"We may say more broadly," observed L'Isle, "that God makes nature and man defiles it."
"I am truly glad," said Mrs. Shortridge, "that these filthy people have not been able to defile their whole land."
Gradually the sunbeams grew hotter, the mountain breeze became a sultry breath, the ground steeper and more rugged, and their accumulating floral treasures more and more cumbrous. Lady Mabel seemed to take delight in adding every moment to the load L'Isle carried. "You must know," she said, "that the pupil is always the packhorse on these occasions," and she insisted on Mrs. Shortridge bearing her share of the burden. This lady at first had talked incessantly, but had gradually less and less to say, and at length was reduced to silence from sheer want of breath. She had frequently to rest for a few minutes, and was coming fast to the conviction that rural excursions on a hot day, and flower-hunting over rough ground, were less pleasant than she thought at first. The hills, bare of trees, exposed them to the full power of the sun, yet were covered with a growth of tall heaths, mingled with patches of the cistus ladaniferus, which covers so much of the surface of the slaty hills of this region. The close growth and gummy exudations of this plant often made the thickets impenetrable, and forced the party to many a long circuit, in their efforts to reach the ridge of the high grounds. Mrs. Shortridge at length sat, or rather sunk, down upon a fragment of rock, and L'Isle came promptly to her aid.
"Colonel L'Isle," said she, panting, "I could not take another step up hill for all the flowers in Portugal."
"I am only astonished at your getting so far up. You are not used to climbing mountains."
"When Lady Mabel is at home in Scotland," said Mrs. Shortridge, "I suppose she walks up a mountain every morning, to get an appetite for breakfast. So it is in vain to attempt to follow her. But here she comes."
Lady Mabel now joined them; and L'Isle, pointing out a belt of low woods that wound along the hollow ground at no great distance below them, offered Mrs. Shortridge his arm, and induced her to make an effort to reach its shelter.
On drawing nearer to it, they found themselves in a rough path, made by the flocks of the neighborhood, which led them at first through thickets of evergreen shrubs, and then abruptly down the rocky and almost precipitous bank of that stream, which a mile or two below reached and supplied the aqueduct of Elvas.
Here the clear, cool waters glided over a rocky bed, and when they had quenched their thirst, the ladies found time to look around. On either hand they were shut in by masses of rock, which, with their stratified and fractured lines, resembled walls, the rude masonry of giants. A projecting crag shut out from sight the stream above them; but, attracted by the sound of falling waters, they pushed their way by a few careful steps round it, and full in view, and close at hand, the stream fell over a ledge of rock in a beautiful cascade, descending at once twenty feet into a rock-girdled pool, which in the course of ages it had hollowed out for itself. Here the water ran eddying round, as lingering on a spot it loved, and loath to resume its onward course.
The perpetually falling waters fanned and freshened the noonday air; while overhead, on every ledge that gave footing to their roots, the myrtle and lauristinus, mingled with the oleander, the rhododendron ponticum, and other evergreen shrubs, fed by the fostering moisture of the atmosphere, almost to the size of trees, spread out their luxurious branches to shut out each straggling sunbeam, and deepen the shade of the narrow dell almost to twilight. It was a cavern, with its vaulted roof removed, laying it gently open to the light of day, without its glare. The wood-pigeon amidst the boughs mingled his plaintive notes with the murmur of the falling water, and the speckled trout sported in the pool—now displaying his glistening scales at the surface, then suddenly and coyly hiding in some deep and dark recess.