who lived under its protection.

The garden, deaf and insensible to the revolutionary tempests that
broke over the church, continued to unfold its sombre beauty between
the arcades, the laurels grew till they reached the balustrade of the
upper cloister, and the cypresses seemed as though they aspired
to touch the roofs; the creepers twined themselves among the iron
railings, making thick lattices of verdure, and the ivy mantled the
wall of the central arbour, which was surmounted by a cap of black
slate with a rusty iron cross. After the evening choir the clergy
would come and sit in here and read, by the soft green light that
filtered through the foliage, the news from the Carlist Camp, and
discuss enthusiastically the great exploits of Cabrera, while above,
the swallows quite indifferent to human presence, circled and screamed
in the clear blue sky. The Senor Esteban would watch, standing
silently, this bat-like evening club, which was kept quietly hidden
from those belonging to the National Militia of Toledo.

When the war terminated, the last illusions of the gardener vanished,
he fell into the silence of despair and wished to know of nothing
outside the Cathedral. God had abandoned the good and faithful, and
the traitors and evil-doers were triumphant; his only consolation
was the stronghold of the temple, which had lived through so many
centuries of turmoil, and could still defy its enemies for so many
more.

He only wished to be the gardener, to die in the upper cloister like
his forefathers, and to leave fresh Lunas to perpetuate the family
services in the Cathedral. His eldest son, Tomas, was now twelve years
old, and able to help him in the care of the garden. After an interval
of many years a second son had been born, Esteban, who, almost before
he could walk, would kneel before the images in the "habitacion,"
crying for his mother to carry him down into the church to see the
saints.

Poverty entered into the Cathedral, reducing the number of canons and
prebendaries; at the death of any of the old servants, their places
were suppressed, and a great many carpenters, masons, and glaziers
who previously had lived there as workmen specially attached to the
Primacy, and were continually working at its repairs, were dismissed.
If from time to time certain repairs were indispensable, workmen were
called in from outside, by the day; many of the "habitacions" in the
Claverias were unoccupied, and the silence of