This remark called forth several monosyllabic sounds, and the onlookers watched the safe discharge of Conyngham’s personal effects with a characteristic placidity of demeanour which was at once tolerant and gently surprised. That any one should have the energy to come ashore when he was comfortable on board, or leave the shore when amply provided there with sunshine, elbowroom, and other necessaries of life, presented itself to them as a fact worthy of note but not of emulation. The happiest man is he who has reduced the necessities of life to a minimum. No one offered to assist Conyngham. In Spain the onlooker keeps his hands in his pockets. ‘The English, see you, travel for pleasure,’ said the old soldier, nodding his head in the direction of Gibraltar, pink and shimmering across the bay. The priest brushed some stray grains of snuff from the front of his faded cassock—once black, but now of a greeny brown. He was a singularly tall man, gaunt and grey, with deep lines drawn downwards from eye to chin. His mouth was large and tender, with a humorous corner ever awaiting a jest. His eyes were sombre and deeply shaded by grey brows, but one of them had a twinkle lurking and waiting, as in the corner of his mouth. ‘Everyone stretches his legs according to the length of his coverlet,’ he said, and, turning, he courteously raised his hat to Conyngham, who passed at that moment on his way to the hotel. The little knot of onlookers broke up, and the boys wandered towards the fort, before the gate of which a game at bowls was in progress. ‘The Padre has a hungry look,’ reflected Conyngham. ‘Think I’ll invite him to dinner.’ For Geoffrey Horner had succeeded in conveying more money to the man who had taken his sins upon himself, and while Conyngham possessed money he usually had the desire to spend it. Conyngham went to the Fonda de la Marina, which stands to-day—a house of small comfort and no great outward cleanliness; but, as in most Spanish inns, the performance was better than the promise, and the bedroom offered to the traveller was nothing worse than bare and ill furnished. With what Spanish he at this time possessed the Englishman made known his wants, and inquired of the means of prosecuting his journey to Ronda. ‘You know the Captain-General Vincente of Ronda?’ he asked. ‘But . . . yes—by reputation. Who does not in Andalusia?’ replied the host, a stout man, who had once cooked for a military mess at Gibraltar, and professed himself acquainted with the requirements of English gentlemen. ‘I have a letter to General Vincente, and must go to Ronda as soon as possible. These are stirring times in Spain.’ The man’s bland face suddenly assumed an air of cunning, and he glanced over his shoulder to see that none overheard. ‘Your Excellency is right,’ he answered. ‘But for such as myself one side is as good as another—is it not so? Carlist or Christino—the money is the same.’ ‘But here in the South there are no Carlists.’