lieutenant in intelligible English, he implored him, in the
florid manner of the Peninsula, to count the house and all within it his
own property, and to command whatever he might desire.

The troopers found accommodation in the kitchen and in the spacious
hall, where great fires of pine logs were piled up for their comfort;
and for the remainder of the day they abode there in various states of
nakedness, relieved by blankets and straw capotes, what time the house
was filled with the steam and stench of their drying garments. Rations
had been short of late on the Agueda, and, in addition, their weary
ride through the rain had made the men sharp-set. Abundance of food
was placed before them by the solicitude of Fernando Souza, and they
feasted, as they had not feasted for many months, upon roast kid, boiled
rice and golden maize bread, washed down by a copious supply of a rough
and not too heady wine that the discreet and discriminating steward
judged appropriate to their palates and capable of supporting some
abuse.

Akin to the treatment of the troopers in hall and kitchen, but on a
nobler scale, was the treatment of Lieutenant Butler and Cornet O'Rourke
in the dining-room. For them a well-roasted turkey took the place
of kid, and Souza went down himself to explore the cellars for a
well-sunned, time-ripened Douro table wine which he vowed--and our
dragoons agreed with him--would put the noblest Burgundy to shame; and
then with the dessert there was a Port the like of which Mr. Butler--who
was always of a nice taste in wine, and who was coming into some
knowledge of Port from his residence in the country--had never dreamed
existed.

For four and twenty hours the dragoons abode at Mr. Bearsley's quinta,
thanking God for the discomforts that had brought them to such comfort,
feasting in this land of plenty as only those can feast who have kept a
rigid Lent. Nor was this all. The benign Souza was determined that
the sojourn there of these representatives of his country's deliverers
should be a complete rest and holiday. Not for Mr. Butler to journey to
the uplands in this matter of a herd of bullocks. Fernando Souza had at
command a regiment of labourers, who were idle at this time of year, and
whom his good nature would engage on behalf of his English guests.
Let the lieutenant do no more than provide the necessary money for the
cattle, and the rest should happen as by enchantment--and Souza himself
would see to it th