Barbarossa--Royalist-Republicans--Squaring a Girl--At Iron--"Your
Papers?"--The Barber's Shop--A Carlist Spy--An Old Chum--The
Alarm--A Breach of Neutrality--Under Fire--Caught in the Toils--The
Heroic Tomas--We Slope--A Colleague Advises Me--"A Horse! a
Horse!"--State of Bilbao--Don Carlos at Estella--Sanchez Bregua
Recalled--Tolosa Invites--Republican Ineptitude--Do not Spur a Free
Horse--Very Ancient Boys--Meditations in Bed--A Biscay Storm.
BARBAROSSA, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I
should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It
would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung
from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed
to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for
years. All of them were _de facto_ Republicans, and had more knowledge
and enjoyment of Republican freedom than those who prattled and raved
of Republicanism in Madrid and the south; but they did not take kindly
to the name. As my friend the late J. A. MacGahan wittily said of
them--"They were the Royalist-Republicans of Spain." They were as fond
of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for
Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central
government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their
neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a
restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the
young Prince of the Asturias. In those latitudes the lines of John Byrom
a century before would well apply:
"God bless the King, I mean the faith's defender;
God bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all--that's quite another thing!"
"If you go to Irun," said Barbarossa, stroking his moustache, "I am game
to go with you."
"I am satisfied," said I; "but recollect, you undertake the job at your
own risk. You are known as an associate of Carlists, and suspected to
be a Carlist agent. I am a stranger and comparatively safe."
He had weighed all that, and was ready to face possible perils. But he
was not fit to undergo probable fatigues. He could sit at a green table
in an ill-ventilated atmosphere the night long, but he could not walk
three miles at a stretch. Neither could he (on account of his illness)
venture on horseback. To effect a crossing by the railway bridge from
Hendaye to Irun was out of the question; it was barrier impenetrable.
The Frenchman would not allow you to pass in your own interest; the
Spaniard declined to admit you in his so-considered interest. To take
the mountain-route was tedious, and in the case of Barbarossa not to be
thought of; the bridge of Endarlasa was broken--a most contorted
specimen of artistic dilapidation. To be sure, one could manage to creep
to the other side by the submerged coping of the parapet, if endowed
with the balancing powers of a rope-walker and the lustihood of the
navvy. But Barbarossa was not a Blondin, and had not a physical
constitution proof against a wetting. I had got across that bridge
once, holding on by my teeth and nails, and retained recollection of it
in a fit of the cold shivers; but I did not care to repeat the
operation. In our dilemma, Barbarossa, who was a plucky knave, hit upon
the plan which ought to have commended itself to us at first.
"Let us stray up the river-bank a few hundred yards," he said, "seize a
boat, and row ourselves across."
No sooner was the proposition made than it was adopted; but we were
saved from the ephemeral disgrace of posing as petty amphibious pirates,
degenerate Schinderhannes of the Bidassoa. We saw a boat; a girl was
near. The boat was her father's; she engaged to take us over for a
consideration--I am certain she had set her heart on a string of
straw-coloured ribbons and a sky-blue feather in a shop-window in
Hendaye--and to await our return at nightfall. We arranged the signal,
and stealthily stole across, drifting diagonally most of the way; and I
entrusted the speculative French damsel with my revolver and my Carlist
pass, and paid her a farewell compliment on her face and figure as I
stepped ashore. Giving her the revolver and pass enlisted her
confidence. We strolled along with apparent carelessness, entered a
posada on the road by the waterside and had refreshments. I said I
should feel much obliged if they could let us have a trap to Irun and
back, as we had business there, and my friend was tired and not much of
a pedestrian. An open carriage was provided, and off we drove by the
skirt of the hill of St. Marcial, where the Spaniards gave Soult such a
dressing in 1813, passed a series of outer defences with their covering
and working parties, and entered one of the gates of the town, and never
a question was asked. Ditches had been dug round the place and
earthworks thrown up; but the principal reliance of the garrison seemed
to be in loophooled breastworks made of sand-bags superimposed. Here and
there were walls of loose stones--more of a danger than a
protection--rude shelter-trenches, and mud-built, wattle-knitted
refuges, round-topped, and disguised with branches. They had made the
position strong; but they should have gone in for more spade and less
stones, more mole and less beaver.
