeon, the head of your department. They should be
preserved among the draughts and plans of the engineer corps."

Cranfield was about to make angry answer, but Lady Mabel anticipated
him by saying: "doubtless, whenever Colonel Sturgeon has occasion to
turn monkish cloisters into ladies' bowers, it will save him a world
of trouble to avail himself of these designs."

At this moment dinner was announced. Colonel Bradshawe, resolving that
his juniors should not have Lady Mabel all to themselves, availed
himself of his right of precedence, to hand her into the room, and
seated himself at her right hand.

Full thirty guests occupied the space between her father's portly, but
martial figure, and her seat at the head of the table; and though,
Minerva-like in air and form, she presided there with exquisite grace,
she shrunk from this long array, and sought a kind of privacy in
devoting her attention, somewhat exclusively, to the senior colonel of
the brigade. Knowing how important a matter dining was in his
estimation, she soon made a conquest of him, by her judicious care in
supplying his wants, tickling his palate, and coinciding in his
tastes. She even, for his benefit, called into requisition the
unwilling service of old Moodie, who had habitually taken his post
behind her, like a sentinel, not troubling himself about the wants of
the guests. The colonel might have choked with thirst before he
spontaneously handed him a decanter.

Colonel Bradshawe having made himself comfortable, next sought to make
himself agreeable. "What a delightful contrast between my situation
to-day, and this day year, Lady Mabel."

"Where were you then?"

"About this hour we were fording the Aguada, in a snow storm, to
invest Ciudad Rodrigo."

"That was somewhat different from our present occupation."

"We soon finished that little job, however, before we had suffered
many privations there. But it proved to be but the opening of a
campaign, which I began, after a time, to think would never come to an
end."

"And, unhappily," said Lady Mabel, "it did not end quite so well as it
promised to do."

"Fortune is a fickle mistress, and fond of showing her character in
war," said the colonel. "Sometimes she favors one party with a run of
luck, then shifts suddenly over to the other side. So with
individuals, only there she is most apt to work at cross purposes. One
pretty fellow deserves to live forever, and gets knocked on the head
in the first skirmish; another deserves to rise, and all his good
service is overlooked or forgotten; another gets praise and promotion
for what he never did, or ought never to have done. Some men have such
luck! There is L'Isle now, who, after being pushed on as fast as money
and family interest could shove him; what next happens to him? Why
just for blundering into a Spanish village, and being nearly taken
with his whole command, he is made a lieutenant-colonel on the spot."

"That is a curious result of such a blunder."

"Curious, but true. This is capital port," interjected the colonel,
emptying his glass. "We drank no such stuff as this during the last
campaign. I would not disgust you with a detail of our privations; but
you must know, Lady Mabel, that during the whole march from Madrid to
Burgos, and thence, in retreat, to Ciudad Rodrigo, I never tasted a
bottle of wine that deserved the name, except one of _Peralta_, of
which I feel bound to make honorable mention. I met with it by great
good luck at the posada at Buitrago; but when I called for another, it
was so excellent that the landlord had drank all himself. The stuff
we had to drink was made by pouring water on the skins of grapes
already pressed. After they had been well macerated in it, it was
allowed to ferment and grow sour, then sold to us at the price of good
liquor."

"That accounts," said Lady Mabel, "for the provident care you lately
showed, in laying in a stock of better liquor for your winter's
use. Is it true that you sent a special agent to Xeres de la Frontera,
to select the best sherry for the regimental mess?"

"Not exactly a special agent," said the colonel, disclaiming it with a
gentle wave of the hand; "but, finding a trusty person, and a capital
judge, going thither, we did charge him with a little commission that
way."

"I was sorry to hear of your disappointment," added she, in a
commiserating tone. "I am told that he found that the firm of Soult,
Victor & Co., had already taken up all the oldest and best wine on
credit, that is, without paying for it; and you had to put up with new
and inferior brands, or go without any."

"It is but too true," said the colonel, with a sigh. "Those rascally
Frenchmen had drained the country of everything worth drinking; our
agent, very wisely, under the circumstances, made no purchase there,
and I am glad of it; for I have since learned, that the Amontillado,
which had been recommended to us as the dryest of sherry wines, is
made from a variety of grapes plucked before they are ripe."

"How lucky," said Lady Mabel, in a congratulatory tone, "that you have
since found out that this wine is made of sour grapes."

A faint suspicion that she was laughing at him induced him to change
the topic. "You were never abroad before, I believe. This part of the
country has some drawbacks; but I think you will find it, during the
winter, a very pleasant part of the world."

"We will all endeavor to make it so to you, Lady Mabel," said Major
Warren, who, impatient of his superior's monopoly, here tried to edge
in a word. But the colonel cut him short with "That's a mere truism,
Warren, a self-evident proposition. Let us have nothing more of that
sort. One of the peculiarities of this climate, Lady Mabel, is that it
has a double spring: one in February and another in April. Then we
will see you take your appropriate place in the picture, representing
the heyday of youth in the midst of spring, and beauty, surrounded by
flowers."

She bowed low, in suppressing a laugh at this elaborate compliment,
and said, "Will spring be so soon upon us?"

"In a fortnight you may gather the same flowers which at home you must
wait for till May."

"Not the same flowers," said she, quickly. "Portugal has a Flora
peculiar to itself, embracing very few of our native British plants. I
am on my strong ground on this topic, being a pupil of Dr. Graham, who
relieves his graver studies by striving to rival King Solomon in the
knowledge of plants, 'from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that
grows on the wall.' I am pledged to carry home a vast _hortus siccus_
for him."

"Oh! a scientific young lady--perhaps a little of a blue-stocking,
too," said the colonel to himself. "I must hash up a dish to suit her
peculiar taste. Though no botanist," continued he aloud, "there is one
plant that has strongly attracted my attention, and I recommend it to
yours; though your _hortus siccus_ will hardly contain a fair specimen
of it."

"What is that?" said she, on the _qui vive_ to hear of some rare
plant.

"It is the cork-oak," said the colonel, solemnly. "Its rough exterior
has led tourists and artists, and even naturalists, to treat it with
neglect, while it is daily contributing to the comfort, delight, and
civilization of the world."

"It may, perhaps," said Lady Mabel, hesitating, "be said to do all
that you attribute to it."

"Does it not strike you as passing strange, Lady Mabel, (_apropos_ to
our subject, pray take a glass of wine with me,) that the Romans, who
were, doubtless, a great and a wise people, should have been masters
of Spain and Gaul, and of their forests of cork trees for
centuries--that these Romans," continued he, growing eloquent on the
subject, "who had the tree in their own country, though not, perhaps,
in the full perfection of its cortical development, and did apply its
bark to a number of useful purposes, including, occasionally, that of
stoppers for vessels, should yet never have attained to the systematic
use of it in corking their bottles!"

"Strange, indeed," said Lady Mabel. "It was shutting their eyes
against the light of nature; for, we may say, that the obvious final
end of the cork tree is to provide corks for bottles."

"A great truth well expressed," said the colonel. "Such an oversight
has hardly a parallel; unless it be in their invention of printing and
never using it. For we see, in the baker's name, stamped on the loaves
found in Pompeii, and words impressed on their pottery and other
articles, what amounts to stereotype printing; yet they never went on
to separate the individual letters, and so become compositors and
printers in the usual sense of the art. But they could certainly get
on better without printing than without corks."

"Undoubtedly. For the world may--indeed, has--become too full of
books; while there is little fear of its becoming too full of bottles;
they get emptied and broken so fast."

"I wonder whether Horace," continued Colonel Bradshawe, with a
thoughtful air, "when he opened a jar of Falernian, was obliged to
finish it at a sitting, to prevent its growing sour? Wine out of a
jar! Think of that. With a wooden or earthen stopper, made tight with
pitch. Think of having your wine vinho-flavored with pitch! like the
_vinho verde_ of these Portuguese peasants, out of a pitchy goat-skin
sack."

