ce drove them
mad; the doors of the houses fell under their blows, terrified men
rushed out to be pierced with bayonets in the streets, and in the
houses you could see women struggling in the arms of the assailants,
striking them in the face with one hand, while with the other they
struggled to retain their clothes.

Gabriel saw how the roughest of the mountaineers destroyed in the
Institute all the apparatus of the Cabinet of Physical Science,
breaking it in pieces. They were furious with these inventions of the
evil one, with which they thought the unbelievers communicated with
the Government of Madrid, and they smashed on the ground with the butt
ends of their muskets, and trampled with their feet, all the
gilt wheels of the apparatus, and all the discs and batteries of
electricity.

The seminarist was delighted at all this destruction; he also hated,
but it was with a calm, reflective hate bred in the seminary, all
positive and material sciences, for the sum total of his reasoning was
that they came perilously near to the negation of God; those sons of
the mountains in their blessed ignorance, had without knowing it done
a great deed. Ah! if only the whole nation would imitate them! In
former times there were none of these ridiculous inventions of
science, and Spain was far happier. To live a holy life, the learning
of the priests and the ignorance of the people was sufficient, for
both together produced a blessed tranquillity; what did they want
more? For so the country had existed for centuries, all through the
most glorious period of its existence.

The war came to an end, the closely pursued rebels passed through the
centre of Catalonia and were finally driven over the frontier, where
they were compelled to give up their arms to the French custom-house
officers. Many availed themselves of the amnesty, anxious to return to
their own homes. Mariano, the bell-ringer, was one of these. He did
not wish to live in a foreign land; besides, during his absence his
father had died, and it was extremely probable that he might succeed
to the charge of the Cathedral tower if he laid due stress on the
merits of his family, his three years' campaigning for the sake of
religion, and a wound he had received in his leg; he would really be
able to compare himself with the martyrs for Christianity.

Gabriel preferred emigration. "He was an officer and therefore
could not take the oath of allegiance to a usurping dynasty." This