When at length he came in sight of the high gateway where the ten-foot oaken gates still swung, he perceived someone approaching the exit. On closer inspection he saw that this was a priest, and on nearing him recognised the Padre Concha, whose acquaintance he had made at the Hotel of the Marina at Algeciras.
The recognition was mutual, for the priest raised his shabby old hat with a tender care for the insecurity of its brim.
‘A lucky meeting, Señor Englishman,’ he said; ‘who would have expected to see you here?’
‘Ah!’ And the grim face relaxed into a smile. ‘Lost your way?’
‘Then it is lucky that I have met you. It is so easy to lose one’s way—when one is young.’
He raised his hand to the horse’s bridle.
‘You are most certainly going in the wrong direction,’ he said; ‘I will lead you right.’
It was said and done so quietly that Conyngham had found no word to say before his horse was moving in the opposite direction.
‘This is surely one of General Vincente’s horses,’ said the priest; ‘we have few such barbs in Ronda. He always rides a good horse, that Miguel Vincente.’
‘Yes, it is one of his horses. Then you know the General?’
‘We were boys together,’ answered the Padre; ‘and there were some who said that he should have been the priest and I the soldier.’
‘He has prospered, however, if I have not. A great man, my dear Miguel, and they say that his pay is duly handed to him. My own—my princely twenty pounds a year—is overdue. I am happy enough, however, and have a good house. You noticed it, perhaps, as you passed through the village, a branch of palm against the rail of the balcony—my sign, you understand. The innkeeper next door displays a branch of pine, which, I notice, is more attractive. Every man his day. One does not catch rabbits with a dead ferret. That is the church—will you see it? No? Well, some other day. I will guide you through the village. The walk will give me appetite, which I sometimes require, for my cook is one whose husband has left her.’
‘I must mix myself with action lest I wither by despair.’
‘NO one,’ Conyngham heard a voice exclaiming as he went into the garden on returning from his fruitless ride, ‘no one knows what I have suffered.’
He paused in the dark doorway, not wishing to intrude upon Estella and her visitors; for he perceived the forms of three ladies seated within a miniature jungle of bamboo, which grew in feathery luxuriance around a fountain. It was not difficult to identify the voice as that of the eldest lady, who was stout, and spoke in deep, almost manly tones. So far as he was able to judge, the suffering mentioned had left but small record on its victim’s outward appearance.