* *

In the kingdom of Old Castile, and more especially in its mountainous
portions and the districts adjacent to the Ebro, an extraordinary
bustle and agitation were observable during the first days of October
1833. There was great furbishing of rusty muskets, an eager search
for cartridges, much dusting of old uniforms that had long served but
as hiding-places for moths, and which were now donned by men, many of
whom seemed but ill at ease in their military equipments. For ten
years Spain had been tranquil, if not happy; but now, as if even this
short period of repose were too long for the restless spirit of her
sons, a new pretext for discord had been found, and an ominous stir,
the forerunner of civil strife, was perceptible through the land.
Whilst Santos Ladron, an officer of merit, who had served through the
whole of the war against Napoleon, raised the standard of Charles V.
in Navarre, various partisans did the same in the country south of the
Ebro. In the northeastern corner of Castile, known as the Rioja,
Basilio Garcia, agent for the Pope's bulls in the province of Soria--a
man destitute of military knowledge, and remarkable only for his
repulsive exterior and cold-blooded ferocity--collected and headed a
small body of insurgents; whilst, in other districts of the same
province, several battalions of the old Royalist volunteers--a loose,
ill-disciplined militia, as motely and unsoldierlike in appearance as
they were unsteady and inefficient in the field--ranged themselves
under the orders of a general-officer named Cuevillas, and of the
veteran Merino. To these soon joined themselves various individuals of
the half-soldier half-bandit class, so numerous in Spain--men who had
served in former wars, and asked no better than again to enact the
scenes of bloodshed and pillage which were their element. The
popularity and acknowledged skill of Merino as a guerilla-leader,
secured to him the services of many of these daring and desperate
ruffians, who flocked joyously to the banner of the soldier-priest,
under whose orders some of them had already fought.

Through a tract of champaign country in the province of Burgos, a
column of these newly-assembled troops was seen marching early upon
the third morning after the interview between Luis Herrera and Count
Villabuena. It consisted of a battalion of the Realista militia, for
the most part middle-aged citizens, who, although they had felt
themselves bound