th,
a bundle of tough reed stems over his shoulder.

"Did you ever hear of the black room of the monastery of Montblanch?" he
said, pinching the man's blue overall between finger and thumb.

The sunburnt Aragonese crossed himself and was silent.

"Speak, have you heard?"

The other nodded, and made with his digits that "fig of Spain" which
averts the evil eye; but under his loose blouse half furtively as if
ashamed of his precaution.

"I have heard!" he said, and was silent.

"Do you wish to enter it?" said Rollo.

"God forbid!" quoth the man with conviction.

"And why?" pursued the Scot, wishful to make his point.

"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 h