LITMIR.BIZ

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a warm hearth behind him, and before him the pleasant starry glimmer that tells of another soon to be reached – but chilled, weary, forlorn, the wind whistling through thin garments, and nothing to meet his eye but the bare, bleak, shelterless moor stretching far out into the distance.

      He sat long, too crushed in heart even to finish his slight, unimportant task. Sometimes he drew towards him the sheet of figures, and for a moment or two tried to fix his attention upon it; but soon he would push it away again, or make aimless dots and circles on its margin. While thus engaged, he heard a cheery and not unmelodious voice chanting a fragment of song in some foreign tongue. Listening more attentively, he believed the words were French, and supposed the singer must be his humble guest, the muleteer, on his way to the stable to take a last look at the beloved companions of his toils before he lay down to rest. The man had probably exercised his vocation at some former period in the passes of the Pyrenees, and had thus acquired some knowledge of French.

      Half an hour's talk with any one seemed to Carlos at that moment a most desirable diversion from the gloom of his own thoughts. He might converse with this stranger when he dared not summon to his presence Diego or Dolores, because they knew and loved him well enough to discover in two minutes that something was seriously wrong with him. He waited until he heard the voice once more close beneath his window; then softly opening it, he called the muleteer. Juliano responded with ready alertness; and Carlos, going round to the door, admitted him, and led him into his sanctum.

      "I believe," he said, "that was a French song I heard you sing. You have been in France, then?"

      "Ay, señor; I have crossed the Pyrenees more than once. I have also been in Switzerland."

      "You must, then, have visited many places worthy of note; and not with your eyes shut, I think. I wish you would tell me, for pastime, the story of your travels."

      "Willingly, señor," said the muleteer, who, though perfectly respectful, had an ease and independence of manner that made Carlos suspect it was not the first time he had conversed with his superiors. "Where shall I begin?"

      "Have you ever crossed the Santillanos, or visited the Asturias?"

      "No, señor. A man cannot be everywhere; 'he that rings the bells does not walk in the procession.' I am only master of the route from Lyons here; knowing a little also, as I have said, of Switzerland."

      "Tell me first of Lyons, then. And be seated, my friend."

      The muleteer sat down, and began his story, telling of the places he had seen with an intelligence that more and more engaged the attention of Carlos, who failed not to draw out his information by many pertinent questions. As they conversed, each observed the other with gradually increasing interest. Carlos admired the muleteer's courage and energy in the prosecution of his calling, and enjoyed his quaint and shrewd observations. Moreover, he was struck by certain indications of a degree of education and even of refinement not usual in his class. Especially he noticed the small, finely-formed hand, which was sometimes in the warmth of conversation laid on the table, and which looked as if it had been accustomed to wield some implement far more delicate than a riding-whip. Another thing he took note of. Though Juliano's language abounded in proverbs, in provincialisms, in quaint and racy expressions, not a single oath escaped his lips. "I never saw an arriero before," thought Carlos, "who could get through two sentences without half a dozen of them."

      Juliano, on the other hand, was observing his host, and with a far shrewder and deeper insight than Carlos could have imagined. During supper he had gathered from the servants that their young master was kind-hearted, gentle, easy-tempered, and had never injured any one in his life; and knowing all this, he was touched with genuine sympathy for the young noble, whose haggard face and sorrowful looks told but too plainly that some great grief was pressing on his heart.

      "Your Excellency must be weary of my stories," he said at length. "It is time I left you to your repose."

      And so indeed it was, for the hour was late.

      "Ere you go," said Carlos kindly, "you shall drink a cup of wine with me."

      He had no wine at hand but the costly beverage Dolores had produced for his own especial use. Wondering a little what Juliano would think of such a luxurious beverage, he sought a second cup, for the proud Castilian gentleman was too "finely courteous" not to drink with his guest, although that guest was only a muleteer.

      Juliano, evidently a temperate man, remonstrated: "But I have already tasted your Excellency's hospitality."

      "That should not hinder your drinking to my good health," said Carlos, producing a small hunting-cup, forgotten until now, from the pocket of his doublet.

      Then filling the larger cup, he handed it to Juliano. It was a very little thing, a trifling act of kindness. But to the last hour of his life, Carlos Alvarez thanked God that he had put it into his heart to offer that cup of wine.

      The muleteer raised it to his lips, saying earnestly, "God grant you health and happiness, noble señor."

      Carlos drank also, glad to relieve a painful feeling of exhaustion. As he set down the cup, a sudden impulse prompted him to say, with a bitter smile, "Happiness is not likely to come my way at present."

      "Nay, señor, and wherefore not? With your good leave be it spoken, you are young, noble, amiable, with much learning and excellent parts, as they tell me."

      "All these things may not prevent a man being very miserable," said Carlos frankly.

      "God comfort you, señor."

      "Thanks for the good wish," said Carlos, rather lightly, and conscious of having already said too much. "All men have their troubles, I suppose, but most men contrive to live through them. So shall I, no doubt."

      "But God can comfort you," Juliano repeated with a kind of wistful earnestness.

      Carlos, surprised at his manner, looked at him dreamily, but with some curiosity.

      "Señor," said Juliano, leaning forward and speaking in a low tone full of meaning. "Let your worship excuse a plain man's plain question – Señor, do you know God?"

      Carlos started visibly. Was the man mad? Certainly not; as all his previous conversation bore witness. He was evidently a very clever, half-educated man, who spoke with just the simplicity and unconsciousness of an intelligent child. And now he had asked a true child's question; one which it would exhaust a wise man's wisdom to answer. Thoroughly perplexed, Carlos at last determined to take it in its easiest sense. He said, "Yes; I have studied theology, and taken out my licentiate's degree at the University of Alcala."

      "If it please your worship, what may that fine word theology mean?"

      "You have said so many wise things, that I marvel you know not. Science about God."

      "Then, señor, your Excellency knows about God. But is it not another thing to know God? I know much about the Emperor Carlos, now at San Yuste; I could tell you the story of all his campaigns. But I never saw him, still less spoke with him. And far indeed am I from knowing him to be my friend; and so trusting him that if my mules died, or the Alguazils seized me at Cordova for bringing over something contraband, or other mishap befell me, I should go or send to him, certain that he would help and save me."

      "I begin to understand you," said Carlos; and a suspicion crossed his mind that the muleteer was a friar in disguise. But that could scarcely be, since his black abundant hair showed no marks of the tonsure. "After the manner you speak of, only great saints know God."

      "Indeed, señor! Can that be true? For I have heard that our Lord Christ" – (at the mention of the name Carlos crossed himself, a ceremony which the muleteer was so engrossed by his argument as to forget) – "that our Lord Christ came into the world to make men know the Father; and that, to all that believe on him, he truly reveals him."

      "Where did you get this strange learning?"

      "It is simple learning; and yet very blessed, señor," returned Juliano, evading the question. "For those who know God are happy. Whatever sorrows they have without, within they have joy and peace."

      "You are advising me to seek peace in religion?"

      It was singular

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