He had scarcely ended, and was still continuing the air upon his guitar, when a horse's feet were heard clattering up over the stones of the village, and in a minute or two after, a young man rode up, dressed in a costume somewhat different from that of the villagers, but still decidedly Spanish. On his appearance, the dance instantly stopped, several voices crying, "It is Francisco from Lerida. He brings news of Fernandez! What news of Fernandez?" together with a variety of other exclamations and interrogatories, making a quantum of noise and confusion sufficient to prevent his answering any one distinctly for at least five minutes after his arrival. The horseman, however, seemed but little disposed to reply to any one, slowly dismounting from his horse with what appeared to me an air of assumed importance.
"Ah! he is playing his old tricks," cried one of the merry boys of the village; "he wants to frighten us about Fernandez."
"No, indeed!" cried Francisco, with a sigh; "I have, as the old story-book goes, so often cried out wolf! that perhaps you will not believe me now when it is true: but I bring you all sad news, and with a heavy heart I bring it. To you, my cousin, especially," he continued, speaking to Garcias' wife, who sat beside her husband, with her elbow leaning on his knee--"I know not well how to tell you what I have got to relate; but I came off in speed this morning, to see what we could all do to mend a bad business. Your brother Fernandez is now in prison at Lerida, and I am afraid that worse may come of it."
"In prison! Why? How? What for?" exclaimed Garcias, starting up; "he shall not be in prison long!"
"I fear me he will," replied the other, shaking his head,--"I fear me he will, if ever he come out of it. You all know the dreadful state of our province of Catalonia since that tyrant villain the count-duke has filled it with the most lawless and undisciplined soldiers in Spain. For the last three months our minds have been worked up to a pitch of desperation which every day threatened to plunge us into anarchy and revolt; wrong upon wrong, exaction after exaction, oppression outdoing oppression----"
"But Fernandez--what of him?" cried Garcias. "Speak of him, Francisco. We well know what you have endured."
"Well, then, all I can tell you of him is this," proceeded the Catalonian, apparently not well pleased at having been interrupted in the fine oration he was making: "as far as I could hear, for I was not present, he interfered to prevent one of the base soldados from maltreating a woman in the street. The soldier struck him. Fernandez is not a man to bear a blow, and he plunged his knife some six inches into his body. He was immediately arrested, disarmed, and carried to the castle. If the soldier dies, he will, they say, be shot off from one of the cannons' mouths; if he recovers, the galleys are to be Fernandez's doom for life."
The wife of the smuggler had listened to this account of her brother's situation without proffering a word either of inquiry or remark; but I saw her cheek, like a withering rose, growing paler and paler as the incautious narrator proceeded, till at length, as he mentioned the horrible fate likely to befall the hero of his tale, she fell back upon the turf totally insensible.
The effect of the history had been different upon Garcias; his brow became bent as the speaker went on, it is true; but the passionate agitation, which at first seemed to affect him, wore away, and he assumed a cold sort of calmness, which remained uninterrupted even upon the fainting of his wife. He raised her in his arms, however, and bidding Francisco wait a moment till he could return, he carried her away towards their own dwelling, accompanied by all the women of the place, in whose care he left her. On coming back, he questioned the Catalonian keenly to ascertain whether his brother-in-law had been in any degree to blame; but from all the replies he could obtain, it appeared that the conduct of the soldier had been gross and outrageous in the extreme; that Fernandez, as they called him, had merely interfered, when no man but a coward or a pander could have refrained, and that he actually stabbed the soldier in defence of his own life.
Garcias made no observation, but he held his hand upon the pommel of his sword; and every now and then his fingers clasped upon it, with a sort of convulsive motion, which seemed to indicate that all was not so quiet within as the tranquillity of his countenance bespoke.