After the lapse of about a quarter of an hour we again saw the candle gleam upon the staircase, and the young female appeared.  Coming up to me, she advanced the candle to my features, on which she gazed very intently.  After a long scrutiny she went to my guide, and having surveyed him still more fixedly, she turned to me, and said, in her best Spanish, “Senhor Cavalier, I congratulate you on your servant.  He is the best-looking mozo in all Galicia.  Vaya! if he had but a coat to his back, and did not go barefoot, I would accept him at once as a novio; but I have unfortunately made a vow never to marry a poor man, but only one who has got a heavy purse and can buy me fine clothes.  So you are a Carlist, I suppose?  Vaya!  I do not like you the worse for that.  But, being so, how went you to Finisterra, where they are all Christinos and negros?  Why did you not go to my village?  None would have meddled with you there.  Those of my village are of a different stamp to the drunkards of Finisterra.  Those of my village never interfere with honest people.  Vaya! how I hate that drunkard of Finisterra who brought you, he is so old and ugly; were it not for the love which I bear to the Senhor Alcalde, I would at once unlock the gate and bid you go forth, you and your servant, the buen mozo.”

Antonio now descended.  “Follow me,” said he; “his worship the alcalde will be ready to receive you in a moment.”  Sebastian and myself followed him upstairs to a room where, seated behind a table, we beheld a young man of low stature but handsome features and very fashionably dressed.  He appeared to be inditing a letter, which, when he had concluded, he delivered to a secretary to be transcribed.  He then looked at me for a moment fixedly, and the following conversation ensued between us:-

Alcalde.—­I see that you are an Englishman, and my friend Antonio here informs me that you have been arrested at Finisterra.

Myself.—­He tells you true; and but for him I believe that I should have fallen by the hands of those savage fishermen.

Alcalde.—­The inhabitants of Finisterra are brave, and are all liberals.  Allow me to look at your passport?  Yes, all in form.  Truly it was very ridiculous that they should have arrested you as a Carlist.

Myself.—­Not only as a Carlist, but as Don Carlos himself.

Alcalde.—­Oh! most ridiculous; mistake a countryman of the grand Baintham for such a Goth!

Myself.—­Excuse me, Sir, you speak of the grand somebody.

Alcalde.—­The grand Baintham.  He who has invented laws for all the world.  I hope shortly to see them adopted in this unhappy country of ours.

Myself.—­Oh! you mean Jeremy Bentham.  Yes! a very remarkable man in his way.

Alcalde.—­In his way!  In all ways.  The most universal genius which the world ever produced:- a Solon, a Plato, and a Lope de Vega.

Myself.—­I have never read his writings.  I have no doubt that he was a Solon; and as you say, a Plato.  I should scarcely have thought, however, that he could be ranked as a poet with Lope de Vega.