The Spanish brothers
by Deborah Alcock · English · Gutenberg #44262 · 725,026 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Spanish brothers
A tale of the sixteenth century
Author: Deborah Alcock
Release date: November 23, 2013 [eBook #44262]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPANISH BROTHERS ***
THE SPANISH BROTHERS.
THE
SPANISH BROTHERS
A·TALE·OF·THE·SIXTEENTH·CENTURY.
[Illustration: THE ALGUAZILS PRODUCING THEIR WARRANT FOR ARREST.
_page 215_]
T. NELSON AND SONS
_LONDON, EDINBURGH AND NEW YORK._
THE
SPANISH BROTHERS.
A Tale of the Sixteenth Century.
_By the Author of
"THE CZAR: A TALE OF THE FIRST NAPOLEON."
&c. &c._
* * * * *
"Thy loving-kindness is better than life."
* * * * *
London:
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
* * * * *
1888.
CONTENTS.
I. BOYHOOD, 9
II. THE MONK'S LETTER, 18
III. SWORD AND CASSOCK, 22
IV. ALCALA DE HENAREZ, 28
V. DON CARLOS FORGETS HIMSELF, 34
VI. DON CARLOS FORGETS HIMSELF STILL FURTHER, 44
VII. THE DESENGANO, 49
VIII. THE MULETEER, 58
IX. EL DORADO FOUND, 70
X. DOLORES, 78
XI. THE LIGHT ENJOYED, 88
XII. THE LIGHT DIVIDED FROM THE DARKNESS, 91
XIII. SEVILLE, 105
XIV. THE MONKS OF SAN ISODRO, 116
XV. THE GREAT SANBENITO, 124
XVI. WELCOME HOME, 131
XVII. DISCLOSURES, 138
XVIII. THE AGED MONK, 148
XIX. TRUTH AND FREEDOM, 152
XX. THE FIRST DROP OF A THUNDER SHOWER, 160
XXI. BY THE GUADALQUIVIR, 166
XXII. THE FLOOD-GATES OPENED, 173
XXIII. THE REIGN OF TERROR, 181
XXIV. A GLEAM OF LIGHT, 191
XXV. WAITING, 198
XXVI. DON GONSALVO'S REVENGE, 205
XXVII. MY BROTHER'S KEEPER, 217
XXVIII. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND, 226
XXIX. A FRIEND AT COURT, 233
XXX. THE CAPTIVE, 248
XXXI. MINISTERING ANGELS, 255
XXXII. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, 260
XXXIII. ON THE OTHER SIDE, 271
XXXIV. FRAY SEBASTIAN'S TROUBLE, 282
XXXV. THE EVE OF THE AUTO, 290
XXXVI. "THE HORRIBLE AND TREMENDOUS SPECTACLE," 300
XXXVII. SOMETHING ENDED AND SOMETHING BEGUN, 307
XXXVIII. NUERA AGAIN, 313
XXXIX. LEFT BEHIND, 321
XL. "A SATISFACTORY PENITENT," 329
XLI. MORE ABOUT THE PENITENT, 338
XLII. QUIET DAYS, 347
XLIII. EL DORADO FOUND AGAIN, 357
XLIV. ONE PRISONER SET FREE, 367
XLV. TRIUMPHANT, 374
XLVI. IS IT TOO LATE? 382
XLVII. THE DOMINICAN PRIOR, 390
XLVIII. SAN ISODRO ONCE MORE, 399
XLIX. FAREWELL, 409
THE SPANISH BROTHERS.
I.
Boyhood.
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
LONGFELLOW.
On one of the green slopes of the Sierra Morena, shaded by a few
cork-trees, and with wild craggy heights and bare brown wastes
stretching far above, there stood, about the middle of the sixteenth
century, a castle even then old and rather dilapidated. It had once
been a strong place, but was not very spacious; and certainly,
according to our modern ideas of comfort, the interior could not have
been a particularly comfortable dwelling-place. A large proportion
of it was occupied by the great hall, which was hung with faded,
well-repaired tapestry, and furnished with oaken tables, settles, and
benches, very elaborately carved, but bearing evident marks of age.
Narrow unglazed slits in the thick wall admitted the light and air;
and beside one of these, on a gloomy autumn morning, two boys stood
together, watching the rain that poured down without intermission.
They were dressed exactly alike, in loose jackets of blue cloth,
homespun, indeed, but so fresh and neatly-fashioned as to look more
becoming than many a costlier dress. Their long stockings were of
silk, and their cuffs and wide shirt-frills of fine Holland, carefully
starched and plaited. The elder--a very handsome lad, who looked
fourteen at least, but was really a year younger--had raven hair,
black sparkling eager eyes, good but strongly-marked features, and
a complexion originally dark, and well-tanned by exposure to sun
and wind. A broader forehead, wider nostrils, and a weaker mouth,
distinguished the more delicate-looking younger brother, whose hair was
also less dark, and his complexion fairer.
"Rain--rain! Will it rain for ever?" cried, in a tone of impatience,
the elder, whose name was Juan; or rather, his proper style and title
(and very angry would he have felt had any part been curtailed or
omitted) was Don Juan Rodrigo Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya. He
was of the purest blood in Spain; by the father's side, of noblest
Castilian lineage; by the mother's, of an ancient Asturian family. Well
he knew it, and proudly he held up his young head in consequence, in
spite of poverty, and of what was still worse, the mysterious blight
that had fallen on the name and fortunes of his house, bringing poverty
in its train, as the least of its attendant evils.
"'Rising early will not make the daylight come sooner,' nor watching
bring the sunshine," said the quick-witted Carlos, who, apt in learning
whatever he heard, was already an adept in the proverbial philosophy
which was then, and is now, the inheritance of his race.
"True enough. So let us fetch the canes, and have a merry play. Or,
better still, the foils for a fencing match."
Carlos acquiesced readily, though apparently without pleasure. In all
outward things, such as the choice of pursuits and games, Juan was
the unquestioned leader; Carlos never dreamed of disputing his fiat.
Yet in other, and really more important matters, it was Carlos who,
quite unconsciously to himself, performed the part of guide to his
stronger-willed but less thoughtful brother.
Juan now fetched the carefully guarded foils with which the boys were
accustomed to practise fencing; either, as now, simply for their own
amusement, or under the instructions of the gray-haired Diego, who had
served with their father in the Emperor's wars, and was now mayor-domo,
butler, and seneschal, all in one. He it was, moreover, from whom
Carlos had learned his store of proverbs.
"Now stand up. Oh, you are too low; wait a moment." Juan left the hall
again, but quickly returned with a large heavy volume, which he threw
on the floor, directing his brother to take his stand upon it.
Carlos hesitated. "But what if the Fray should catch us using our great
Horace after such a fashion?"
"I just wish he might," answered Juan, with a mischievous sparkle in
his black eyes.
The matter of height being thus satisfactorily adjusted, the game
began, and for some time went merrily forward. To do the elder brother
justice, he gave every advantage to his less active and less skilful
companion; often shouting (with very unnecessary exertion of his lungs)
words of direction or warning about fore-thrust, side-thrust, back-hand
strokes, hitting, and parrying. At last, however, in an unlucky moment,
Carlos, through some awkward movement of his own in violation of the
rules of the game, received a blow on the cheek from his brother's
foil, severe enough to make the blood flow. Juan instantly sprang
forward, full of vexation, with an "Ay de mi!" on his lips. But Carlos
turned away from him, covering his face with both hands; and Juan, much
to his disgust, soon heard the sound of a heavy sob.
"You little coward!" he exclaimed, "to weep for a blow. Shame--shame
upon you."
"Coward yourself, to call me ill names when I cannot fight you,"
retorted Carlos, as soon as he could speak for weeping.
"That is ever your way, little tearful. _You_ to talk of going to find
our father! A brave man you would make to sail to the Indies and fight
the savages. Better sit at home and spin, with Mother Dolores."
Far too deeply stung to find a proverb suited to the occasion, or
indeed to make any answer whatever, Carlos, still in tears, left the
hall with hasty footsteps, and took refuge in a smaller apartment that
opened into it.
The hangings of this room were comparatively new and very beautiful,
being tastefully wrought with the needle; and the furniture was much
more costly than that in the hall. There was also a glazed window, and
near this Carlos took his stand, looking moodily out on the falling
rain, and thinking hard thoughts of his brother, who had first hurt him
so sorely, then called him coward, and last, and far worst of all, had
taunted him with his unfitness for the task which, child as he was, his
whole heart and soul were bent on attempting.
But he could not quarrel very seriously with Juan, nor indeed could he
for any considerable time do without him. Before long his anger began
to give way to utter loneliness and discomfort, and a great longing to
"be friends" again.
Nor was Juan much more comfortable, though he told himself he was
quite right to reprove his brother sharply for his lack of manliness;
and that he would be ready to die for shame if Carlos, when he went
to Seville, should disgrace himself before his cousins by crying when
he was hurt, like a baby or a girl. It is true that in his heart he
rather wished he himself had held his peace, or at least had spoken
more gently; but he braved it out, and stamped up and down the hall,
singing, in as cheery a voice as he could command,--
"The Cid rode through the horse-shoe gate, Omega like it stood,
A symbol of the moon that waned before the Christian rood.
He was all sheathed in golden mail, his cloak was white as shroud;
His vizor down, his sword unsheathed, corpse still he rode,
and proud."
"Ruy!" Carlos called at last, just a little timidly, from the next
room--"Ruy!"
Ruy is the Spanish diminutive of Rodrigo, Juan's second name, and the
one by which, for reasons of his own, it pleased him best to be called;
so the very use of it by Carlos was a kind of overture for peace.
Juan came right gladly at the call; and having convinced himself, by
a moment's inspection, that his brother's hurt signified nothing, he
completed the reconciliation by putting his arm, in familiar boyish
fashion, round his neck. Thus, without a word spoken, the brief quarrel
was at an end. It happened that the rain was over also, and the sun
just beginning to shine out again. It was, indeed, an effect of the
sunlight which had given Carlos a pretext for calling Juan again to his
side.
"Look, Ruy," he said, "the sun shines on our father's words!"
These children had a secret of their own, carefully guarded, with the
strange reticence of childhood, even from Dolores, who had been the
faithful nurse of their infancy, and who still cast upon their young
lives the only shadow of motherly love they had ever known--a shadow,
it is true, pale and faint, yet the best thing that had fallen to their
lot: for even Juan could remember neither parent; while Carlos had
never seen his father's face, and his mother had died at his birth.
Yet it happened that in the imaginary world which the children had
created around them, and where they chiefly lived, their unknown father
was by far the most important personage. All great nations in their
childhood have their legends, their epics, written or unwritten, and
their hero, one or many of them, upon whose exploits Fancy rings its
changes at will during the ages when national language, literature, and
character are in process of development. So it is with individuals.
Children of imagination--especially if they are brought up in
seclusion, and guarded from coarse and worldly companionship--are sure
to have their legends, perhaps their unwritten epic, certainly their
hero. Nor are these dreams of childhood idle fancies. In their time
they are good and beautiful gifts of God--healthful for the present,
helpful for after-years. There is deep truth in the poets words, "When
thou art a man, reverence the dreams of thy youth."
The Cid Campeador, the Charlemagne, and the King Arthur of our youthful
Spanish brothers, was no other than Don Juan Alvarez de Menaya, second
and last Conde de Nuera. And as the historical foundation of national
romance is apt to be of the slightest--nay, the testimony of credible
history is often ruthlessly set at defiance--so it is with the romances
of children; nor did the present instance form any exception. All the
world said that their father's bones lay bleaching on a wild Araucanian
battle-field; but this went for nothing in the eyes of Juan and
Carlos Alvarez. Quite enough to build their childish faith upon was a
confidential whisper of Dolores--when she thought them sleeping--to the
village barber-surgeon, who was helping her to tend them through some
childish malady: "Dead? Would to all the Saints, and the blessed Queen
of Heaven, that we only had assurance of it!"
They had, however, more than this. Almost every day they read and
re-read those mysterious words, traced with a diamond by their father's
hand--as it never entered their heads to doubt--on the window of the
room which had once been his favourite place of retirement:--
"El Dorado
Yo hé trovado."
"I have found El Dorado."
No eyes but their own had ever noticed this inscription; and marvellous
indeed was the superstructure their fancy contrived to raise on the
slight and airy foundation of its enigmatical five words. They had
heard from the lips of Diego many of the fables current at the period
about the "golden country" of which Spanish adventurers dreamed so
wildly, and which they sought so vainly in the New World. They were
aware that their father in his early days had actually made a voyage to
the Indies: and they had thoroughly persuaded themselves, therefore, of
nothing less than that he was the fortunate discoverer of El Dorado;
that he had returned thither, and was reigning there as a king, rich
and happy--only, perhaps, longing for his brave boys to come and join
him. And join him one day they surely would, even though unheard of
dangers (of which giants twelve feet high and fiery dragons--things in
which they quite believed--were among the least) might lie in their
way, thick as the leaves of the cork-trees when the autumn winds swept
down through the mountain gorges.
"Look, Ruy," said Carlos, "the light is on our father's words!"
"So it is! What good fortune is coming now? Something always comes to
us when they look like that."
"What do you wish for most?"
"A new bow, and a set of real arrows tipped with steel. And you?"
"Well--the 'Chronicles of the Cid,' I think."
"I should like that too. But I should like better still--"
"What?"
"That Fray Sebastian would fall ill of the rheum, and find the mountain
air too cold for his health; or get some kind of good place at his
beloved Complutum."
