Here was a help against boundless ennui! Ian and his horse, and the small mail strapped behind the saddle, finally went off with Don Fernando to spend a week in his old house on the hillside just without the town.

Here was poverty also, but yet sufficient acres to set a table and pour good wine and to make the horse forget the famine road behind him.

Here were lounging and siesta, rest for body and mind, sweet "do well a very little!" Don Fernando would have kept the guest a second week and then a third.
But Ian shook his head, laughed, embraced him, promised a return of good when the great stream made it possible, and set forth upon his further travel.

The horse looked sleek, almost fat.

The Scot's jaded wardrobe was cleaned, mended, refreshed.