The _enredo_ supplied the canvas on which, or the background against which, the Spanish dramatist had to place whatever romantic, religious, or other figure or action he wished to present to his audience. In the _Tejedor de Segovia_--‘The Weaver of Segovia’--of Alarcon we have romance of the most approved type, the story of a gentleman who is driven by oppression to become a Robin Hood, a “gallant outlaw,” and who finally earns pardon, and restoration to his honours, by service against the Moor. This is Don Fernando Ramirez, whose father has been unjustly put to death by the king Don Alfonso, at the instigation of the favourite, the Marques Suero Pelaez. It is supposed that Fernando has also been killed, but he is living disguised as a weaver at Segovia, with his _dama_ Teodora. A sister, Doña Ana Ramirez, is living in retirement near the town with a servant, Florinda. She is in love with the Count Don Julian, son of Suero Pelaez, who neglects her, and is tired of her. Don Julian has caught sight of Teodora, and has fallen in love with her in the usual fire-and-flames style. He is determined to carry her off, and when the play opens, is prowling about the weaver’s house with his servant Fineo. Don Julian is convinced that a mere mechanic will not dare to resist the son of so powerful a man as Suero Palaez. As a matter of fact the weaver is absent, and Teodora is alone in the house with the servant Chinchon, the _gracioso_ of the piece, and an accomplished specimen of the greed, cowardice, brag, and low cunning proper to the type. A moderately experienced reader of romance sees at once what the course of the story must be. The count endeavours to gain admittance. Chinchon the coward proves no protection. He is rather a traitor, and Teodora is assailed by the count, when the weaver returns. Fernando takes a high line with Don Julian, and when the count endeavours to carry things with a high hand, shows that, weaver as he appears to be, he can use a sword like a gentleman. The count and his servant are ignominiously driven into the streets. Then the storm breaks on the weaver. He is imprisoned, and Teodora has to fly to hiding. In prison the weaver finds Don Garceran de Miranda, and various others, who form the raw material of a model band of brigands. The courage and craft of Fernando aiding, they all break out and take to “the sierra”--the hillside--which is the Spanish equivalent of our green wood. Through many adventures, each coming one out of the other, all the personages playing their part with that sense of the theatre which Lope had conveyed to his countrymen, Don Fernando works back to his own, and to revenge. It is a Robin Hood story, told by a Spaniard for the stage, and with Spanish types.