"The Cameron for ever! Well done, Dugald!" exclaimed the major. "A foot lower and the Emperor had lost his head, which would have spoiled all the sport."
Dugald laughed, stroked down his white hairs, and casting his plaid around him, withdrew under the balcony where the delighted Fassifern was standing. He received a cheer, though not a very cordial one, from the people; and Alozegui bestowed upon him a most formidable scowl of rage and hatred, to which he replied by a laugh, and a direction to "gie the gowd he had tint to the puirfolk." Now came the major's turn, and the Spaniard began to tremble for his fame. The former, after examining the ponderous hammer to assure himself that the handle was firmly fixed into it, swung it once around his head, and straining every muscle to conquer, cast it from his hand with a force and swiftness truly amazing. Describing a complete arch over the spacious Plaza, it whirled through the air, and passing over the houses of an adjacent street, lighted among the reeds on the banks of the Tagus, where it was discovered next day. However, it could not be found for that night, and the only reward Campbell received from the Spaniards for his prowess, was the half-muttered ejaculation of astonishment at the flight taken by the missile. The dons were very angry at their hero being beaten by a foreigner and heretic, and so astonished at his wonderful strength, that they readily adopted the opinion of some old Capuchine padres, "that he had been assisted by the devil."
"Hoich, major! weel dune," shouted old Dugald, waving his bonnet. "Fair play a' the warld ower,—Cothram na feine,[*] as we say at hame in Lochiel. Ferntosh and barley-bannock are the stuff to mak' men o'; no accadenty and snail-broth,—deevil tak' them baith!"
[*] The equal battle of the Fingalians,—a Highland proverb.
"Long life to you, major!" cried many of the Highlanders; and hundreds of soldiers belonging to the 66th, 34th, and other corps of the division huzzaed him loudly. On receiving from the duke's contador (steward) the purse of thirty onzas, Campbell, knowing that Dugald was too proud to touch a maravedi of the money placed it in the hands of Alozegui, telling him not to be cast down, as Dugald and himself had beaten better men than ever trod the realm of Spain. This taunt only stung more deeply the fiery and enraged Spaniard, who scorned to receive the purse, which he tossed among the people, and leaping over the barriers, disappeared. Campbell waved his hummel-bonnet (a plain cap without feathers) to the assembled multitude, and withdrew to finish the night over a pigskin with Don Ascasibur, and tell endless narratives about Egypt and Sir Ralph.
During that evening, from a thousand little circumstances which it is needless to rehearse, it was evident to Ronald that Louis Lisle was deeply enamoured of the beautiful Virginia; and that she was not unfavourable to him was also manifest, although she took every means to conceal it: but Ronald had a sharp eye for these matters. What the opinion of the proud old duke might be on such a subject it was not difficult to say; and his conscience would not in the least have prevented him from employing the poniard of some matador to rid his family of such a suitor. However, his mind was at that moment too much taken up with political schemes to permit him to observe the growing passion between his daughter and the young Scottish subaltern, to whom twenty days' residence in his palace had given every opportunity to press his suit that a lover could desire.
The party at the De T—— palace broke up about eleven o'clock, and ruminating on the probabilities of Louis's winning the donna, should he really propose for her hand, Ronald passed slowly through the marble square, and down a street leading towards his billet, which was near the Calle Mayor. A gush of light, streaming into the darkness through the open portal and traceried windows of an illuminated chapel, invited him to enter, in expectation of beholding some solemn religious ceremony; but the building was entirely empty, and the blaze of light proceeded from some hundreds of tapers burning around the gilded shrine of the patron saint of Aranjuez. From this spot a strong flood of crimson light glared through the nave and chancel, tinging with the hue of blood the black marble pavement, the slender pillars, and the groined roof of fretted stone work. Many mouldy portraits of saints adorned the walls; around the lighted shrine were hung certain strange memorials, placed there by the piety of those whom the saint was supposed to have cured. Crutches, even wooden legs and many stucco casts of deformed limbs, were there displayed, all doubtless the work of cunning priests, to impose upon the credulity of the Spaniards. But what chiefly raised his wonder, was some hundred little images of children, with which the place was absolutely crowded.
His attention was next attracted by several standards, the trophies of war, which hung from the highest part of the chapel, where the roof rose somewhat in the form of a dome. These belonged to various nations; and one, by the crescents on it, he judged to be Moorish; but the other two he remarked more particularly. The one was the ensign of a British ship of war which had been wrecked on the coast of Spain; the other was an ancient Scottish standard of white silk, crossed with St. Andrew's blue cross, and splendidly embroidered with silver thistles. About the latter he could not obtain the least information, although he made every inquiry next day. But it was probably the regimental colour of some of the Scottish auxiliaries who served in the Low Countries against the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Ronald was revolving in his own mind the means of capturing or destroying both these standards, when the entrance of the Condé de Truxillo diverted him from his purpose, and saved to the Spaniards those trophies which most likely still adorn the chapel royal of Aranjuez.
"What adventure are you in search of now, senor, that you have not yet sought your billet in the Calle Mayor?"
"I understand," replied the condé, "that the Carbineros of Medina del Campo marched into Aranjuez about sun-set. I have a very dear brother, an officer in them, and I am searching for some one to direct me to his quarters, late as the hour is. Manuel and I were very dear friends in youth, being educated together at our old castle near Truxillo; but we have not seen each other for six years, as our regiments have always campaigned in different provinces. He was a slender youth, without a hair on his lip when I saw him last, but now he must be a stout and well-whiskered cavalier. Ah, how much I long to behold him!"