d no reading; for when I came upon
him his spectacles were perched high over his brows and gleamed upon me
like a duplicate pair of eyes. He was patently sober, too, which
perhaps came as the greatest shock of all to me, after meeting so many
on my path who were patently the reverse.

I answered his salutation. "But you will pardon me, excellent sir, for
saying that you perhaps mistake the entertainment I seek. We gentlemen
of Spain are temperate livers, and I will confess that curiosity alone
has brought me--or say, rather, the fame of your wonderful cellars of
Rueda."

I put it thus, thinking he might perhaps be some official of the caves
or of the castle above. But he let the shot pass. His lean hands from
the first had been fumbling with his poncho, to throw back the folds of
it in courtesy to a stranger; but this seemed no easy matter, and at a
sign from me he desisted.

"I can promise you," he answered, "nothing more amusing than the group
with which you paused to converse just now by the road."

"Eh? You saw me?"

"I was watching from the path outside; for I too can enjoy a timely
laugh."

No one, I am bound to say, would have guessed it. With his long scrag
neck and great moons of spectacles, which he had now drawn down, the
better to study me, he suggested an absurd combination of the vulture
and the owl.

"_Dios!_ You have good eyes, then."

"For long distances. But they cannot see Salamanca." His gaze wandered
for a moment to the entrance beyond which, far below and away, a sunny
landscape twinkled, and he sighed. But before I could read any meaning
in the words or the sigh, his spectacles were turned upon me again.
"You are Spanish?" he asked abruptly.

"Of Castile, for that matter; though not, I may own to you, of pure
descent. I come from Aranjuez, where a Scottish ancestor, whose name I
bear, settled and married soon after the War of Succession."

"A Scot?" He leaned forward, and his hands, which had been resting on
his lap, clutched the book nervously. "Of the Highlands?"

I nodded, wondering at his agitation.

"Even so, senor."

"They say that all Scotsmen in Spain know one another. Tell me, my son
"--he was a priest, then, after all--"tell me, for the love of God, if
you know where to find a certain Manuel McNeill, who, I hear, is a
famous scout."

"That, reverend father, is not always easy, as the French would tell
you; but for me, here, it happens to be very easy ind