Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846

"And the prisoner?" cried Herrera.

They had not seen him. Herrera darted back into the sitting-room.

"Where is the prisoner?" exclaimed Torres, whom he met there.

"Escaped!" cried Herrera. "The window! the window!"

They rushed to the open window. It was at the side of the house, and looked out upon a narrow street, having a dead wall for some distance along one side, and little used as a thoroughfare. At that moment not a living creature was to be seen in it. The height of the window from the ground did not exceed a dozen feet, offering an easy leap to a bold and active man, and one which, certainly, no one in Baltasar's circumstances would for a moment have hesitated to take. Herrera threw himself over the balcony, and dropping to the ground, ran off down a neighbouring lane, round the corner of which he fancied, on first reaching the window, that he saw the skirt of a man's coat disappear. Leaving the Count, who was now regaining consciousness, in charge of Paco, Torres hurried out to give the alarm and cause an immediate pursuit.

But in vain, during the whole of that day, was the most diligent search made throughout the town for the fugitive Carlist. Every place where he was likely to conceal himself, the taverns and lower class of posadas, the parts of the town inhabited by doubtful and disreputable characters, the houses of several suspected Carlists, were in turn visited, but not a trace of Baltasar could be found, and the night came without any better success. Herrera was furious, and bitterly reproached himself for his imprudence in leaving the prisoner alone even for a moment. His chief hope, a very faint one, now was, that Baltasar would be detected when endeavouring to leave the town. Strict orders were given to the sentries at the gates, to observe all persons going out of Pampeluna, and to stop any of suspicious appearance, or who could not give a satisfactory account of themselves.

The hour of noon, upon the day subsequent to Baltasar's disappearance, was near at hand, and the peasants who daily visited Pampeluna with the produce of their farms and orchards, were already preparing to depart. The presence of Cordova's army, promising them a great accession of custom, and the temporary absence from the immediate vicinity of the Carlist troops, who frequently prevented their visiting Christino towns with their merchandise, had caused an unusual concourse of country-people to Pampeluna during the few days that the Christino army had already been quartered there. Each morning, scarcely were the gates opened when parties of peasants, and still more numerous ones of short-petticoated, brown-legged peasant women, entered the town, and pausing upon the market-place, proceeded to arrange the stores of fowls, fruit, vegetables, and similar rustic produce, which they had brought on mules and donkeys, or in large heavy baskets upon their heads. Long before the sun had attained a sufficient height to cast its beams into the broad cool-looking square upon which the market was held, a multitude of stalls had been erected, and were covered with luscious fruits and other choice products of the fertile soil of Navarre. Piles of figs bursting with ripeness; melons, green and yellow, rough and smooth; tomatas; scarlet and pulpy; grapes in glorious bunches of gold and purple; cackling poultry and passive rabbits; the whole intermingled with huge heaps of vegetables, and nose-gays of beautiful flowers, were displayed in wonderful profusion to the gaze of the admiring soldiers, who soon thronged to the scene of bustle. As the morning advanced, numerous maid-servants, trim, arch-looking damsels, with small neatly-shod feet, basket on arm, and shading their complexion from the increasing heat of the sun under cotton parasols of ample dimensions, tripped along between the rows of sellers, pausing here and there to bargain for fruit or fowl, and affecting not to hear the remarks of the soldiers, who lounged in their neighbourhood, and expressed their admiration by exclamations less choice than complimentary. The day wore on; the stalls were lightened, the baskets emptying, but the market became each moment more crowded. Little parties of officers emerged from the coffee-houses where they had breakfasted, and strolled up and down, criticizing the buxom forms and pretty faces of the peasant girls; here and there a lady's mantilla appeared amongst the throng of female heads, which, for the most part, were covered only with coloured handkerchiefs, or left entirely bare, protected but by black and redundant tresses, the boast of the Navarrese maidens. Catalonian wine-sellers, their queer-shaped kegs upon their backs, bartered their liquor for the copper coin of the thirsty soldiers; pedlars displayed their wares, and sardineras vaunted their fish; ballad-singers hawked about copies of patriotic songs; mahogany-coloured gitanas executed outlandish, and not very decent, dances; whilst here and there, in a quiet nook, an itinerant gaming-table keeper had erected his board, and proved that he, of all others, best knew how to seduce the scanty and hard-earned maravedis from the pockets of the pleasure-seeking soldiery.

