"We will take a holiday, Jose, before we begin this new work. Where would you like to go?" Antonio asked, as they walked homeward from the wild-land by the side of the oxen. Carlos ran ahead on the wood-road, sniffing the fresh air.
"I would like best to go up to the hill-top, where we can look off and see Guimarães and the old ruined Roman city, Citania."
"We will go to-morrow. You have earned a holiday, and the up-hill walk will straighten your shoulders. The hoeing has made you bend over like a little old man."
The next morning's work of caring for the live-stock was done early. Each with a lunch-basket, and a cloak hung over one shoulder, the two brothers set forth, followed by Carlos, and watched out of sight by the family on the front porch.
They found the mossy old foot-path which led from the main road up the hill. Pine needles made the rocks here and there as slippery as glass. But tufts of tall, stout grass along the path served as a help in climbing.
The sky overhead was deepest blue. Through the trunks of trees on both sides of the path they could see many a maize-field yellow with stubble, and many a vineyard with brilliant bronze leaves.
The trees were very beautiful. Here was the straight trunk of a eucalyptus "tall as the mast of some great admiral;" here was a cork-tree with a rich, brown velvet-like trunk, and here a gum-tree, its long drooping leaves of russet, red and orange showing like jewels against the slender, dark trunk.
There were seats for the weary built against the trees along the way. Once in a while the brothers stopped to rest. And at the noon hour they ate their luncheon, Jose sitting at Antonio's feet, and giving a large part of his own share to the dog.
By early afternoon they came to the rocky crag of the hill. A humble hermitage stood upon the outer edge of this great rock. Near the hermitage a gilded cross was built upon a broad pillar of piled stones,—the work of some long-ago, shoeless Carmelite or Trappist monk. The hermitage was deserted now, but the palms and ferns around it were rich in beauty. Antonio, who had read much about his country's history, told Jose that all these green growing things had been planted and tended with loving care by the devout monks who had taken on themselves the vows of poverty and of silence.