We trotted over the narrow paved street, with its flagged sidepaths, and
drew up on the Plaza, overlooked by the solid square-stone mansion of
the Ayuntamiento. The windows were screened with planks, and armed
groups lounged in front; there were barrels of water and heaps of gravel
at intervals upon the ground; memories of Paris rose to my mind--Irun
was preparing for bombardment. If the Carlists had no serious artillery
in fact, they had a powerful ordnance in the apprehensions of their
adversaries. Perhaps this was the explanation of the rhodomontade about
the batteries in _El Cuartel Real_. We were congratulating ourselves on
the ease with which we had run the blockade, when an officer of the
Miqueletes approached our carriage and demanded our papers. I showed my
Foreign Office passport, with the visa of the Spanish Consulate at
London upon it. He gave a cursory look at it, bowed, and returned it to
me. Then came the turn of Barbarossa, and there was a flash of shrewd
spitefulness in his eyes.
"Your papers, senor?"
"I have none. I didn't think any were required."
"Ah! doubtless you thought Irun was in Carlist occupation. You are
wrong."
"No; I knew it was not in Carlist occupation. What has that to do with
me? I am an Englishman," producing a packet of letters.
"I don't want to see them. I know you. What do you want here?"
"To see a friend."
"Who is your friend?"
Barbarossa was not in the least nonplussed. He said he had heard a
fellow-countryman, a comrade of his, was in the town.
"You will have to turn back the way you came, and thank your stars you
are permitted."
"But I am hungry."
"And the horse wants a feed," interposed the driver, who no doubt had
his own object to serve.
"Well, you may stay here for refreshment, but you must get outside our
gates before dark."
We drove to the principal inn, where we alighted and ordered dinner.
Barbarossa sat down, and I went out to look at the place and search for
a barber's shop, for I sorely needed a shave. Irun is a well-constructed
town on the shelving slope of a smaller rise between Mounts Jaizquivel
and Aya, not far from the coast. It has a population of some 5,000, and
in ordinary years does a good trade in tiles and bricks, tanned leather,
and smith's work, besides sending wood to Los Pasages for the purposes
of the boat-builders. The Bidassoa at its base branches, and thus forms
the islet of Faisanes, off which the prosperous fisherman can fill his
basket with trout, salmon, and mullet, aye, and lumpish eels, if his
predilections so tend.
But I have no intention to describe Irun. Theophile Gautier has done
that before me, and I am not sacrilegious. There was another customer in
the barber's shop. As I left after the shave he followed, and accosted
me on the flagway confidentially.
"How are you, captain?"
"You are in error," I answered. "I am no captain."
"What! Did I not see you take a boat for the _San Margarita_ at Socoa?"
"That may be; but I only boarded her through curiosity."
"Do not be afraid," he whispered. "How is Don Guillermo?"
"What Don Guillermo?"
"Senor Leader. I was with him when he was wounded; I am a Carlist. I am
here on the same mission as yourself; to spy what the vermin are doing."
"Ha! good; ramble on, and don't notice me. It is dangerous."