Lady Mabel looked nauseated at the idea, and the colonel swallowed a
glass of Madeira, to wash away the pitchy flavor. "Yes," said he,
shaking his head gravely, "they must have often felt sadly the want of
a cork. How would it be possible to confine champagne (I am sorry this
cursed war prevents our getting any,) until it is set free with all
its life and perfection of flavor, just at the moment of enjoyment!
They had glass, too, and used glass, these Romans, yet persevered in
keeping their wine in those abominable jars. It proves how little
progress they had made in the beautiful art of glass-blowing; and, of
course, (here the colonel took up a decanter of old Madeira and
replenished his glass, after eyeing approvingly the amber-colored
liquor,) they were ignorant that wines that attain perfection by
keeping, ripen most speedy in light-colored bottles."

"Indeed!" said Lady Mabel, "I did not know that. But I learn something
new from you every moment."

"And that," said he, nodding approvingly at her, "is something worth
knowing. I doubt, after all, whether these Romans, with the world at
their beck, really knew much of the elegant and refined pleasures of
life. Setting aside their gladiatorial shows, and the custom of
chaining the porter by the leg to the doorpost, that he might not be
out of the way when friend or client called on his master, and similar
rude habits, there is enough to convict them as a gross people. They
put honey in their wine, too! What a proof of childish, or rather,
savage taste! Lucullus' monstrous suppers, and Apicius' elaborate
feasts, are better to read about than to partake of. Give me, rather,
a quiet little dinner of a few well-chosen dishes and wines, and three
or four knowing friends, not given to long stories, but spicy in talk,
and I will enjoy myself better than 'the noblest Roman of them all.'"

"But, Colonel Bradshawe, how did you become so familiar with Roman
manners? Many of us know something of their public life, their wars,
conquests, seditions and laws; but you seem to have put aside the
curtain, and peered into the house, first floor, garret and cellar."

"You overrate my learning, Lady Mabel; my tastes naturally lead me to
inform myself on some points that may seem to lie out of the common
road. Some people take the liberty of calling me an epicure. I admit
it so far as this: I hold it to be our duty to enjoy ourselves wisely
and well. Much as I esteem a knowing _bon vivant_, I despise an
ignorant glutton, or undiscriminating sot. To know how to make the
most of the good things given us, is, at once, a duty and a
pleasure. This conviction has led me to heighten what are called our
epicurean enjoyments, by investigating the history of cookery, the
literature of the vineyard, and other cognate branches of learning."

"You have devised a happy union of intellectual and sensual pleasure,
well calculated to heighten both."

"Why were these good things given us," said the colonel, gracefully
waving his hand over the table, "but that we should ascertain their
uses, and apply them accordingly?"

"I begin to understand your philosophy, in letting none of the good
things of life run to waste, but rather receiving them all in the
spirit of thankfulness."

"In those few words you express the essence of my philosophy."

"There may be," continued Lady Mabel, "as much piety, and certainly
more wisdom, in frankly enjoying the good things given us, than in
despising the world which God made, and rejecting the blessings it
teems with, like these self-tormenting ascetics, the monks and friars
around us."

"Heaven help your simplicity, Lady Mabel! They only pretend to do so,
the hypocrites! Rest assured, every one of these fellows is on the
sly."

"What! No exceptions? Is it true of every one--

  'His eyes are set on heaven, his heart on earth?'"

"It fits them to a man!" said the colonel. "Their vocation is securing
to themselves the god things of this world, by promising to others the
blessings of the next: and as for the friars, true to their motto,
_Nihil habentes et omnia possidentes_, they profess to hold no special
property, merely that the whole country might be bound to maintain
them. They know the value of the good things of this life, and how to
enjoy them in a corner."

"These odd-looking monks and friars attract me much," said Lady Mabel:
"perhaps they will not bear a close inspection; but, with all my
prejudice against them, I must own, that many seem truly devout, and
the friars, at least, very zealous in their labors among the people."

"Yet the people, except the women," said Bradshawe, "are losing faith
in their greasy reverences."

"Women are everywhere more devout than men," she answered; "and I do
indeed observe their greasy reverences, as you call them, conversing
oftener with our sex than yours."

"Observe more closely, Lady Mabel, and you will see that they are most
zealous for the conversion of the young women, the tender lambs of the
flock. They care little for a tough, smoke-dried, old woman's soul."
This was said with a knowing, wink, and caused some merriment among
his juniors within ear-shot.

A gradual but perceptible change was coming over the colonel's manner,
which Lady Mabel did not like. In fact, Lord Strathern had pushed the
bottle briskly, though sometimes slighting it himself, as did many of
his guests; but Bradshawe made it a point of conscience to take toll
every time it passed him. He had, moreover, violated one of his own
maxims, in talking incessantly while imbibing his liquor; so she took
advantage of the next pause in his conversation to leave the table.




CHAPTER III.


    You are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of
  great admittance; authentic in your place and person, and generally
  allowed for your many warlike, courtlike, and learned
  preparations.--_Merry Wives of Windsor_.


So time ran merrily on in Elvas, and most merrily at headquarters;
thanks to Lord Strathern's hospitality, and to the elegance, variety
and life Lady Mabel gave to the brilliant circle she attracted
thither.

Entering her father's sitting-room one morning, she found him in
conference with a gentleman whom she had never seen before. They were
so much engrossed in conversation, that she had time to remark,
unobserved, that he was young, handsome, and an officer of rank, but
thin and pallid, as if just released from long confinement in a sick
room. She was about to withdraw, when the stranger, turning to take a
paper from the table, saw her. After an abstracted look of admiring
curiosity, as if gazing on a fine picture, unexpectedly placed before
him, he recollected himself, and rose from his chair.

"This must be Lady Mabel Stewart. Pray, my lord, present me to your
daughter."

"What, _Ma Belle_, are you here? L'Isle, let me make you known to my
daughter. Like yourself, she occupies a distinguished post in the
brigade, though not quite so well defined as yours."

Lady Mabel acknowledged this addition to her acquaintance; then
said, "but I see you are busy, papa."

"Not at all," said he, thrusting some papers into his portfolio, "sit
with us here;" and he drew a chair for her. "L'Isle has been so long
in his sick room, that a little of our pleasant company will do him
good. You must have suffered much from solitude, L'Isle, as well as
from your wounds."

"Surgeons and servants were my sole companions. Their rude hands, too,
convinced me that our sex were never meant for nurses. A sister of
mercy would have been an angel of light; and if young and
good-looking, she might have made a convert of me to her church."

Lady Mabel could perceive that her father treated his companion with
unusual consideration, and L'Isle was induced to prolong his visit for
an hour and more. He was certainly well-bred and well-informed, and
seemed disposed to make himself agreeable; yet there was something in
his manner that puzzled and annoyed her. It was not the little reserve
which he exhibited toward her father, yet more than to herself. It was
not that he was out of spirits; for he was quite animated at times. It
seemed to be a feeling of--Lady Mabel's self-satisfaction did not
permit her immediately to perceive what this feeling was.

"So," said she to herself, when L'Isle had taken his leave, her father
accompanying him out of the room, "So this is the veritable
Lieutenant-Colonel L'Isle! After hearing of him daily for three weeks,
I have now seen him in real life, or rather, half alive; for the
cadaverous gentleman seems to have had at least half his life let out
of him in that last affair. This is the glass in which the young
lieutenants and ensigns of the brigade dress themselves. As Colonel
Bradshawe says, there is no need to distribute copies of the articles
of war among them. They may all be condensed into one injunction: 'Be
just like Lieutenant-Colonel L'Isle, and you will rise like him; and
deserve to rise--if you have as strong family interest to back you.'
But he seems to have suffered much from his wounds, poor fellow, and
in spite of family interest, to have been very near leaving his
regiment vacant for another aspirant."

"By-the-bye," said Lady Mabel, as a new light flashed upon her, "he
seemed to pity me all the time he was talking to me. That was it! A
condescending commiseration in every look, and in every word he
uttered. I am very much indebted to him for his sympathy." Here she
assumed a haughty air. "But we certainly do not know ourselves; for I
cannot, for the life of me, discover what he sees so pitiable about
me. He is, doubtless, a very over-weening fellow--I do not like him at
all!" And, with a haughty wave of the hand, she dismissed an imaginary
personage from her presence, and moved off with dignity to her own
room. Now, be it remembered, that Lady Mabel, walking in "maiden
meditation, fancy free," among the officers of the brigade, had never,
until this moment, thought it worth while to ask herself, as to any of
them, whether she liked him or not.

