"Because of those who go in thither, no one ever comes out."
The man, having thus spoken, hastened to betake himself out of sight, his feet, shod with sandals of esparto grass, pad-padding from side to side of the narrow mountain path.
"You see," said Rollo Blair, "mine uncle, reverend man, is no favourite in his own district."
It was now drawing towards evening, and the rich orange glow characteristic of northern Iberia deepened behind the hills, while the bushes of the wayside grew indistinct and took on mysterious shapes on either side.
"My object in coming to Spain is simple," said the Englishman, of whom his companion had asked a question. "Before my father retires and confides to me his spinning mills at Chorley, he stipulates that I shall make by my own exertions a clear profit of a thousand pounds. I, on my part, have agreed neither to marry nor to return till I can do so with a thousand pounds thus acquired in my hand. I thought I could make it as easily in the wine business as in any other of which I had no knowledge. And so, here I am!" concluded the young man.
"Lord," cried Blair, "if my father had insisted on any such conditions with me, he would have made me a wandering Jew for life, and a perpetual bachelor to boot! A thousand pounds! Great Saint Andrew, I would as soon think of getting to heaven by my own merits!"
"Spoken like an excellent Calvinist!" cried the Englishman. "But how came you into this country, and can you in any way assist me in the buying of good vintages, out of which I may chance to make profit? Besides the firm's credit, I have a private capital of one hundred pounds, of which at present eight or nine are in a friend's hands!"
"Good Lord!" cried the Scot, "then I by my folly have put you by so much farther from your happiness. But of course you have a sweetheart waiting for you on your return?"
"I have yet to see the woman I would give a brass farthing to marry, or for whose mess of connubial pottage I would sell my good bachelor's birthright."
"Fegs," said Rollo Blair, gazing with admiration upon his shorter companion, and, as was his wont when excited, relapsing into dialect, "the shoe has aye pinched the ither foot wi' me, my lad. No to speak o' Peggy Ramsay, I think I hae been disappointed by as mony as a round dozen o' lasses since I shook off the dust o' the Lang Toon o' Kirkcaldy."