"I mean both—that being the first of necessity leads to your possessing the last."
"My poor father, the good old professor, who was so barbarously slain by the French, was careful to teach me many things, though our female literary accomplishments are usually confined to our prayers and rehearsing legends of the saints, songs of the Cid Rodrigo, or by Lope de la Vega. In England I believe you have women who could lead the Junta or shine in the Cortes itself; but what matters their education, when it only serves to confirm their heresies? And now, senor, place the bota in the alforja, and sling that over your shoulder; let us go, and I shall be your guide to Villa de Maciera."
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE VILLA DE MACIERA.
"Innocence makes him careless now.
* * * *
Youth hath its whimsies, nor are we
To examine all their paths too strictly:
We went awry ourselves when we were young."
Old Tragedy.
Donna Isidora had now divested herself of the large and loose woollen weed in which she had travelled yesterday, and threw it gracefully over her arm. In her short but amply flounced skirt she tripped—as we are writing of a Spanish girl we should have it glided—along by the side of Quentin, who moderated his pace to suit hers.
The rain of last night had completely laid the dust; the morning air was cool and delightful, and save a Franciscan friar of Medellin, travelling like themselves on foot, with a canvas wallet slung on his back and a long knotted staff in his hand, they met no one.
The heavy clouds were banking up from the westward, but the sky was beautiful overhead, and, refreshed by the torrents of last night, every herb, flower, and leaf wore their brightest hues. The Salor, a river which flows from the mountains southward of Caceres, in Estremadura, and joins the Tagus near Rosmaninhal, in the province of Beira, and the bed of which frequently becomes quite dry in summer, now came in sight, swollen by the recent rains, and flowing red and muddy between groves of olive trees, which were still in full leaf, as in those regions the olive harvest usually occurs about the month of December.
On the surface of the rushing river the large flowers of the white and purple lotus floated, or sunk to rise again, bobbing in the eddies; and some brightly feathered birds, though summer was long since past, twittered about, filling the air with melody and song.
But the western clouds, we have said, came gathering fast and heavily, and in sombre masses that alternated between purple and inky grey, while the wind rose in hot or cold puffs that gradually grew to gusts; and these, with other indications that rough weather was again at hand, made the two pedestrians hasten on.