som, and golden
fruit! Ah Ronda! Ronda! Land of the sunshine, the deep blue sky, and
snow-topped hills! Land where are the graves of my father and mother!
How pines and sickens the heart of the exile for thee! O happy they who
died beneath the sword or flame, for they knew not the lonely home-
longing of the exile. Ah! ye golden fruits! One fragrant breath of
thee is as a waft of the joys of my youth! Are ye foretastes of the
fruits of Paradise, the true home to which I may yet come, though I may
never, never see the towers and hills of Ronda more?"

Giles knew not what to make of this outburst. He kept it to himself as
too strange to be told. The heads of the family were willing that he
should carry these trifles to the young child of the man who would
accept no reward for his hospitality. Indeed, Master Headley spent much
consideration on how to recompense the care bestowed on his kinsman.

Giles suggested that Master Michael had just finished the most beautiful
sword blade he had ever seen, and had not yet got a purchaser for it; it
was far superior to the sword Tibble had just completed for my Lord of
Surrey. Thereat the whole court broke into an outcry; that any workman
should be supposed to turn out any kind of work surpassing Steelman's
was rank heresy, and Master Headley bluntly told Giles that he knew not
what he was talking of! He might perhaps purchase the blade by way of
courtesy and return of kindness, but--good English workmanship for him!

However, Giles was allowed to go and ask the price of the blade, and
bring it to be looked at. When he returned to the court he found, in
front of the building where finished suits were kept for display, a
tall, thin, wiry, elderly man, deeply bronzed, and with a scar on his
brow. Master Headley and Tibble were both in attendance, Tib measuring
the stranger, and Stephen, who was standing at a respectful distance,
gave Giles the information that this was the famous Captain of Free-
lances, Sir John Fulford, who had fought in all the wars in Italy, and
was going to fight in them again, but wanted a suit of "our harness."

The information was hardly needed, for Sir John, in a voice loud enough
to lead his men to the battle-field, and with all manner of strong
asseverations in all sorts of languages, was explaining the dints and
blows that had befallen the mail he had had from Master Headley eighteen
years ago, when he was but a squire; how his helmet had e