He sauntered along the causeway, hands in pockets and whistling, and
presently popped into a tavern, and I re-entered the fonda. Hardly had I
set foot over the threshold when I was stupefied by a welcome in a
familiar voice, none other than that of Mr. William O'Donovan, who had
been my comrade and amanuensis throughout the irksome beleaguerment of
Paris.[F] We did not throw our arms round our respective necks, hug and
kiss each other--I reserve my kisses for pretty girls, newly-washed
babes, and dead male friends, and then kiss only the brow--but we did
join hands cordially and long. In answer to my query as to what had
brought him to this queer corner at the back of God-speed, he explained
that he was acting as correspondent of a Dublin paper; for, it appeared,
the people of Ireland were consumed with anxiety as to the progress of
the Carlist rising--details of which, of course, they could not obtain
in the mere London papers--and were particularly desirous to have record
of the doings of the Foreign Legion, a great majority of whom were sons
of the Emerald Isle. His younger brother, a medical student, was likely
to come out to join that Legion, and as for Kaspar (a name by which we
knew his brother Edmond, afterwards triumvir at Merv), he was sure to
turn up. Mother Carey's chicken hovers near when the elements are at
strife. He was immensely satisfied with his diggings, he said, liked
the natives, and considered this a splendid chance for improving his
Spanish. He was reading "Don Quixote" in the vernacular. In a sense, I
looked upon his presence as a perfect godsend to us, as he came in most
appropriately as a _Deus ex machina_ to create the character of
Barbarossa's invented friend. O'Donovan was in good standing with the
Republicans of the town, as he was a staunch Republican himself, and
could spin yarns of the Republics of antiquity, and of the greatness of
Paris, and the glories of the United States. He was getting on famously
with Castilian, and was charmed with the redundancy of its vocabulary of
vituperation, which was only to be equalled by the Irish, of which his
father had been such a master. I made Barbarossa and my old chum known
to one another, and we dined together, pledging the past in a cup of
wine tempered with the living waters which bubbled up in the sacristy of
the parish church, and were distributed in bronze conduits through Irun.
After the meal and the meditative smoke of custom, O'Donovan sat down to
write a letter, which I guaranteed to post for him in France, and
Barbarossa and I sallied forth for a walk.
We were lounging about the Calle Mayor gazing at the escutcheons over
every hall-door--your bellows-mender and cobbler in this democratic town
were invariably of the seed of Noah in right line--when the alarm was
raised that fifty horses had been carried off by the Carlists almost at
the gates, and that two shots had been heard. The bugler sounded the
call "To arms," and forthwith a little company consisting of thirty-two
men, the bugler aforesaid, and a captain, set out at a quick step for a
high ground beside a signal-tower at one end of the town. We hurried
forward with them, and passed out through one of the four gates, on the
side next the mountains. The soldiers took a position on the slope of a
hill a couple of hundred yards from the gate, and Barbarossa and I
sheltered ourselves behind an orchard-wall, from which there was an
uninterrupted view of the billowy tract of meadow and pasture land
beneath, cut into patches by thick hedges. Quick on our heels emerged
from the town some half-dozen intrepid "volunteers of liberty," and the
inevitable small boy, a red cap stuck jauntily on three hairs of his
head and a large cigarette in his mouth. One of the volunteers--he who
had demanded our papers on the Plaza--looked viciously at Barbarossa,
who assumed a most artistic pretence of stolidity.
"Come here, senor, and you will have a better vision of your friends,"
he said with mock suavity.
Barbarossa smiled, thanked him, and walked quietly to the place
indicated, an exposed opening beside the wall.
"I can see nothing," he said.
I adjusted my long-distance glass, and ranged over the wide stretch of
landscape, but could see nothing either. As I shut it up and returned it
to the case, a sergeant advanced from the party of soldiers on the slope
and marched directly towards me. I was puzzled and, I own, a trifle
unnerved.
"Senor," he said to me, "I carry the compliments of my captain, and his
request that you would lend him your glass, as he has forgotten his
own."
"With pleasure," I answered readily, much relieved. "I will take it to
him myself, as it is London-made, and he may not understand how it is
sighted."
This may have been a breach of neutrality, but what was I to do? If I
refused, the glass would have been taken from me, and I should have been
compromised. I handed it to the officer with my best bow, explained its
mechanism to him; he bowed to me, and from that moment I felt that I was
under his wing. I may be wrong, but I have a notion that in a skirmish
it is much better to be near regulars than volunteers, and I stood in a
line with the military a few paces away.
Suddenly there was a spark and a report away down in a field of maize,
some six hundred yards below us, and the whizz of a bullet was heard.
