Romantic Spain

awed-Chased by Gendarmes-A Jack Sheppard Escape-The Cura becomes Cabecilla-Sleeping with an Eye Open-Exploits and Atrocit

cation with France and the rest of Europe by the north had been cut. Vitoria was the limit of Spain now; beyond it was the troublous No Man's Land, where the legends of Manuel Santa Cruz and his desperadoes abounded. He it was who had ripped up the rails near Tolosa, and waited for the accident which was sure to occur when the first train travelling towards the frontier would arrive. Four inoffensive passengers were hurled into eternity. The excuse for the conduct of this minister of peace was that these trains carried troops. If the railway company would pay him a tribute and engage to carry no troops, Santa Cruz, who is accommodating, would let them pass freely. The company was willing, for these interruptions were killing the dividends, but the Government objected. In common justice to the more intelligent members of the party this soldier-priest disgraced, it should be admitted that they cursed him loudly and deeply. His conduct was bringing his order into disrepute. For instance, in Vitoria, near his own hunting-ground, when the Republic was proclaimed, the Civil Govern

ous Carlist war were recounted by the wide hearth, it was noticed that the priest's eyes blazed like the faggots sputtering in flame-spikes towards the chimney-top. He was a Monarchist of the Basque stamp by race, by education, by conviction. He should have been a warrior, not a preacher of the Gospel; but if the circumstances which produce the man had not arisen, he might have vegetated and died in obscurity in his mountain village. The circumstances arose in August, 1870. A revolt of the four provinces of Alava, Guipúzcoa, and Biscay (the Basques or Vascongadas

said the officer in command; "I have

l allow me to breakfast first, unless they orde

the officer hastened to assure the clergyman that he

he Cura, "will you cond

s, ver

rt of Prim and the rest to have ordered such a harmless, nice man to be clapped into gaol. Presently a peasant with a basket of frui

ster, but was finally arrested and interned at Nantes, by the French authorities. A characteristic story w

ers?" dem

or them," answered Santa Cruz,

the gendarmes, thrown off their guard, were speaking to one another, made a spring sideways, and was off like a bolt from a bow, the agents of authority pounding after him in their clumsy jack-boots. The chas

d at Oroquieta, in Navarre, by General Moriones, who defeated him on the 4th of May, and withered his hopes for that time. The convention of Amorovieta followed, arms were given up by thousands, and the factions, or partidas, dispersed to the

o the soldiers, unquailingly

and led to the

illeta, went up to his prisoner and said to

of luck. In a few hours

ee about that," stoica

self out of the window as far as his improvised rope would go, dropped into the arms of a couple of friends beneath. Before the alarm could be given he was up to his neck in a marsh, where his head was concealed by a rank growth of rushes. After an enforced bath of twelve hours he sought refuge with a wood-cutter, who helped him to pass over by night

back, I'd lift the flag again,"

d the Peter the Hermit of Carlism, recrossed the frontier. Six days afterwards he stopped the mail train a fe

voy dynasty," said my informant, "and S

incredible journey across the craggy hills and ravines, from Tafalla in Navarre to the confines of Biscay, in sixteen hours. At sunset, when the halt is called, and the provisions are distributed, the guerrilleros assemble round their chief, who resumes for a time the character of the Cura of Hernialde. Evening devotions are repeated, and prayers are offered for his Majesty King Charles VII., the Much-Desired; for Spain and her rescue from the monster of anarchy; for the dead, and for those who are next to die on the "campo de honor." The devotions ended, the priest again becomes the partisan-

e would have swooned with the joy of authorship. Had Harrison Ainsworth but dreamed of such unconventional possibilities, he would never have debased his intellect to the glorificatio

in the air, a fussy committee of dilettante Carlists, sitting in London, protested that the sacred cause of legitimacy was advancing by lawful, chivalric, and immaculate means only! From the snug security of their back-parlour they wrote letters to the papers denyi

vince that he would fine them what would be the equivalent of a hundred pounds sterling with us the first time they failed to advise him of the movements of troops, and that he would stick them up against a wall and put a bullet through their heads for the second offence. Passports through the Carlist lines, forma

lity ordered respecting the conveyance of troops and stores of war, the Carlists,

rdering" the railway companies not to convey troops was not arbitrary, to my thinking. But Spain is an enigma. A

act that the adherents of Charles VII.

lo, Perula, and others, and the regulars under Nouvilas, the General who had set out from the capital with such a grandiloquent farewell speech. Pampeluna

ment did not suppress those papers. As a matter of course, Nouvilas claimed the victory for himself. Victories are always claimed by both sides in this civil struggle. To get near truth one must read

Lancers of Numancia, made up a total of about 600 foot and 80 horse. The combat lasted through two hours of darkness, and Nouvilas, although bragging that he dislodged the Carlists, has to admit that he was unable to follow up his success. Reason: his troops had marched eight leagues without food or rest! A league is 4,565 English yards

their comrade who had "died gloriously while holding a hazardous position with singular courage." All they could get was his cap and sash. His boots were pulled off, his poc

have been badly equipped, since they left behind them firearms of every description. They are armed anyhow; some carry fowling-pieces, some blunderbusses, and some fight with sticks and stones, as the return

e Carlists fled "precipitately," but they appear to have had leisure to carry off their wounded with the exception of sixteen. Reference to Carlists supposed to be wounded, coupled with the silence about those supposed to be dead, is remarkable. Were there none killed? General Nouvilas, instead of going forward next day, returned to