garden, spoke of the genialities of this Señor de Inguanzo, and were
indignant at the Government of Ferdinand VII. not being sufficiently
firm, through fear of the foreigners, to re-establish the wholesome
tribunal of the Inquisition.

The only thing that troubled the gardener was to watch the decadence
of his beloved Cathedral. The revenues of the archbishop and of the
Chapter had been greatly wasted during the war. What had occurred was
what happens after a great flood, when the waters begin to subside
and carry everything away with them, leaving the land bare and
uninhabited. The Primacy lost many of its rights, the tenants made
themselves masters, taking advantage of the disorders of the State;
the towns refused to pay their feudal services, as though the
necessity of defending themselves and helping in the war had freed
them for ever from vassalage; further, the turbulent Cortes had
decreed the abolition of all lordships, and had very much curtailed
the enormous revenues of the Cathedral, acquired in the centuries when
the archbishops of Toledo put on their casques, and went out to fight
the Moors with double-handed swords.

Even so, a considerable fortune remained to the church of the Primacy,
and it maintained its splendour as if nothing had happened, but the
Señor Esteban scented danger from the depths of his garden, hearing
from the canons of the Liberal conspiracies, the executions by
shooting and hanging, and the exiling, to which the king Señor Don
Fernando appealed, in order to repress the audacity of the "Negros,"
the enemies of the Monarchy and of religion.

"They have tasted the sweets," said he, "and they will return--see if
they do not return, and take what is left! During the war they took