it was
pleasant to see the Walloon peasant children run forth from the
cottages to salute the royal train, making their heavy Flemish
chargers swerve aside and perform their lumbering cabrioles far more
deftly than the cannonading of the rebels, to which they were almost
accustomed.

As they cut across a meadow formed by the windings of the Meuse, they
saw at a distance a group formed, like most groups congregated just
then in the district, of soldiers and peasants; to which the
attention of the prince being directed, Nignio di Zuniga, his
aide-de-camp, was dispatched to ascertain the cause of the gathering.

"A nothing, if it please your highness!" was the reply of the
Spaniard--galloping back, hat in hand, with its plumes streaming in
the breeze;--that the Prince's train, which had halted, might resume
its pace.

"But a nothing of what sort?" persisted Don John, who appreciated the
trivialties of life very differently from those by whom he was
surrounded.

"A village grievance!--An old woman roaring her lungs out for a cow
which has been carried off by our troopers!"--grumbled the
aide-de-camp, with less respect than was usual to him.

"And call you that a _nothing_?"--exclaimed his master. "By our lady
of Liesse, it is an act of cruelty and oppression--a thing calculated
to make us hateful in the eyes of the village!--And many villages, my
good Nignio, represent districts, and many districts provinces, and
provinces a country; and by an accumulation of such resentments as
the indignation of this old crone, will the King of Spain and the
Catholic faith be driven out of Flanders!--See to it! I want no
further attendance of you this morning! Let the cow be restored
before sunset, and the marauders punished."

"But if, as will likely prove the case, the beast is no longer in its
skin?"--demanded the aide-de-camp. "If the cow should have been
already eaten, in a score of messes of pottage?"

"Let her have compensation."

"The money chest at headquarters, if it please your highness, is all
but empty," replied Nignio, glancing with a smile towards
Gonzaga,--as though they were accustomed to jest together over the
reckless openness of heart and hand of their young chief.

"Then, by the blessed shrine of St Jago, give the fellows at least
the strappado," cried Don John, out of all patience. "Since
restitution may not be, be the retribution all the heavier."

"It is ever thus," cried he, addressing himself to Gon