“Belike he hath a spice of all three,” chuckled the old archer; “he is a Spanish goat-herd.”
“What?” cried Wade, staring at the strange, Robinson-Crusoe form. “Have the Spaniards that we go to fight, then, skins like to those of goats?”
“Wonderest thou at that? Why, what more natural than that these mountain-folk, who live among goats day and night, and eat nought but goats’ flesh, and drink goats’ milk, should come to have a goatish aspect themselves? I warrant that ere we come this way again, yon fellow will have not only a goat’s skin, but goat’s horns to boot!”
Honest Ned (to whom such a thing seemed quite possible) accepted the tale in perfect good faith, and pictured to himself the amazement of his cronies at home, when he should tell them all this on his return.
“But how say men that this is a land of sunshine?” cried another recruit, wincing as a gust of icy wind smote him full in the face. “If it be so, the sun must be frozen like all else here, for the icicles hang on my beard as thick as ever they hung on the eaves of our cottage at Deerham!”
“Patience, lad; thou’lt have sun enow ere long, never fear.”
In fact, they had only marched a few miles farther, when they suddenly emerged from the gloomy gorge, and saw below them, in the full glory of the midday sun, a wide sweep of green upland sloping down to a vast, smooth plain, dappled with clustering olive-trees, dainty gardens, dark orange-groves, pleasant orchards, quaint little red-tiled hamlets, and white-walled country houses embowered in noble trees, while, far beyond all, rose the stately ramparts and graceful towers of queenly Pampeluna.
A ringing shout of joy broke from the English host; and the weary men, forgetting all their fatigues, pressed on as briskly as ever.
But this land of promise proved far other than they thought. As far as Pampeluna, indeed, the weather was fine; and the warm, dry plain seemed a paradise to men benumbed with the cold mountain winds. But as soon as they left the town behind, a storm of wind and rain burst upon them which lasted several days, completely breaking up the roads (which were bad enough at best), and sorely impeding their advance. Worse still, the country-folk had fled before the invaders, carrying with them all their stores; and the English, already short of supplies, were now menaced with actual famine!
At this sudden and dismal change, they began to murmur aloud.