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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
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