While she was thus meditating and soliloquizing, L'Isle had mounted
his horse, and was riding slowly back to his quarters, meditating and
soliloquizing, too.

"What on earth was Lord Strathern dreaming of, when he brought his
daughter out here--and such a daughter--to preside over his house and
his table? She might as well take her seat at the head of a regimental
mess-table. We know his habits of life. He cannot dine comfortably
without half a dozen fast fellows about him. To make it worse, has a
new set every day. And with his notions of hospitality, all are made
free of the house. Of course, they become her companions, and to such
a degree of freedom, that she can only get out of their way by
shutting herself up in her chamber. She can scarcely have a female
companion an hour in the week; for the few of our ladies here have no
leisure to be trotting out of Elvas, down to headquarters, to play
chaperon to a young girl who ought to be in England."

"Here is a man," continued L'Isle to himself, in an indignant tone,
and so loud that his servant spurred up from behind him to see if he
was wanted. "Here is a man who has been near forty years in the
service, and has not yet found out what kind of women are made out of
these garrison girls. Bold, flippant creatures, light infantry in
petticoats, destitute of the delicacy and modesty, without which a
woman may be honest by good luck, but can never be a lady deserving
the name.

"She seems to retain yet the air and manner, and, I trust, the modesty
and purity of mind that should grace such beauty. But how will it be
six months hence? Her situation is absolutely improper. Lord Strathern
has shown himself no more fit to bring up such a daughter, or even to
take charge of her, after some fitter person has brought her up, than
he is to say mass." For here L'Isle's eye fell on a fat priest,
toiling up the hill beside him. "Though he may be as fit for that as
some of these gentry. No more fit," continued he, struggling after
another simile, "than for a professor of Greek literature." For during
his late solitude his thoughts had often wandered back to his old
haunts, before he had broken off a promising career at Oxford, to join
the first British expedition that had come out to Portugal nearly five
years ago.

"I am sorry for her, upon my soul I am. She would make so fine a woman
in proper hands! I wonder if some remedy cannot be found against the
effects of her father's folly--his forgetfulness of what is due to
maiden delicacy and the privacies of domestic life!"

L'Isle was still meditating on this interesting subject when he
dismounted at his own quarters, one of the best houses on the _praça_,
or public square of Elvas.

Lady Mabel was right in supposing that family interest had something
to do with putting L'Isle at the head of a regiment when just
twenty-four. Such instances have been common enough in the British
service--and not rare in others, in all ages of the world. Family
interest, or something very like it, put Alexander, at the age of
twenty, at the head of an army with which he went on conquering to the
end of his short life. The same influence put Hannibal, at
twenty-seven, at the head of an army with which he continued for
seventeen years to shake the foundations of Rome. Family interest
thrust forward such men as Edward the Black Prince, the fifth Harry of
England, and the fourth Henri of France. This, too, thrust forward the
great Condè to offer to France the first fruits of his heroism, when
victor at Rocroi, at twenty-two. So, too, with Gustavus Adolphus,
Turenne, Eugene of Savoy, and Frederick the Great. Family interest,
not of the most creditable kind, turned the courtier Churchill into
the conquering Marlborough; and his nephew, the gallant young Berwick,
found that being, somewhat irregularly, the son of an English king,
helped him much in obtaining the command of the armies of France. Just
at this time the son of an earl, and the brother of a governor-general
of India, pushed on by family interest, was proving himself not unfit
to direct the efforts of the British arms. It is curious to see in
these, and many an instance more in military history, how aptly family
interest has come into play. It is likely that these men were not the
mere creatures of accident, but had each merits of his own, and in
spite of whispered insinuations, so had Lieutenant-Colonel L'Isle,
though nephew and heir to an earl. Having chosen his profession, he
followed it laboriously and gallantly, as if he had not been heir to
an acre--but bore his fortunes on the point of his sword.

He had just reached Elvas, after spending six tedious weeks at Ciudad
Rodrigo, under the surgeon's hands. He now found his own hands full of
regimental business--accumulated against his arrival--and being a
prompt man, set himself to work, though yet little fit for it.

Though he had seen Lady Mabel but once, he was not suffered to forget
her. Every young officer he met, and many of the older, had something
to say of her, some comment to make on the attractions at
headquarters, some details to give of the witty things said, and the
graceful things done by Lady Mabel; for she said many happy things,
and did many things well, and was, at all events, sure of admiration.
All this only the more convinced L'Isle that her position was very
inappropriate to one so beautiful and young.

After some days he began to think himself guilty of gross neglect in
not having called on the lady at headquarters. Disliking, however, to
make one of an admiring crowd, he showed his strategy in choosing well
his time, and called on Lady Mabel on the day and at the hour when an
inspection of the troops having been ordered, every officer was at his
post except himself--yet too weak to be expected to put himself at the
head of his regiment.

On calling, he was immediately admitted. Lady Mabel apparently had
been reading in the room in which she received him. He now saw her for
the first time alone, and she was by no means aware what a critical
examination she was undergoing. Her manner was different from what he
had expected. With quiet politeness she received his visit as one of
mere etiquette to the lady at headquarters. That repose of manner
might indicate a cold disposition, or might cover strength of
character and depth of feeling, not given to perpetual demonstrations,
but showing vigor and animation, with telling effect, at the right
time. There was no indication of that craving for company, of the
ennui at being thrown upon her own resources for a whole morning, so
common with young women brought up in a crowd, and habitually
surrounded by admirers. "As yet," thought L'Isle, "she has escaped
that." He even thought he could perceive that he had interrupted her
in some occupation, which would be resumed the moment he left her;
that his visit was a parenthesis awkwardly thrust in between, and
breaking the connection of her morning hours.

Lady Mabel expressed some surprise at his being at leisure just at
this time, but added: "I suppose you are yet too weak to burden
yourself with such mere formalities as parades and inspections."

L'Isle was a martinet, and this a military heresy. "Keeping the troops
up to the mark, fit for instant service, is not a matter of form; and
that is the end of parades and inspections. But," added he, smiling,
"I am not surprised at your mistake; for I find, on coming to Elvas,
that many of my brother officers have embraced the same opinion. They
have got tired of these formalities, and dispense with them as often
as they can. But I must not find fault with them, while indulging
myself as an invalid longer than is absolutely necessary. Confinement
and idleness have made me a little lazy."

An air of languor, and the marks of recent suffering, fully excused
what he called his laziness. They did something more for him by
exciting Lady Mabel's sympathy, putting her at ease, and inducing her
to exert herself to entertain him; and during their conversation
L'Isle was quietly on the watch for each indication of character his
fascinating companion might betray.

Presently she rested her elbow on a thick quarto on the table beside
her. L'Isle then observed that it was a Portuguese and English
dictionary, and saw a volume of Count Ericeira's works beside it.

"I see, Lady Mabel, that you do not mean to remain ignorant of the
language of the people you have come among."

"I wish not to remain ignorant. But between my own dullness and the
want of a master, I make wonderfully slow progress. It is very
provoking, particularly to a woman, to be in the midst of a people
whom she can neither talk to nor understand."

"It is certainly better," said L'Isle, "to learn to fight before we go
into battle, and to speak a people's language before we throw
ourselves among them."

"Very true. But I have been thrown very unexpectedly among these
Portuguese. I came out merely to visit my father, you know. That is,
he sent for me, not having seen me for years. That must account," said
she, laughing, "for my joining the brigade. I am not even a volunteer
among you; nor shall I subject myself to the articles of war."

"You are a traveler, then, and not a soldier," said L'Isle.

"I am a daughter," she answered, "and in that character I come. But,
beside the pleasure of being with my father, an opportunity to see
outlandish places and people was no small inducement. I have my full
share of curiosity and love of adventure; I want, too, to know the
people I am among; and that is impossible, without speaking their
language."

