"I was watching from the path outside; for I too can enjoy a timely laugh."
No one, I am bound to say, would have guessed it. With his long scrag neck and great moons of spectacles, which he had now drawn down, the better to study me, he suggested an absurd combination of the vulture and the owl.
"Dios! You have good eyes, then."
"For long distances. But they cannot see Salamanca." His gaze wandered for a moment to the entrance beyond which, far below and away, a sunny landscape twinkled, and he sighed. But before I could read any meaning in the words or the sigh, his spectacles were turned upon me again. "You are Spanish?" he asked abruptly.
"Of Castile, for that matter; though not, I may own to you, of pure descent. I come from Aranjuez, where a Scottish ancestor, whose name I bear, settled and married soon after the War of Succession."
"A Scot?" He leaned forward, and his hands, which had been resting on his lap, clutched the book nervously. "Of the Highlands?"
I nodded, wondering at his agitation.
"Even so, senor."
"They say that all Scotsmen in Spain know one another. Tell me, my son "—he was a priest, then, after all—"tell me, for the love of God, if you know where to find a certain Manuel McNeill, who, I hear, is a famous scout."
"That, reverend father, is not always easy, as the French would tell you; but for me, here, it happens to be very easy indeed, seeing that I am the unworthy sinner you condescend to compliment."