14

TRIBUTE TO THE LADIES.

the high-born Spanish, on their part, conceive it any imputation on their dignity to mingle on easy terms in converse with their inferiors, to show them either civility or good-natured gallantry, while they are addressed in a tone as far from being servile as unbecoming. On the contrary, it pleases one no less by its air of deference than by its simplicity, its entire absence of suspicion, or least challenge to the slightest infringement of real good manners; conveying at once a modest and dignified appeal to our equal and better human feelings, and urged with a grace and gaiety— often in a voice, a gentleness of manner, which, unless one be peculiarly taciturn or indisposed, it is difficult altogether to resist.

Well; we were busily discussing our intended route and the usual chances of the road, when the abrupt entrance of the priest, with his bold familiar manner, fixed all eyes upon him. The landlord seemed nettled at his not having pronounced the usual benediction of peace and the protection of the Virgin; two officers of the garrison looked as if they could have eaten him, or dispatched him forthwith as a spy; a onelegged alguazil, in his ugly garb of justice, seemed quite ready to take a charge, and the lively, ingenuous Isabel, our host's eldest, seemed equally perplexed and abashed by his continued gaze. "Father," at length interposed the master of the house, " albeit ye gave not our poor abode your holy blessing, it may be you will not forget to say a grace over the best meal it will afford;" and a murmur of reproach was heard from every guest, evidently directed against the

unsociable intruder. "Son!" returned the priest, with a smile which seemed to excite the old man's ire, "cast no reflection upon any member of the holy church, to one of whom, at least, I am so greatly indebted." There was a pause. Our host, somewhat excited, was about to reply; when the priest, uttering a round Spanish oath (namely, an apostrophe to all the saints) in a voice that made us jump, "What! don't you know Andrew, the miller's son?" and throwing off his sacred habiliments the same moment, he stood before us all in the shape of a stout young soldier. The next, he was in the arms of the gentle Isabel, who had failed to recognise her lover in his clerical attire; but screaming out the instant she heard his voice addressing her father, would have fallen, had not the stout trooper, for such he was, supported her amidst a thousand exclamations and recognitions, mingled with eager inquiries, from the astonished Sancho and his household. "Isabella for ever!" cried the soldier, again embracing the girl, who leaned weeping on his bosom; "I love the cause all the better for thy name-sake. Yes; had not love, Isabel, inspired my stupid head with a stratagem like that," pointing to the priest's dress, "you had not seen me here, and my father and his mill might have gone round and round long enough without finding me. How is old Joseph, and my mother?" he concluded, addressing the landlord, who still looked as if he beheld a ghost,-one arm stretched out as if to keep Andrew off, with his eye rivetted on the cast canonicals, as much as to say there lay concealed the real

18

PAINFUL ALTERNATIVE.

forth from their brief imprisonment, as fast as they recovered and were able to walk, to be shot by their fellow-countrymen, in pursuance of the horrible decree that compels a brother soldier to steep his hands in the blood of the unfortunate captive. It was thus felt in its most revolting colours, when, by a refinement of cruelty in this instance, and we heard equal atrocities averred on both sides, — the wretched men were commanded to fire upon each other. They were drawn forth in ranks, the few English and Spanish opposite to each other; and the scene that followed, as described by the youthful soldier, whose features seemed to resume the expression of horror they must then have exhibited, was at once pathetic and terrible, carrying with it a stern and memorable rebuke of the ferocious policy, which tramples on the last feelings of humanity in the heart of a fallen foe. The Carlist colonel, who gave the first order to fire, himself fell by the hand of an Englishman, whose countrymen he had dared to think would, under the fear of death, commit so truly fratricidal an act. A groan of indignation alone responded to the command; they threw away the instruments of death, and the Carlist officer advancing, cried out that "the English were all cowards, and quailed before the face of death." The foul aspersion was repelled by an English officer in the service of Don Carlos, who, drawing his sword, gave the Spaniard the retort un-courteous. They decided the matter on the spot, and the Spanish Carlist measured his length upon the ground. Such

A BOLD MANEUVRE,

19

was the effect produced by this well-merited chastisement, that it was judged inexpedient to pursue the work of slaughter on the spot; and among the survivors till another day was the son of the miller, who was marched back to his old quarters. So strangely fortunate as he had thus been, visions of escape began to float before Andrew's imagination; and it was then he first conceived the plan which he so successfully put in play. Not even a Christino soldier is consigned to death without the pious support of absolution at his last hour: one of the good fathers came to administer this cool comfort to poor Andrew, the night previous to the day when the men before respited were again to confront the horrors of such a doom. But Andrew had other business in hand; he was a lover, and Spanish love from time immemorial has been fertile in its expedients. After confessing his sins, receiving absolution and consolation, which served to encourage him, just as the good father rose to retire, the desperate lover seized, gagged, and stripped his confessor; and leaving him bound over to keep the peace, assumed his ghostly habiliments, and passed quite unsuspected through the guards, the Carlist camp, the military lines, the whole distance from Hernani-for who would stop a priest on a mission of peace and love? for such it was-till he reached the castle at Toledo.

Before we took our leave, the old miller and half the neighbourhood flocked in, bringing a vast accession of business to the good host and his daugh. ters, all eager to behold the living evidence of a

modern miracle, so happily wrought by a Spanish friar, surpassing the exploits of Friar Gerund himself,-even against his will. Love, rejoicings, and preparations for the marriage, with the prospect of being dragged before the tribunal of the grand vicar instead of that of the Carlists, were now the prevailing topics, occasionally mixed with recollections. of past perils and adventures, not the less feelingly dwelt upon from their marked contrast with the passing hours. We observed he was often moved even to tears when describing the fall of his comrades, his boyish companions, who had died in the open field, or satiated the vengeance of this sanguinary civil conflict.

In some of the many fierce encounters on the borders of New Castile, he witnessed more than one incident truly distressing, yet indeed of no rare occurrence, the death of relatives by each other's hands in the rage of battle; and worse, that of witnessing their cold-blooded slaughter after the action. A father was shot by his own son, and himself fell mortally wounded; both were found lying near each other on the field of battle, and died struck with horror and remorse, feebly pronouncing those endearing terms, "My father!"-" My son! my son!" sounds he described as the most heart-rending that ever smote upon his ear. What a war! and what, indeed, is all war, but a series of continual horrors and miseries, susceptible of so little mitigation at the best, that to add fresh gall to the overflowing cup of bitterness, would seem to call for all the malig