osity,
lingering over the beauty of the cloisters, that the colonel himself
appeared upon the scene in full uniform, sword and all. No lover of
architecture, he could not understand how any one bestowed a second
glance on these old outlines. Were we trying to worm military secrets
out of the men with the intention of starting another Peninsular war?
The worthy colonel who had so freely given us permission to enter was
now anxious for an explanation. Pointing out the charm and merit of the
cloisters--the pity they should have transposed the order of things and
turned pruning-hooks into swords--he declared he could not agree with
us.

"I discover no great beauty in these old corridors," he said, "and would
infinitely rather see them filled with brave soldiers than with a parcel
of effeminate monks and priests."

We argued the fitness of things--a time and place for everything.

"If there were once more a siege of Gerona I would turn our very
churches into barracks," laughed our colonel, clanking his sword and
looking fierce as a fire-eater. "And who knows? As far as I am a prophet
we are not anywhere near the days of the millennium. There are more
signs of universal war than of eternal peace."

We had left the cloisters and were standing almost within touch of the
west front of what had been the church. The colonel caught our "mild
regretful gaze," laughed and clanked his sword again.

[Illustration: MILITARY CLOISTERS: GERONA.]

"What will you?" he said. "After all, I would not have been the one to
do it myself; but finding it done, I use it without prickings of
conscience. See," pointing to the crowd below, "we must have room for
our recruits. Poor Spain is not England. Our resources are limited. Yet
you, sirs, monarchs of the world notwithstanding, had your days of
desecration under Cromwell. Opportunity given, and all evil is possible
as well as all good."

The crowd alluded to was full of dramatic interest. The very walls of
the great grey building seemed pregnant with the chances of fate; the
wide doorway greedy to swallow up the youth of the country. Young men
disappeared within to the human lottery with anxious faces or reckless
humour. Free agents this morning, to-night perhaps bound down to
servitude: a willing bondage to some, to others worse than a death-blow.

Perhaps the chief interest centred in the crowd of elders--parents and
friends waiting for the verdict--many a face full of that patient
endu