The hunter silently held up a lynx and an otter,
which he had lately snared, and seemed to forget the presence of
strangers in contemplating his game. Despairing of extracting a word,
the travelers rode on.
"What a silent, unsocial wretch!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed. "He seems
to prefer the company of a savage hound, and his dead game, to that of
living Christians."
"He thinks a heretic no Christian, if he thinks at all," said L'Isle;
and he called to the guide, to ask what this wild man was.
"He is a swine-herd."
"Indeed!" said Lady Mabel. "I took him for a bandit, or a bold hunter,
at least."
"But he is the swine-herd of the great monastery of the Paulists, who
own half the lands on the southern slope of Serra d'Ossa. He is a
matchless hunter too, spending fewer nights under a roof than on the
mountain-side, where all the game is as much his, as the swine he
keeps is the property of the good fathers. They have the best bacon in
all Portugal, and plenty of it, as many a poor man can tell; and they
know this man's value, for he were a bold thief that pinched the ear
of his smallest pig."
"As soon as I get back to Elvas," said Lady Mabel, "I will send Major
Warren to make his acquaintance.
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