"We might go farther and fare worse, like those that go to look for
better bread than wheaten," returned Carlos, laughing. "Wish again,
Juan; and truly this time--your wish of wishes."
"What else but to find my father?"
"I mean, next to that."
"Well, truly, to go once more to Seville, to see the shops, and the
bull-fights, and the great Church; to tilt with our cousins, and dance
the cachuca with Doña Beatriz."
"That would not I. There be folk that go out for wool, and come home
shorn. Though I like Doña Beatriz as well as any one."
"Hush! here comes Dolores."
A tall, slender woman, robed in black serge, relieved by a neat white
head-dress, entered the room. Dark hair, threaded with silver, and
pale, sunken, care-worn features, made her look older than she really
was. She had once been beautiful; and it seemed as though her beauty
had been burned up in the glare of some fierce agony, rather than had
faded gradually beneath the suns of passing years. With the silent
strength of a deep, passionate heart, that had nothing else left to
cling to, Dolores loved the children of her idolized mistress and
foster-sister. It was chiefly her talent and energy that kept together
the poor remains of their fortune. She surrounded them with as many
inexpensive comforts as possible; still, like a true Spaniard, she
would at any moment have sacrificed their comfort to the maintenance of
their rank, or the due upholding of their dignity. On this occasion she
held an open letter in her hand.
"Young gentlemen," she said, using the formal style of address no
familiarity ever induced her to drop, "I bring your worships good
tidings. Your noble uncle, Don Manuel, is about to honour your castle
with his presence."
"Good tidings indeed! I am as glad as if you had given me a satin
doublet. He may take us back with him to Seville," cried Juan.
"He might have stayed at home, with good luck and my blessing,"
murmured Carlos.
"Whether you go to Seville or no, Señor Don Juan," said Dolores,
gravely, "may very probably depend on the contentment you give your
noble uncle respecting your progress in your Latin, your grammar, and
your other humanities."
"A green fig for my noble uncle's contentment!" said Juan,
irreverently. "I know already as much as any gentleman need, and ten
times more than he does himself."
"Ay, truly," struck in Carlos, coming forward from the embrasure of the
window; "my uncle thinks a man of learning--except he be a fellow of
college, perchance--not worth his ears full of water. I heard him say
such only trouble the world, and bring sorrow on themselves and all
their kin. So, Juan, it is you who are likely to find favour in his
sight, after all."
"Señor Don Carlos, what ails your face?" asked Dolores, noticing now
for the first time the marks of the hurt he had received.
Both the boys spoke together.
"Only a blow caught in fencing; all through my own awkwardness. It is
nothing," said Carlos, eagerly.
"I hurt him with my foil. It was a mischance. I am very sorry," said
Juan, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.
Dolores wisely abstained from exhorting them to greater carefulness.
She only said,--
"Young gentlemen who mean to be knights and captains must learn to give
hard blows and take them." Adding mentally--"Bless the lads! May they
stand by each other as loyally ten or twenty years hence as they do
now."
II.
The Monk's Letter.
"Quoth the good fat friar,
Wiping his own mouth--'twas refection time."
R. BROWNING.
Fray Sebastian Gomez, to the Honourable Señor Felipe de Santa Maria,
Licentiate of Theology, residing at Alcala de Henarez, commonly called
Complutum.
"Most Illustrious and Reverend Señor,--
"In my place of banishment, amidst these gloomy and inhospitable
mountains, I frequently solace my mind by reflections upon the
friends of my youth, and the happy period spent in those ancient
halls of learning, where in the morning of our days you and I
together attended the erudite prelections of those noble and most
orthodox Grecians, Demetrius Ducas and Nicetus Phaustus, or sat
at the feet of that venerable patriarch of science, Don Fernando
Nuñez. Fortunate are you, O friend, in being able to pass your days
amidst scenes so pleasant and occupations so congenial; while I,
unhappy, am compelled by fate, and by the neglect of friends and
patrons, to take what I may have, in place of having what I might
wish. I am, alas! under the necessity of wearing out my days in
the ungrateful occupation of instilling the rudiments of humane
learning into the dull and careless minds of children, whom to
instruct is truly to write upon sand or water. But not to weary
your excellent and illustrious friendship with undue prolixity,
I shall briefly relate the circumstances which led to my sojourn
here."
(The good friar proceeds with his personal narrative, but by no means
briefly; and as it has, moreover, little or nothing to do with our
story, it may be omitted with advantage.)
"In this desert, as I may truly style it" (he continues),
"nutriment for the corporeal frame is as poor and bare as nutriment
for the intellectual part is altogether lacking. Alas! for the
golden wine of Xerez, that ambery nectar wherewith we were wont
to refresh our jaded spirits! I may not mention now our temperate
banquets: the crisp red mullet, the succulent pasties, the
delicious ham of Estremadura, the savoury olla podrida. Here beef
is rarely seen, veal never. Our olla is of lean mutton (if it be
not rather of the flesh of goats), washed down with bad vinegar,
called wine by courtesy, and supplemented by a few naughty figs or
roasted chestnuts, with cheese of goat's milk, hard as the heads
of the rustics who make it. Certainly I am experiencing the truth
of the proverb, 'A bad cook is an inconvenient relation.' And
marvellously would a cask of Xerez wine, if, through the kindness
of my generous friends, it could find its way to these remote
mountains, mend my fare, and in all probability prolong my days.
The provider here is an antiquated, sour-faced duenna, who rules
everything in this old ruin of a castle, where poverty and pride
are the only things to be found in plenty. She is an Asturian, and
came hither in the train of the late unfortunate countess. Like all
of that race, where the very shepherds style themselves nobles,
she is proud; but it is just to add that she is also active,
industrious, and thrifty to a miracle.
"But to pass on to affairs of greater importance. I have presumed,
on the part of my illustrious friend, some acquaintance with the
sorrowful history of my young pupils' family. You will remember
the sudden shadow that fell, like the eclipse of one of the bright
orbs of heaven, upon the fame and fortunes of the Conde de Nuera,
known, some fifteen years ago or more, as a brilliant soldier and
courtier, and personal favourite of his Imperial Majesty. There
was a rumour of some black treason, I know not what, but men said
it even struck at the life of the great Emperor, his friend and
patron. It is supposed that the Emperor (whom God preserve!), in
his just wrath remembered mercy, and generously saved the honour,
while he punished the crime, of his ungrateful servant. At all
events, the world was told that the Count had accepted a command in
the Indies, and that he sailed thither from some port in the Low
Countries to which the Emperor had summoned him, without returning
to Spain. It is believed that, to save his neck from the axe and
his name from dire disgrace, he signed away, by his own act, his
large property to the Emperor and to Holy Church, reserving only
a pittance for his children. One year afterwards, his death, in
battle with the Araucanian savages, was announced, and, if I am
not mistaken, His Majesty was gracious enough to have masses said
for his soul. But, at the time, the tongue of rumour whispered a
far more dreadful ending to the tale. Men hinted that, upon the
discovery of his treason, he despaired alike of human and divine
compassion, and perished miserably by his own hand. But all
possible pains were taken, for the sake of the family, to hush up
the affair; and nothing certain has ever, or probably will ever,
transpire. I am doubtful whether I am not a transgressor in having
committed to paper what is written above. Still, as it is written,
it shall stand. With you, most illustrious and honourable friend,
all things are safe.
"The youths whom it is my task to instruct are not deficient in
parts. But the elder, Don Juan, is idle and insolent; and withal,
of so fiery a temper, that he will brook no manner of correction.
The younger, Don Carlos, is more toward in disposition, and really
apt at his humanities, were it not that his good-for-nothing
brother is for ever leading him into mischief. Don Manuel Alvarez,
their uncle and guardian, who is a shrewd man of the world, will
certainly cause him to enter the Church. But I pray, as I am
bound in Christian charity, that it may not occur to him to make
the lad a Minorite friar, since, as I can testify from sorrowful
experience, such go barely enough through this wicked and miserable
world.
"In conclusion, I entreat of you, most illustrious friend, with
the utmost despatch and carefulness, to commit this writing to the
flames; and so I pray our Lady and the blessed St. Luke, upon whose
vigil I write, to have you in their good keeping.--
Your unworthy brother, "SEBASTIAN."
Thus, with averted face, or head shaken doubtfully, or murmured "Ay de
mi," the world spoke of him, of whom his own children, happy at least
in this, knew scarce anything, save words that seemed like a cry of
joy.
III.
Sword and Cassock.
"The helmet and the cap make houses strong."
SPANISH PROVERB.
Don Manuel Alvarez stayed for several days at Nuera, as the half-ruined
castle in the Sierra Morena was styled. Grievous, during this period,
were the sufferings of Dolores, and unceasing her efforts to provide
suitable accommodation, not merely for the stately and fastidious guest
himself, but also for the troop of retainers he saw fit to bring with
him, comprising three or four personal attendants, and half a score of
men-at-arms--the last perhaps really necessary for a journey through
that wild district. Don Manuel scarcely enjoyed the situation more than
did his entertainers, but he esteemed it his duty to pay an occasional
visit to the estate of his orphan nephews, to see that it was properly
taken care of. Perhaps the only member of the party quite at his ease
was the worthy Fray Sebastian, a good-natured, self-indulgent friar,
with a better education and more refined tastes than the average
of his order; fond of eating and drinking, fond of gossip, fond of
a little superficial literature, and not fond of troubling himself
about anything. He was comforted by the improved fare Don Manuel's
visit introduced; and was, moreover, soon relieved from his very
natural apprehensions that the guardian of his pupils might express
discontent at the slowness of their progress. He speedily discovered
that Don Manuel did not care to have his nephews made good scholars:
he only cared to have them ready, in two or three years, to go to the
University of Complutum, or to that of Salamanca, where they might
remain until they were satisfactorily provided for--one in the Army,
the other in the Church.
As for Juan and Carlos, they felt, with the sure instinct of children,
in this respect something like that of animals, that their uncle had
little love for them. Juan dreaded, more than under the circumstances
he need have done, too careful inquiries into his progress; and
Carlos, while he stood in great outward awe of his uncle, all the time
contrived to despise him in his heart, because he neither knew Latin,
nor could repeat any of the ballads of the Cid.
On the third day of his visit, after dinner, which was at noon,
Don Manuel solemnly seated himself in the great carved armchair
that stood on the estrada at one end of the hall, and summoned his
nephews to his side. He was a tall, wiry-looking man, with a narrow
forehead, thin lips, and a pointed beard. His dress was of the finest
mulberry-coloured cloth, turned back with velvet; everything about him
was rich, handsome, and in good keeping, but without extravagance. His
manner was dignified, perhaps a little pompous, like that of a man bent
upon making the most of himself, as he had unquestionably made the most
of his fortune.
He first addressed Juan, whom he gravely reminded that his father's
_imprudence_ had left him nothing save that poor ruin of a castle,
and a few barren acres of rocky ground, at which the boy's eyes
flashed, and he shrugged his shoulders and bit his lip. Don Manuel then
proceeded, at some length, to extol the noble profession of arms as
the road to fame and fortune. This kind of language proved much more
acceptable to his nephew, and looking up, he said promptly, "Yes,
señor my uncle, I will gladly be a soldier, as all my fathers were."
"Well spoken. And when thou art old enough, I promise to use my
influence to obtain for thee a good appointment in His Imperial
Majesty's army. I trust thou wilt honour thine ancient name."
"You may trust me," said Juan, in slow, earnest tones. Then raising his
head, he went on more rapidly: "Beside his own name, Juan, my father
gave me that of Rodrigo, borne by the Cid Ruy Diaz, the Campeador,
meaning no doubt to show--"
"Peace, boy!" Don Miguel interrupted, cutting short the only words
that his nephew had ever spoken really from his heart in his presence,
with as much unconsciousness as a countryman might set his foot on a
glow-worm. "Thou wert never named Rodrigo after thy Cid and his idle
romances. Thy father called thee so after some madcap friend of his
own, of whom the less spoken the better."
"My father's friend must have been good and noble, like himself," said
Juan proudly, almost defiantly.
"Young man," returned Don Manuel severely, and lifting his eyebrows as
if in surprise at his audacity, "learn that a humbler tone and more
courteous manners would become thee in the presence of thy superiors."
Then turning haughtily away from him, he addressed himself to Carlos:
"As for thee, nephew Carlos, I hear with pleasure of thy progress in
learning. Fray Sebastian reports of thee that thou hast a good ready
wit and a retentive memory. Moreover, if I mistake not, sword cuts
are less in thy way than in thy brother's. The service of Holy Mother
Church will fit thee like a glove; and let me tell thee, boy, for thou
art old enough to understand me, 'tis a right good service. Churchmen
eat well and drink well--churchmen sleep soft--churchmen spend their
days fingering the gold other folk toil and bleed for. For those who
have fair interest in high places, and shuffle their own cards deftly,
there be good fat benefices, comfortable canonries, and perhaps--who
knows?--a rich bishopric at the end of all; with a matter of ten
thousand hard ducats, at the least, coming in every year to save or
spend, or lend, if you like it better."
"Ten thousand ducats!" said Carlos, who had been gazing in his
uncle's face, his large blue eyes full of half-incredulous,
half-uncomprehending wonder.
"Ay, my son, that is about the least. The Archbishop of Seville has
sixty thousand every year, and more."
"Ten thousand ducats!" Carlos repeated again in a kind of awe-struck
whisper. "That would buy a ship."