"Steady, men!" said the captain; "don't discharge your rifles."
The sight was very pretty as they stood in a group on the green hillside
in attitude of suspense, their weapons held at the ready, and all eyes
fixed on the front, from which the smoke was rising. It was very like
to the celebrated picture by Protais, familiar in every cabaret in
France, "_Avant le Combat;_" but even more picturesque than that, for
these soldiers were dressed most irregularly--some in tattered capote,
others in shirt-sleeves, some in shako, others in _bonnet de police_. A
few civilians had crept out of the town by this time, and the chief of
the Miqueletes roared peremptorily to have that gate shut. This was not
an agreeable position for Barbarossa and myself. Our retreat was cut
off. We were unarmed. If one of those amateur warriors were killed, we
ran the imminent hazard of being massacred by his comrades. On the other
hand, there was the liability of being ourselves shot by the Carlists.
How were they to distinguish a neutral or a sympathizer from their foes?
I confess I could not help smiling as the thought occurred to me what a
piece of irony in action it would be if Barbarossa were to be helped to
a morsel of lead by his friends, the enemy. With a cheerful equanimity I
contemplated the prospect of his receiving a very slight contusion from
a spent bullet on a soft part of his frame.
Ping, ping, came a few reports, but evidently out of range. Each
smoke-wreath was in a different direction.
"This may get hot," I said to myself; "the Carlists may not be
sharpshooters, but this clump of uniforms in relief on the grass must
present a blur that will be an enticing target for them. I dare not go
back to the wall, but it might be discreet to lie down. There is no
disgrace in offering them a small elevation of corpus." I stretched
myself on the sward, acted nonchalance, and lit a cigar.
The volunteers could no longer be held in control. They opened action on
their own account, one fellow distinguishing himself by the rapidity of
his fire, and the intensity with which he aimed at something--or
nothing.
"Ah, that's Tomas!" said a portly civilian connoisseur, with his hands
in his pockets. "We know him, he is making music; he wants to get
himself remarked."
The soldiers did not deliver a shot, but the volunteers kept cracking
away, and the invisible Carlists replied. Nobody was hit, though
bullets could be heard whizzing overhead for twenty minutes, and one
did actually knock a chip off a wall. That was the sole damage done to
the Republican position; the damage to the Carlist must have been less.
Two of the Miqueletes ventured stealthily down a road leading towards
the point from which the nearest jets of smoke curled, following the
ditch by the side, stooping and peering through the bushes. There was a
volley from afar. They hesitated and stood, as if undecided whether to
advance.
"Sound the retire for those men," said the captain; and as the call rang
out they returned.
That volley was the last sign the Carlists gave; and after waiting ten
minutes, the captain shut up my glass, returned it to me, and remarked
that the attack was a feint, and had no object beyond worrying his men.
He gave the order "March," the gate was opened, Barbarossa rejoined me,
and we returned to Irun, taking care to keep as near the regulars as we
could. "Nada--nothing," cried the captain to an inquiring lady on a
balcony, and the town-gates were closed after the volunteers had
returned and tramped to the Plaza with the proud bearing of citizens who
had done their duty.
How that heroic Tomas did strut! A fighter he of the choicest brand, one
not to stop at trifles; there was martial ire in his flaming glance;
defiance breathed from his nostrils; triumph sat on his lips; he swung
his arms like destructive flails; and as he entered a tavern one could
only fancy him calling in a voice of Stentor for a jug of rum and blood
plentifully besprinkled with gunpowder and cayenne pepper to assuage the
thirst of combat.
O'Donovan gave me his letter. Barbarossa hinted that it was our best
course to slope, and slope we did, as soon as the horse was harnessed.
As we passed down the street a grinning face saluted me from a doorway.
It was that of my acquaintance from the barber's shop. He gave me a
meaning wink. The artful Carlists had evidently succeeded in their
object, whatever it might have been. On the river-bank our fair and
faithful ferry-maid awaited us. We were conveyed over in safety, and at
the hotel of Hendaye soon forgot the perils we had encountered.
