Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III EXPERIENCES, PICTURESQUE AND SOCIABLE Sunshine ushered in the Sunday. It streamed into my room, and reproached me with lying so long abed. Up I sprang, and, crossing to the window, feasted my eyes on the view. Having arrived at Mertola under cover of the darkness, the beauty of its situation came to me as a delightful surprise. Rarely have I seen a town so picturesque, I might almost say so romantic. It recalled to mind tales read long ago of baronial strongholds girt about with ramparts, approached only across the insecure footing of a drawbridge. From my lofty position I could see its massive walls rising sheer from their foundations of solid rock. The roofs, red-tiled and all aglow in the early sunshine, were dominated by the ruins of a picturesque castle that fretted the morning sky with a dark line of battlements. Immediately below flowed the Guadiana—a broad and stately stream—while beyond rose range upon range of mountains receding into the blue distance. We were seated at breakfast, when the door burst open and a stranger rushed into the room. ' Hadow !' exclaimed the newcomer, his face wreathed in smiles. ' Warden, dear boy !' cried Hadow in delight. I was introduced, and looked with interest at Mr. Thomas Warden, in whose society we were to pass m .ny pleasant wandering days. He was in his twenty-eighth year, fair hair and moustache, eyee of clear northern blue, and a lithe and active figure. Dressed in white duck trousers and an old navy-blue jacket, a flower in his button-hole, andMrrtola. geniality imprinted on his bright and morning face, his appearance had all the freshness of a breeze—one all but expected the table-cloth and window curtains to be stirred into sympathetic agitation. His was a nature that possessed the secret of inspi...