"Yes," said Don Manuel, highly pleased with what he considered an
indication of precocious intelligence in money matters. "And an
excellent thought that is of thine, my son. A good ship chartered for
the Indies, and properly freighted, would bring thee back thy ducats
_well perfumed_.[1] For a ship is sailing while you are sleeping. As
the saying is, Let the idle man buy a ship or marry a wife. I perceive
thou art a youth of much ingenuity. What thinkest thou, then, of the
Church?"
[1] With good interest.
Carlos was still too much the child to say anything in answer except,
"If it please you, señor my uncle, I should like it well."
And thus, with rather more than less consideration of their tastes and
capacities than was usual at the time, the future of Juan and Carlos
Alvarez was decided.
When the brothers were alone together, Juan said, "Dolores must have
been praying Our Lady for us, Carlos. An appointment in the army is
the very thing for me. I shall perform some great feat of arms, like
Alphonso Vives, for instance, who took the Duke of Saxony prisoner; I
shall win fame and promotion, and then come back and ask my uncle for
the hand of his ward, Doña Beatriz."
"Ah, and I--if I enter the Church, I can never marry," said Carlos
rather ruefully, and with a vague perception that his brother was to
have some good thing from which he must be shut out for ever.
"Of course not; but you will not care."
"Never a whit," said the boy of twelve, very confidently. "I shall
ever have thee, Juan. And all the gold my uncle says churchmen win so
easily, I will save to buy our ship."
"I will also save, so that one day we may sail together. I will be the
captain, and thou shalt be the mass-priest, Carlos."
"But I marvel if it be true that churchmen grow rich so fast. The cura
in the village must be very poor, for Diego told me he took old Pedro's
cloak because he could not pay the dues for his wife's burial."
"More shame for him, the greedy vulture. Carlos, you and I have each
half a ducat; let us buy it back."
"With all my heart. It will be worth something to see the old man's
face."
"The cura is covetous rather than poor," said Juan. "But poor or no, no
one dreams of _your_ being a beggarly cura like that. It is only vulgar
fellows of whom they make parish priests in the country. You will get
some fine preferment, my uncle says. And he ought to know, for he has
feathered his own nest well."
"Why is he rich when we are poor, Juan? Where does he get all his
money?"
"The saints know best. He has places under Government. Something about
the taxes. I think, that he buys and sells again."
"In truth, he's not one to measure oil without getting some on his
fingers. How different from him our father must have been."
"Yes," said Juan. "_His_ riches, won by his own sword and battle-axe,
and his good right hand, will be worth having. Ay, and even worth
seeing; will they not?"
So these children dreamed of the future--that future of which nothing
was certain, except its unlikeness to their dreams. No thing was
certain; but what was only too probable? That the brave, free-hearted
boy, who had never willingly injured any one, and who was ready to
share his last coin with the poor man, would be hardened and brutalized
into a soldier of fortune, like those who massacred tribes of trusting,
unoffending Indians, or burned Flemish cities to the ground, amidst
atrocities that even now make hearts quail and ears tingle. And yet
worse, that the fair child beside him, whose life still shone with
that child-like innocence which is truly the dew of youth, as bright
and as fleeting, would be turned over, soul and spirit, to a system of
training too surely calculated to obliterate the sense of truth, to
deprave the moral taste, to make natural and healthful joys impossible,
and unlawful and degrading ones fearfully easy and attainable; to teach
the strong nature the love of power, the mean the love of money, and
all alike falsehood, cowardice, and cruelty.
IV.
Alcala de Henarez.
"Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning,
Her tears and her smiles are worth evening's best light."
MOORE.
Few are the lives in which seven years come and go without witnessing
any great event. But whether they are eventful or no, the years that
change children into men must necessarily be important. Three years of
these important seven, Juan and Carlos Alvarez spent in their mountain
home; the remaining four at the University of Alcala, or Complutum.
The university training was of course needful for the younger brother,
who was intended for the Church. That the elder was allowed to share
the privilege, although destined for the profession of arms, was the
result of circumstances. His guardian, Don Manuel Alvarez, although
worldly and selfish, still retained a lingering regard for the memory
of that lost brother whose latest message to him had been, "Have my
boy carefully educated." And, moreover, he could scarcely have left
the high-spirited youth to wear out the years that must elapse before
he could obtain his commission in the dreary solitude of his mountain
home, with Diego and Dolores for companions, and for sole amusement, a
horse and a few greyhounds. Better that he should take his chance at
Alcala, and enjoy himself there as best he might, with no obligation
to severe study, and but one duty strongly impressed on him--that of
keeping out of debt.
He derived real benefit from the university training, though no
academic laurels rested on his brow, nor did he take a degree. Fray
Sebastian had taught him to read and write, and had even contrived to
pass him through the Latin grammar, of which he afterwards remembered
scarcely anything. To have urged him to learn more would have required
severity only too popular at the time; but this Fray Sebastian was too
timid, perhaps too prudent, to employ; while of interesting him in his
studies he never thought. At Alcala, however, he _was_ interested.
He did not care, indeed, for the ordinary scholastic course; but
he found in the college library all the books yet written in his
native language, and it was then the palmy age of Spanish literature.
Beginning with the poems and romances relating to the history of his
country, he read through everything; poetry, romance, history, science,
nothing came amiss to him, except perhaps theology. He studied with
especial care all that had reference to the story of the New World,
whither he hoped one day to go. He attended lectures; he even acquired
Latin enough to learn anything he really wanted to know, and could not
find except in that language.
Thus, at the end of his four years' residence, he had acquired a good
deal of useful though somewhat desultory information; and he had gained
the art of expressing himself in the purest Castilian, by tongue or
pen, with energy, vigour, and precision.
The sixteenth century gives us many specimens of such men--and
not a few of them were Spaniards--men of intelligence and general
cultivation, whose profession was that of arms, but who can handle the
pen with as much ease and dexterity as the sword; men who could not
only do valiant deeds, but also describe them when done, and that often
with singular effectiveness.
With his contemporaries Juan was popular, for his pride was
inaggressive, and his fiery temper was counterbalanced by great
generosity of disposition. During his residence at Alcala he fought
three duels; one to chastise a fellow-student who had called his
brother "Doña Carlotta," the other two on being provoked by the far
more serious offence of covert sneers at his father's memory. He also
caned severely a youth whom he did not think of sufficient rank to
honour with his sword, merely for observing, when Carlos won a prize
from him, "Don Carlos Alvarez unites genius and industry, as he would
need to do, who is the _son of his own good works_." But afterwards,
when the same student was in danger, through poverty, of having to give
up his career and return home, Juan stole into his chamber during his
absence, and furtively deposited four gold ducats (which he could ill
spare) between the leaves of his breviary.
Far more outwardly successful, but more really disastrous, was the
academic career of Carlos. As student of theology, most of his days,
and even some of his nights, were spent over the musty tomes of the
Schoolmen. Like living water on the desert, his young bright intellect
was poured out on the dreary sands of scholastic divinity (little else,
in truth, than "bad metaphysics"), to no appreciable result, except its
own utter waste. The kindred study of casuistry was even worse than
waste of intellect; it was positive defilement and degradation. It was
bad enough to tread with painful steps through roads that led nowhere;
but it became worse when the roads were miry, and the mud at every step
clung to the traveller's feet. Though here the parallel must cease; for
the moral defilement, alas! is most deadly and dangerous when least
felt or heeded.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, according as we look on the things seen
or the things not seen, Carlos offered to his instructors admirable
raw material out of which to fashion a successful, even a great
Churchman. He came to them a stripling of fifteen, innocent, truthful,
affectionate. He had "parts," as they styled them, and singularly good
ones. He had just the acute perception, the fine and ready wit, which
enabled him to cut his way through scholastic subtleties and conceits
with ease and credit. And, to do his teachers justice, they sharpened
his intellectual weapon well, until its temper grew as exquisite as
that of the scimitar of Saladin, which could divide a gauze kerchief by
the thread at a single blow. But how would it fare with such a weapon,
and with him who, having proved no other, could wield only that, in the
great conflict with the Dragon that guarded the golden apples of truth?
The question is idle, for truth was a luxury of which Carlos was not
taught to dream. To find truth, to think truth, to speak truth, to act
truth, was not placed before him as an object worth his attainment. Not
the _True_, but the _Best_, was always held up to him as the mark to be
aimed at: the best for the Church, the best for his family, the best
for himself.
He had much imagination, he was quick in invention and ready in
expedients; good gifts in themselves, but very perilous where the
sense of truth is lacking, or blunted. He was timid, as sensitive and
reflective natures are apt to be, perhaps also from physical causes.
And in those rough ages, the Church offered almost the only path in
which the timid man could not only escape infamy, but actually attain
to honour. In her service a strong head could more than atone for
weak nerves. Power, fame, wealth, might be gained in abundance by
the Churchman without stirring from his cell or chapel, or facing a
single drawn sword or loaded musket. Always provided that his subtle,
cultivated intellect could guide the rough hands that wielded the
swords, or, better still, the crowned head that commanded them.
There may have been even then at that very university (there certainly
were a few years earlier), a little band of students who had quite
other aims, and who followed other studies than those from which Carlos
hoped to reap worldly success and fame. These youths really desired
to find the truth and to keep it; and therefore they turned from
the pages of the Fathers and the Schoolmen to the Scriptures in the
original languages. But the "Biblists," as they were called, were few
and obscure. Carlos did not, during his whole term of residence, come
in contact with any of them. The study of Hebrew, and even of Greek,
was by this time discouraged; the breath of calumny had blown upon it,
linking it with all that was horrible in the eyes of Spanish Catholics,
summed up in the one word, heresy. Carlos never even dreamed of any
excursion out of the beaten path marked out for him, and which he was
travelling so successfully as to distance nearly all his competitors.
Both Juan and Carlos still clung fondly to their early dream; though
their wider knowledge had necessarily modified some of its details.
Carlos, at least, was not quite so confident as he had once been about
the existence of El Dorado; but he was as fully determined as Juan to
search out the mystery of their father's fate, and either to clasp his
living hand, or to stand beside his grave. The love of the brothers,
and their trust in each other, had only strengthened with their years,
and was beautiful to witness.
Occasional journeys to Seville, and brief intervals of making holiday
there, varied the monotony of their college life, and were not without
important results.
It was the summer of 1556. The great Carlos, so lately King and Kaiser,
had laid down the heavy burden of sovereignty, and would soon be on his
way to pleasant San Yuste, to mortify the flesh, and prepare for his
approaching end, as the world believed; but in reality to eat, drink,
and enjoy himself as well as his worn-out body and mind would allow
him. Just then our young Juan, healthy, hearty, hopeful, and with the
world before him, received the long wished-for appointment in the army
of the new King of all the Spains, Don Felipe Segunde.
The brothers have eaten their last temperate meal together, in their
handsome, though not very comfortable, lodging at Alcala. Juan pushes
away the wine-cup that Carlos would fain have refilled, and toys
absently with the rind of a melon. "Carlos," he says, without looking
his brother in the face, "remember that thing of which we spoke;"
adding in lower and more earnest tones, "and so may God remember thee."
"Surely, brother. You have, however, little to fear."
"Little to fear!" and there was the old quick flash in the dark eyes.
"Because, forsooth, to spare my aunt's selfishness and my cousin's
vanity, she must not be seen at dance, or theatre, or bull-feast? It is
enough for her to show her face on the Alameda or at mass to raise me
up a host of rivals."
"Still, my uncle favours you; and Doña Beatriz herself will not be
found of a different mind when you come home with your promotion and
your glory, as you will, my Ruy!"
"Then, brother, watch thou in my absence, and fail not to speak the
right word at the right moment, as thou canst so well. So shall I hold
myself at ease, and give my whole mind to the noble task of breaking
the heads of all the enemies of my liege lord the king."
Then, rising from the table, he girt on his new Toledo sword with its
embroidered belt, threw over his shoulders his short scarlet cloak, and
flung a gay velvet montero over his rich black curls. Don Carlos went
out with him, and mounting the horses a lad from their country-home
held in readiness, they rode together down the street and through the
gate of Alcala; Don Juan followed by many an admiring gaze, and many a
hearty "Vaya con Dios,"[2] from his late companions.
[2] Go with God.
V.
Don Carlos forgets himself.
"A fair face and a tender voice had made me mad and blind."
E.B. BROWNING.
Don Carlos Alvarez found Alcala, after his brother's departure,
insupportably dull; moreover, he had now almost finished his brilliant
university career. As soon, therefore, as he could, he took his degree
as Licentiate of Theology. He then wrote to inform his uncle of the
fact; adding that he would be glad to spend part of the interval that
must elapse before his ordination at Seville, where he might attend
the lectures of the celebrated Fray Constantino Ponce de la Fuente,
Professor of Divinity in the College of Doctrine in that city. But, in
fact, a desire to fulfil his brother's last charge weighed more with
him than an eagerness for further instruction; especially as rumours
that his watchfulness was not unnecessary had reached his ears at
Alcala.
He received a prompt and kind invitation from his uncle to make his
house his home for as long a period as he might desire. Now, although
Don Manuel was highly pleased with the genius and industry of his
younger nephew, the hospitality he extended to him was not altogether
disinterested. He thought Carlos capable of rendering what he deemed an
essential service to a member of his own family.
That family consisted of a beautiful, gay, frivolous wife, three sons,
two daughters, and his wife's orphan niece, Doña Beatriz de Lavella.
