I
Listened With Greedy Ears, And From That Moment, I May Say, I Have
Known No Rest, Neither By Day
Nor night, thinking of the schatz.
It is very easy to find, for the dying man was so exact in
His
description of the place where it lies, that were I once at
Compostella, I should have no difficulty in putting my hand upon
it; several times I have been on the point of setting out on the
journey, but something has always happened to stop me. When my
wife died, I left Minorca with a determination to go to Saint
James, but on reaching Madrid, I fell into the hands of a Basque
woman, who persuaded me to live with her, which I have done for
several years; she is a great hax, {8} and says that if I desert
her she will breathe a spell which shall cling to me for ever. Dem
Got sey dank, - she is now in the hospital, and daily expected to
die. This is my history, Lieber Herr."
I have been the more careful in relating the above conversation, as
I shall have frequent occasion to mention the Swiss in the course
of these journals; his subsequent adventures were highly
extraordinary, and the closing one caused a great sensation in
Spain.
CHAPTER XIV
State of Spain - Isturitz - Revolution of the Granja - The
Disturbance - Signs of Mischief - Newspaper Reporters - Quesada's
Onslaught - The Closing Scene - Flight of the Moderados - The Coffee
Bowl.
In the meantime the affairs of the moderados did not proceed in a
very satisfactory manner; they were unpopular at Madrid, and still
more so in the other large towns of Spain, in most of which juntas
had been formed, which, taking the local administration into their
own hands, declared themselves independent of the queen and her
ministers, and refused to pay taxes; so that the government was
within a short time reduced to great straits for money; the army
was unpaid, and the war languished; I mean on the part of the
Christinos, for the Carlists were pushing it on with considerable
vigour; parties of their guerillas scouring the country in all
directions, whilst a large division, under the celebrated Gomez,
was making the entire circuit of Spain. To crown the whole, an
insurrection was daily expected at Madrid, to prevent which the
nationals were disarmed, which measure tended greatly to increase
their hatred against the moderado government, and especially
against Quesada, with whom it was supposed to have originated.
With respect to my own matters, I lost no opportunity of pushing
forward my application; the Aragonese secretary, however, still
harped upon the Council of Trent, and succeeded in baffling all my
efforts. He appeared to have inoculated his principal with his own
ideas upon the subject, for the duke, when he beheld me at his
levees, took no farther notice of me than by a contemptuous glance;
and once, when I stepped up for the purpose of addressing him,
disappeared through a side door, and I never saw him again, for I
was disgusted with the treatment which I had received, and forebore
paying any more visits at the Casa de la Inquisicion.
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