buzzing about, the men all armed to
the teeth, as their custom is. They were engaged in gossiping,
sauntering about, or comparing their guns and other weapons. Their
women, heavily laden, and square in figure, were transacting the real
business of the market. Amid the throng I looked out for some special
friends of mine, and soon espied them driving their mule down the zigzag
road. "O Laurie," said I, "yonder is the group I want to introduce to
you; look at my pretty peasant-wife Spira, and Basil her husband; is he
not a grand specimen? six feet three, and so broad-shouldered, and such
a frank good-tempered expression of face; look at his rich silver-hilted
dagger, and his long gun, and that graceful bright scarf (_strucca_,
they call it) wound round him; doesn't he look like a doughty warrior?"

"He does, indeed," your uncle answered; "permit me, however, to hint
that your friend appears scarcely as gal_lant_ as he is _gal_lant; he
stalks on unhampered, leaving his little wife to trudge after with that
huge bundle of firewood on her back."

"And a child on the top of it," I rejoined, laughing; "all husbands are
not like you, Laurie, who feel injured if I insist on carrying my own
umbrella. Now look at Spira's face--there is something so lovely in
that deep-tinted golden hair and those large mournful eyes. Don't look
at her hands or ankles, please--hard work has spoilt them."

Spira now came up to me and kissed my hand, with a low obeisance, as her
wont was; she did not speak when her husband was by--he greeted us
frankly; then leaning on his long gun, said to me: "I have brought the
fuel, the quinces, and the walnuts your Excellency desired; also the
mutton-hams you bespoke--they are of my wife's own curing (I ask your
pardon for naming her) and right well cured."

The articles were submitted to my inspection, approved of, and paid for,
Basil asking very fair prices for them, and handing over the silver to
Spira as if he could not be "fashed" to carry it. "Now, Basil," I
rather maliciously said, "pray relieve your wife of that heavy load; she
must be quite tired."

"Spira is used to heavy loads," replied the imperturbable Basil; "no
wife in our hamlet can carry so large a sheaf of corn as she."

Apparently it gratified Spira to be thus compared to a beast of burden;
for she crept up to Basil's side and kissed his sleeve. The little boy
perched on her back, who had hitherto remained motionless, his face
hi