The two elder sons were cast in their father's mould; which, to speak
truth, was rather that of a merchant than of a cavalier. Had he been
born of simple parents in the flats of Holland or the back streets of
London, a vulgar Hans or Thomas, his tastes and capabilities might have
brought him honest wealth. But since he had the misfortune to be Don
Manuel Alvarez, of the bluest blood in Spain, he was taught to look on
industry as ineffably degrading, and trade and commerce scarcely less
so. Only one species of trade, one kind of commerce, was open to the
needy and avaricious, but proud grandee. Unhappily it was almost the
only kind that is really degrading--the traffic in public money, in
places, and in taxes. "A sweeping rain leaving no food," such traffic
was, in truth. The Government was defrauded; the people, especially the
poorer classes, were cruelly oppressed. No one was enriched except the
greedy jobber, whose birth rendered him infinitely too proud to work,
but by no means too proud to cheat and steal.
Don Manuel the younger, and Don Balthazar Alvarez, were ready and
longing to tread in their father's footsteps. Of the two pale-faced
dark-eyed sisters, Doña Inez and Doña Sancha, one was already married,
and the other had also plans satisfactory to her parents. But the
person in the family who was not of it was the youngest son, Don
Gonsalvo. He was the representative, not of his father, but of his
grandfather; as we so often see types of character reproduced in the
third generation. The first Conde de Nuera had been a wild soldier of
fortune in the Moorish wars, fierce and fiery, with strong unbridled
passions. At eighteen, Gonsalvo was his image; and there was scarcely
any mischief possible to a youth of fortune in a great city, into
which he had not already found his way. For two years he continued to
scandalize his family, and to vex the soul of his prudent and decorous
father.
Suddenly, however, a change came over him. He reformed; became
quiet and regular in his conduct; gave himself up to study, making
extraordinary progress in a very short time; and even showed what those
around him called "a pious disposition." But these hopeful appearances
passed as suddenly and as unaccountably as they came. After an interval
of less than a year, he returned to his former habits, and plunged even
more madly than ever into all kinds of vice and dissipation.
His father resolved to procure him a commission, and send him away to
the wars. But an accident frustrated his intentions. In those days,
cavaliers of rank frequently sought the dangerous triumphs of the
bull-ring. The part of matador was performed, not, as now, by hired
bravos of the lowest class, but often by scions of the most honourable
houses. Gonsalvo had more than once distinguished himself in the bloody
arena by courage and coolness. But he tempted his fate too often. Upon
one occasion he was flung violently from his horse, and then gored by
the furious bull, whose rage had been excited to the utmost pitch by
the cruel arts usually practised. He escaped with life, but remained
a crippled invalid, apparently condemned for the rest of his days to
inaction, weakness, and suffering.
His father thought a good canonry would be a decent and comfortable
provision for him, and pressed him accordingly to enter the Church. But
the invalided youth manifested an intense repugnance to the step; and
Don Manuel hoped that the influence of Carlos would help to overcome
this feeling; believing that he would gladly endeavour to persuade his
cousin that no way of life was so pleasant or so easy as that which he
himself was about to adopt.
The good nature of Carlos led him to fall heartily into his uncle's
plans. He really pitied his cousin, moreover, and gladly gave himself
to the task of trying in every possible way to console and amuse him.
But Gonsalvo rudely repelled all his efforts. In his eyes the destined
priest was half a woman, with no knowledge of a man's aims or a man's
passions, and consequently no right to speak of them.
"Turn priest!" he said to him one day; "I have as good a mind to turn
Turk. Nay, cousin, I am not pious--you may present my orisons to Our
Lady with your own, if it so please you. Perhaps she may attend to them
better than to those I offered before entering the bull-ring on that
unlucky day of St. Thomas."
Carlos, though not particularly devout, was shocked by this language.
"Take care, cousin," he said; "your words sound rather like blasphemy."
"And yours sound like the words of what you are, half a priest
already," retorted Gonsalvo. "It is ever the priest's cry, if you
displease him, 'Open heresy!' 'Rank blasphemy!' And next, 'the Holy
Office, and a yellow Sanbenito.' I marvel it did not occur to your
sanctity to menace me with that."
The gentle-tempered Carlos did not answer; a forbearance which further
exasperated Gonsalvo, who hated nothing so much as being, on account of
his infirmities, borne with like a woman or a child. "But the saints
help the Churchmen," he went on ironically. "Good simple souls, they do
not know even their own business! Else they would smell heresy close
enough at hand. What doctrine does your Fray Constantino preach in the
great Church every feast-day, since they made him canon-magistral?"
"The most orthodox and Catholic doctrine, and no other," said Carlos,
roused, in his turn, by the attack upon his teacher; though he did
not greatly care for his instructions, which turned principally upon
subjects about which he had learned little or nothing in the schools.
"But to hear thee discuss doctrine is to hear a blind man talking of
colours."
"If I be the blind man talking of colours, thou art the deaf prating of
music," retorted his cousin. "Come and tell me, if thou canst, what
are these doctrines of thy Fray Constantino, and wherein they differ
from the Lutheran heresy? I wager my gold chain and medal against thy
new velvet cloak, that thou wouldst fall thyself into as many heresies
by the way as there are nuts in Barcelona."
Allowing for Gonsalvo's angry exaggeration, there was some truth in his
assertion. Once out of the region of dialectic subtleties, the champion
of the schools would have become weak as another man. And he could
not have expounded Fray Constantino's preaching;--because he did not
understand it.
"What, cousin!" he exclaimed, affronted in his tenderest part,
his reputation as a theological scholar. "Dost thou take me for a
barefooted friar or a village cura? Me, who only two months ago was
crowned victor in a debate upon the doctrines taught by Raymondus
Lullius!"
But whatever chagrin Carlos may have felt at finding himself utterly
unable to influence Gonsalvo, was soon effectually banished by the
delight with which he watched the success of his diplomacy with Doña
Beatriz.
Beatriz was almost a child in years, and entirely a child in mind and
character. Hitherto, she had been studiously kept in the background,
lest her brilliant beauty should throw her cousins into the shade.
Indeed, she would probably have been consigned to a convent, had not
her portion been too small to furnish the donative usually bestowed by
the friends of a novice upon any really aristocratic establishment.
"And pity would it have been," thought Carlos, "that so fair a flower
should wither in a convent garden."
He made the most of the limited opportunities of intercourse which the
ceremonious manners of the time and country afforded, even to inmates
of the same house. He would stand beside her chair, and watch the
quick flush mount to her olive, delicately-rounded cheek, as he talked
eloquently of the absent Juan. He was never tired of relating stories
of Juan's prowess, Juan's generosity. In the last duel he fought, for
instance, the ball had passed through his cap and grazed his head. But
he only smiled, and re-arranged his locks, remarking, while he did so,
that with the addition of a gold chain and medal, the spoiled cap would
be as good, or better than ever. Then he would dilate on his kindness
to the vanquished; rejoicing in the effect produced, a tribute as well
to his own eloquence as to his brother's merit. The occupation was
too fascinating not to be resorted to once and again, even had he not
persuaded himself that he was fulfilling a sacred duty.
Moreover, he soon discovered that the bright dark eyes which were
beginning to visit him nightly in his dreams, were pining all day for
a sight of that gay world from which their owner was jealously and
selfishly excluded. So he managed to procure for Doña Beatriz many a
pleasure of the kind she most valued. He prevailed upon his aunt and
cousins to bring her with them to places of public resort; and then he
was always at hand, with the reverence of a loyal cavalier, and the
freedom of a destined priest, to render her every quiet unobtrusive
service in his power. At the theatre, at the dance, at the numerous
Church ceremonies, on the promenade, Doña Beatriz was his especial
charge.
Amidst such occupations, pleasant weeks and months glided by almost
unnoticed by him. Never before had he been so happy. "Alcala was well
enough," he thought; "but Seville is a thousand times better. All my
life heretofore seems to me only like a dream, now I am awake."
Alas! he was not awake, but wrapped in a deep sleep, and cradling a
bright delusive vision. As yet he was not even "as those that dream,
and know the while they dream." His slumber was too profound even for
this dim half-consciousness.
No one suspected, any more than he suspected himself, the enchantment
that was stealing over him. But every one remarked his frank, genial
manners, his cheerfulness, his good looks. Naturally, the name of Juan
dropped gradually more and more out of his conversation; as at the same
time the thought of Juan faded from his mind. His studies, too, were
neglected; his attendance upon the lectures of Fray Constantino became
little more than a formality; while "receiving Orders" seemed a remote
if not an uncertain contingency. In fact, he lived in the present, not
caring to look either at the past or the future.
In the very midst of his intoxication, at slight incident affected him
for a moment with such a chill as we feel when, on a warm spring day,
the sun passes suddenly behind a cloud.
His cousin, Doña Inez, had been married more than a year to a wealthy
gentleman of Seville, Don Garçia Ramirez. Carlos, calling one morning
at the lady's house with some unimportant message from Doña Beatriz,
found her in great trouble on account of the sudden illness of her babe.
"Shall I go and fetch a physician?" he asked, knowing well that Spanish
servants can never be depended upon to make haste, however great the
emergency may be.
"You will do a great kindness, amigo mio," said the anxious young
mother.
"But which shall I summon?" asked Carlos. "Our family physician, or Don
Garçia's?"
"Don Garçia's, by all means,--Dr. Cristobal Losada. I would not give a
green fig for any other in Seville. Do you know his dwelling?"
"Yes. But should he be absent or engaged?"
"I must have him. Him, and no other. Once before he saved my darling's
life. And if my poor brother would but consult him, it might fare
better with him. Go quickly, cousin, and fetch him, in Heaven's name."
Carlos lost no time in complying; but on reaching the dwelling of the
physician, found that though the hour was early he had already gone
forth. After leaving a message, he went to visit a friend in the Triana
suburb. He passed close by the Cathedral, with its hundred pinnacles,
and that wonder of beauty, the old Moorish Giralda, soaring far up
above it into the clear southern sky. It occurred to him that a few
Aves said within for the infant's recovery would be both a benefit to
the child and a comfort to the mother. So he entered, and was making
his way to a gaudy tinselled Virgin and Babe, when, happening to glance
towards a different part of the building, his eyes rested on the
physician, with whose person he was well acquainted, as he had often
noticed him amongst Fray Constantino's hearers. Losada was now pacing
up and down one of the side aisles, in company with a gentleman of very
distinguished appearance.
As Carlos drew nearer, it occurred to him that he had never seen this
personage in any place of public resort, and for this reason, as well
as from certain slight indications in his dress of fashions current
in the north of Spain, he gathered that he was a stranger in Seville,
who might be visiting the Cathedral from motives of curiosity. Before
he came up the two men paused in their walk, and turning their backs
to him, stood gazing thoughtfully at the hideous row of red and yellow
Sanbenitos, or penitential garments, that hung above them.
"Surely," thought Carlos, "they might find better objects of
attention than these ugly memorials of sin and shame, which bear
witness that their late miserable wearers--Jews, Moors, blasphemers,
or sorcerers,--have ended their dreary lives of penance, if not of
penitence."
The attention of the stranger seemed to be particularly attracted
by one of them, the largest of all. Indeed, Carlos himself had been
struck by its unusual size; and upon one occasion he had even had the
curiosity to read the inscription, which he remembered because it
contained Juan's favourite name, Rodrigo. It was this: "Rodrigo Valer,
a citizen of Lebrixa and Seville; an apostate and false apostle, who
pretended to be sent from God." And now, as he approached with light
though hasty footsteps, he distinctly heard Dr. Cristobal Losada, still
looking at the Sanbenito, say to his companion, "Yes, señor; and also
the Conde de Nuera, Don Juan Alvarez."
Don Juan Alvarez! What possible tie could link his father's name with
the hideous thing they were gazing at? And what could the physician
know about him of whom his own children knew so little? Carlos stood
amazed, and pale with sudden emotion.
And thus the physician saw him, happening to turn at that moment. Had
he not exerted all his presence of mind (and he possessed a great
deal), he would himself have started visibly. The unexpected appearance
of the person of whom we speak is in itself disconcerting; but it
deserves another name when we are saying that of him or his which, if
overheard, might endanger life, or what is more precious still than
life. Losada was equal to the occasion, however. The usual greetings
having been exchanged, he asked quietly whether Señor Don Carlos had
come in search of him, and hoped that he did not owe the honour to any
indisposition in his worship's noble family.
Carlos felt it rather a relief, under the circumstances, to have to
say that his cousin's babe was alarmingly ill. "You will do us a great
favour," he added, "by coming immediately. Doña Inez is very anxious."
The physician promised compliance; and turning to his companion,
respectfully apologized for leaving him abruptly.
"A sick child's claim must not be postponed," said the stranger in
reply. "Go, señor doctor, and God's blessing rest on your skill."
Carlos was struck by the noble bearing and courteous manner of the
stranger, who, in his turn, was interested by the young man's anxiety
about a sick babe. But with only a passing glance at the other, each
went his different way, not dreaming that once again at least their
paths were destined to cross.
The strange mention of his father's name that he had overheard filled
the heart of Carlos with undefined uneasiness. He knew enough by that
time to feel his childish belief in his father's stainless virtue
a little shaken. What if a dreadful unexplained something, linking
his fate with that of a convicted heretic, were yet to be learned?
After all, the accursed arts of magic and sorcery were not so far
removed from the alchemist's more legitimate labours, that a rash
or presumptuous student might not very easily slide from one into
the other. He had reason to believe that his father had played with
alchemy, if he had not seriously devoted himself to its study. Nay, the
thought had sometimes flashed unbidden across his mind that the "El
Dorado" found might after all have been no other than the philosopher's
stone. For he who has attained the power of producing gold at will may
surely be said, without any stretch of metaphor, to have discovered a
golden country. But at this period of his life the personal feelings of
Carlos were so keen and absorbing that almost everything, consciously
or unconsciously, was referred to them. And thus it was that an intense
wish sprang up in his heart, that his father's secret might have
descended to _him_.
