spread on one side of the gate, and the nobility and high municipal officers ranged themselves on the other, leaving room for the populace to catch the words of the prelate. "My children," said the old man, "you have this day done great and fearful deeds; and sure I am, that the motives which impelled ye thereunto were such as ye could in conscience acknowledge and maintain. I myself can witness how long ye endured oppressions and injuries, almost beyond the patience of mortal men--your children and brothers slaughtered, your wives and sisters insulted, and God's altars overturned and profaned. May Heaven forgive ye for the blood ye have spilt; but as some of the innocent _must_ have perished with the guilty, I enjoin you all to keep to-morrow as a strict and rigorous fast, to confess you of your sins, and to receive absolution; after which, may God bless and prosper you, and strengthen you in the right." The good Bishop's speech was received with shouts by the populace, who took it for granted that it proceeded entirely from love and affection towards them, though, individually, I could not help thinking that there was a slight touch of fear in the business, as the prelate was well aware that in pulling down one house the neighbouring ones are very often injured; and perhaps he might think, that in overthrowing the edifice of Castilian dominion in Catalonia, the populace might shake the power of the church also. I know not whether I did him wrong, but of course I did not give the benefit of my thoughts to any of the rest; and when he had done, we took our departure from the Cathedral, and proceeded towards the Viceroy's palace, which Garcias named for his head-quarters. As we went, we were encountered by a large body of the insurgents who had just concluded the pillage of a house in the same street, belonging to the Marquis de Villafranca, general of the galleys. They were of the lowest order of the populace; and we heard that a good deal of blood had been shed, and various enormities committed by them, which, as yet, it would have been dangerous to punish. Advancing with loud shouts, they hailed us as their brother patriots, from which appellation the better part of the insurgents were somewhat inclined to shrink, receiving their fraternal salutations with much the shy air of a _parvenu_ when visited by his poor relations.