"There is a big one there, I have risen him once." He waded slowly back to the bank where a second crop of hay was already showing its new green, and sat down.
It seemed that Marcos de Sarrion was behind the times--these new and wordy times into which Spain has floundered so disastrously since Charles III was king--for he gave a deeper attention to the matter in hand than most have time for.

He turned from the hard task of catching a trout in clear water beneath a sunny sky, and gave his attention to his father's letter.
"After all," it read, "I want you, and await you in Saragossa." And that was all.

"Marcos will come," the Count had reflected, "without persuasion.

And explanations are dangerous." In which he was right.

For this river, known as the Wolf, in which Marcos was peacefully fishing, was one of those Northern tributaries of the Ebro which have run with blood any time this hundred years.