Vain wish! The gold he needed or desired must be procured from a
less inaccessible region than El Dorado, and without the aid of the
philosopher's stone.
VI.
Don Carlos forgets Himself still further.
"The not so very false, as falsehood goes,--
The spinning out and drawing fine, you know;
Really mere novel-writing, of a sort,
Acting, improvising, make-believe,--
Surely not downright cheatery!"
R. BROWNING
It cost Carlos some time and trouble to drive away the haunting
thoughts which Losada's words had awakened. But he succeeded at length;
or perhaps it would be more truthful to say the bright eyes and
witching smiles of Doña Beatriz accomplished the work for him.
Every dream, however, must have a waking. Sometimes a slight sound,
ludicrously trivial in its cause, dispels a slumber fraught with
wondrous visions, in which we have been playing the part of kings and
emperors.
"Nephew Don Carlos," said Don Manuel one day, "is it not time you
thought of shaving your head? You are learned enough for your Orders
long ago, and 'in a plentiful house supper is soon dressed.'"
"True, señor my uncle," murmured Carlos, looking suddenly aghast. "But
I am under the canonical age."
"But you can get a dispensation."
"Why such haste? There is time yet and to spare."
"That is not so sure. I hear the cura of San Lucar has one foot in the
grave. The living is a good one, and I think I know where to go for it.
So take care you lose not a heifer for want of a halter to hold it by."
With these words on his lips, Don Manuel went out. At the same moment
Gonsalvo, who lay listlessly on a sofa at one end of the room, or
rather court, reading "Lazarillo de Tormes," the first Spanish novel,
burst into a loud paroxysm of laughter.
"What may be the theme of your merriment?" asked Carlos, turning his
large dreamy eyes languidly towards him.
"Yourself, amigo mio. You would make the stone saints of the Cathedral
laugh on their pedestals. There you stand, pale as marble, a living
image of despair. Come, rouse yourself! What do you mean to do? Will
you take what you wish, or let your chance slip by, and then sit and
weep because you have it not? Will you be a _priest_ or a _man_? Make
your choice this hour, for one you must be, and both you cannot be."
Carlos answered him not; in truth, he dared not answer him. Every word
was the voice of his own heart; perhaps it was also, though he knew it
not, the voice of the great tempter. He withdrew to his chamber, and
barred and bolted himself in it. This was the first time in his life
that solitude was a necessity to him. His uncle's words had brought
with them a terrible revelation. He knew himself now too well; he knew
what he loved, what he desired, or rather what he hungered and thirsted
for with agonizing intensity. No; never the priest's frock for him. He
must call Doña Beatriz de Lavella his--his before God's altar--or die.
Then came a thought, stinging him with sharp, sudden pain. It was a
thought that should have come to him long ago,--"Juan!" And with the
name, affection, memory, conscience, rose up together within him to
combat the mad resolve of his passion.
Fiery passions slumbered in the heart of Carlos. Such are sometimes
found united with a gentle temper, a weak will, and sensitive nerves.
Woe to their possessor when they are aroused in their strength!
Had Carlos been a plain soldier, like the brother he was tempted to
betray, it is possible he might have come forth from this terrible
conflict still holding fast his honour and his brotherly affection.
It was his priestly training that turned the scale. He had been
taught that simple truth between man and man was a thing of little
consequence. He had been taught the art of making a hundred clever,
plausible excuses for whatever he saw best to do. He had been taught,
in short, every species of sophistry by which, to the eyes of others,
and to his own also, wrong might be made to seem right, and black to
appear the purest white.
His subtle imagination forged in the fire of his kindled passions
chains of reasoning in which no skill could detect a flaw. Juan had
never loved as he did; Juan would not care; probably by this time he
had forgotten Doña Beatriz. "Besides," the tempter whispered furtively
within him, "he might never return at all; he might die in battle."
But Carlos was not yet sunk so low as to give ear for a single instant
to this wicked whisper; though certainly he could not henceforth look
for his brother's return with the joy with which he had been wont to
anticipate that event. But, in any case, Beatriz herself should be the
judge between them. And he told himself that he knew (how did he know
it?) that Beatriz preferred _him_. Then it would be only right and kind
to prepare Juan for an inevitable disappointment. This he could easily
do. Letters, carefully written, might gradually suggest to his brother
that Beatriz had other views; and he knew Juan's pride and his fiery
temper well enough to calculate that if his jealousy were once aroused,
these would soon accomplish the rest.
Ere we, who have been taught from our cradles to "speak the truth from
the heart," turn with loathing from the wiles of Carlos Alvarez, we
ought to remember that he was a Spaniard--one of a nation whose genius
and passion is for intrigue. He was also a Spaniard of the sixteenth
century; but, above all, he was a Spanish Catholic, educated for the
priesthood.
The ability with which he laid his plans, and the enjoyment which its
exercise gave him, served in itself to blind him to the treachery and
ingratitude upon which those plans were founded.
He sought an interview with Fray Constantino, and implored from him a
letter of recommendation to the imperial recluse at San Yuste, whose
chaplain and personal favourite the canon-magistral had been. But
that eloquent preacher, though warm-hearted and generous to a fault,
hesitated to grant the request. He represented to Carlos that His
Imperial Majesty did not choose his retreat to be invaded by applicants
for favours, and that the journey to San Yuste would therefore be, in
all probability, worse than useless. Carlos answered that he had fully
weighed the difficulties of the case; but that if the line of conduct
he adopted seemed peculiar, his circumstances were so also. He believed
that his father (who died before his birth) had enjoyed the special
regard of His Imperial Majesty, and he hoped that, for his sake, he
might now be willing to show him some kindness. At all events, he was
sure of an introduction to his presence through his mayor-domo, Don
Luis Quixada, lord of Villagarçia, who was a friend of their house.
What he desired to obtain, through the kindness of His Imperial
Majesty, was a Latin secretaryship, or some similar office, at the
court of the new king, where his knowledge of Latin, and the talents he
hoped he possessed, might stand him in good stead, and enable him to
support, though with modesty, the station to which his birth entitled
him. For, although already a licentiate of theology, and with good
prospects in the Church, he did not wish to take orders, as he had
thoughts of marrying.
Fray Constantino felt a sympathy with the young man; and perhaps the
rather because, if report speaks true, he had once been himself in a
somewhat similar position. So he compromised matters by giving him a
general letter of recommendation, in which he spoke of his talents and
his blameless manners as warmly as he could, from the experience of
the nine or ten months during which he had been acquainted with him.
And although the attention paid by Carlos to his instructions had been
slight, and of late almost perfunctory, his great natural intelligence
had enabled him to stand his ground more creditably than many far more
diligent students. The Fray's letter Carlos thankfully added to the
numerous laudatory epistles from the doctors and professors of Alcala
that he already had in his possession.
All these he enclosed in a cedar box, which he carefully locked, and
consigned in its turn to a travelling portmanteau, along with a fair
stock of wearing apparel, sufficiently rich in material to suit his
rank, but modest in colour and fashion. He then informed his uncle that
before he took Orders it would be necessary for him, in his brother's
absence, to take a journey to their little estate, and set its concerns
in order.
His uncle, suspecting nothing, approved his plan, and insisted on
providing him with the attendance of an armed guard to Nuera, whither
he really intended to go in the first instance.
VII.
The Desengaño
"And I should evermore be vexed with thee
In vacant robe, or hanging ornament,
Or ghostly foot-fall lingering on the stair."
TENNYSON
The journey from the city of oranges to the green slopes of the Sierra
Morena ought to have been a delightful one to Don Carlos Alvarez. It
was certainly bright with hope. He scarcely harboured a doubt of the
ultimate success of his plans, and the consequent attainment of all his
wishes. Already he seemed to feel the soft hand of Doña Beatriz in his,
and to stand by her side before the high altar of the great Cathedral.
And yet, as days passed on, the brightness within grew fainter, and
an acknowledged shadow, ever deepening, began to take its place. At
last he drew near his home, and rode through the little grove of
cork-trees where he and Juan had played as children. When last they
were there together the autumn winds were strewing the leaves, all dim
and discoloured, about their paths. Now he looked through the fresh
green foliage at the deep intense blue of the summer sky. But, though
scarcely more than twenty, he felt at that moment old and worn, and
wished back the time of his boyish sports with his brother. Never
again could he feel quite happy with Juan.
Soon, however, his sorrowful fancies were put to flight by the
joyous greeting of the hounds, who rushed with much clamour from the
castle-yard to welcome him. There they were, all of them--Pedro, Zina,
Pepe, Grullo, Butron--it was Juan who had named them, every one. And
there, at the gate, stood Diego and Dolores, ready to give him joyful
welcome. Throwing himself from his horse, he shook hands with these
faithful old retainers, and answered their kindly but respectful
inquiries both for himself and Señor Don Juan. Then, having caressed
the dogs, inquired for each of the under-servants by name, and given
orders for the due entertainment of his guard, he passed on slowly into
the great deserted hall.
His arrival being unexpected, he merely surrendered his travelling
cloak into the hands of Diego, and sat down to wait patiently while the
servants, always dilatory, prepared for him suitable accommodation.
Dolores soon appeared with a flask of wine and some bread and grapes;
but this was only a _merienda_, or slight afternoon luncheon, which
she laid before her young master until she could make ready a supper
fit for him to partake of. Carlos spent half an hour listening to her
tidings of the household and the village, and felt sorry when she
quitted the room and left him to his own reflections.
Every object on which his eyes rested reminded him of his brother.
There hung the cross-bow with which, in old days, Juan had made such
vigorous war on the rooks and the sparrows. There lay the foils and
the canes with which they had so often fenced and played; Juan, in his
unquestioned superiority, usually so patient with the younger brother's
timidity and awkwardness. And upon that bench he had carved, with a
hunting-knife, his name in full, adding the title that had expired with
his father, "Conde de Nuera."
The memories these things recalled were becoming intrusive; he would
fain shake them off. Gladly would he have had recourse to his favourite
pastime of reading, but there was not a book in the castle, to his
knowledge, except the breviary he had brought with him. For lack of
more congenial occupation, he went out at last to the stable to look at
the horses, and to talk to those who were grooming and feeding them.
Later in the evening Dolores told him that supper was ready, adding
that she had laid it in the small inner room, which she thought Señor
Don Carlos would find more comfortable than the great hall.
That inner room was, even more than the hall, haunted by the shadowy
presence of Juan. But it was usually daylight when the brothers were
there together. Now, a tapestry curtain shaded the window, and a silver
lamp shed its light on the well-spread table with its snowy drapery,
and cover laid for one.
A lonely meal, however luxurious, is always apt to be somewhat dreary;
it seems a provision for the lowest wants of our nature, and nothing
more. Carlos sought to escape from the depressing influence by giving
wings to his imagination, and dreaming of the time when wealth enough
to repair and refurnish that half-ruinous old homestead might be his.
He pleased himself with pictures of the long tables in the great hall,
groaning beneath the weight of a bountiful provision for a merry
company of guests, upon whom the sweet face of Doña Beatriz might
beam a welcome. But how idle such fancies! The castle, after all, was
Juan's, not his. Unless, indeed, more difficulties than one should
be solved by Juan's death upon some French or Flemish battle-field.
This thought he could not bear to entertain. Grown suddenly sick at
heart, he pushed aside his plate of stewed pigeon, and, regardless
of the feelings of Dolores, sent away untasted her dessert of sweet
butter-cakes dipped in honey. He was weary, he said, and he would go to
rest at once.
It was long before sleep would visit his eyelids; and when at last
it came, his brother's dark reproachful eyes haunted him still. At
daybreak he awoke with a start from a feverish dream that Juan, all
pale and ghostlike, had come to his bedside, and laying his hand on his
arm, said solemnly, "I claim the jewel I left thee in trust."
Further sleep was impossible. He rose, and wandered out into the fresh
air. As yet no one was astir. Fair and sweet was all that met his gaze:
the faint pearly light, the first blush of dawn in the quiet sky, the
silvery dew that bathed his footsteps. But the storm within raged more
fiercely for the calm without. There was first an agonizing struggle
to repress the rising thought, "Better, after all, _not_ to do this
thing." But, in spite of his passionate efforts, the thought gained a
hearing, it seemed to cry aloud within him, "Better, after all, not to
betray Juan!" "And give up Beatriz for ever? _For ever!_" he repeated
over and over again, beating it
"In upon his weary brain,
As though it were the burden of a song."
He had climbed, almost unawares, to the top of a rocky hill; and now
he stood, looking around him at the prospect, just as if he saw it.
In truth, he saw nothing, felt nothing outward, until at last a misty
mountain rain swept in his face, refreshing his burning brow with a
touch as of cool fingers.
Then he descended mechanically. Exchanging salutations (as if nothing
were amiss with him) with the milk-maid and the wood-boy, he crossed
the open courtyard and re-entered the hall. There Dolores, and a girl
who worked under her, were already busy, so he passed by them into the
inner room.
Its darkness seemed to stifle him; with hasty hand he drew aside the
heavy tapestry curtain. As he did so something caught his eye. For the
hundredth time he re-read the mystic inscription on the glass:
"El Dorado
Yo hé trovado."
And, as an infant's touch may open a sluice that lets in the mighty
ocean, those simple words broke up the fountains of the great deep
within. He gave full course to the emotions they awakened. Again he
heard Juan's voice repeat them; again he saw Juan's deep earnest eyes
look into his; not now reproachfully, but with full unshaken trust, as
in the old days when first he said, "We will go forth together and find
our father."
