the frontier with his army the greater portion of the
bands went to their homes, and their arms will be laid aside until the
news comes that the French army is on its return from Barcelona. I
fancy there is but little chance of our seeing King Charles among us.
In another day or two Tesse will be before Barcelona; and joined, as he
will be there, by the French army marching down from Roussillon, he will
make quick work of that town, and King Charles will have the choice of
going to Valencia to be hunted shortly thence, or of sailing away again
from the country in your ships."

"It would seem like it," Jack agreed; "but you are reckoning without the
Earl of Peterborough."

"Your English general must be a wonder," the priest said, "a marvel; but
he cannot accomplish impossibilities. What can he do with two or
three thousand trained troops against twenty thousand veteran French
soldiers?"

"I cannot tell what he will do," Jack laughed; "but you may rely upon
it that he will do something, and I would take fair odds that he will
somehow or other save Barcelona and rid Catalonia of its invaders."

"That I judge to be altogether impossible," the priest replied.
"Anything that man could do I am ready to admit that your general
is capable of; but I do not judge this to be within the range of
possibilities. If you will take my advice, my son, you will not linger
here, but will ride for Valencia and embark on board your ships with him
when the time comes."

"We shall see," Jack said, laughing. "I have faith in the improbable. It
may not be so very long before I drop in again to drink another flask
of your wine on my way through Arragon with King Charles on his march
toward Madrid."

"If you do, my son, I will produce a bottle of wine to which this is
but ditch water. I have three or four stored away in my cellar which I
preserve for great occasions. They are the remains of the cellar of my
predecessor, as good a judge of wine as ever lived. It is forty years
since he laid them by, and they were, he said, the best vintage he had
ever come across. Had the good old man died ten years earlier, what
a heritage would have been mine! but in his later years he was not so
saving as it behooves a good man to be, and indulged in them on minor
occasions; consequently, but two dozen remained when I succeeded to the
charge twenty years ago. I, too, was not sufficiently chary of them to
begin with, and all but six bottles were drunk in th