y, a poor and discontented town was transformed into the most
fashionable watering place of Spain, and surely if slowly disaffection
merged into prosperous self-satisfaction.

Because of stories I had heard my father tell, I should have liked to
explore the place; but the one thing of importance now was to keep the
grey car in sight until we could be certain which road it would take; so
there was time only for brief glances to right and left as we flashed on.

Through streets with high modern houses, more Parisian than Spanish, we
came at last upon a broad boulevard that led us by the sea. There had been
a picture at home of the deep, shell-like bay, guarded by the imposing
headlands of Monte Urgull and Monte Igueldo, the scene of much fighting in
the Carlist war. The royal palace, Villa Miramar, was new to me save for
the many photographs I had seen of it in Biarritz; but we had no more than
a glimpse of the unpretending red brick house on the hill, before we swept
through a tunnel that pierced a rocky headland, and came out into open
country.

Now our progress developed into a stern chase. By a wrong turn in a San
Sebastian street we lost the car ahead for a few moments, but beyond the
town, where mud, fresh after a recent shower, lay inch thick on the road,
we came upon the track of the flying foe.

There was the trail of the "pneus" as clear to read as a written message,
and we followed, relieved of doubt.

On, on we went towards the south, and the mountains of Navarre, and my
mind was free enough from strain at last to exult in each new glimpse of
the land for which I longed.

Ever since I was old enough to read, I had steeped myself in the history
and legend of my own country. I knew all its wars, and where they were
fought; I knew the names of the towns and villages, insignificant in
themselves, perhaps, made famous by great victories or defeats; and there
was time to think of them now, as we passed along the way the heroes of
the Peninsular War had taken; but there was no time to linger over
landmarks, not even at Hernani, where De Lacy Evans' British legion was
shattered by the Carlist army in 1836, and where, in the church, we might
have seen the tomb of that Spanish soldier who, at Pavia, took prisoner
Francis I.

Rain fell in swift, fierce downpourings, but left us dry under the cover
of our car; and as we sped on, sudden gleams of sunlight shining on the
wet stone pavements of small brown villages, t