"Juan--brother!" he cried aloud, "I will never wrong thee, so help
me God!" At that moment the morning sun, having scattered the mists
with the glory of its rising, sent one of its early beams to kiss the
handwriting on the window-pane. "Old token for good," thought Carlos,
whose imaginative nature could play with fancies even in the hours of
supreme emotion. "And true still even yet. Only the good is all for
Juan; for me--nothing but despair."
And so Don Carlos found his "desengaño," or disenchantment, and it was
a very thorough one.
Body and mind were well-nigh exhausted with the violence of the
struggle. Perhaps this was fortunate, in so far that it won for the
decision of his better nature a more rapid and easy acceptance. In
a sense and for a season any decision was welcome to the weary,
tempest-tossed soul.
It was afterwards that he asked himself how were long years to be
dragged on without the face that was the joy of his heart and the life
of his life? How was he to bear the never-ending pain, the aching
loneliness, of such a lot? Better to die at once than to endure this
slow, living death. He knew well that it was not in his nature to point
the pistol or the dagger at his own breast. But he might pine away and
die silently--as many thousands die--of blighted hopes and a ruined
life. Or--and this was more likely, perhaps--as time passed on he
might grow dead and hard in soul; until at last he would become a dry,
cold, mechanical mass-priest, mumbling the Church's Latin with thin,
bloodless lips, a keen eye to his dues, and a heart that might serve
for a Church relic, so much faith would it require to believe that it
had been warm and living once.
Still, laudably anxious to provide against possible future waverings
of the decision so painfully attained, he wrote informing his uncle
of his safe arrival; adding that he had fully made up his mind to
take Orders at Christmas, but that he found it advisable to remain in
his present quarters for a month or two. He at once dispatched two of
the men-at-arms with the letter; and much was the thrifty Don Manuel
surprised that his nephew should spend a handful of silver reals in
order to inform him of what he knew already.
Gloomily the day wore on. The instinctive reserve of a sensitive nature
made Carlos talk to the servants, receive the accounts, inspect the
kine and sheep--do everything, in short, except eat and drink--as he
would have done if a great sorrow had not all the time been crushing
his heart. It is true that Dolores, who loved him as her own son, was
not deceived. It was for no trivial cause that the young master was
pale as a corpse, restless and irritable, talking hurriedly by fitful
snatches, and then relapsing into moody silence. But Dolores was a
prudent woman, as well as a loving and faithful one; therefore she held
her peace, and bided her time.
But Carlos noticed one effort she made to console him. Coming in
towards evening from a consultation with Diego about some cork-trees
which a Morisco merchantman wished to purchase and cut down, he saw
upon his table a carefully sealed wine-flask, with a cup beside it. He
knew whence it came. His father had left in the cellar a small quantity
of choice wine of Xeres; and this relic of more prosperous times being,
like most of their other possessions, in the care of Dolores, was only
produced very sparingly, and on rare occasions. But she evidently
thought "Señor Don Carlos" needed it now. Touched by her watchful,
unobtrusive affection, he would have gratified her by drinking; but he
had a peculiar dislike to drinking alone, while he knew he would only
render his sanity doubtful by inviting either her or Diego to share
the luxurious beverage. So he put it aside for the present, and drew
towards him a sheet of figures, an ink-horn, and a pen. He could not
work, however. With the silence and solitude, his great grief came back
upon him again. But nature all this time had been silently working
for him. His despair was giving way to a more violent but less bitter
sorrow. Tears came now: a long, passionate fit of weeping relieved his
aching heart. Since his early childhood he had not wept thus.
An approaching footstep recalled him to himself. He rose with haste and
shame, and stood beside the window, hoping that his position and the
waning light might together shield him from observation. It was only
Dolores.
"Señor," she said, entering somewhat hastily, "will it please you to
see to those men of Seville that came with your Excellency? They are
insulting a poor little muleteer, and threatening to rob his packages."
Yanguesian carriers and other muleteers, bringing goods across the
Sierra Morena from the towns of La Mancha to those of Andalusia, often
passed by the castle, and sometimes received hospitality there. Carlos
rose at once at the summons, saying to Dolores--
"Where is the boy?"
"He is not a boy, señor, he is a man; a very little man, but with a
greater spirit, if I mistake not, than some twice his size."
It was true enough. On the green plot at the back of the castle, beside
which the mountain pathway led, there were gathered the ten or twelve
rough Seville pikemen, taken from the lowest of the population, and
most of them of Moorish blood. In their midst, beside the foremost of
his three mules, with one arm thrown round her neck and the other
raised to give effect by animated gestures to his eager oratory, stood
the muleteer. He was a very short, spare, active-looking man, clad from
head to foot in chestnut-coloured leather. His mules were well laden;
each with three large alforjas, one at each side and one laid across
the neck. But they were evidently well fed and cared for also; and they
presented a gay appearance, with their adornments of bright-coloured
worsted tassels and tiny bells.
"You know, my friends," the muleteer was saying, as Carlos came within
hearing, "an arriero's alforjas[3] are like a soldier's colours,--it
stands him upon his honour to guard them inviolate. No, no! Ask him for
aught else--his purse, his blood--they are at your service; but never
touch his colours, if you care for a long life."
[3] _Arriero_, muleteer; _alforjas_, bags.
"My honest friend, your colours, as you call them, shall be safe here,"
said Carlos, kindly.
The muleteer turned towards him a good-humoured, intelligent face, and,
bowing low, thanked him heartily.
"What is your name?" asked Carlos; "and whence do you come?"
"I am Juliano; Juliano el Chico (Julian the Little) men generally call
me--since, as your Excellency sees, I am not very great. And I come
last from Toledo."
"Indeed! And what wares do you carry?"
"Some matters, small in bulk, yet costly, which I am bringing for
a Seville merchant--Medel de Espinosa by name, if your worship has
heard of him? I have mirrors, for example, of a new kind; excellent in
workmanship, and true as steel, as well they may be."
"I know the shop of Espinosa well. I have been much in Seville," said
Carlos, with a sudden pang, caused by the recollection of the many
pretty trifles that he had purchased there for Doña Beatriz. "But
follow me, my friend, and a good supper shall make you amends for the
rudeness of these fellows.--Andres, take the best care thou canst of
his mules; 'twill be only fair penance for thy sin in molesting their
owner."
"A hundred thousand thanks, señor. Still, with your worship's good
leave, and no offence to friend Andres, I had rather look to the beasts
myself. We are old companions; they know my ways, and I know theirs."
"As you please, my good fellow. Andres will show you the stable, and I
shall tell my mayor-domo to see that you lack nothing."
"Again I render to your Excellency my poor but hearty thanks."
Carlos went in, gave the necessary directions to Diego, and then
returned to his solitary chamber.
VIII.
The Muleteer.
"Are ye resigned that they be spent
In such world's help? The spirits bent
Their awful brows, and said, 'Content!'
"Content! It sounded like Amen
Said by a choir of mourning men:
An affirmation full of pain
"And patience,--ay, of glorying,
And adoration, as a king
Might seal an oath for governing."
E.B. BROWNING.
When Carlos stood once more face to face with his sorrow--as he did as
soon as he had closed the door--he found that it had somewhat changed
its aspect. A trouble often does this when some interruption from the
outer world makes us part company with it for a little while. We find
on our return that it has developed quite a new phase, and seldom a
more hopeful one.
It now entered the mind of Carlos, for the first time, that he had
been acting very basely towards his brother. Not only had he planned
and intended a treason, but by endeavouring to engage the affections
of Doña Beatriz, he had actually committed one. Heaven grant it might
not prove irreparable! Though the time that had passed since his better
self gained the victory was only measured by hours, it represented to
him a much longer period. Already it enabled him to look upon what
had gone before from the vantage-ground that some degree of distance
gives. He now beheld in true, perhaps even in exaggerated colours, the
meanness and the treachery of his conduct. He, who prided himself upon
the nobility of his nature matching that of his birth--he, Don Carlos
Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya, the gentleman of stainless manners,
of reputation untarnished by a single blot--he, who had never yet been
ashamed of anything,--in his solitude he blushed and covered his face
in shame, as the villany he had planned rose up before his mind. It
would have broken his heart to be scorned by any man; and was it not
worse a thousand-fold to be thus scorned by himself? He thought even
more of the meanness of his plan than of its treachery. Of its sin he
did not think at all. Sin was a theological term which he had been
wont to handle in the schools, and to toss to and fro with the other
materials upon which he showed off his dialectic skill; but it no more
occurred to him to take it out of the scholastic world and to bring it
into that in which he really lived and acted, than it did to talk Latin
to Diego, or softly to whisper quotations from Thomas Aquinas into the
ear of Doña Beatriz between the pauses of the dance.
Scarcely any consideration, however, could have made him more miserable
than he was. Past and future--all alike seemed dreary. Not a happy
memory, not a cheering anticipation could he find to comfort him. He
was as one who goes forth to face the driving storm of a wintry night:
not strong in hope and courage--a warm hearth behind him, and before
him the pleasant starry glimmer that tells of another soon to be
reached--but chilled, weary, forlorn, the wind whistling through thin
garments, and nothing to meet his eye but the bare, bleak, shelterless
moor stretching far out into the distance.
He sat long, too crushed in heart even to finish his slight,
unimportant task. Sometimes he drew towards him the sheet of figures,
and for a moment or two tried to fix his attention upon it; but soon
he would push it away again, or make aimless dots and circles on its
margin. While thus engaged, he heard a cheery and not unmelodious
voice chanting a fragment of song in some foreign tongue. Listening
more attentively, he believed the words were French, and supposed the
singer must be his humble guest, the muleteer, on his way to the stable
to take a last look at the beloved companions of his toils before he
lay down to rest. The man had probably exercised his vocation at some
former period in the passes of the Pyrenees, and had thus acquired some
knowledge of French.
Half an hour's talk with any one seemed to Carlos at that moment a
most desirable diversion from the gloom of his own thoughts. He might
converse with this stranger when he dared not summon to his presence
Diego or Dolores, because they knew and loved him well enough to
discover in two minutes that something was seriously wrong with him.
He waited until he heard the voice once more close beneath his window;
then softly opening it, he called the muleteer. Juliano responded with
ready alertness; and Carlos, going round to the door, admitted him, and
led him into his sanctum.
"I believe," he said, "that was a French song I heard you sing. You
have been in France, then?"
"Ay, señor; I have crossed the Pyrenees more than once. I have also
been in Switzerland."
"You must, then, have visited many places worthy of note; and not with
your eyes shut, I think. I wish you would tell me, for pastime, the
story of your travels."
"Willingly, señor," said the muleteer, who, though perfectly
respectful, had an ease and independence of manner that made Carlos
suspect it was not the first time he had conversed with his superiors.
"Where shall I begin?"
"Have you ever crossed the Santillanos, or visited the Asturias?"
"No, señor. A man cannot be everywhere; 'he that rings the bells does
not walk in the procession.' I am only master of the route from Lyons
here; knowing a little also, as I have said, of Switzerland."
"Tell me first of Lyons, then. And be seated, my friend."
The muleteer sat down, and began his story, telling of the places he
had seen with an intelligence that more and more engaged the attention
of Carlos, who failed not to draw out his information by many pertinent
questions. As they conversed, each observed the other with gradually
increasing interest. Carlos admired the muleteer's courage and energy
in the prosecution of his calling, and enjoyed his quaint and shrewd
observations. Moreover, he was struck by certain indications of a
degree of education and even of refinement not usual in his class.
Especially he noticed the small, finely-formed hand, which was
sometimes in the warmth of conversation laid on the table, and which
looked as if it had been accustomed to wield some implement far more
delicate than a riding-whip. Another thing he took note of. Though
Juliano's language abounded in proverbs, in provincialisms, in quaint
and racy expressions, not a single oath escaped his lips. "I never
saw an arriero before," thought Carlos, "who could get through two
sentences without half a dozen of them."
Juliano, on the other hand, was observing his host, and with a far
shrewder and deeper insight than Carlos could have imagined. During
supper he had gathered from the servants that their young master was
kind-hearted, gentle, easy-tempered, and had never injured any one in
his life; and knowing all this, he was touched with genuine sympathy
for the young noble, whose haggard face and sorrowful looks told but
too plainly that some great grief was pressing on his heart.
"Your Excellency must be weary of my stories," he said at length. "It
is time I left you to your repose."
And so indeed it was, for the hour was late.
"Ere you go," said Carlos kindly, "you shall drink a cup of wine with
me."
He had no wine at hand but the costly beverage Dolores had produced
for his own especial use. Wondering a little what Juliano would think
of such a luxurious beverage, he sought a second cup, for the proud
Castilian gentleman was too "finely courteous" not to drink with his
guest, although that guest was only a muleteer.
Juliano, evidently a temperate man, remonstrated: "But I have already
tasted your Excellency's hospitality."
"That should not hinder your drinking to my good health," said Carlos,
producing a small hunting-cup, forgotten until now, from the pocket of
his doublet.
Then filling the larger cup, he handed it to Juliano. It was a very
little thing, a trifling act of kindness. But to the last hour of his
life, Carlos Alvarez thanked God that he had put it into his heart to
offer that cup of wine.
The muleteer raised it to his lips, saying earnestly, "God grant you
health and happiness, noble señor."
Carlos drank also, glad to relieve a painful feeling of exhaustion.
As he set down the cup, a sudden impulse prompted him to say, with a
bitter smile, "Happiness is not likely to come my way at present."