Barbarossa was dead-beat, and threw himself on a sofa, where he sank
back heavy-eyed and exhausted; and I, almost feared that he would drop
into a coma, as the penalty of overstraining nature, until the sight of
a pack of cards restored him as if by a spell to his normal wakefulness.
Even in a disturbed region it is needful to have a change of linen, so
we got back next morning to St. Jean de Luz, where I had left my
baggage. There I met M. Thieblin, a colleague, whom I had seen last at
Metz, previous to the siege of that fortress in the Franco-German war.
He was now representing the _New York Herald_, and had just returned
from Estella, at the taking of which place, the most important the
Carlists had yet seized, he had the luck to be present. He assured me
that it was utter fatuity to dream of following the Carlists, except I
had at least one horse--but that it would be sensible to take two if I
could manage to procure them. It was more than an ordinary man was
qualified to cope with, to make his observations, write his letters, and
look after their transmission, without having to attend to his nag, and
do an odd turn of cooking at a pinch. The riddle was how to get the
horse--a sound hardy animal that would not call for elaborate grooming,
or refuse a feed of barley. Horse-flesh was at a premium, but he thought
I might be able to have what I wanted at Bayonne, on payment of an
extravagant price. A requisition for forage and corn could be had
through the Junta; and I should have no trouble in getting an orderly on
applying with my credentials to the chief of staff of any of the Carlist
columns to which I might attach myself. We had a long conversation, and
Thieblin frankly informed me that in his opinion the Carlists had not
the ghost of a chance outside their own territory. There they were cocks
of the walk. What the end might be he could not pretend to vaticinate,
but "El Pretendiente" would never reign in Madrid. The conflict might
last for months--might last for years; but the Carlists owed the
vitality they had as much to the divisions and inefficiency of their
adversaries as to their own strength. There would be no important
engagements--to dignify them by the epithet--until the organization of
the insurrectionary forces was regularized, and they had a stronger
artillery and an adequate cavalry. M. Thieblin did not stray far from
the bull's-eye in his prophecy.
I went to bed in the mood of Crookback on Bosworth Field, and felt that
my dream-talk would shape itself into the cry, "A horse! a horse!"
Until that coveted steed had been lassoed, stolen, or bought, I must
only endeavour to justify my existence--that is to say, render value for
the money expended on me by picking up "copy" anywhere and everywhere.
I was advised to go to Bilbao by sea, but the advice came too late. The
last steamer from Bayonne had ventured there four-and-twenty hours
before I sought my passage, and even on that last steamer the few
voyagers were unable to insure their lives with the Accidental Company,
although they consented to promise that they would descend into the hold
the instant they heard a shot. It was almost as full of jeopardy to
travel to Bilbao by sea as to sail down the Mississippi with a racing
captain and a lading of rye-whisky on board. One Monsieur Gueno, master
of the barque _Numa_, of Vannes, made moan that he was seriously knocked
about while he lay in the Nervion, off the Luchana bridge, during a
skirmish between the Carlists and the troops. They both fought
vigorously, but they gave him most of the blows. One of his crew, in a
punt behind, was killed, and twenty-five bullets were embedded in a
single mast. He had the tricolour flying all the time. A
fellow-countryman of his, Monsieur Jarmet, of the ship _Pierre-Alcide_,
of Nantes, sent in a claim for an indemnity of L160 for damages
sustained by his vessel much in the like manner. A Spanish war-craft,
moored behind him, began pelting the Carlists with shot; the Carlists
replied, and the _Pierre-Alcide_ came in for the bulk of the favours
distributed. Three bullets penetrated the captain's cabin, and four rent
holes in the French flag. Neither pilots nor tugs were for hire at
Bilbao, and captains of sailing vessels had only to whistle for a
favouring wind and rely on their own good fortune and skill. Bilbao had
to be dismissed on the merits.