"But I think you are misdirecting your efforts, and wasting your
time," said L'Isle. "The Spanish will be of more permanent value, and
almost equally useful here on the frontier. The one is a language
widely spread and a noble one. The other, though exceedingly well
adapted to conversation, has but a narrow range, and may one day be
merged in the superior tongue. The literature of the Spanish, too, is
the richer, though both are poor enough."

"I am glad to hear you say that; for I have already made some little
progress in Spanish. I have read a few books, and moulded my tongue to
the utterance of a long list of conversational phrases. I would now
gladly exchange my French for Spanish or Portuguese. What a pity it
is, that the languages of different countries are not, like their
coins, exchangeable one for another."

"Unfortunately," said L'Isle, laughing, "that exchange is a slow
process; and exact equivalents are seldom found."

"It is too provoking," continued Lady Mabel, "after having been at so
much pains to learn French, not to be at liberty to go to France, to
show the natives how well I can speak their tongue. True, I have
access to their books, which are, perhaps, better than themselves."

"That is not saying much for their books," said L'Isle contemptuously.
"Their literature is much overvalued. Its chief merits are variety and
bulk."

"Do you think so? That is not the opinion I have heard expressed."

"Very true. The world is full of false opinions and bad taste. But a
literature, whose great epic poem is the _Henriade_, may be abundant
but cannot be rich. A language, in which you cannot make verse without
the jingle of rhyme, may be clear and copious, but is wanting in
melody and force. Take away from French literature Gil Blas and the
_memoires_, and were all the rest lost, its place might be easily
filled with something better. With these exceptions, there is little
worth doing into English or any other tongue. And after all, Gil Blas
is only a renegade Spaniard in a French uniform; and, undoubtedly, it
is not genius, but merely their intense vanity and egotism, that
enables them to excel in writing their own memoirs. Besides, unlike
most other people, their books are as immoral as themselves."

"Well," said Lady Mabel, looking at him in some surprise, yet half
convinced of the truth of what he had been saying. "It must certainly
be a great comfort to you to entertain so thorough a contempt and
dislike for the people you have to fight against."

"Perhaps it is," said L'Isle, laughing at her observation and his own
warmth. "It may not be in the spirit of Christianity or of chivalry,
but it is exceedingly true to our nature, to dislike our enemies, and
heartily, too. But to return to our subject. You wish to learn
Spanish, and I can provide you a capable and zealous teacher."

"I am much obliged to you; where is he to be found?"

"I will bring him here, any day and hour you may appoint."

"Then I will fix an early hour, and take a lesson every day."

"The truth is," said L'Isle, hesitating and somewhat confused, "it is
very difficult to find a Spaniard who speaks English well enough to
teach you his own tongue."

"But you said just now that would find me such a master."

"But not a Spaniard. I hear," said L'Isle, putting a bold face on the
matter, "that several of my brother officers have been permitted to
make themselves useful to you in various capacities. For instance, on
looking round this room, I see more than one achievement of Captain
Cranfield's, and hear that Major Lumley's skill in music has been
called into play. Now I am behind no one in zeal for your service."

"So you, yourself, are the Spanish master, whom you, yourself, would
recommend?"

"I assure you I do not know where to find another."

"Your offer is exceedingly tempting," said Lady Mabel, bowing
ironically low. "But I am too much in debt already to the gentlemen in
his majesty's service. To turn one of his colonels into my Spanish
master would be seriously to misemploy his precious time. I would feel
that I was robbing my country. Is it not positive treason to aid and
abet the king's enemies? Then it is negative treason, to divert from
his service any of the king's friends."

"But you forget that I am an invalid, not yet fit for duty."

"You are getting more fit for it every day. My invalid tutor would
become a sound colonel long before I had made much progress under his
tuition."

"But I would not object to relaxing from my military duties, and
prolonging my invalid condition in your service."

"Let me beg that you do no such thing, but hasten to get so well as to
forget your wounds, and the awkward occasion on which you received
them."

"Why," said L'Isle, in some surprise, "what have you heard of that
occasion?"

"Perhaps you, like some other people, do not care to be reminded of
your blunders," said Lady Mabel, mischievously.

"Blunders?" said L'Isle, "I do not see how a soldier can avoid
exposing himself occasionally to the risk of being shot, sabred, or
bayoneted. What blunder of mine have you heard of?"

"Merely that on the approach of a French column, you, instead of
rejoining the main body, in great alarm hid yourself and your men in a
little Spanish village too mean to have a name. The French found you
out, and kept you shut up there in great trepidation for five or six
hours, while they were cutting away your barricades, beating in the
doors, and tearing off the roofs of the houses. Your case was as
desperate as that of a rat in a trap; and when your friends came to
your relief, they had to knock a great many of the French in the head
before they could persuade them to let you slip out. But, by some
lucky misunderstanding at headquarters, you were soon after made a
lieut. colonel."

"Do you know," said L'Isle, laughing, "that this is, to me, quite a
new version of that little affair? Did you hear whether we did the
French any damage, while they beset us so closely?"

"Nothing was said on that score. So I suppose you did them little
harm."

"It is lucky for me that your informant had not the reporting of this
affair at headquarters."

"It is said that you had that more adroitly done by your own friends."

"They give me credit at least for good diplomacy," said L'Isle. "Or,
at all events, it is a good thing to have a friend at court--that is,
at the elbow of the commander-in-chief. And it seems that I have one
there. But still you make a great mistake in declining my services as
a teacher of the Spanish tongue. I may be a blundering soldier, but
have made myself thoroughly master of the languages of the Peninsula,
and have a decided aptitude for teaching. Let me begin by warning you
against a blunder we English always commit, in trying to speak a
tongue not our own, with the mouth half open, and the hands in the
pockets. Now, when you address a foreigner in his own tongue, speak
with much noise and vociferation, opening your mouth wide and using
much action. The ideas you cannot convey in words, you must
communicate by gesticulation, the more emphatic the better."

"What!" said Lady Mabel. "Would you have me go scolding and
gesticulating at every foreign fellow I meet with, and become
notorious throughout Elvas as the British virago?"

"There is no danger of that," said L'Isle. "They would only say that
you have as much vivacity as a native, and soon begin to understand
you."

"I have made the acquaintance of some ladies of Elvas. As yet our
intercourse has been limited to a few formal visits, and a few set
phrases mingled with pantomime. But some of them are disposed to be
very sociable, and, through their teaching, I hope to be able soon to
bear my part in the most sprightly and sentimental conversation. You
shall see what an apt scholar I am under the tuition of my own sex."

"I trust you will be on your guard against cultivating too great an
intimacy with these people," said L'Isle. "You do not know what
Portuguese and Spanish ladies are."

"What are they?"

"A thorough knowledge of them would only satisfy you that they are
gross in language, particularly the Spaniards, indelicate in their
habits, careless of propriety, lax in morals, and, with all their
grace, vivacity, and elegance, very unfit companions for you. In
short, the purity of mind, true refinement of manners, and scrupulous
propriety of conduct we look for in a lady, are almost unknown among
them."

"What a shocking picture you paint of our friends here. You must know
them exceedingly well," added Lady Mabel, in innocent surprise, "to
justify your abusing them so roundly."

"By report--only by report," said L'Isle hastily.

"But I have had many opportunities of judging of the grossness of
their conversation and manners. The Portuguese ladies are not gross in
language, like the Spaniards; but are quite on a par with them in
essentials, or rather the want of essentials."

"They are not at all indebted to your report, which has used them very
roughly. You, perhaps, have been unfortunate in the samples you have
met with; and, at least, do not know my new friends here in Elvas."

"I confess that I do not."

"Yet I must own that you have damped my ardor to cultivate an intimacy
with them. Yet such is the situation of the two or three of our own
ladies here, that these allies of ours afford the only female society
at my command."

"In that respect your situation here must seem very strange to you."

