The Architect's Wife.
From the Spanish of Antonio Trueba.
[Antonio Trueba, who is still alive, was born on Christmas Eve, 1821, at Sopuerta, in Spain. As in the case of Burns, his father was a peasant, and Antonio, as a child, played in the gutters with the other village urchins, or worked with his father in the fields. But at fifteen, one of his relations, who kept a shop at Madrid, made him his assistant. By day he waited on the customers; by night he studied in his room. Genius like that of Burns and of Trueba cannot be kept down. Like Burns, the boy began to put forth songs, strong, sweet, and simple, which stirred the people's hearts like music, and soon were hummed in every village street. His fame spread; it reached the Court; and Queen Isabella bestowed upon him the lofty title of Queen's Poet. He wrote also, and still writes, prose stories of all kinds, but mostly such as, like the following, belong to the romance of history, and are rather truth than fiction.]
I.
TOWARDS the middle of the fourteenth century, Toledo was laid under siege by Don Enrique de Trastamara; but the city, faithful to the King surnamed "the Cruel," offered a brave and obstinate resistance.
Often had the loyal and valiant Toledans crossed the magnificent bridge of San Martin—one of the structures of greatest beauty of that city of splendid erections—and had cast themselves on the encampment of Don Enrique, which was pitched on the Cigarrales, causing sad havoc to the besieging army.
In order to prevent the repetition of these attacks, Don Enrique resolved upon destroying the bridge.