I heard not a word of all this at the time, for Mr Englefield was secret as the grave as to the affairs of his employers. To soothe and amuse him was my province; so I pulled out a budget of cheerful home letters, and read them aloud, with comments, while he partook of breakfast under the shade of our carob tree. His brow relaxed by degrees, and after breakfast he proposed we should take a stroll together; and we set out, following the bend of the sea-shore, and returning by the eastern gate of the town. I am afraid this was a little stroke of crooked policy on my part; for at this gate is held, every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, a market, to which the hill-people flock, and I knew it would be in full activity at that moment, and my dear Montenegrins would be there in their trimmest apparel. How I wish you could have beheld the scene: there were the citizens of Cattaro in their sober garb--black cloth or velvet jackets with silver basket buttons, small black caps, wide trousers also black, black stockings, and a dull red sash--the only relief of this heavy costume. In strong contrast to it were the bright dresses of the mountaineers, numbers of whom were buzzing about, the men all armed to the teeth, as their custom is. They were engaged in gossiping, sauntering about, or comparing their guns and other weapons. Their women, heavily laden, and square in figure, were transacting the real business of the market. Amid the throng I looked out for some special friends of mine, and soon espied them driving their mule down the zigzag road. "O Laurie," said I, "yonder is the group I want to introduce to you; look at my pretty peasant-wife Spira, and Basil her husband; is he not a grand specimen? six feet three, and so broad-shouldered, and such a frank good-tempered expression of face; look at his rich silver-hilted dagger, and his long gun, and that graceful bright scarf (_strucca_, they call it) wound round him; doesn't he look like a doughty warrior?" "He does, indeed," your uncle answered; "permit me, however, to hint that your friend appears scarcely as gal_lant_ as he is _gal_lant; he stalks on unhampered, leaving his little wife to trudge after with that huge bundle of firewood on her back." "And a child on the top of it," I rejoined, laughing; "all husbands are not like you, Laurie, who feel injured if I insist on carrying my own umbrella. Now look at Spira's face--there is something so lovely in that deep-tinted golden hair and those large mournful eyes. Don't look at her hands or ankles, please--hard work has spoilt them." Spira now came up to me and kissed my hand, with a low obeisance, as her wont was; she did not speak when her husband was by--he greeted us frankly; then leaning on his long gun, said to me: "I have brought the fuel, the quinces, and the walnuts your Excellency desired; also the mutton-hams you bespoke--they are of my wife's own curing (I ask your pardon for naming her) and right well cured."