lights," said our custodian; "sometimes wisely, sometimes wastefully. I
should like to have been cellarman to the old abbots in the days when
the vaults were full of wine and a few quarts a day more or less were
never missed."

"Is there any legend connected with its origin?"

"Indeed, yes, senor. When was there ever an old institution in Spain
without its legend? As the senor knows and sees, the monastery dates
back to the year 1150. But long before that, in the days of the Moors, a
hermit named Poblet took refuge here that he might pray in peace. An
emir found him one day, captured him and put him into prison. Angels
came three times over and broke his chains. The emir grew frightened,
repented, set the hermit at liberty, and gave him all the surrounding
territory in this fertile valley of La Conca de Barbera. In 1140 the
body of Poblet was miraculously discovered. It was nothing but a heap of
bones, and so I suppose they were labelled, or how could they have
identified them--but I don't know about that. The bones of course became
sacred and had to be duly honoured. So Ramon Berenguer IV. built the
convent of El Santo; the bones were interred under the high altar, and
the king gave enormous grants to the clergy. The place grew celebrated
above all others in Catalonia; it become a sort of Escorial, and here
the kings of Aragon for a long time were buried."

"And the bones of the hermit--where are they?"

"Nobody knows," replied the guardian, shaking his head wisely. "They may
pretend, but nobody knows. Is it likely? And what does it matter for a
few human bones? Just as if they could work miracles or do any good. A
poor old hermit, with all our weaknesses upon him!"

"Then you don't believe the legend?"

"Not I, senor. I believe much more in the jovial times the old abbots
indulged in. At least we have a capacious refectory and inexhaustible
wine vaults to prove what fine banquets they had in the Middle Ages. We
have come down to poor times, in my opinion. The world in general seems
very much what this monastery is--a patched-up ruin."

"If the world were only half as beautiful," said H. C., "we should spend
our years in a dream."

"It would not be my sort of dream, senor," returned the old guardian
drily. "I have been here for twenty years, and confess I would give all
the ruins in the world for a good and gay back street in Madrid or
Barcelona. To you, senor, who probably come from the great cities of the
w