Near a wide and ancient door of mouldering oak, that hid a deep, dark stable beyond, was a farmer from the Canal Roya upon his horse, and he talked to his lord. “Those of Jaca, at the beginning of the plain, sent in a man last night to say that we could catch a few of them beyond the Peña, beyond the high hill. They camped on the slope of it, marauding. We should be upon them before the sixth hour. It is not many miles.” But his lord, looking at the Peña where it stood, a grey wall miles away, answered him,-- “Their horses are swifter than ours, and they go very light without armour, God curse them!” And he spat as he spoke of the Moslem. Then the farmer said,-- “Two days ago they raided the farm of Peter, the free man, and took his four serfs away on halters, running behind their horses, and they burnt a rick of his, and behind them they left a coin. This coin I bought of Peter.” He showed it. It was a coin of the mint of Saragossa, and the lord bent over his saddle and peered curiously at the Arabic script stamped upon it. Then he made the sign of the Cross slowly over his broad shoulders. “These words,” he said, “are in the devil’s language, and with these they summon Mahound.” “Sir,” said the farmer, “some day some men now mounted here will ride into Huesca and cleanse it of the infidel. There is a monk who lives alone, and is a hermit up on the Peña. The Mahommedans fear him and will not pass his cave, and God gives him knowledge in dreams. This man is very old, and this same Lent he said (when he came down into Jaca for the Adoration of the Cross and the Blessing of the Oils), this very Lent he said (and from the altar, note you, by leave of the bishop), that he had seen St. Lawrence standing glorified in the air, who held a banner, and that Huesca would be ours and Christ’s at last.” The lord smiled. “These things are lies,” he said. “Was not Huesca the town of the great St. Lawrence,” answered the farmer doggedly, “whom the Emperor of the Romans, possessed by a devil, roasted upon a gridiron for the Faith? Will he not lead the host into Huesca at last? And then all the plains will be before us, whereon we can call upon St. James, and charge!” But the lord still shook his head and smiled unpleasantly. “All these things are lies,” he said. “But whatever great lord shall ride at last into Huesca for Christ, and cleanse it of the infidel, shall not only conquer it for Christ but for himself. Sancho is our great master, whom we serve, but whoever can hold Huesca will be a little king all the same.” The farmer looked back up the narrow street to the mountains, and he said, “The lords come riding in from the Major Land, from the broad Christian land that goes up and away northward for ever beyond the hills; they come in greater and in greater bands with every season; they are strong men heavily accoutred. With their aid we shall take Huesca.”