MARQUINEZ AND LA COLLEGIALA. 179 



march back to Valladolid, not a little crestfallen at 

 the events of the night. 



A few days after the incident we have related, the 

 approach of spring enabled Marquinez to take the 

 field. After one of the first skirmishes shared in by 

 his troops, two or three men deserted to him from 

 the French, and by their own desire were incorporated 

 into a squadron of hussars. One of these men, a Ger- 

 man, made himself particularly remarked by his smart 

 and soldierly bearing, and by his hatred of the French, 

 whom he constantly execrated, declaring that his sin- 

 cerest wish was to revenge on them some part of the 

 ill-treatment he had received at their hands. Effec- 

 tively, in one or two affairs, he displayed so much 

 courage and bloodthirstiness that he attracted the 

 notice of Marquinez, who attached him to his person 

 as an orderly. The zeal of the deserter redoubled, 

 and he exhibited that boundless devotion to his gen- 

 eral so naturally felt by every brave soldier for an in- 

 dulgent master and gallant chief. 



It Avas some months later that the hussars of Mar- 

 quinez, being in the neighbourhood of Palencia, their 

 leader had occasion to visit that town, and he set out, 

 attended only by his German orderly. At a certain 

 distance from the above-named place, and when the 

 road, running between two hills, is shaded by a row 

 of large beech-trees, the travellers came to one of 

 those ancient fountains, not uncommon in Spain, and 

 which seem to have been erected with the double 



