"How can I assist you, senor?"
"The muleteer, Ramon Campillo, of Miranda del Ebro, who is now on his way to Castello Branco, informed me that you are a loyal Portuguese——"
"None more loyal!" responded the other, slapping the butt of his musket.
"I was to show you this medal, and, if not intruding, remain with you for the night."
"Ramon is my good friend," said the Portuguese, carefully looking at the brass medal, which bore the image of St. Elizabeth, "and this was my gift to him. You are welcome, senor, to such poor accommodation as the French have left me to offer."
The Portuguese conducted Quentin into his cottage, the interior of which, by its squalor and poverty, showed that poor Gil Llano's circumstances had not been improved by the influences of the war.
A candle, in a clay-holder, flickered on the bare table, an iron brasero, full of charcoal and dry leaves, smouldered on the hearth; above the mantelpiece were a little stucco Madonna and some gaudy little Lisbon prints of holy personages, such as St. Anthony of Portugal, with his beloved pig; St. Elizabeth the queen, who died at Estremoz in 1336; St. Ignatius Loyola, and others in scarlet and blue drapery, with golden halos, all pasted on the whitewashed wall.
The cottage appeared to consist of three or four small apartments, all roofed with large red tiles, through the holes in which Quentin could see the stars shining, and suggesting an idea of umbrellas in case of rain. The rafters were thickly hung with bunches of dried raisins, by the sale of which to the passing muleteers and contrabandistas, Gil and his family subsisted. But even this humble place bore traces of the retreating French. One of the little windows had been dashed to pieces by a musket-butt, and most of the woodwork had gone for fuel when Junot's voltigeurs bivouacked among the vine trellis, half of which they tore down and destroyed.
Poor Gil Llano, whose whole attire consisted of a zamarra, a pair of red cotton breeches, a yellow sash, and the net which confined his hair, made Quentin Kennedy heartily welcome, and spoke with enthusiasm and gratitude of the British, who had swept Portugal of the French; and he exulted about the recent battle of Vimiera, which he had witnessed from the Torres Vedras, where, he frankly admitted, he had hovered among the cork-trees, and, with his musket, had "potted" successfully some of Ribeaupierre's dragoons as they fell back in disorder before the furious advance of General Anstruther's column.
Quentin soon felt himself at home, and shared with Llano's family the supper of ham and eggs, cooked in a crock between the brasero and one of the stones of Antas, which are supposed, when once heated, to continue so for two days. He might have excused the flavour of garlic, but found an Abrantes melon sliced with sugar, and a flask of Oporto wine, very acceptable.