"Strange, indeed, at first--but now I am getting accustomed to it. I
begin to feel as if I held an official position in the brigade. I
make great progress in knowledge of military affairs--am quite
familiar, as you may perceive, with the details of the last campaign,
and begin to understand both the technical language and the slang of
our comrades; who give me plenty of their company, and right merry
companions they are. But, perhaps," said she, looking at him
doubtingly, "you may be able to understand me, and excuse my weakness,
when I confess that there is still so much of the woman left in me
that I do often long to slam the door in the face of the brigade, and
have a good long confidential chat with some of my own sex."

"The want of that must be a sad privation to you."

"My only resource now is to get old Moodie and Jennie Aiken, my maid,
together, and have a good home talk with them, which, for the time,
may blot out the map of Portugal, and carry us back to Scotland."

"After that avowal," said L'Isle, rising from his chair, "I had better
not trespass on you longer, lest I should have the door slammed in my
face the next time I visit you." And he bowed and put an end to his
visit.

As he rode homeward, he again brought Lord Strathern to trial, and
soon found a verdict against him, of utter incapacity to take charge
of such a daughter as heaven had blessed him with. L'Isle felt
strongly tempted to take the vacant guardianship upon himself--but did
not see just then how it was to be brought about.

He was buried in these thoughts when the sound of horses' feet aroused
him; and looking up he saw Lord Strathern riding down toward him from
the city gate, followed by a party of young officers. His lordship
drew up as he approached, and said: "L'Isle, I am glad to see you look
so much like taking the field again. Why, your ride has actually
brought a color into your cheeks." In truth, L'Isle had turned
somewhat red on seeing suddenly before him the very man he had just
been condemning in secret tribunal. "We cannot let you play invalid
much longer," his lordship continued. "We begin to miss you sadly. By
the by, I have just been inspecting the troops. Their condition is not
exactly what I would wish. But the less we say about the
matter--only--I am glad the French are not just now in the
neighborhood."

"But they have not told us how long they meant to stay away,"
suggested L'Isle.

"We won't see them soon, however," said his lordship carelessly.
"Well, L'Isle, I will begin to put you on duty by having you to dine
with me to-morrow. These noisy fellows I have with me to-day would be
too much for your nerves. We will have a quieter party, and I will not
insist on your doing your full turn of duty at the bottle."

"I will obey you, my lord, with the greatest pleasure, particularly as
you are so considerate as to the bottle. I have just been paying my
respects, for the first time, to Lady Mabel."

"Well, if you did not bore her by the length of your visit--a thing
she sometimes complains of--she will be glad to see you again
to-morrow." And Lord Strathern rode off--with a merry party at his
heels.




CHAPTER IV.


  _Celia_.--Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.
  _Rosalind_.--With his mouth full of news.
  _Celia_.--Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.
  _Rosalind_.--Then shall we be news-crammed.

                                          _As You Like It._


The next morning Colonel L'Isle was seated in his room, wrapped in his
cloak, with a _brasero_ filled with wood embers at his feet; for it
was one of those windy, chilly days, not uncommon in this fluctuating
climate, and he was still invalid enough to be keenly sensitive to
these sudden changes of temperature. He was, too, so completely
wrapped up in his meditations, that his servant had twice to announce
that the adjutant was in the next room.

"Here, already!" said L'Isle; "I did not expect him until ten
o'clock." He looked at his watch. "But it is ten already. Here have I
been thinking for two hours, and have never once thought of the
regiment. I am acquiring a sad habit of day-dreaming, or, rather, my
mind has not yet recovered its tone. Ask Lieutenant Meynell to walk in
here."

The regimental business was soon dispatched, and the adjutant, who was
a capital newsmonger, began to detail the local news of the
day. L'Isle liked to keep himself informed of what was going on around
him, on the easy terms of listening to the adjutant. But this morning
he seemed to tire soon at the details of small intelligence, much of
which was of a sporting character, such as this: "Warren has succeeded
in buying the famous dog at Estremoz; they say he will collar a wolf
without ceremony, and throttle him single-handed; and he has the knack
of so seizing a wild boar, that he can never bring his tusks to bear
upon him."

"I hope," said L'Isle, "that Warren will show us many trophies of his
prowess, or his dog's rather, in the hunt."

"He had to pay well for him, though. Fifty moidores was the least his
owner would take for him."

"I sincerely trust that Warren will get fifty moidores' worth of sport
out of him."

"He went out yesterday to try him," continued Meynell, "but Hatton,
who was with him, got such a fall (he is a villainous rider, without
knowing it), that they had great trouble in getting him back here, and
it broke up the day's sport."

"Is he much hurt?" asked L'Isle.

"No permanent injury. But he fell on his head, and, at first, they
thought the time come for firing blank-cartridges over him."

"I trust, if Hatton is bent on dying in the field, he will choose some
occasion when they do not fire blank-cartridges."

As his colonel seemed little interested in his sporting intelligence,
the adjutant turned to a topic that looked a little more like
business. "I see that Commissary Shortridge has got back."

"Ah!" said L'Isle, suppressing a yawn, "where has he been?"

"He has been to Lisbon."

"What carried him there?" mechanically asked the colonel, evidently
not caring to know.

"Business of the commissariat, he says."

"So I suppose," said L'Isle, carelessly.

"But I suppose no such thing," said Meynell. "The first thing these
fellows think of is not the supply of the troops, but their own
comfort. He only went to Lisbon to bring his wife here."

"What!" said L'Isle, with sudden interest, "is Mrs. Shortridge in
Elvas?"

"Yes. She came with him last night."

"And is she to remain here any time?"

"As long as we stay," answered Meynell, surprised at the interest his
superior now showed at his intelligence. "That is, if Shortridge can
establish her here comfortably. You know, since the king's money has
been passing through his hands, and some of it has stuck to his palms,
he has begun to give himself airs. He speaks with the most gentlemanly
disgust of the narrow and inconvenient lodgings they are obliged to
put up with. He told me they were in the dirtiest part of the town, in
the midst of the filthiest of these Portuguese, and sooner than let
Mrs. Shortridge stay there, he will take her to Portalegre, or back to
Lisbon."

"There will not be the least need of that," said L'Isle, quickly;
"this house is large and convenient enough"--and he looked round the
apartment into the room beyond--"and is one of the best situated in
Elvas."

"But you are occupying it yourself, sir. What good will that do,
Shortridge?"

"Oh, I will give it up to Shortridge. It is quite thrown away on a
bachelor like me. Now I am on duty again, I prefer being near the
regiment, and shall take rooms at the barracks."

"Shortridge will be exceedingly obliged to you. But," added Meynell,
fishing for information, "I did not think you cared a farthing whether
the commissary got into good quarters or no."

"The commissary!" said L'Isle, looking round on his companion with an
air of surprise; then he added, in a tone of contempt, "he may lie in
a ditch. Many a better man has done it. It is Mrs. Commissary for whom
I would find good quarters."

"Oh, indeed!" said Meynell, elevating his eyebrows a good deal, "I
overlooked that. But I was not aware that you had ever seen her."

"Oh, many times: in Lisbon, last year. Indeed, on one occasion I did
her a well-timed service."

"What was that?--if I may be allowed to ask."

"Why, Mrs. Shortridge, though an excellent woman, is a little
afflicted with the disease of sight-seeing, and had thrust herself,
with a party of other heretics, into the Patriarchal Church, to
witness the rending of the veil. Do you know what that means, Meynell?
I believe you are not well drilled in theology."

"Not popish theology."

"Nor any other, I fear. However, a large detachment of the live and
dead saints were there, and, certainly, half the rabble of Lisbon. In
the rush of this devout crowd, Mrs. Shortridge got separated from her
party, and, between alarm and exhaustion, fell, fainting, on the
pavement. She would soon have been trampled to death, had I not picked
her up and carried her out bodily. I had to swear awfully at the
rabble to make them give way."

"That was no small service," said Meynell; then, glancing at the
colonel's thin form, "I am afraid you could not repeat it just now.
Mrs. Shortridge is a plump little body."

