The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1888-12-26
A FINE HAUL OF FISH.

covered WITH 5tOry ana Win WOUNDS
in the war of tho succession and with
out penny in his purse, as in those
days was the case with most warriors
and heroes, the noble scion of Mequi-
nenza returned one day TO his dis
mantled castle, to rest from the harsh
fatigues of the camp and eat in peace
the lentils that came with his title.
Two words let us give 10 the soldier
and other two to his birthplace. Don
Jaime de Mequinenza, baron of that
name, who had fought as acaptain for
the interests of Louis the Fourteenth,
was at that day man of five-and-
thirty years, tall, handsome, rough,
brave and energetic; little lettered, but
jovial and gallant to the last degree
with women-particularl fond, in
deed. of pretty peasants. Add to this
that he was an orphan, an only child,
a bachelor, and you have the picture
of the Aragonesc hidalgo. As to his
castle, it was the same as its master,
barring IN strength. But rs to soil
tariness, pride and poverty. it was not
behind him. 1t was not, for it has
crumbled to decay generations since.
Figure it, half built. half cut from
solid rock, Tapped on one side by the
waves of the Ebro, and on the other
lowered skyward.
at the foot of this rock was dozen
cots and novels, tenantetl by the vas
sails of the baron. or it might rather be
said by the husbandmen who TILED tho
Few fields left to his possession. From
Che hamlet to tho castle the road
climbed by fourteen or fifteen steep
terraces, above which was a moat,
with its drawbritlge; the moat filled
by a canal or wide ditch that tapped
the Ebro u league to tho northwar-d,
and then fell, below the fortress, in a
noisy torrent back into the swelling
river.
Perched on an almost inaccessible
flank of tho mountain, separated by
this channel from the castle, and, like
it, hanging above the Ebro, there was
another rocky spur. crowned by a
cabin and little garden, which in
that spot suggested the hanging gar
dens of Babylon. A heavy beam of
walnut wood spanned the foaming
current between the castle and the
cabin, connecting these, as the draw
bridge afforded communication be-
tween the castle and the hamlet.
On the lordly crag, then, dwelt Don
Jaime de MequinenZa, and on the feu-
dial rock an eel fisher, who had won a
rich revenue from the daring thought
of building his hut III that lonely and
menacing spot. Ii had occurred to
Damian. for such was the name of the
fisherman, to swing from the little
bridge two vast nets, through whose
meshcs swept the current, SO that the
tceming eels that rushed through the
cutting toward the mother waters of
the Ebro were caught here on their
course back to their birthplace and
held for the hand OF the fisherman,
who, although lie sold them at a low
enough price, yet derived from this
slippery source vely respectable in
como.
Yet for all this labor and enterprise
the poor fellow could never save a
cuarto. He was not a drinkcr, for all
the cold and wet character of his bust
ness; he was not player-indeed, he
knew not the terms of brisca, con
quien or nalilla; his cigarros wcrc of
the cOlnmoneSt sort and cost him the
mercSt trifie, and for womankind he
| had not 50 much as a passing glance,
save only for Carmen
Save onlyl Dut then, caray, hon1-
brc! that WAS sufficient exception. For
oh, Carmen, Carmela, CarmelitaI
Here WAS enough to squander the rev
enues of an alcalde, regidor, a prince
let alone a fisherman. For Carmen
was a beauty-a Spanish blonde, think
of that, ye connoisseurs who would
have tempted Saint Anthony himself,
if the grace of Col should have been
withdrawn from him for moment.
Such a waistl such a neckI such
ankles! And Carmen knew her own
good points-none better; and women
of f.,ll
themselves when they have not lovers
or when they have, for that matter
and so Carmen spent the price of all
the cells in the Ebro on aprons, ker-
chiefs, earrings, ribbons and fal-lals in
general, though there was not n soul
TO see them but her own dear self.
Damian, her husbands oh, but he
counted for nothing, less than nothing,
for if husbands in general are ciphcrs,
what was this wretched fisher of eelsi
"a lout, clown, clod Oil that is
quito apparent; convinced, no doubt,
of her high mission in this poor world
of sorrows, Carmen every day dressed
herself as if she were going to ball or
n function, and sat herself down at the
door of the cabin, where shc was seen
of the birds, the rock thyme and the
skies, apd of nauglt else. Still, she
dHSl6Su TRANQUILITY Lue LnOLucnt Oh uer
In the days when carme1ita first
took up her station at the door thus
dressed with parsley" the castle of
MequinenZa was still without Don
6aime, its master. and no human eye
beheld her from closer range than that
of the sands below, whence she looked
like some great blossom set on the
edge of the precipice. Her husband
had forbidden her to go down to the
village in his absence, and she obeyed
him implicitly, because it is the will
OF God that wives obey their husbands,
and because because there was
nothing pleasing to her in the rustic
youths of the village. How should
they please her any more than her
nusbandi = they, like him, rough,
badly clad and dirty. with thorny. cal
Eoused hands, burned by the sun,
tanned by wind and rain, and SMELL
ing of fish from rod away7 And
she SO soft, so smooth, so dainty,
dressed and perfumed like Madrilena.
1t is true that if the poor fisherman
was i'll dressed this was to give finer,
better raiment to Carmen; that if the
husband should labor less, to the end
of sparing his hands, the wife would
have worked far harder, with the re-
suit of spelling her white ones; true,
also, that those eels, which were in
deed Ill smelling, paid for the sweet
scented soaps in which Carmen de-
AL