"You see by the diploma," continued Montesa, with a droll smile, "that knights in their noviciate are obliged to tug an oar in the king’s galleys for six months, to harden them to labour; and then live for six months more in a Carthusian monastery, fasting and praying, being the while scantily supplied with black bread, and liberally with water to wash away their sins and enormities." "The deuce, marquess! These disagreeable preliminaries will scarcely suit me; and I fear I must forego the high honour intended me by the venerable Grand-master." "Not at all, senor," replied Montesa. "Were these parts of the military noviciate to be rigorously exacted, how very few of our Spanish caballeros of Madrid would display their crosses on the gay Prados. By Santiago! I would see De Conquesta and his order at the bottom of the Mediterranean, before I would submit to such degradation. Besides, senor, if twelve months campaigning here will not harden us, nothing on earth will." "How then, marquess?" "A few doubloons paid to the grand-treasurer, at Cadiz, where at present Don Alfonso resides, will procure you a dispensation from these, and all will then be right. Ha! here comes Villa Franca. You have made dispatch with the condé." "Montesa," said Alvaro, entering, "our trumpets will blow ’boot and saddle’ instantly. The Spanish horse will relieve General Long’s brigade of the out-picquet duty on the Santa Martha road. We move the moment the sun dips behind the heights of Albuera." "You will probably see some fighting before dawn." "True, Senor Stuart; and perhaps a few saddles will be emptied before the bugles sound the _réveille_," replied Montesa, whose own was doomed to be one of them. "Ho! there go our trumpeters already. Alvaro, we had better invest our friend with his cross; dispensing, of course, with the mummery of monks and godfathers. _Diavolo!_ we ought to have had a fair lady to clasp on his belt and affix the star. Would we were near the convent of Jarciejo!" "The lady must be dispensed with likewise. Hark! the condé already blows ’to horse!’ He is somewhat impatient, truly. Lend me your sword, marquess; I cannot bestow the knighthood with mine, as the cross-guard was broken off in our late fandango with the enemy. Let us seek the tent of Don Juan Cameron; and when we have been satisfied on some points of lineage, amigo mio, amidst the officers of your own brave regiment you shall become our sworn knight-companion." "A most unceremonious instalment," said Montesa, "but war and necessity must be pleaded for our excuse; and the knight that is created in a tent, is more likely to prove a true cavalier, than he who receives his spurs in the carpeted palace or decorated chapel."