Taking it for granted that I had that evasive horse, I reasoned, as I
tossed on my bed, to the restless whimper of the Bay of Biscay, over
which a storm was brewing, that "el Cuartel Real," the headquarters of
the King, was the natural goal. There first information was to be had,
and it was felt that it was about the safest place to be; but the King
seldom stopped under the same roof two nights successively, and no one
could tell where he would be two days beforehand. If he was at Estella
when one started, he might be at Vera or Durango, or goodness knows
where, when one got to Estella. So far his progress had been a success;
he was present at the taking of Estella, and exercised his Royal
clemency by releasing the captured prisoners. It would have been more
politic to have demanded an exchange, for there were partisans of his
own in Republican dungeons (Englishmen amongst them); but then prisoners
have to be fed and guarded, so on the whole it was as well they were set
free. It was very much the case of the man who won the elephant at a
raffle. If the stories, spread assiduously by the Republicans, of the
massacre and maltreatment of captives by the Carlists were correct,
here was the opportunity for the exercise of wholesale cruelty; but
there was not a particle of truth in such charges, which, by the way,
one hears in every civil war. Where Don Carlos might advance next, or
where severe fighting--not such brushes as that I witnessed at
Irun--might take place, was a mystery. The movements of the Republican
leaders were inexplicable, and conducted in contravention of all known
principles of the art of war. They harassed their men by long and
objectless marches. They ordered towns to be put in a state of defence
at first, and then withdrew the garrisons. They engaged whole columns in
defiles, where a company of invisible guerrilleros could tease them.
They acted, in most instances, as if they had no information or wrong
information. The latter, I believe, was nearer the truth. Their system
of espionage was inefficient, as the information they got was
untrustworthy, and always would be, in the northern provinces, for the
feeling of the masses of the people was against them. Instead of making
headway they were losing ground every day, and would so continue until
they received reinforcements with fibre, and were commanded by officers
who really meant to win, and had the knowledge or the instinct to
conceive a proper plan of campaign. The generals could hardly be
censured, for their hands were tied; they were forbidden to be severe;
they dared not squelch insubordination. Capital punishment, even in the
army, and at such a crisis as this, was abolished. There had been, I
heard, something suspiciously resembling a mutiny in the column of
Sanchez Bregua. A certain Colonel Castanon was put under arrest on a
charge of Alfonsist proclivities; but the Cazadores and Engineers
threatened to rebel unless he was liberated; and Sanchez Bregua, instead
of decimating the Cazadores and Engineers, as Lord Strathnairn would
have done, liberated the Colonel.
But to that question of my route. Peradventure the presence to my dozing
vision of the General commanding the Republican troops of the north that
had been might help me towards a solution.
"That had been" is written advisedly, for Sanchez Bregua had been
recalled to Madrid, not a day too soon. He was one of those generals
whose spine had been curved by lengthened bending over a desk. Loma, who
was active and dashing, and had the rare gift of confidence in himself,
had taken his stand at Tolosa, and was awaiting the advent of Lizarraga.
All his men, and every able-bodied male in the town, were diligently
excavating ditches and making entrenchments. Until Tolosa was captured
by the Carlists, no serious attack on Pampeluna was probable; and that
attack was likely to assume the form of an investment. Estella was to
the south of Pampeluna, and all the country round, from which provisions
could be drawn, was in the occupation of the Carlists. Tolosa was the
objective point of the moment, and to Tolosa I determined to go. An
attempt on San Sebastian could not enter into the calculations of the
Carlist leaders at this stage of their revolt. The stronghold was almost
inaccessible on the land side, and men, munitions, and provisions could
be easily thrown into it by water. Irun, Fontarabia, and even Renteria
(were artillery available) could be seized whenever the comparatively
small sacrifice of lives involved would be advisable. But the game was
not worth the candle yet. Were Irun or Fontarabia in the hands of the
Carlists, there was the always-present danger of shells being pitched
into them from a gunboat in the Bidassoa; and Renteria, outside of which
the Republican troops only stirred on sufferance, was to all intents as
serviceable to the Carlists as if it were tenanted by a Carlist
garrison, which would thereby be condemned to idleness.