But, as already mentioned, the hour of noon now approached, and marketing was over for that day. The market-place, and its adjacent streets, so thronged a short time previously, became gradually deserted under the joint influence of the heat and the approaching dinner hour. The peasants, some of whom came from considerable distances, packed up their empty baskets, and, with lightened loads and heavy pockets, trudged down the streets leading to the town gates.

At one of these gates, leading out of the town in a northerly direction, several of the men on guard were assembled, amusing themselves at the expense of the departing peasantry, whose uncouth physiognomy and strange clownish appearance afforded abundant food for the quaint jokes and comical remarks of the soldiers. The market people were, for the most part, women, old men, and boys; the able-bodied men from the country around Pampeluna, having, with few exceptions, left their homes, either voluntarily or by compulsion, to take service in the Carlist ranks. Beneath the projecting portico of the guard-house, sat a sergeant, occupied, in obedience to orders given since the escape of Baltasar, in surveying the peasants as they passed with a keen and scrutinizing glance. For some time, however, this military Cerberus found no object of suspicion in any of the passers-by. Lithe active lads, greyhaired old men, and women whose broad shoulders and brawny limbs might well have belonged to disguised dragoons, but who, nevertheless, were unmistakeably of the softer sex, made up the different groups which successively rode or walked through the gate. Gradually the departures became less numerous, and the sergeant less vigilant; he yawned, stretched himself in his chair, rolled up a most delicate cigarrito between his large rough fingers, and lighting it, puffed away with an appearance of supreme beatitude.

"Small use watching," said he to a corporal. "The fellow's not likely to leave the town in broad daylight, with every body on the look-out for him."

"True," was the answer. "He'll have found a hiding-place in the house of some rascally Carlist. There are plenty in Pampeluna."

"Well," said the first speaker, "I'm tired of this, and shall punish my stomach no longer. Whilst I take my dinner, do you take my place. Stay, let yonder cabbage-carriers pass."

The peasants referred to by the sergeant, were a party of half a dozen women, and nearly as many lads and men, who just then showed themselves at the end of the street, coming towards the gate. Most of them were mounted on rough mountain ponies and jackasses, although three or four of the women trudged afoot, with pyramids of baskets balanced upon their heads, the perspiration streaming down their faces from the combined effects of the sun and their load. The last of the party was a stout man, apparently some five-and-forty years of age, dressed in a jacket and breeches of coarse brown cloth, and seated sideways on a scraggy mule, in such a position that his back was to the guard-house as he passed it. On the opposite side of the animal hung a pannier, containing cabbages and other vegetables; the unsold residue of the rider's stock in trade. The peasant's legs, naked below the knee, were tanned by the sun to the same brown hue as his face and bare throat; his feet were sandalled, and just above one of his ankles, a soiled bandage, apparently concealing a wound, was wrapped. A broad-brimmed felt hat shaded his half-closed eyes and dull stolid countenance, and the only thing that in any way distinguished him from the generality of peasants was his hair, which was cut short behind, instead of hanging, according to the usual custom of the province, in long ragged locks over the coat collar.

Occupied with his cigar and gossip, the sergeant vouchsafed but a careless and cursory glance to this party, and they were passing on without hindrance, when, from a window of the guard-house, a voice called to them to halt.

"How now, sergeant!" exclaimed the young ensign on guard. "What is the meaning of this? Why do these people pass without examination?"

The negligent sergeant rose hastily from his chair, and, assuming an attitude of respect, faltered an excuse.

"Peasants, sir; market-people."

The officer, who had been on guard since the preceding evening, had been sitting in his room, waiting the arrival of his dinner, which was to be sent to him from his quarters, and was rather behind time. The delay had put him out of temper.

"How can you tell that? You are cunning to know people without looking at then. Let them wait."

And the next moment he issued from the guard-house, and approached the peasants.

"Your name?" said he, sharply, to the first of the party.

"José Samaniego," was the answer. "A poor aldeano from Artica, para servir á vuestra señoria. These are my wife and daughter."

The speaker was an old, greyhaired man, with wrinkled features, and a stoop in his shoulders; and, notwithstanding a cunning twinkle in his eye, there was no mistaking him for any thing else than he asserted himself to be.

The officer turned away from him, glanced at the rest of the party, and seemed about to let them pass, when his eye fell upon the sturdy, crop-headed peasant already referred to. He immediately approached him.

