shipwrights. The principal personage was a surly ill-tempered looking fellow of about thirty-five, whom eventually I discovered to be the alcalde of Finisterre, and lord of the house in which we now were. In a corner I caught a glimpse of my guide, who was evidently in durance, two stout fishermen standing before him, one with a musket and the other with a boat-hook. After I had looked about me for a minute, the alcalde, giving his whiskers a twist, thus addressed me: —
“Who are you, where is your passport, and what brings you to Finisterre?”
Myself. – I am an Englishman. Here is my passport, and I came to see Finisterre.
This reply seemed to discomfit them for a moment. They looked at each other, then at my passport. At length the alcalde, striking it with his finger, bellowed forth:
“This is no Spanish passport; it appears to be written in French.”
Myself. – I have already told you that I am a foreigner. I of course carry a foreign passport.
Alcalde. – Then you mean to assert that you are not Calros Rey.
Myself. – I never heard before of such a king, nor indeed of such a name.
Alcalde. – Hark to the fellow! he has the audacity to say that he has never heard of Calros the pretender, who calls himself king.
Myself. – If you mean by Calros, the pretender Don Carlos, all I can reply is, that you can scarcely be serious. You might as well assert that yonder poor fellow, my guide, whom I see you have made prisoner, is his nephew, the Infante Don Sebastian. 8
Alcalde. – See, you have betrayed yourself; that is the very person we suppose him to be.
Myself. – It is true that they are both hunchbacks. But how can I be like Don Carlos? I have nothing the appearance of a Spaniard, and am nearly a foot taller than the pretender.
Alcalde. – That makes no difference; you of course carry many waistcoats about you, by means of which you disguise yourself, and appear tall or low according to your pleasure.
This last was so conclusive an argument that I had of course nothing to reply to it. The alcalde looked around him in triumph, as if he had made some notable discovery. “Yes, it is Calros; it is Calros,” said the crowd at the door. “It will be as well to have these men shot instantly,” continued the alcalde; “if they are not the two pretenders, they are at any rate two of the factious.”
“I am by no means certain that they are either one or the other,” said a gruff voice.
The justicia of Finisterre turned their eyes in the direction from which these words proceeded, and so did I. Our glances rested upon the figure who held watch at the door. He had planted the barrel of his musket on the floor, and was now leaning his chin against the butt.
“I am by no means certain that they are either one or the other,” repeated he, advancing forward. “I have been examining this man,” pointing to myself, “and listening whilst he spoke, and it appears to me that after all he may prove an Englishman; he has their very look and voice. Who knows the English better than Antonio de la Trava, and who has a better right? Has he not sailed in their ships; has he not eaten their biscuit; and did he not stand by Nelson when he was shot dead?”
Here the alcalde became violently incensed. “He is no more an Englishman than yourself,” he exclaimed; “if he were an Englishman would he have come in this manner, skulking across the land? Not so, I trow. He would have come in a ship, recommended to some of us, or to the Catalans. He would have come to trade – to buy; but nobody knows him in Finisterre, nor does he know anybody, and the first thing, moreover, that he does when he reaches this place is to inspect the fort, and to ascend the mountain, where, no doubt, he has been marking out a camp. What brings him to Finisterre, if he is neither Calros nor a bribon of a faccioso?”
I felt that there was a good deal of justice in some of these remarks, and I was aware, for the first time, that I had indeed committed a great imprudence in coming to this wild place, and among these barbarous people, without being able to assign any motive which could appear at all valid in their eyes. I endeavoured to convince the alcalde that I had come across the country for the purpose of making myself acquainted with the many remarkable objects which it contained, and of obtaining information respecting the character and condition of the inhabitants. He could understand no such motives. “What did you ascend the mountain for?” “To see prospects.” “Disparate! I have lived at Finisterre forty years, and never ascended that mountain. I would not do it in a day like this for two ounces of gold. You went to take altitudes, and to mark out a camp.” I had, however, a staunch friend in old Antonio, who insisted, from his knowledge of the English, that all I said might very possibly be true. “The English,” said he, “have more money than they know what to do with, and on that account they wander all over the world, paying dearly for what no other people care a groat for.” He then proceeded, notwithstanding the frowns of the alcalde, to examine me in the English language. His own entire knowledge of this tongue was confined to two words —knife and fork, which words I rendered into Spanish by their equivalents, and was forthwith pronounced an Englishman by the old fellow, who, brandishing his musket, exclaimed: —
“This man is not Calros; he is what he declares himself to be, an Englishman, and whosoever seeks to injure him shall have to do with Antonio de la Trava, el valiente de Finisterra.” No person sought to impugn this verdict, and it was at length determined that I should be sent to Corcuvion, to be examined by the alcalde mayor of the district. “But,” said the alcalde of Finisterre, “what is to be done with the other fellow? He at least is no Englishman. Bring him forward, and let us hear what he has to say for himself. Now, fellow, who are you, and what is your master?”
Guide. – I am Sebastianillo, a poor broken mariner of Padron, and my master for the present is the gentleman whom you see, the most valiant and wealthy of all the English. He has two ships at Vigo laden with riches. I told you so when you first seized me up there in our posada.
Alcalde. – Where is your passport?
Guide. – I have no passport. Who would think of bringing a passport to such a place as this, where I don’t suppose there are two individuals who can read? I have no passport; my master’s passport of course includes me.
Alcalde. – It does not. And since you have no passport, and have confessed that your name is Sebastian, you shall be shot. Antonio de la Trava, do you and the musketeers lead this Sebastianillo forth, and shoot him before the door.
Antonio de la Trava. – With much pleasure, Señor Alcalde, since you order it. With respect to this fellow, I shall not trouble myself to interfere. He at least is no Englishman. He has more the look of a wizard or nuveiro; one of those devils who raise storms and sink launches. Moreover, he says he is from Padron, and those of that place are all thieves and drunkards. They once played me a trick, and I would gladly be at the shooting of the whole pueblo.
I now interfered, and said that if they shot the guide they must shoot me too; expatiating at the same time on the cruelty and barbarity of taking away the life of a poor unfortunate fellow who, as might be seen at the first glance, was only half-witted; adding, moreover, that if any person was guilty in this case it was myself, as the other could only be considered in the light of a servant acting under my orders.
“The safest plan, after all,” said the alcalde, “appears to be to send you both prisoners to Corcuvion, where the head alcalde
Who served as a subordinate general in the Carlist armies.
