ness
of the fair Loretta. Lorenzo is a lucky man."

With some genuine tobacco and a few cigars such as they had never seen
or heard of, the men thought they had made an excellent exchange. We
left them as happy as the gods on Olympus.

Soon after this we found ourselves in the open country. The roads were
of the roughest: hard and dry, now all stones, now all ruts: some of the
ruts a foot deep, into which the cart would sink to an angle of
forty-five degrees. There were no springs to the cart; never had been
any. It was stiff and unyielding, and evidently dated from the stone
age. We did not even attempt to keep our seats, but flew about like
ninepins.

"The Laffitte will be churned into butter," groaned H. C. spasmodically,
feeling a general internal dislocation. "Butter-wine. I wonder what it
will be like. A new discovery, perhaps."

But the luncheon-basket was in comparative repose. How Francisco managed
we never knew; habit is second nature; he neither lost his seat nor let
go the basket. Never in roughest seas had we been so tossed about. The
next day we were black and blue, and for a week after felt as though we
had been beaten with rods.

At last after what seemed an interminable drive, but was really only
some three miles, we turned from the main road and the common--evidently
the scene of Loretta's donkey adventure--into a narrow, shabby avenue of
trees. At the end appeared the outer gateway of the monastery, where we
were too thankful to dispense with the cart and its driver.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RUINS OF POBLET.

A dream-world--Ruins--Chapel of St. George--Archways and Gothic
windows--Atmosphere of the Middle Ages--Convent doorway--Summons
but no response--Door opens at last--Comfortable looking
woman--Ready invention--Confusion worse confounded--True
version--Francisco painfully direct--Guardian gets worst of
it--Picturesque decay--Gothic cloisters--Visions of beauty--Rare
wilderness--King Martin the Humble--Bacchanalian days--When the
monks quaffed Malvoisie--Simple grandeur of the church--Philip Duke
of Wharton--Cistercian monastery--History of Poblet the
monk--Monastery becomes celebrated--Tombs of the kings of
Aragon--Guardian sceptical--Paradise or wilderness--Monks
all-powerful--Escorial of Aragon--The great traveller--Changing for
the worse--Upholding the kingly power--Time rolls
on--Downfall--Attacked and destroye