"Where do you come from?" said he, eyeing him with a look of suspicion.

The sole reply was a stare of stupid surprise. The officer repeated the question.

"From Berriozar," answered the man, naming a village at a greater distance from Pampeluna than the one to which old Samaniego claimed to belong. And then, as if he supposed the officer inclined to become a customer, he reached over to his pannier and took out a basket of figs.

"Fine figs, your worship," said he, mixing execrably bad Spanish with Basque words. "Muy barato. You shall have them very cheap."

When the man mentioned his place of abode, two or three of the women exchanged a quick glance of surprise; but this escaped the notice of the officer, who now looked hard in the peasant's face, which preserved its former expression of immovable and sleepy stupidity.

"Dismount," said the ensign.

The man pointed to his bandaged ankle; but on a repetition of the order he obeyed, with a grimace of pain, and then stood on one leg, supporting himself against the mule.

"I shall detain this fellow," said the officer, after a moment's pause. "Take him into the guard-room."

Just then a respectable-looking, elderly citizen, on his return apparently from a stroll outside the fortifications, walked past on his way into the town. On perceiving the young officer, he stopped and shook hands with him.

"Welcome to Pampeluna, Don Rafael!" he exclaimed. "Your regiment I knew was here, but could not believe that you had come with it, since I had never before known you to neglect your old friends."

"No fault of mine, Señor Lopez," replied the officer. "Three days here, and not a moment's rest from guards and fatigue duty."

"Well, don't forget us; Ignacia and Dolores look for you. Ah, Blas! you here? How's your leg, poor Blas? Did you bring the birds I ordered?"

These questions were addressed to the lame peasant, who replied by a grin of recognition; and an assurance that the birds in question had been duly delivered to his worship's servant.

"Very good," said Lopez. "Good morning, Don Rafael."

The young officer stopped him.

"You know this man, then, Señor Lopez?" inquired the ensign.

"Know him? as I know you. Our poultry-man; and if you will sup with us to-night, when you come off guard, you shall eat a fowl of his fattening."

"With pleasure," replied the ensign. "You may go," he added, turning to the peasant. "Let these people pass, sergeant. May I be shot, Don Basilio, if I didn't mean to detain your worthy poulterer on suspicion of his being a better man than he looked. There has been an escape, and a sharp watch is held to keep the runaway in the town. It would have been cruel, indeed, to stop the man who brings me my supper. Ha, ha! a capital joke! Stopping my own supplies!"

"A capital joke, indeed," said Lopez, laughing heartily. "Well, good bye, Don Rafael. We shall expect you to-night."

And the cloth-merchant walked away, his usual pleasant smile upon his placid face, whilst the peasants passed through the gate; and the officer, completely restored to good-humour by the prospect of a dainty supper and pleasant flirtation with Don Basilio's pretty daughters, proceeded to the discussion of his dinner, which just then made its appearance.

Crossing the river, the party of peasants who had met with this brief delay, rode along for a mile or more without a word being spoken amongst them. Presently they came to a place where three roads branched off, and here the lame peasant, who had continued to ride in rear of the others, separated from them, with an abrupt "adios!" Old Samaniego looked round, and his shrivelled features puckered themselves into a comical smile.

"Is that your road to Berriozar, neighbour?" said he. "It is a new one, if it be."

The person addressed cast a glance over his shoulder, and muttered an inaudible reply, at the same time that he thrust his hand under the vegetables that half filled his panniers.

"If you live in Berriozar, I live in heaven," said Samaniego. "But fear nothing from us. Viva el Rey Carlos!"

He burst into a shrill laugh, echoed by his companions, and, quickening their pace, the party was presently out of sight. The lame peasant, who, as the reader will already have conjectured, was no other than Baltasar de Villabuena, rode on for some distance further, till he came to an extensive copse fringing the base of a mountain. Riding in amongst the trees, he threw away his pannier, previously taking from it a large horse pistol which had been concealed at the bottom. He then stripped the bandage from his leg, bestrode his mule, and vigorously belabouring the beast with a stick torn from a tree, galloped away in the direction of the Carlist territory.

HOW THEY MANAGE MATTERS IN "THE MODEL REPUBLIC."