"I suppose not. Yet there is no knowing what exertions a man might
make to save a pretty woman. However, she has been very grateful ever
since, and whenever we meet we are excellent friends. I am glad
Shortridge has brought her here. She is a different sort of person
from himself. She has some very pleasant traits of character--in fact,
she is a very good woman," and he sank into a reverie, apparently
thinking over Mrs. Commissary's good qualities.

Meynell had nothing more to tell, and, hopeless of extracting any
thing more, now took leave. But when he had gone out of the room, his
colonel called him back to inquire where Shortridge was now lodged.
Having given as precise an answer as he could to this question, the
adjutant departed, trying as he went, to frame such a definition of a
good woman as would fit his view of this case.

This little conversation seemed to have revived L'Isle a good deal. He
looked out of the window and pronounced the wind to have fallen, and
that, after all, it was a very pleasant day. Calling his servant to
bring his boots and brush his clothes, he was soon after on the
_praça_ of Elvas.

This exhibited a busy scene; for the troops quartered in Elvas created
a market, and drew a concourse of people from the surrounding
country. Asses laden with, or just unladen of, country produce, were
grouped about the square, each with his nose tied up in a net, that he
might not eat his saddle or panniers. Bullock carts were seen here and
there, among them, many of the oxen lying down with their legs doubled
under them, taking advantage of the halt to enjoy their _siesta_. A
crowd of peasants hovered about, and the sonorous Spanish mingling
with the abrupt and nasal Portuguese, the short black jackets and
_montero_ caps, among the hats and vests, generally brown, showed that
many of these men had come across the Spanish border. Here was the pig
merchant, with his unquiet and ear-piercing merchandise, and the wine
merchant, with his pitchy goat-skin sacks, full of, and flavoring the
_vinho verde_ Colonel Bradshawe so much abhorred. Here were peasant
women, with poultry, and sausages, and goats'-milk cheese; and young
girls, persuasively offering for sale the contents of their baskets,
oranges, chesnuts, bolotas, and other fruits and nuts. Here, in the
crowd, was a monk; there, a secular priest, and of friars a plenty.
And here, in the midst of them, were the broad-faced English soldiers,
touching their caps as L'Isle passed among them--their faces growing
broader as they remarked to each other, that there was still something
left of the colonel. Here, too, were the lounging citizens of Elvas,
who might have personified _otium cum dignitate_, or plain English
laziness, but for the presence of some of the gentlemen of the
brigade, who were sauntering about with their hands in their pockets,
as if caring for nothing, and having nothing to do, or at once too
proud and lazy to do it--not much caring which way their steps led
them, but expecting, of course, every one to get out of their way. Yet
a spark of interest would, at times, shine out from them at the sight
of a neat figure, or a pretty face, among the rustic belles, whose
love of bright and strongly contrasted colors in dress, attracted the
eye, and gave variety to the scene.

Some of these gentlemen stopped L'Isle to talk with him. But, avoiding
any prolonged conversation, he hastened across the _praça_, into one
of the narrow and uncleanly streets, along which he picked his way,
wishing that he had authority, for a few days, to turn the good people
of Elvas, clergy and all, into scavengers, and enter on a thorough
purification of the place, beginning with the persons of the people
themselves. A moral purification might possibly follow, but could not
possibly precede this physical cleansing. Walking along, divided
between these thoughts and the necessity of looking for the place he
was searching for, he heard himself called by some one behind him. He
turned; it was Commissary Shortridge himself, who being rather pursy,
was a little out of breath through his exertions to overtake him.

Now, there were a good many things that L'Isle despised. But, if there
was any thing that he did despise beyond all others, it was a
commissary--a fellow who makes his gains where all other men make
their losses; who devotes himself to his country's service for the
express purpose of cheating it; who seizes the hour of its greatest
want and weakness, to bleed it most freely; who, as often as he can,
_sells_ to his country straw for hay, chaff for corn, and bones for
beef; the master-stroke of whose art is to get passed, by fraudulent
vouchers, accounts full of imaginary articles, charged at fabulous
prices; in short, a man who loves war more than Mars or Achilles;
reaping, amidst its blood and havoc, a rich harvest in safety. Our
commissary was not quite equal in professional skill to some of his
brethren. Perhaps he had some small remnant of conscience left, or of
patriotism, or of loyalty, or of caution, which withheld him from
plundering king and country with both hands. Nevertheless, from being
an unprosperous London tradesman, he had, in a few years, contrived to
line his pockets exceedingly well, and had now grown ambitious of
social position.

How came it then, when the commissary had expressed very copiously his
delight at seeing Colonel L'Isle again, and yet more at seeing him so
much better in health and strength than he had dared to hope, L'Isle
condescendingly gave him to understand that the pleasure of this
meeting was not all on the commissary's side? When Shortridge
congratulated him on his promotion, and yet more on the high deserts
that had drawn it upon him, L'Isle's manner implied that the
commissary's good opinion gave him greater confidence in himself. How
could L'Isle do this? Simply because the proudest and best of us can
tolerate, and even flatter, those we despise, when we have urgent
occasion to use them.

The commissary then said, "I have brought Mrs. Shortridge with me to
Elvas."

"I am very glad to hear it," answered L'Isle, without betraying that
he knew it before. "Even one English lady is a precious addition to
our society in this dull place."

"Mrs. Shortridge has never forgotten your rescuing her from under the
feet of the idolatrous rabble of Lisbon. She is still a strong friend
of yours, and will be delighted to see you, as soon as she is mistress
of a decent apartment."

"Where is she now?"

"Not far from here--but in such an abominable hole, that a lady is
naturally ashamed to be caught there by any genteel acquaintance."

"I am truly sorry to hear that she is so badly lodged."

"Our officers," said Shortridge, "have taken up all the best houses;
and the troops being quartered here has attracted such an additional
population from the country around, that I was afraid I would have to
carry Mrs. Shortridge to rooms in the barracks."

"That will never do," said L'Isle. "But, pray, if I am in her
neighborhood, let me call on Mrs. Shortridge, and welcome her to
Elvas."

Thus urged, the commissary led the way, and soon reached his
lodgings. They found the lady in a room of some size, but dark, dirty,
and offensive enough to eye and nose to disgust her with Elvas and
drive her back to Lisbon, without unpacking the numerous trunks,
baskets, band-boxes, and portable furniture which lumbered the room.
These her man-servant was arranging, under her direction, while she
was good-humoredly trying to pacify her maid, who, with tears in her
eyes, was protesting that she could not sleep another night in that
coal-hole, into which the people of the house had thrust her, and
which they would persist in calling a chamber.

Mrs. Shortridge, a plump and pretty woman of eight-and-twenty, was a
good deal fluttered at seeing such a visitor at such a time. She
declared "that she did not know whether she was more delighted or
ashamed to see Major--I beg your pardon--Colonel L'Isle, in such a
place; we, who have been accustomed to a suite of genteel apartments
wherever we went."

L'Isle cast his eye around the forlorn and dismal walls. "Let me beg
you, Colonel L'Isle, to be conveniently near-sighted during your
visit. I would not, for the world, have our present domicil, and our
household arrangements, minutely inspected by your critical eye."

Without minding her protest, he completed a deliberate survey; then
said, suddenly, "Why, Shortridge, how could you think of shutting up a
lady in such a dungeon? If Mrs. Shortridge were not the best-tempered
woman in the world, it would cause a domestic rebellion, and we would
soon see her posting back to Lisbon, and London, perhaps, without
leave or license. Do you forget how she yearns after the two little
boys she left at home, that you venture to aggravate so her regrets at
leaving England?"

"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 _praça_, 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 _praça_ 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
_praça_. "This," said L'Isle, "is Ville Viçosa, '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 _praça_, 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 Viçosa 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 Viçosa, 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.




CHAPTER VIII.


  When late arriving at our inn of rest,
    Whose roof exposed to many a winter sky,
  Half shelters from the wind the shivering guest,
  By the pale lamp's dreary gloom
  I mark the miserable room,
  And gaze with angry eye
  On the hard lot of honest poverty,
  And sickening at the monster brood
  Who fill with wretchedness a world so good.

                                          Southey.


