"Maurice, are there any pretty girls here?"
Maurice looks at me reproachfully.
"Señor, you have been conducted to my house by one who is acknowledged to be the prettiest in all Spain."
That night I dreamt of Eugenia, the baker's daughter, the pride of Los Pasages, who was waiting for a husband, but would have none but one who helps Charles VII. to the throne. I recorded that dream for the bachelors of Britain, and conjured them to make haste to propose for her—not that the Carlist war was hurrying to a close; but I have remarked that girls inclined to be plump at eighteen sometimes develop excessive embonpoint about eight-and-twenty. On inquiry, I found a key to the enigma which had filled me with sweet excitement. Eugenia, who had been to the citadel-prison to carry provisions to a friend in trouble, had seen me speaking to Colonel Stuart, and was anxious to serve me because of my supposed Carlist tincture. My supposed Carlist tincture did not prevent a lusty Basque boatman from charging five francs next morning for the five minutes' pull across the water to the road to Renteria, where I caught a huge yellow diligence, which had ventured to leave San Sebastian at last with the detained mails of a week. The machine was horsed in the usual manner—that is, with three mules and two nags—but how different from usual was the way-bill! With the exception of the driver and his aide, a youngster who jumped down from the box every hundred yards, and belaboured the beasts with a wattle, there was not one passenger fit to carry arms. We had a load of women and babies, a decrepit patriarch, and two boys under the fighting age. We halted at Renteria, harnessed a fresh team to our conveniency, and sent on a messenger to ascertain if the Carlists had been seen on the road. Everybody in Renteria carried a musket. All the approaches were defended by loopholed works, roofed with turf, and a perfect fortress was constructed in the centre of the town by a series of communications which had been established between the church and a block of houses in front by caponnières. The church windows were built up and loopholed, and a semicircular tambour, banked with earth to protect it from artillery, was thrown up against the houses in the middle of the street, so as to enfilade it at either side in case of attack. There were troops of the line in Renteria, but no artillerymen, nor was there artillery to be served. Without artillery, however, the place, if properly provisioned, could not be taken, if the defending force was worth its salt.
The messenger having returned with word that all was right, we went ahead at a fearful pace on a very good road, lined with poplars, and running through a neat park-like country. Over to the right we could see the church-spire of Oyarzun, and the smoke curling from the chimneys; a little farther on we passed the debris of a diligence on the wayside; the telegraph wires along the route were broken down, and the poles taken away for firewood; we dived under a railway bridge, but never a Carlist saw we during the continuous brief mad progress over the eight miles from Renteria to the rise into Irun.
We clattered up to the rail way-station at a hand-gallop, the people rushing to the doors of the houses, and beaming welcome from smiling countenances. There was a faint attempt to cheer us. At the station a number of officials, a couple of Carabineros, and a knot of idlers were gathered. The driver descended with the gait of a conquering hero, and turned his glances in the direction of a cottage close by. An old man on crutches, a blooming matron with rosary beads at her waist, and a nut-brown maid with laughing eyes stood under the porch, embowered in tamarisk and laurel-rose. The driver strode over to them, crying out triumphantly:
"El primero! Lo! I am the first."
"How valiant you are, Pedro!" said the nut-brown maid, advancing to meet him.
"How lucky you are!" said the matron, with a grave shake of the head.
"How rash you are!" mumbled the grandfather; "you were always so."