In the present doubtful state of our relations with the American Republic, many anxious eyes are of course being directed across the Atlantic, and much speculation excited as to the present policy and ultimate designs of that anomalous and ambitious people. Since increased facilities of communication have brought the two continents into closer union, and afforded their respective inhabitants more frequent opportunities of observing each other's political and social arrangements, it cannot, we think be said with truth, that those of the United States have risen in favour with the enlightened minds of Europe, least of all with those of England. For the obvious failings of that Republic are of a kind eminently adapted to shock minds cast in the European mould; while her virtues, however appropriate to the transatlantic soil in which they flourish, do not either so readily suggest themselves to the notice of the Old World, or, when fully realized, command a very extraordinary degree of respect. We do not very highly appreciate the liberty which appears to us license, nor the equality which brings with it neither good manners nor good morals, nor the vast material progress which occupies the energies of her people, to the exclusion of more elevating pursuits. There are moreover griefs connected with the United States which come peculiarly home to British interests and prejudices; the existence of slavery, for instance, in its most revolting form, in direct opposition to the spirit of their institutions, and to the very letter of that celebrated declaration which is the basis of all their governments; the repudiation or non-payment of debts contracted for the purposes of public works, of which they are every day reaping the advantages; and the unprincipled invasion of our Canadian frontier by their citizens during the late disturbances in that colony. Within the last few months, more particularly, they have committed many and grievous offences against their own dignity, the peace of the world, and the interests of Britain. We have heard their chief magistrate defy Christendom, and inform the world that the American continent is, for the future, to be held as in fee-simple by the United States; we have seen Texas forcibly torn from feeble Mexico, and the negotiations on the subject of Oregon brought to a close by a formal declaration, that the American title to the whole of it is "clear and unquestionable." They have displayed, in the conduct of their foreign relations during the past year, a vulgar indifference to the opinion of mankind, and an overweening estimate of their own power, which it is at once ludicrous and painful to behold. Nor is there reason to believe that these blots on the escutcheon of a nation, so young and so unembarrassed, are either deeply regretted or will be speedily effaced. We see no reaction of national virtue against national wrongdoing. For the cause of this great Republic is not, as in other countries, dependent upon the will of the one man, or the few men, who are charged with the functions of government, but on the will of the great mass of the people, deliberately and frequently expressed. The rule of the majority is in America no fiction, but a practical reality; and the folly or wisdom, the justice or injustice of her public acts, may, in ordinary times, be assumed as fair exponents of the average good sense and morals of the bulk of her citizens.

We are not of those who charge the democratic institutions of the United States as a crime upon their people, or who think that, in separating themselves from the British crown, they were guilty of a deliberate wickedness which has yet to be expiated. Whether that separation was fully justified by the circumstances of the time, is a question upon which we do not propose to enter: but having so separated, it does not appear that any course was left open to them but that which they have pursued. Through the negligence of the mother country, no pains had been taken to plant even the germs of British institutions in her American colonies, and the War of Independence found them already in possession of all, and more than all, of the democratic elements of our constitution; while the feeling of personal attachment to the sovereign had died out through distance and neglect, and the influence of the aristocracy and the church was altogether unknown. Even in Virginia, where, in consequence of the existence of domestic slavery on a large scale, and the laws of primogeniture and entail, a certain aristocratical feeling had sprung up, a jealousy of the British crown and parliament showed itself from first to last, at least as strongly as elsewhere; and the ink of the Declaration of Independence was scarcely dry, before those laws of property were repealed, and every vestige of an Established Church swept away. Nothing then remained, in the absence of Conservative principles and traditions, but to construct their government upon the broadest basis of Democracy; accordingly, the triumph of that principle was complete from the first. The genius of progressive democracy may have removed some of the slender barriers with which it has found itself accidentally embarrassed; but it has not been able to add any thing to the force of those pithy abstractions which were endorsed by the most respectable chiefs of the Revolution, and which remain to sanctify its wildest aspirations.

All men, therefore, in America – that is, all white men – are "free and equal;" and every thing that has been done in her political world for the last half century has gone to illustrate and carry out this somewhat intractable hypothesis. Upon this principle, the vote of John Jacob Astor, with his twenty-five millions of dollars, is neutralized by that of the Irish pauper just cast upon its shores. The millionaire counts one, and so does the dingy unit of Erin, though the former counts for himself, and the latter for his demagogue and his priest. The exclusion of women and negroes from this privilege remains, it is true, a hiatus valde deflendus by the choicer spirits of the democracy. It is thought, however, that the system will shortly be completed by the addition of these new constellations. At this moment, in prospect of a convention to re-tinker the constitution, two agitations are going on in the state of New York – one to secure the "Political Rights of Women;" the other to extend those which negroes, under certain grievous restrictions, already enjoy. The theory of virtual representation has been held up to these two classes of citizens with as little success as to our own Radicals. Both negroes and women throw themselves upon the broad fact of their common humanity, and indignantly demand wherefore a black skin or a gentle sex should disqualify their possessors from the exercise of the dearest privilege of freemen.