It was twilight when they reached the _venda_, a large but somewhat
ruinous building, surrounded by a few scattered trees, on the sloping
ground near the foot of the hill. The _arriero_ led his mules through
the archway which formed the only entrance, and the travelers
following found themselves beside and almost in a large apartment,
which served at once as kitchen, parlor and dining-room to this _house
of refuge_, which betrayed by many signs, that if it had ever done a
thriving business, that day had long gone by. Dismounting here, their
horses were led on into the stable under the same roof, and
imperfectly separated from the kitchen by a rude wall.

The people of the house, an old man and two women, sat staring at them
without making any hospitable demonstrations. So L'Isle made the first
advances, and, addressing them with a studied courtesy that seemed
ironical to the ladies, awakened them somewhat to a sense of their
duty to the wayfarers. Seats were got for the ladies on one side of
the huge fire-place, in which some embers were smouldering, and L'Isle
placed two cork stools to raise their feet above the damp pavement of
flat stone. On the young friar's now coming forward (for with a
modesty rare in his order he had hitherto kept in the background),
L'Isle resumed his sociable conversation with him, and accepted the
proffered pinch of snuff, that olive-branch of the Portuguese. This
evidently had a good effect on their hosts; while Shortridge was
surprised to see the colonel, whose _hauteur_ he had himself felt,
demean himself by familiarity with these low people. He did not know
that a proud man, if his be generous pride, is apt to keep it for
those who assume superiority, or at least equality, with himself.

That was not the commissary's way. So he began to question abruptly,
in very bad Portuguese, as to the state of her larder, the elder
woman, who, ugly and blear-eyed, with ragged, scanty dress, and bare
feet, yet wore a necklace of beads and earrings of gold. She answered
tartly, that it being a fast-day, there was no flesh in the
house. They had _bacalhao_ and _sardinhas_, and garlic, and pepper,
and onions, and oil; and everything that Christians wanted on a
fast-day. She forgot to say that the house was without flesh many
more days than the church commands. L'Isle, with more address, applied
to the younger woman with better success, inquiring after
accommodations for the ladies. He so moved her that she snatched up
the only lamp in the room, and, leaving the rest of the party in the
growing darkness, ushered the ladies up the ladder, like stairs, to
the only two chambers where they could be private.

Shortridge, meanwhile, finding out the desolate state of the larder,
let the woman know that they had not come unprovided with a stock of
edibles of their own. He urged her to make preparations for cooking
it; so rousing the old man from his chimney corner, she carried him
out with her, and they soon returned with no small part of a
cork-tree; and when Lady Mabel and Mrs. Shortridge came down, a
cheerful blaze had brought out more fully the desolation of the room
in dispelling half its gloom.

"I trust you have found a habitable chamber over head," said L'Isle to
Lady Mabel.

"I were a heretic to complain," she answered. "It is true the room has
no window; but it has a square hole in the wall to let in the light
and let out the foul air. The bed is hard and not over tidy. But what
is wanting in cleanliness is made up in holiness; for the bedstead has
an elaborate crucifix carved at its head, and I shall sleep under its
immediate protection. On the slightest alarm, by merely throwing my
arms upward, I can lay hold on the cross, and nothing will be wanting
to the sense of security but faith in this material symbol of my
faith. I shall have saintly company, too. On the wall to the right is
a print of St. Christopher carrying the infant Christ over a river,
and a bishop, in full canonicals, waiting on the other side, with
outstretched arms, to receive him; on the left, is a picture of
St. Antony, of Padua, preaching to the fishes. Religion is truly part
and parcel of this people's every day life; and the reality of their
devotion, and the falsehood and frivolity of many of its objects, make
a contrast truly painful to me."

Old Moodie, the muleteer, and the servants, having seen after their
horses and mules, now came straggling into this hall, common to all
the inmates of the house. Here they accommodated themselves with such
seats as they could find, or contrive out of the baggage; and one of
L'Isle's servants produced the rabbits and partridges purchased on the
road, with some other provisions brought from Elvas. These he gave to
the woman of the house to cook for the travelers, and no objection was
started as to cooking flesh, that other people might commit the sin of
eating it on a fast day. The whole party sat in a large semi-circle
around the fire, conversing and watching the cooking of their supper;
but no sooner did the savory fumes diffuse themselves through the
building than another personage joined them. A stout pig, evidently a
denizen of the house, came trotting and grunting out of the stable,
and pushed his way into the interior of the social circle. Though he
received some rude buffets, he persisted in keeping within it, until,
trenching on Lady Mabel's precincts, she made such an application of
her riding-wand that he was glad to seek refuge again among his
four-legged companions.

"It would seem," Lady Mabel remarked, "that these _Vendas_ are
caravansaries, providing only shelter for the traveler, who is
expected to bring his own food."

"This is so true, that it is a blessing there are no game laws in the
peninsula," said L'Isle. "The traveler would often starve at the inn
but for the game purchased on the road. And it is well to travel
prepared to shoot _one's own_ game, as you are perpetually threatened
with famine or robbers. The cookery, too, of this country is peculiar,
and if you ladies watch the process closely, you may carry home some
valuable hints in what some people think the first of the arts."

They accordingly closely watched the cooking, of the rabbits
particularly. Each was spitted on a little spit, which had four legs
at the handle, the other end resting on a piece of the fuel. When one
side was roasted, the other was turned to the fire. To know when they
were done, the woman cracked the joints; laying them by until cool,
she then tore them to pieces with her fingers; and afterward fried the
already over-roasted meat with onions, garlic, red pepper, and oil,
which is always rancid in Portugal, from the custom of never pressing
the olives until they are stale.

The commissary knew too much about Portuguese cookery to trust to
it. He had provided himself before leaving Elvas with the commissary's
cut, which is always the best steak from the best bullock. He now
produced from among his baggage that implement so truly indicative of
the march of English civilization--the gridiron; and not until the
large table, at the other side of the room, had been spread, and
supper was ready, did his man proceed to dress it skillfully and
quickly, under the vigilant superintendance of the commissary himself.

They were sitting down to supper when L'Isle, seeing that the young
friar remained by the fire, pointed out a vacant seat, and asked him
to join them. But he shook his head.

"You are eating flesh. I must fast to-day."

"Because the Scriptures bid you?" L'Isle inquired.

"Because the Church commands me."

"You are aware, then, that there is no absolute injunction in
Scripture to fast on particular days."

"Yet the Church may have authority--it doubtless has authority to
appoint such days," the young friar answered, seeming at once to
stifle a doubt and his appetite.

Cookery must be judged of by the palate, and not by the eye. So Lady
Mabel made a strong effort to try the rabbits by the latter
test--having had ocular proof that they were not cats in disguise.
But, after persevering through two or three mouthfuls, the garlic, red
pepper, and rancid oil, and the fact of having witnessed the whole
process of cooking and fingering the fricassee, proved too much for
her; and she was fain to be indebted to the commissary for a small
piece of his steak, reeking hot, and dripping with its natural juices.

The woman of the house now placed on a bench before the friar, some
_broa_, or maize bread, and a piece of _bacalhao_, fried in oil. From
the size of the morsel, the stock in the larder seemed to have run
low, even in this article, which is nothing but codfish salted by
British heretics for the benefit of the souls and bodies of the true
sons of the Church. The friar eat alone and in silence, less intent on
his meal than in watching and listening to the party at the table.

"They are, every one of them, eating flesh, and this day is a fast,"
said the elder woman to the friar, in a tone of affected horror.

"And they eat it almost raw," answered the friar, as Shortridge thrust
an ounce of red beef into his mouth. "But I know not that the Church
has prohibited that."

The ladies and the commissary retired soon, fatigued with their long
day's ride. The friar was devoutly telling his beads, and L'Isle sat
musing by the fire, while the servants, in turn, took their places at
the supper table. Presently the friar, having got through his
devotions, rose as if about to retire for the night; but, as he passed
L'Isle, he loitered, as if wishing to converse, perhaps for the last
time, with this foreigner, whose position, character, and ideas,
differed so much from his own, and who yet could make himself so well
understood. As L'Isle looked up, he said:

"Men of your profession see a great deal of the world."

