After our meal, which in these circumstances had not given me so much satisfaction as I had hoped, we made for the castle of the duke, five good leagues off. Our way was set across the noble bridge of Alcantara, whose arches span the Tagus. With a proud heart I commended this fair thing to the notice of my companion; and though he stroked his beard and confessed it was not amiss for Spain, he declared it could not compare with what was modestly called the Fleet Ditch that was in London. As we crossed this bridge we could see clearly, a long distance away, the white castle of the duke, sitting grand and solitary upon one of those brown and rugged hills that make a girdle round the city. And the sight of this brave pile, standing proud upon its promontory, clad in the young beams of the sun, set all my heart in joy; for the contour of the great house that was before me was in tune with my aspirations and lent a proper semblance to my dreams. CHAPTER X OF OUR COMING TO THE DUKE OF MONTESINA AND HIS HOUSE UPON THE HILL “OH, look, Sir Englishman!” I cried, in the immodesty of my soul. “Do you not see those tall white walls that crown yonder precipice? Look at the beams of the morning on each spire and turret. Do they not smile and beckon? Look at those soldiers with flashing corslets marching upon the outer scarp. Do you not see their halberds glistening and the golden sheen upon their caps? Do they not feed your heart, Sir Englishman, these symbols of renown and victory?” Indeed, all the majesty of power and the high-hearted genius of war and lofty enterprise passed before my eyes that morning in the spring. Hitherto my life was laid among the mountains in the north, where in one-and-twenty years the bravest things presented to it were monasteries, in themselves grand and severe, yet calling with no trumpet to the blood; and now and then some stained and ragged soldier, maimed and overborne, returning to his native parts. But now that my soul was filled with images of martial businesses, which never fail to delight an ardent nature, the sight thrilled in my veins like music; and as I stood upon the bridge of Alcantara, with my heart attuned to a strange yearning of desire, I rejoiced so greatly in the life that God had given me, that looking far unto those hills on which was set this castle, I thought I saw His face shining between the distant mountains and the yet more distant heavens. “Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said, in the ecstasy of contemplation of the future and its store, “limn that surprising lady that is daughter to the duke; for I am here to woo her with courage, constancy, and high thoughts. You understand me?” “I understand you for a beggar,” said the Englishman, with a laugh and a short grunt. “My purse is bankrupt,” said I, “but there is blood in my heart and a sword by my leg; and, good Sir Richard Pendragon, if you could look behind my purposes, you would say I had no poverty whatever.”