Now, however absurd this system may appear to us in the abstract, and however strongly we should resist its application to our own political case, we believe, as we said before, that the Americans have no choice in the matter but to make it work as well as possible, and that it is for the interest of the world, as well as for their own, that it should so work. The preservation of peace, and our commercial relations with the United States, are far more important to us than the triumph of an idea. We are quite content, if they will permit us, to remain on the best of terms with our transatlantic descendants, and to see them happy and prosperous in their own way. We even think it fortunate for mankind that the principle of self-government is being worked out in that remote region, and under the most favourable circumstances, in order that the civilized world may take note thereof, and guide itself accordingly. It is, we know, a favourite theme with their demagogues, that the glory and virtue and happiness of Yankee-doodle-doo have inspired the powers of the rotten Old World with the deepest jealousy and hatred, and that every crown in Europe pales before the lustre of that unparalleled confederacy. Nothing can be wider of the truth, pleasing as the illusion may be to the self-love of the most vainglorious people under the sun. The prestige which America and her institutions once undoubtedly enjoyed in many parts of Europe is rapidly fading away, as each successive post brings fresh evidence of her vices and her follies. We can, indeed, recollect a time when the example of the model Republic was held up for admiration in the most respectable quarters, and was the trump-card at every gathering of Radical reformers. But now the scene is changed – now, "none so poor to do her reverence." Even Chartist and Suffrage-men, Mr Miall and the Northern Star, have at last

– "forgot to speak

That once familiar word."

They turn from her, and pass away as gingerly as the chorus in the Greek play from the purlieus of those ominous goddesses —

ἁς τρἑμομεν λἑγεινκαι παραμειβὁμεθαδἑρχὡτως αφὡτας —

Mr O'Connell himself can find no room in his capacious affections for men who repudiate their debts, burn convents, "mob the finest pisantry," and keep a sixth of their population in chains in the name of liberty!

If "the great unwashed" on the other side of the Atlantic, will only consent to send men to their councils of moderately pure hearts and clean hands, they may rest assured that any conspiracy which the united powers of kings, nobles, and priests may devise against them, will take little by its motion. But they do just the reverse, as we shall presently show. The profligacy of their public men is proverbial throughout the states; and the coarse avidity with which they bid against each other for the petty spoils of office, is quite incomprehensible to an European spectator. To "make political capital," as their slang phrase goes, for themselves or party, the most obvious policy of the country is disregarded, the plainest requirements of morality and common sense set aside, and the worst impulses of the people watched, waited on, and stimulated into madness. To listen to the debates in Congress, one would think the sole object of its members in coming together, was to make themselves and their country contemptible. Owing to the rantings of this august body, and the generally unimportant character of the business brought before it, little is known of its proceedings in Europe except through the notices of some passing traveller. But its shame does not consist merely or chiefly in the occasional bowie-knife or revolver produced to clinch the argument of some ardent Western member, nor even in the unnoted interchange of compliments not usually current amongst gentlemen. Much more deplorable is the low tone of morality and taste which marks their proceedings from first to last, the ruffian-like denunciations, the puerile rants, the sanguinary sentiments poured forth day by day without check or censure. This is harsh language, but they shall be judged out of their own mouths. We have before us a file of the Congressional Globe, the official record of the debates in both Houses, extending from December 12 to January 15. During this period the Oregon question was called up nearly every day, and we propose to give some specimens, verbatim et literatim, of the spirit in which it has been discussed. We shall give notices of the speakers and their constituents as we go along, to show that the madness is not confined to one particular place or party, but is common to Whig and Democrat, to the representatives of the Atlantic as well as of the Western states. Most of our European readers will, we think, agree with us, that, considering the entire absence of provocation, and the infinitely trivial nature of the matter in dispute, these rhetorical flourishes are without parallel in the history of civilized senates.