"Nay, señor, and wherefore not? With your good leave be it spoken, you
are young, noble, amiable, with much learning and excellent parts, as
they tell me."
"All these things may not prevent a man being very miserable," said
Carlos frankly.
"God comfort you, señor."
"Thanks for the good wish," said Carlos, rather lightly, and conscious
of having already said too much. "All men have their troubles, I
suppose, but most men contrive to live through them. So shall I, no
doubt."
"But God _can_ comfort you," Juliano repeated with a kind of wistful
earnestness.
Carlos, surprised at his manner, looked at him dreamily, but with some
curiosity.
"Señor," said Juliano, leaning forward and speaking in a low tone
full of meaning. "Let your worship excuse a plain man's plain
question--Señor, _do you know God_?"
Carlos started visibly. Was the man mad? Certainly not; as all
his previous conversation bore witness. He was evidently a very
clever, half-educated man, who spoke with just the simplicity and
unconsciousness of an intelligent child. And now he had asked a true
child's question; one which it would exhaust a wise man's wisdom to
answer. Thoroughly perplexed, Carlos at last determined to take it in
its easiest sense. He said, "Yes; I have studied theology, and taken
out my licentiate's degree at the University of Alcala."
"If it please your worship, what may that fine word theology mean?"
"You have said so many wise things, that I marvel you know not. Science
about God."
"Then, señor, your Excellency knows _about God_. But is it not another
thing _to know God_? I know much about the Emperor Carlos, now at San
Yuste; I could tell you the story of all his campaigns. But I never
saw him, still less spoke with him. And far indeed am I from knowing
him to be my friend; and so trusting him that if my mules died, or the
Alguazils seized me at Cordova for bringing over something contraband,
or other mishap befell me, I should go or send to him, certain that he
would help and save me."
"I begin to understand you," said Carlos; and a suspicion crossed his
mind that the muleteer was a friar in disguise. But that could scarcely
be, since his black abundant hair showed no marks of the tonsure.
"After the manner you speak of, only great saints know God."
"Indeed, señor! Can that be true? For I have heard that our Lord
Christ"--(at the mention of the name Carlos crossed himself, a
ceremony which the muleteer was so engrossed by his argument as to
forget)--"that our Lord Christ came into the world to make men know the
Father; and that, to all that believe on him, he truly reveals him."
"Where did you get this strange learning?"
"It is simple learning; and yet very blessed, señor," returned Juliano,
evading the question. "For those who know God are happy. Whatever
sorrows they have without, within they have joy and peace."
"You are advising me to seek peace in religion?"
It was singular certainly that a muleteer should advise _him_; but then
this was a very uncommon muleteer. "And so I ought," he added, "since I
am destined for the Church."
"No, señor; not to seek peace in religion, but to seek peace from God,
and in Christ who reveals him."
"It is only the words that differ, the things are the same."
"Again I say, with all submission to your Excellency, not so. It is
Christ Jesus himself--Christ Jesus, God and man--who alone can give the
peace and happiness for which the heart aches. Are we oppressed with
sin? He says, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee!' Are we hungry? He is bread.
Thirsty? He is living water. Weary? He says, 'Come unto me, all ye that
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!'"
"Man! who or what are you? You are quoting the Holy Scriptures to me.
Do you then read Latin?"
"No, señor," said the muleteer humbly, casting his eyes down to the
ground.
"_No?_"
"No, señor; in very truth. But--"
"Well? Go on!"
Juliano looked up again, a steady light in his eyes. "Will you promise,
on the faith of a gentleman, not to betray me?" he asked.
"Most assuredly I will not betray you."
"I trust you, señor. I do not believe it would be possible for _you_ to
betray one who trusted you."
Carlos winced, and rather shrank from the muleteer's look of hearty,
honest confidence.
"Though I cannot guess your reason for such precautions," he said, "I
am willing, if you wish it, to swear secrecy upon the holy crucifix."
"It needs not, señor; your word of honour is as much as your oath.
Though I am putting my life in your hands when I tell you that I have
dared to read the words of my Lord Christ in my own tongue."
"Are you then a heretic?" Carlos exclaimed, recoiling involuntarily, as
one who suddenly sees the plague spot on the forehead of a friend whose
hand he has been grasping.
"That depends upon your notion of a heretic, señor. Many a better man
than I has been branded with the name. Even the great preacher Don Fray
Constantino, whom all the fine lords and ladies in Seville flock to
hear, has often been called heretic by his enemies."
"I have resided in Seville, and attended Fray Constantino's theological
lectures," said Carlos.
"Then your worship knows there is not a better Christian in all the
Spains. And yet men say that he narrowly escaped a prosecution for
heresy. But enough of what men say. Let us hear what God says for once.
His words cannot lead us astray."
"No; not the Holy Scriptures, properly expounded by learned and
orthodox doctors. But heretics put their own construction upon the
sacred text, which, moreover, they corrupt and interpolate."
"Señor, you are a scholar; you can consult the original, and judge for
yourself how far that charge is true."
"But I do not want to read heretic writings."
"Nor I, señor. Yet I confess that I have read the words of my
Saviour in my own tongue, which some misinformed or ignorant persons
call heresy; and through them, to my soul's joy, I have learned to
know Him and the Father. I am bold enough to wish the same knowledge
yours, señor, that the same joy may be yours also." The poor man's eye
kindled, and his features, otherwise homely enough, glowed with an
enthusiasm that lent them true spiritual beauty.
Carlos was not unmoved. After a moment's pause he said, "If I could
procure what you style God's Word in my own tongue, I do not say that I
would refuse to read it. Should I discover any heretical mistranslation
or interpolation, I could blot out the passage; or, it necessary, burn
the book."
"I can place in your hands this very hour the New Testament of our
Saviour Christ, lately translated into Castilian by Juan Perez, a
learned man, well acquainted with the Greek."
"What! have you got it with you? In God's name bring it then; and at
least I will look at it."
"Be it truly in God's name, señor," said Juliano, as he left the room.
During his absence Carlos pondered upon this singular adventure.
Throughout his lengthened conversation with him, he had discerned no
marks of heresy in the muleteer, except his possession of the Spanish
New Testament. And being very proud of his dialectic acuteness, he
thought he should certainly have discovered such had they existed.
"He had need to be a clever heretic that would circumvent _me_," he
said, with the vanity of a young and successful scholar. Moreover,
his ten months' attendance on the lectures of Fray Constantino had,
unconsciously to himself, somewhat imbued his mind with liberal ideas.
He could have read the Vulgate at Alcala if he had cared to do so (only
he never had); where then could be the harm of glancing, out of mere
curiosity, at a Spanish translation from the same original?
He regarded the New Testament in the light of some very dangerous,
though effective, weapon of the explosive kind; likely to overwhelm
with terrible destruction the careless or ignorant meddler with its
intricacies, and therefore wisely forbidden by the authorities; though
in able and scientific hands, such as his own, it might be harmless and
even useful.
But it was a very different matter for the poor man who brought it
to him. Was he, after all, a madman? Or was he a heretic? Or was he
a great saint or holy hermit in disguise? But whatever his spiritual
peril might or might not be, it was only too evident that he was
incurring temporal dangers of a very awful kind. And perhaps he was
doing so in the simplicity of ignorance. Carlos could not do less than
warn him of them.
He soon returned; and drawing a small brown volume from beneath his
leathern jerkin, handed it to the young nobleman.
"My friend," said Carlos kindly, as he took it from him, "do you know
what you dare by offering this to me, or even by keeping it yourself?"
"I know it well, señor," was the calm reply; and the muleteer's dark
eye met his undauntedly.
"You are playing a dangerous game. This time you are safe. But take
care. You may try it once too often."
"I shall not, señor. I shall witness for my Lord just so often as he
permits. When he has no more need of me, he will call me home."
"God help you. I fear you are throwing yourself into the fire. And for
what?"
"For the joy of bringing food to the perishing, water to the thirsty,
light to those that sit in darkness, rest to the weary and heavy-laden.
Señor, I have counted the cost, and I shall pay the price right
willingly."
After a moment's silence he continued: "I leave within your hands the
treasure brought at such cost. But God alone, by his Divine Spirit,
can reveal to you its true worth. Señor, seek that Spirit. Nay, be not
offended. You are very noble and very learned; and it is a poor and
ignorant man who speaks to you. But that poor man is risking his life
for your soul's salvation; and thus he proves, at least, how true his
desire to see you one day at the right hand of Christ, his King and
Master. Adios, señor."
He bowed low; and before Carlos had sufficiently recovered from his
astonishment to say a word in answer, he had left the room and closed
the door behind him.
"Strange being!" thought Carlos; "but I shall talk with him again
to-morrow." And ere he was aware, his eyelids were wet; for the courage
and self-sacrifice of the poor muleteer had stirred some answering
chord of emotion in his heart. Probably, in spite of all appearances to
the contrary, he was a madman; or else he was a heretical fanatic. But
he was a man willing to brave numberless sufferings (of which a death
of torture was the last and least), to bring his fellow-men something
which he imagined would make them happy. "The Church has no more
orthodox son than I," said Don Carlos Alvarez; "but I shall read his
book for all that."
Then, the hour being late, he retired to rest, and slept soundly.
He did not rise exactly with the sun, and when he came forth from his
chamber breakfast was already in preparation.
"Where is the muleteer who was here last night?" he asked Dolores.
"He was up and away at sunrise," she answered. "Fortunately, it is
not my custom to stop in bed and see the sunshine; so I just caught
him loading his mules, and gave him a piece of bread and cheese and
a draught of wine. A smart little man he is, and one who knows his
business."
"I wish I had seen him ere he left," said Carlos aloud. "Shall I ever
look upon his face again?" he added mentally.
Carlos Alvarez saw that face again, not by the ray of sun or moon, nor
yet by the gleam of the student's lamp, but clear and distinct in a
lurid awful light more terrible than Egyptian darkness, yet fraught
with strange blessing, since it showed the way to the city of God,
where the sun no more goes down, neither doth the moon withdraw herself.
Juliano el Chico, otherwise Julian Hernandez, is no fancy sketch, no
"character of fiction." It is matter of history that, cunningly stowed
away in his alforjas, amongst the ribbons, laces, and other trifles
that formed their ostensible freight, there was a large supply of
Spanish New Testaments, of the translation of Juan Perez. And that, in
spite of all the difficulties and dangers of his self-imposed task, he
succeeded in conveying his precious charge safely to Seville.
Our cheeks grow pale, our hearts shudder, at the thought of what he and
others dared, that they might bring to the lips of their countrymen
that living water which was truly "the blood of the men that went for
it in jeopardy of their lives." More than jeopardy. Not alone did
Juliano brave danger, he encountered certain death. Sooner or later,
it was impossible that he should not fall into the pitiless grasp of
that hideous engine of royal and priestly tyranny, called the Holy
Inquisition.
We have no words in which to praise such heroism as his. We leave
that--and we may be content to leave it--to Him whose lips shall one
day pronounce the sublime award, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But in the view of such things
done and suffered for his name's sake, there is another thought that
presses on the mind. How real and great, nay, how unutterably precious,
must be that treasure which men were found willing, at such cost, not
only to secure for themselves, but even to impart to others.
IX.
El Dorado Found.
"So, the All-Great were the all-loving too--
So, through the thunder comes a human voice,
Saying, O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power, nor mayest conceive of mine:
But love I gave thee with myself to love,
And thou must love me who have died for thee!"
R. BROWNING.
Three silent months stole away in the old castle of Nuera. No outward
event affecting the fortunes of its inmates marked their progress.
And yet they were by far the most important months Don Carlos had
ever seen, or perhaps would ever see. They witnessed a change in him,
mysterious in its progress but momentous in its results. An influence
passed over him, mighty as the wind in its azure pathway, but, like it,
visible only by its effects; no man could tell "whence it cometh or
whither it goeth."
Again it was early morning, a bright Sunday morning in September.
Already Carlos stood prepared to go forth. He had quite discarded his
student's habit, and was dressed like any other young nobleman, in a
doublet and short cloak of Genoa velvet, with a sword by his side. His
Breviary was in his hand, however, and he was on the point of taking
up his hat when Dolores entered the room, bearing a cup of wine and a
manchet of bread.
Carlos shook his head, saying, "I intend to communicate. And you,
Dolores," he added, "are you not also going to hear mass?"
"Surely, señor; we will all attend our duty. But there is still time to
spare; your worship sets us an example in the matter of early rising."
"It were shame to lose such fair hours as these. Prithee, Dolores, and
lest I forget, hast thou something savoury in the house for dinner?"
"Glad I am to hear you ask, señor. Hitherto it has seemed alike to your
Excellency whether they served you with a pottage of lentils or a stew
of partridges. But since Diego had the good fortune to kill that buck
on Wednesday, we are better than well provided. Your worship shall dine
on roast venison to-day."
"That will do. And if thou wouldst add some of the batter ware, in
which thou art so skilful, it would be better still; for I intend to
bring home a guest."
"Now, the Saints help me, that is news! Without meaning offence, your
worship might have told me before. Any noble caballero coming to these
parts to visit you must needs have bed as well as board found him. And
how can I, in three hours, more or less--"
"Nay, be not alarmed, Dolores; no stranger is coming here. Only I wish
to bring the cura home to dinner."
