He had begun youth in the Court of Ferdinand; had gone on in Wellington and other arduous, victorious and unvictorious, soldierings; familiar in camps and council-rooms, in presence-chambers and in prisons.

He knew romantic Spain;--he was himself, standing withal in the vanguard of Freedom's fight, a kind of living romance.

Infinitely interesting to John Sterling, for one.
It was to Torrijos that the poor Spaniards of Somers Town looked mainly, in their helplessness, for every species of help.

Torrijos, it was hoped, would yet lead them into Spain and glorious victory there; meanwhile here in England, under defeat, he was their captain and sovereign in another painfully inverse sense.

To whom, in extremity, everybody might apply.