ing
around on the landscape. Suddenly she said: "You are a great stickler,
Moodie, for the words of Scripture, yet these idolatrous people often
stick to it more closely than you do."

"I will trouble you, my lady, to name an instance," Moodie answered,
in a defiant tone.

"Do you see those men in that field, with three yoke of oxen going
round and round on one spot?"

"I see them. But what of them?"

"While you and other heretic Scots are racking your brains to devise
how to thresh corn by machines, these pious people, in simple
obedience to the injunction, 'Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the
corn,' are treading out their corn with unmuzzled oxen. What think you
of that, Mr. Stick-to-the-text?"

"I think, my lady," he answered, doggedly, "that you had better read
your Bible to profit by it; not to puzzle an old man less learned than
yourself. But all things are ordered." Yet he loitered behind the
party, to gaze with mingled curiosity and pity at these people, at
once so benighted in theology and farming, the two points on which he
felt himself strongest.

They had not ridden much further, when they drew near to the ruinous
walls of a considerable town, situated in a fertile and delightful
region, and retaining amidst its dilapidation many marks of
grandeur. Entering through a ruinous gateway, they paused in the grand
_praca_. "This," said L'Isle, "is Ville Vicosa, 'the delightful city.'
What a pity we have but time to take a hasty glance at this ducal seat
of the house of Braganza. Two sides of the _praca_, as you see, are
occupied by the classic and imposing front of the palace in which the
dukes of Braganza lived during the sixty years of the Spanish
usurpation, before the heroism of the nation restored the royal line
to the throne."

"Even in its declining fortunes," said Lady Mabel, "Villa Vicosa has
not forgotten its connection with Portuguese royalty and
nationality. Was it not the first place in Alentejo to resist the
French robbers, who were lording it over them?"

"Yes. But it was neither loyalty nor patriotism that spurred them
on. You must not look to the royal palace before you, nor even to that
ancient and noble church, founded by the illustrious Constable,
Alvarez Pereira, which you see yonder, aspiring to heaven, nor to the
associations immediately connected with them, for the impulse which at
length stirred up these people to resist the oppressor. You must
rather seek it in that chapel