"Yes. A soldier is a traveler, even if he never goes out of his own
country."

"But the soldiers of your country visit the remotest parts of the
world, the Indies in the east and west, and now this, our country, and
many a land besides."

"At one time the soldiers of Portugal did the same," said L'Isle.

"Yes; there was a time when we conquered and colonized many a remote
land, where the banner of no other European nation had ever been
seen. We still have our colonies, but, some how or other, they do not
seem to do us any good."

"But men of your profession," said L'Isle, "have been as great or even
greater travelers than soldiers. They are few regions, however remote
or inaccessible, which the priests of the Church of Rome, and members
of your own order, have not explored."

The friar was silent and thoughtful for a moment, and then said: "What
you say is true; yet it seems to me, that is no longer the case, or,
at least, that our order here has been remiss in sending forth
missionaries to foreign lands. Here most of us follow through life the
same dull round. It is, however, the round of our duties. But,
perhaps, to find one's self in a strange country, surrounded by new
scenes, an unknown, perhaps heathen people, with difficulties to
struggle with, obstacles to overcome, might awaken in a man powers
that he did not know were slumbering in him, and enable him to do some
good, perchance great work, he never would have accomplished at home."
And the young friar drew himself up to his full height, while his
frame seemed to expand with the struggling energies that were shut up
unemployed within him.

Visions of travel, toil, adventure, perhaps martyrdom, seemed to float
before his eyes, and without another word, he strode off with a step
more like that of a soldier than a Franciscan.

L'Isle gazed after him with interest and pity, then ordering the table
to be cleared, stretched himself on it for the night, wrapped in his
cloak, rather than rely on the accommodations of the large room up
stairs, common to wayfarers of every grade, and populous with vermin.




CHAPTER IX.


  When at morn the muleteer,
  With early call announces day,
  Sorrowing that early call I hear
  That scares the visions of delight away;
  For dear to me the silent hour,
  When sleep exerts its wizard power.

                                Southey.


"I trust you rested well last night, under the protection of your
saintly guardians," L'Isle said to Lady Mabel, when she made her
appearance down stairs, before the sun was yet up.

"Do not speak of last night," she said, throwing up her hands in a
deprecatory manner, "let it be utterly forgotten, and not reckoned
among the number of the nights. It was one of penance, not repose!
Never will I speak lightly of the saints again. I can only hope that
that and all my other sins are expiated, if I can infer any thing from
the number of my tormentors."

"Were they so numerous?" L'Isle asked, in a tone of sympathy.

"And various!" emphasized Lady Mabel. "Whole legions of various
orders, light and heavy armed. I could have forgiven the first, were
it only for their magnanimous mode of making war, always sounding the
trumpet, and giving fair warning before they charged; and the attack
being openly made, I could revenge myself on some of them by the free
use of my hands, and protect my face by covering it with my veil, at
the risk of being smothered. But the next band were so minute and
active, and secret in their movements, that I never knew where to
expect them. But the last slow, heavy legion which came crawling
insidiously on, were the most tormenting and sickening of all. To be
tortured by such a crowd of little fiends was enough to produce
delirium. But I will not recall the visions of the night. It was worse
than dreaming of being in purgatory!"

"I am sorry to hear that you had such shocking dreams," said Mrs.
Shortridge, who, as she came down the stairs, heard Lady Mabel's last
words, "I would have been thankful to be able to dream; but the mule
bells jingling under us all night were a trifling annoyance compared
to the mosquitos, fleas, and bugs, which scarcely allowed me a wink of
sleep."

"Sleep!" Lady Mabel exclaimed, "they murdered sleep, and mine were
waking torments."

"It is all owing to the filthy habits of the nation," continued
Mrs. Shortridge. "The very pigs and asses are as much a part of the
family as the children of the house."

"The fraternization of the human race with brutes, which prevails
here," L'Isle remarked, "certainly, promotes neither comfort nor
cleanliness. Indeed, it is curious, that as you go from north to
south, cleanliness should decline in the inverse ratio with the need
of it. Compared with ourselves, the French are not a cleanly people,
but become so when contrasted with their neighbors, the Spaniards, who
are, in turn, less filthy than the Portuguese, whose climate renders
cleanliness still more necessary."

"By that ratio, what standard of cleanliness will you find in
Morocco?" asked Lady Mabel.

"Perhaps a prominent and redeeming feature in their religion," said
L'Isle, "may exalt the standard there. Mahomedan ablutions may avail
much in this world, though little in the next."

"I am afraid," said Lady Mabel, "that their cleanly superstition will
make me almost regret the expulsion of the Moors."

The commissary was now bustling about, hurrying the preparations for
breakfast, and L'Isle went to see if the servants were getting ready
for the journey; but Mrs. Shortridge, full of the annoyances she had
suffered, continued to denounce their small enemies. Her talk was of
vermin.

Lady Mabel, thinking the subject had been sufficiently discussed,
interrupted her, saying, "you do not take the most philosophical and
poetical view of the subject. Is it not consolatory to reflect, that
while men, on suffering a reverse of fortune, too often experience
nothing but ingratitude and desertion from their fellows, and sadly
learn that

  "'Tis ever thus: Those shadows we call friends,
   Attend us through the sunshine of success,
   To vanish in adversity's dark hour."

"Yet there are followers that adhere to them in their fallen fortunes
with more than canine fidelity, sticking to them like their sins,
clinging to their persons, cleaving to their garments, with an
attachment and in numbers that grow with their patron's destitution."

"But I maintain," Mrs. Shortridge replied, "that it is not only the
poor and destitute that here support such a retinue. I have repeatedly
seen in Lisbon, and elsewhere, young ladies, and among others a young
widow of high rank, the sister of the Bishop of Oporto, lying with her
head in the lap of her friend, who parted the locks of her hair to
search--"

"Stop!" said Lady Mabel, laying her hand on Mrs. Shortridge's mouth,
"you need not chase those small deer any further through the
wood. Leave that privileged sport to the natives."

Breakfast was now ready, and Shortridge called to the ladies to lose
no time. L'Isle, seeing the young friar in front of the _venda_,
brought him in and seated him beside him. He pressed upon him many
good things, which the house did not furnish; and this being no
fast-day, the friar eat a meal better proportioned to his youth, his
bulk, and his health, than his last night's meagre fare. He showed his
patriotism by his approval of one of those hams of marvelous flavor,
the boast of Portugal, the product of her swine, not stuffed into
obesity in prison, but gently swelling to rotundity while ranging the
free forest, and selecting the _bolotas_, and other acorns, as they
drop fresh from the boughs. The friar was not so busy with his meal
but what he continued to observe his new friends closely, and while
the servants were getting their breakfast, he seized the leisure
afforded to converse with L'Isle, and with Lady Mabel through
him. After many questions asked and answered, the friar became
thoughtful and abstracted, as if he had been brought in contact with a
new class of persons and ideas, which he could not at once comprehend.

L'Isle now asked him, "When and why he had put on St. Francis' frock?"

"I do not remember when I wore any other dress. I was not four years
old when I was seized with a violent sickness, and soon at the point
of death. My mother vowed that if St. Francis would hear her prayer,
and spare me, her only son, she would devote me to his service. From
that moment, as my mother has often told me, I began to mend. As soon
as a dress of the order could be made for me, I put it on. From that
day I grew and strengthened rapidly, and have not had a day's sickness
since. When old enough I was sent to school, and then served my
noviciate in the Franciscan convent in Villa Viçosa. I am now on leave
to visit my mother and sisters, who live near Ameixial."

"If you had chosen for yourself," L'Isle suggested, "perhaps you would
not have been a friar."

"Perhaps not," said the young friar, hesitating. "Indeed, I have been
lately told, though I am loath to admit it, that, urgent as the
necessity was that gave rise to our order, and great as its services
have been, especially in former days, our holy mother, the Church, can
be better served now, by servants who assume a more polished exterior,
and obeying St. Paul's injunction to be all things to all men, 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/17191