They were
accompanied by L'Isle, Cranfield, and half a dozen gentlemen more,
including the young surgeon of the ---- regiment, who was always
imagining that Lady Mabel had a cold, headache, or some other little
ailment, that he might have the pleasure of prescribing for it.
Irreverently turning their backs on the old church, without one prayer
to the saints within, or those depicted on its windows of stained
glass, they walked out of town down into the narrow valley lying north
of the city, and crossing the brook which runs at the bottom (the
Portuguese, making a river of it, have christened it the Seto), on the
few stepping-stones which well supply the place of a foot-bridge, they
toiled up the opposite hill, the lower part of which is covered with a
grove of prickly oaks.
On reaching the gate Captain Cranfield stepped forward to the head of
the party, and entered zealously on his duties as _cicerone_. He led
them through the spacious barracks, in which the scanty garrison
seemed buried in monastic seclusion; through the huge store-houses and
bomb-proof kitchens and bakeries; showed them the vast tank containing
water for a full garrison for a year; and what was better, a natural
spring, welling out mysteriously within the circuit of the works.
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