His first idea was that the stranger must be a robber, for, to a Briton, Portuguese and Spaniards too have usually that unpleasant character in their aspect. Their sallow visages, deep dark eyes, densely black beards and moustaches, with their slouching sombrero, and large, many-folded cloak of dark brown stuff, together with a certain fixed scrutiny of expression when observing strangers, give them all the bravo look and bearing of the "sensation" ruffian or mysterious bandit of a minor melo-drama; thus, says a recent writer, "in consequence of the difficulty of outliving what has been learnt in the nursery, many of our countrymen have, with the best intentions, set down the bulk of the population of the Peninsula as one gang of robbers." The Spaniard in question, for such he seemed to be, was a young man of powerful and athletic form; his face was sallow and colourless, and his hair and eyes were black. He was closely shaven, save a heavy moustache, which had a very ferocious twist across each cheek towards the tip of the ear. His features were very handsome, and his whole appearance was eminently striking. He had a huge cloak--what Spaniard has not, generally to cover his rags rather than his finery--but this he had flung aside, and Quentin could perceive that he had a well-worn zamarra of sheepskin over a gaily embroidered shirt, a pair of crimson pantaloons, which seemed to have belonged to a hussar, and they ended in strong leather _abarcas_, which were laced with thongs from the ankle to the knee. He had a dagger and pair of pistols in his flowing yellow sash, and close by him lay one of those long, old-fashioned travelling staffs, shod with iron and loaded with lead, called by the Portuguese a _cajado_. Thus, upon the whole, considering the difference of their stature and bodily strength, Quentin prudently thought that the stranger was not a personage to be intruded upon without due consideration. Reverently removing his black sombrero, which was rather battered and rusty, and had a gilt image of our Lady del Pilar on the gay broad scarlet band thereof, the Spaniard approached the wayside shrine, and kneeling before it, crossed himself three times with great devotion, while muttering a short prayer. Then seating himself on the grassy sward behind the well, he pulled a little book from the pocket of his zamarra, and began to peruse it very leisurely while smoking a cigarito and making his frugal breakfast on a few dry raisins and a crust of hard bread, which he dipped from time to time in the cool water of the gurgling fountain. "This cannot be a bad kind of fellow," thought Quentin, who felt somewhat ashamed of lurking from one man; so he half-cocked his pistols, placed them in his girdle, and crept forth from behind the stone cross, saying: "_Buenos dias_, senor."