y--Under Fire--Caught in the Toils--The
Heroic Tomas--We Slope--A Colleague Advises Me--"A Horse! a
Horse!"--State of Bilbao--Don Carlos at Estella--Sanchez Bregua
Recalled--Tolosa Invites--Republican Ineptitude--Do not Spur a Free
Horse--Very Ancient Boys--Meditations in Bed--A Biscay Storm.

BARBAROSSA, who had never been over the border, suggested to me that I
should take a trip to Irun, which was held by the anti-Carlists. It
would be incorrect to write them down as Republicans; they were sprung
from the Cristinos of the previous generation, and as such were opposed
to any scion of the house against which their fathers had fought for
years. All of them were _de facto_ Republicans, and had more knowledge
and enjoyment of Republican freedom than those who prattled and raved
of Republicanism in Madrid and the south; but they did not take kindly
to the name. As my friend the late J. A. MacGahan wittily said of
them--"They were the Royalist-Republicans of Spain." They were as fond
of their fueros as any Carlist in the crowd, but they stood up for
Madrid less that they cared for the policy or personages of the central
government, than that they had a deep-seated hereditary hatred of their
neighbours of the rural districts. At heart they were in favour of a
restoration of the throne, and on that throne they would fain seat the
young Prince of the Asturias. In those latitudes the lines of John Byrom
a century before would well apply:

"God bless the King, I mean the faith's defender;
God bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, or who is King,
God bless us all--that's quite another thing!"

"If you go to Irun," said Barbarossa, stroking his moustache, "I am game
to go with you."

"I am satisfied," said I; "but recollect, you undertake the job at your
own risk. You are known as an associate of Carlists, and suspected to
be a Carlist agent. I am a stranger and comparatively safe."

He had weighed all that, and was ready to face possible perils. But he
was not fit to undergo probable fatigues. He could sit at a green table
in an ill-ventilated atmosphere the night long, but he could not walk
three miles at a stretch. Neither could he (on account of his illness)
venture on horseback. To effect a crossing by the railway bridge from
Hendaye to Irun was out of the question; it was barrier impenetrable.
The Frenchman would not allow you to pass in your own intere