THE JEWELLER'S WIFE.

A PASSAGE IN THE CAREER OF EL EMPECINADO.


When the Empecinado, after escaping from the Burgo de Osma, rejoined his
band, and again repaired to the favourite skirmishing ground on the
banks of the Duero, he found the state of affairs in Old Castile
becoming daily less favourable for his operations. The French overran
the greater part of the province, and visited with severe punishment any
disobedience of their orders; so that the peasantry no longer dared to
assist the guerillas as they had previously done. Many of the villages
on the Duero had become _afrancesados_, not, it is true, through love,
but through dread of the invaders, and in the hope of preserving
themselves from pillage and oppression. However much the people in their
hearts might wish success to men like the Empecinado, the guerillas were
too few and too feeble to afford protection to those who, by giving them
assistance or information, would incur the displeasure of the French.
The clergy were the only class that, almost without an exception,
remained stanch to the cause of Spanish independence, and their purses
and refectories were ever open to those who took up arms in its defence.

Noways deterred by this unfavourable aspect of affairs, the Empecinado
resolved to carry on the war in Old Castile, even though unaided and
alone. He established his bivouac in the pine-woods of Coca, and sent
out spies towards Somosierra and Burgos, to get information of some
convoy of which the capture might yield both honour and profit.