aried colours. The thick and abundant mane had
been carefully plaited, with the exception of the foremost tuft, left
hanging down between the ears, and from beneath which the wild eyes of
the animal glanced shyly at the different objects he passed, pretty much
as did those of the rider from under his bushy and projecting eye-brows.
The horseman was dressed in a loose jacket of black sheep-skin, the wool
rubbed off in many places, fastened down the front by copper clasps and
chains that had once boasted a gilding, and bound at edges with coarse
crimson velvet, which, from time and dirt, had become as dark as the
principal material of the garment. Between the loose short trousers and
the clumsy half-boots, replacing the sandals that were the customary
wear of the person described, several inches of lean and sinewy leg were
visible. A coloured handkerchief, tied round the head, and from beneath
which a quantity of shaggy black hair escaped, rusty iron spurs, with
huge jingling rowels, and a well-stuffed leathern wallet slung across
his body, completed the equipment of the horseman, in whom the reader
will perhaps already have recognised Jaime, the gipsy esquilador, now
acting as guide to the persons who followed. These consisted of Count
Villabuena and his cousin, Don Baltasar, both well mounted on powerful
chargers, and cloaked from chin to heel; for they had been early in the
saddle, and, although now in the month of May, the morning air upon the
mountains was keen and searching. They were followed, at a short
distance, by an escort of forty Carlist cavalry, strange, wild-looking
figures, whose scanty equipment, and the little uniformity of their
clothing, might have excited the derision of better provided troops; but
whose muscular forms and hardy aspect, as well as the serviceable state
of their carbines and lances, gave promise of their proving efficient
defenders and formidable foes.

Not having been bred to the profession of arms, Count Villabuena was, in
a strictly military point of view, of little use to his party; but his
intimate acquaintance with Navarre and the Basque provinces, with the
customs, feelings, and prejudices of their inhabitants, rendered him
invaluable in all administrative arrangements and combinations, and in
these he cheerfully and actively exerted himself. It was on a mission of
this nature that he was now proceeding, having left Onate early that
morning, to attend a meeting of influential Ala