That whirlwind ride from Renteria to Irun would come before me as the
storm battalions mustered outside, and the waves began lashing
themselves into violence of temper. What if I had to go to Madrid while
such weather as this was brooding? To get to the capital one is obliged
to embark at Bayonne for Santander, and proceed thence by rail--so long
as no Carlist partidas meddle with the track. Romantic Spain!
But are not those Republicans who affect that they know how to govern a
country primarily and principally to blame? Only consider the continued
interruption of that short piece of road between San Sebastian and
Irun. Is it not disgraceful to them? One of our old Indian officers, I
dare venture to believe, with eighteen horsemen and a couple of
companies of foot, could hold it open in spite of the Carlists. But such
a simple idea as the establishment of cavalry patrols of three, keeping
vigil backwards and forwards along the line of eighteen miles, with
stout infantry posts always on the alert in blockhouses at intervals,
seems never to have entered into the obtuse heads of those officers
lately promoted from the ranks. Seeing that the intercourse of different
towns with each other and with the coast and abroad has been so long
broken up, I cannot fathom the secret of how the population lives. The
troops arrive in a village one day and levy contributions, the
guerrilleros arrive the next and do the same; the fields must be
neglected, trade must droop, yet nobody apparently wants food. True, the
land is wonderfully fat; but some day the cry of famine will be heard.
No land could bear this perpetual drain on its resources. And then I
thought of Carlists whom I met in France, who had given of their goods
to support the cause. With them I talked on this very subject. They
were respectable and respected men; they prayed for success to Don
Carlos with sincere heart; but they had left Spain, and they complained
that this condition of disturbance was lasting too long.
"You ask me why I did not remain," said one to me; "wait, and you shall
see."
He opened a door and pointed to three lovely little girls at play, and
continued, "These are my reasons; I have made more sacrifices than I was
able for the Royal cause, and they asked me at last for another
contribution, which would have ruined me. I love my King; but for no
King, senor, could I afford to make those darlings paupers."
Had these Carlists any glimmer of the sunshine of a victorious issue to
their uprising? (egad, that was a strong blast, and the waves do swish
as if they were enraged at last!). Thieblin thinks not. And yet they are
active, and, like the storm outside, they are gaining strength. Those of
them under arms are four times as numerous as the Republicans in the
northern provinces. Leader swears to me that everyone who can shoulder a
musket is a Carlist. There are no more Chicos to be had, unless the
volunteers of liberty come over, rifles, accoutrements and all, to
Prince Charlie--a liberty they are volunteering to take somewhat freely.
I was rash in saying there were no more Chicos. Did not a company of
"bhoys" trudge over to Lesaca to offer their services recently? But they
were very ancient boys. The youngest of them was sixty-five. They were
veterans of the Seven Years' War, and mostly colonels. Their fidelity
was thankfully acknowledged, but their services were not gratefully
accepted. The aged and ferocious fire-eaters were sent back to their
arrowroot and easy-chairs. At all events, they had more of the timber of
heroism in them than those diplomatic Carlists of the _gandin_ order,
who are Carlists because it makes them interesting in the sight of the
ladies, but whose campaigning is confined to an occasional three days'
incursion on Spanish territory, with a cook and a valet, saddle-bags
full of potted lobster and _pate de foie gras_, and a dressing-case
newly packed with _au Botot_ and essence of Jockey Club. There are
personages of this class not unknown to society at Biarritz and
Bayonne, who have been going to the front for the last three months, and
have not got there yet. One would think their game of chivalry ought to
be pretty well "played out;" but to the folly of the vain man, as to the
appetite of the lean pig, there is no limit.
By Jove! There is a clatter; the casement is blown open, and the light
is blown out, and through the gap whistles the cool, briny breath of the
Atlantic, and I can almost feel the wash of the white spray in my hair.
Better a stable cell in the Castle of the Mota to-night than a tumbling
berth in the _San Margarita_. This was the close of my interview with
myself, and I turned over on my pillow and fell precipitately into a
profound dreamless sleep.