The impression, however, like many others of its kind, soon wore off, I fancy; for the next time I saw Mr Wellington Hurst, he had returned to his usual frame of mind, and appeared quite modest and deferential; but it will not perhaps surprise my readers any more than it did myself, that Horace was never fond of referring to our drive to the steeple-chase at B----, and did not appear to appreciate, as keenly as before, the trick we had played Hurst in leaving him behind; while all the after-reminiscences of the latter bore reference, whenever it was possible, to his favourite date--"That day when you and I and Leicester had that team to B---- together." THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA. PART III. "Como un pobre condenado Agui vivo entre cadenas, A mi xabega amarrado, Tendido en esta carena." _Cancion Andatuza._ In one of the wildest and most secluded of the valleys formed by the sierra of Urbasa and its contiguous ranges, stands a small cluster of houses, differing in few respects from the nine or ten hundred villages and hamlets scattered over the fertile vales and rugged hills of Navarre, but of which, nevertheless, a brief description may not be without interest. The village in question is composed of some five-score houses, for the most part the habitations of peasants, who earn their living by labour in the fields of the neighbouring proprietors, or, many of them, by the cultivation of small portions of land belonging to themselves. Nothing can be more uniform than the arrangement and construction of Navarrese houses of this class, which are well adapted to the wants and tastes of the race of men who inhabit them, and to the extremes of heat and cold for which the climate of that part of Spain is remarkable. The walls are generally of stone, of which the neighbouring mountains yield an abundant supply; glass windows are rare, and replaced by wooden shutters; the door, usually of oak, and of great solidity, is hung in a low archway of granite blocks. The entrance is into a small clay-floored room or vestibule, answering a variety of purposes. Here are seen implements of agriculture--sometimes a plough, or the heavy iron prongs with which the Basques and Navarrese are accustomed laboriously to turn up the ground in places too steep for the use of oxen; mules or ponies stand tethered here, waiting their turn of duty in the fields, or on the road; and here sacks of vegetables and piles of straw or maize-ears are temporarily deposited, till they can be placed in the granary, usually in the upper part of the house. At the further end, or on one side of this vestibule, a door opens into the stable or cowshed, and on the other side is the kitchen, which the family habitually occupy. An immense arched chimney projects far into the last-named apartment, and under it is a stone hearth, slightly raised above the tiled floor. Around, and upon this tiled hearth, during the