'No; I am a Portuguese by birth, but I have lived in 210 every country under the sun, and here I am at last. Have I introduced myself sufficiently?'
'No,' I said; 'but sit down. You have,' I continued, 'only introduced yourself sufficiently to excite our curiosity. Yours must be a strange story.'
'Oh, anybody and everybody who lives for over fifty years in the world as I have done has a strange story, if he cared to tell it. Mine is too long, and some of it too sad. I have been a soldier, a sailor, a traveller; I have been wealthy, I have been poor; I have been in love—my love left me. I forgot her. I have done everything except commit crime. I have not run away from anywhere, gentlemen. There is no blood on my hands. I can still pray. I still love. She whom I love is here.'
'Oh!' cried Dugald, 'won't you bring the lady?'
The hermit laughed.
'She is here, there, all around us. My mistress is Nature. Ah! boys,' he said, turning to us with such a kind look, 'Nature breaks no hearts; and the more you love her, the more she loves you, and leads you upwards—always upwards, never down.'
It was strange, but from the very moment he began to talk both my brothers and I began to like this hermit. His ways and his manners were quite irresistible, and before we separated we felt as if we had known him all our lives.
He was the last man my brothers and I saw that night, and he was the first we met in the morning. He had donned a light cloth poncho and a broad sombrero hat, and really looked both handsome and picturesque.
We went away together, and bathed, and I told him of Dugald's adventure. He looked interested, patted my brother's shoulder, and said:
'Poor boy, what a narrow escape you have had!