“We must start before breakfast,” said the Padre.
Supposing the enemy at hand, it really was desirable to know what they were about. So I ended by assenting, with one proviso, to all the Padre’s propositions. The proviso was, that in the interval we received no intelligence sufficiently conclusive of itself, and rendering our reconnaissance superfluous.
CHAPTER XIV.
No intelligence arrived, and early next morning we set out to seek the foe. M. le Tisanier was up betimes to see us off. “Expect to see me return,” said I, “in a state of absolute exhaustion and immense inanition, with heels hanging down over the Padre’s shoulders. In pity have a good dinner ready.”
“I shall be prepared for you,” said M. le Tisanier.
“Of course you feel easy,” said I to the Padre as we went along, “respecting the four Frenchmen.”
“No fear about them,” replied the Padre. “They know it is their safety to keep quiet; and if they come to any harm, it will be their own act. If they attempt to move, or even show themselves abroad, they will be shot down luego, luego.”
Our ramble proved well worth taking for its own sake; but we saw no Frenchmen, and very little game. The Padre was fortunate, and bagged a fox. My success was but scanty in respect to hares and partridges. After a long detour through a wild and very thinly inhabited district, and a few calls at scattered cottages or rather hovels, the abode of a rough and noble peasantry, all of whom received the Padre with profound veneration, and me as his companion with high Spanish courtesy, we reached at length a village which we had agreed to make the extreme limit of our excursion. Still obtaining no intelligence, we set out, after resting, on our return. We now, however, took the direct route over the plain, and found our journey homeward far more agreeable than our journey out. There was a point on which I deemed it requisite to obtain information, and the Padre being in a remarkably conversable vein, the present seemed a good opportunity.
“You mentioned,” said I, “that the proprietors of your abode were worthy people. I should be sorry, for their sakes, if the house received damage from the enemy.”
He. “It is not altogether for their sakes that I wish to preserve the house.”