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