Even the self-restrained Dolores could not repress an exclamation of
surprise. For both the brothers had been accustomed to regard the
ignorant vulgar cura of the neighbouring village with unmitigated
dislike and contempt. In old times Dolores herself had sometimes tried
to induce them to show him some trifling courtesies, "for their soul's
health." They were willing enough to send "that beggar"--as Don Juan
used to call him--presents of meat or game when they could, but these
they would not have grudged to their worst enemy. To converse with
him, or to seat him at their table, was a very different matter. He was
"no fit associate for noblemen," said the boys; and Dolores, in her
heart, agreed with them. She looked at her young master to see whether
he were jesting.
"He likes a good dinner," Carlos added quietly. "Let us for once give
him one."
"In good faith, Señor Don Carlos, I cannot tell what has come to you.
You must be about doing penance for your sins, though I will say no
young gentleman of your years has fewer to answer for. Still, to please
your whim, the cura shall eat the best we have, though beans and bacon
would be more fitting fare for him."
"Thank you, mother Dolores," said Carlos kindly. "In truth, neither Don
Juan nor I had ever whim yet you did not strive to gratify."
"And who would not do more than that for so pleasant and kind a young
master?" thought Dolores, as she withdrew to superintend the cooking
operations. "God's blessing and Our Lady's rest on him, and in sooth I
think they do. Three months ago he came here looking like a corpse out
of the grave, and fitter, as it seemed to me, to don his shroud than
his priest's frock. But the free mountain air wherein he was born is
bringing back the red to his cheek and the light to his eye, thank the
holy Saints. Ah, if his lady mother could only see her gallant sons
now!"
Meanwhile Don Carlos leisurely took his way down the hill. Having
abundance of time to spare, he chose a solitary, devious path through
the cork-trees and the pasture land belonging to the castle. His heart
was alive to every pleasant sight and sound that met his eye and ear;
although, or rather because, a low, sweet song of thankfulness was all
the while chanting itself within him.
During his solitary walk he distinctly realized for the first time the
stupendous change that had passed over him. For such changes cannot
be understood or measured until afterwards, perhaps not always then.
Drawing from his pocket Juliano's little book, he clasped it in both
hands. "_This_, God be thanked, has done it all, under him. And yet, at
first, it added to my misery a hundred-fold." Then his mind ran back
to the dreary days of helpless, almost hopeless wretchedness, when he
first began its perusal. Much of it had then been quite unintelligible
to him; but what he understood had only made his darkness darker still.
He who had but just learned from that stern teacher, Life, the meaning
of sorrow, learned from the pages of his book the awful significance
of that other word, Sin. Bitter hours, never to be remembered without
a shudder, were those that followed. Already prostrate on the ground
beneath the weight of his selfish sorrow for the love that might never
be his, cruel blows seemed rained upon him by the very hand to which
he turned to lift him up. "All was his own fault," said conscience.
But had conscience, enlightened by his book, said no more, he could
have borne it. It was a different thing to recognize that all was his
own _sin_--to feel more keenly every day that the whole current of his
thoughts and affections was set in opposition to the will of God as
revealed in that book, and illustrated in the life of him of whom it
told.
But this sickness of heart, deadly though it seemed, was not unto
death. The Word had indeed proved a mirror, in which he saw his own
face reflected with the lines and colours of truth. But it had a
farther use for him. As he did not fling it away in despair, but still
gazed on, at length he saw in its clear depths another Face--a Face
radiant with divine majesty, yet beaming with tender love and pity. He
whom the mirror thus gave back to him had been "not far" from him all
his life; had been standing over against him, watching and waiting for
the moment in which to reveal himself. At last that moment came. He
looked up from the mirror to the real Face; from the Word to him whom
the Word revealed. He turned himself and said unto him, "Rabboni, which
is to say, My Master." He laid his soul at his feet in love, in trust,
in gratitude. And he knew then, not until then, that this was the
"coming" to him, the "believing" on him, the receiving him, of which He
spoke as the condition of life, of pardon, and of happiness.
From that hour he possessed life, he knew himself forgiven, he was
_happy_. This was no theory, but a fact--a fact which changed all his
present and was destined to change all his future.
He longed to impart the wonderful secret he had found. This longing
overcame his contempt for the cura, and made him seek to win him by
kindness to listen to words which perhaps might open for him also the
same wonderful fountain of joy.
"Now I am going to worship my Lord, afterwards I shall speak of him,"
he said, as he crossed the threshold of the little village church.
In due season the service was over. Its ceremonies did not pain or
offend Carlos in any way; he took part in them with much real devotion,
as acts of homage paid to his Lord. Still, if he had analyzed his
feelings (which he did not), he would have found them like those of a
king's child, who is obliged, on days of courtly ceremonial, to pay
his father the same distant homage as the other peers of the realm,
and yet knows that all this for him is but an idle show, and longs to
throw aside its cumbrous pomp, and to rejoice once more in the free
familiar intercourse which is his habit and his privilege. But that the
ceremonial itself could be otherwise than pleasing to his King, he had
not the most distant suspicion.
He spoke kindly to the priest, and inquired by name after all the sick
folk in the village, though in fact he knew more about them himself by
this time than did Father Tomas.
The cura's heart was glad when the catechism came to a termination so
satisfactory as an invitation to dine at the castle. Whatever the fare
might be--and his expectations were not extravagantly high--it could
scarce fail to be an improvement on the olla of which he had intended
to make his Sunday repast. Moreover, one favour from the castle might
be the earnest of others; and favours from the castle, poor though its
lords might be, were not to be despised. Nor was he ill at ease in the
society of an accomplished gentleman, as a man just a little better
bred would probably have been. A wealthy peasant's son, and with but
scanty education, Father Tomas was so hopelessly vulgar that he never
once imagined he was vulgar at all.
Carlos bore as patiently as he could with his coarse manners, and
conversation something worse than commonplace. Not until the repast
was concluded did he find an opportunity of bringing forward the topic
upon which he longed to speak. Then, with more tact than his guest
could appreciate, he began by inquiring--as one himself intended for
the priesthood might naturally do--whether he could always keep his
thoughts from wandering while he was celebrating the holy mysteries of
the faith.
Father Tomas crossed himself, and answered that he was a sinner like
other men, but that he tried to do his duty to our holy Mother Church
to the best of his ability.
Carlos remarked, that unless we ourselves know the love of God by
experience we cannot love him, and that without love there is no
acceptable service.
"Most true, señor," said the priest, turning his eyes upwards. "As the
holy St. Augustine saith. Your worship quotes from him, I believe."
"I have quoted nothing," said Carlos, beginning to feel that he was
speaking to the deaf; "but I know the words of Christ." And then he
spoke, out of a full heart, of Christ's work for us, of his love to us,
and of the pardon and peace which those receive that trust him.
But his listener's stolid face betrayed no interest, only a vague
uneasiness, which increased as Carlos proceeded. The poor parish cura
began to suspect that the clever young collegian meant to astonish and
bewilder him by the exhibition of his learning and his "new ideas."
Indeed, he was not quite sure whether his host was eloquently enlarging
all the time upon Catholic truths, or now and then mischievously
throwing out a few heretical propositions, in order to try whether he
would have skill enough to detect them. Naturally, he did not greatly
relish this style of entertainment. Nothing could be got from him save
a cautious, "That is true, señor," or, "Very good, your worship;" and
as soon as his notions of politeness would permit, he took his leave.
Carlos marvelled greatly at his dulness; but soon dismissed him
from his mind, and took his Testament out to read under the shade
of the cork-trees. Ere long the light began to fade, but he sat
there still in the fast deepening twilight. Thoughts and fancies
thronged upon his mind; and dreams of the past sought, as even yet
they often did, to reassert their supremacy over his heart. One of
those apparently unaccountable freaks of memory, which we all know by
experience, brought back to him suddenly the luscious perfume of the
orange-blossoms, called by the Spaniards the azahar. Such fragrance had
filled the air, and such flowers had been strewed upon his pathway,
when last he walked with Donna Beatriz in the fairy gardens of the
Alcazar of Seville.
Keen was the pang that shot through his heart at the remembrance. But
it was conquered soon. As he went in-doors he repeated the words he had
just been reading, "'He that cometh unto me shall never hunger; he that
believeth on me shall never thirst.' And _this_ hunger of the soul, as
well as every other, He can stay. Having him, I have all things.
'El dorado
Yo hé trovado.'
Father, dear, unknown father, I have found the golden country! Not in
the sense thou didst fondly seek, and I as fondly dream to find it. Yet
the only true land of gold I have found indeed--the treasure unfailing,
the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for me."
X.
Dolores.
"Oh, hearts that break and give no sign,
Save whitening lip and fading tresses;
Till death pours out his cordial wine,
Slow dropped from misery's crushing presses,
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven."
O.W. HOLMES.
A great modern poet has compared the soul of man to a pilgrim who
passes through the world staff in hand, never resting, ever pressing
onwards to some point as yet unattained, ever sighing wearily, "Alas!
that _there_ is never _here_." And with deep significance adds his
Christian commentator, "In Christ _there_ is _here_."
He who has found Christ "is already at the goal." "For he stills our
innermost fears, and fulfils our utmost longings." "In him the dry
land, the mirage of the desert, becomes living water." "He who knows
him knows the reason of all things." Passing all along the ages, we
might gather from the silent lips of the dead such words as these,
bearing emphatic witness to what human hearts have found in him. Yet,
after all, we would come back to his own grand and simple words, as
best expressing the truth: "I am the bread of life;" "I will give you
rest;" "In me ye shall have peace."
With the peace which he gave there came to Carlos a strange new
knowledge also. The Testament, from its first page to its last, became
intelligible to him. From a mere sketch, partly dim and partly blurred
and blotted, it grew into a transparency through which light shone upon
his soul, every word being itself a star.
He often read his book to Dolores, though he allowed her to suppose it
was Latin, and that he was improvising a translation for her benefit.
She would listen attentively, though with a deeper shade of sadness on
her melancholy face. Never did she volunteer an observation, but she
always thanked him at the end in her usual respectful manner.
These readings were, in fact, a trouble to Dolores. They gave her pain,
like the sharp throbs that accompany the first return of consciousness
to a frozen member, for they awakened feelings that had long been
dormant, and that she thought were dead for ever. But, on the other
hand, she was gratified by the condescension of her young master in
reading aloud for her edification. She had gone through the world
giving very largely out of her own large loving heart, and expecting
little or nothing in return. She would most gladly have laid down her
life for Don Juan or Don Carlos; yet she did not imagine that the
old servant of the house could be to them much more than one of the
oak tables or the carved chairs. That "Señor Don Carlos" should take
thought for her, and trouble himself to do her good, thrilled her with
a sensation more like joy than any she had known for years. Little
do those whose cups are so full of human love that they carry them
carelessly, spilling many a precious drop as they pass along, dream how
others cherish the few poor lees and remnants left to them.
Moreover Carlos, in the eyes of Dolores, was half a priest already, and
this lent additional weight, and even sacredness, to all that he said
and did.
One evening he had been reading to her, in the inner room by the light
of the little silver lamp. He had just finished the story of Lazarus,
and he made some remark on the grateful love of Mary, and the costly
sacrifice by which she proved it. Tears gathered in the dark wistful
eyes of Dolores, and she said with sudden and, for her, most unusual
energy, "That was small wonder. Any one would do as much for him that
brought the dear dead back from the grave."
"He has done a greater thing than even that for each of us," said
Carlos.
But Dolores withdrew into her ordinary self again, as some timid
creature might shrink into its shell from a touch. "I thank your
Excellency," she said, rising to withdraw, "and I also make my
acknowledgments to Our Lady, who has inspired you with such true piety,
suitable to your holy calling."
"Stay a little, Dolores," said Carlos, as a sudden thought occurred to
him; "I marvel it has so seldom come into my mind to ask you about my
mother."
"Ay, señor. When you were both children, I used to wonder that you and
Don Juan, while you talked often together of my lord your father, had
scarce a thought at all of your lady mother. Yet if she had lived _you_
would have been her favourite, señor."
"And Juan my father's," said Carlos, not without a slight pang of
jealousy. "Was my noble father, then, more like what my brother is?"
"Yes, señor; he was bold and brave. No offence to your Excellency, for
one you love I warrant me _you_ could be brave enough. But he loved
his sword and his lance and his good steed. Moreover, he loved travel
and adventure greatly, and never could bear to abide long in the same
place."
"Did he not make a voyage to the Indies in his youth?"
"He did; and then he fought under the Emperor, both in Italy, and in
Africa against the Moors. Once His Imperial Majesty sent him on some
errand to Leon, and there he first met my lady. Afterwards he crossed
the mountains to our home, and wooed and won her. He brought her, the
fairest young bride eyes could rest on, to Seville, where he had a
stately palace on the Alameda."
"You must have grieved to leave your mountains for the southern city."
"No, señor, I did not grieve. Wherever your lady mother dwelt was home
to me. Besides, 'a great grief kills all the rest.'"
"Then you had known sorrow before. I thought you lived with our house
from your childhood."
"Not altogether; though my mother nursed yours, and we slept in the
same cradle, and as we grew older shared each other's plays. At seven
years old I went home to my father and mother, who were honest,
well-to-do people, like all my forbears--good 'old Christians,' and
noble--they could wear their caps in the presence of His Catholic
Majesty. They had no girl but me, so they would fain have me ever in
their sight. For ten years and more I was the light of their eyes; and
no blither lass ever led the goats to the mountain in summer, or spun
wool and roasted chestnuts at the winter fire. But, the year of the
bad fever, both were stricken. Christmas morning, with the bells for
early mass ringing in my ears, I closed my father's eyes; and three
days afterwards, set the last kiss on my mother's cold lips. Nigh upon
five-and-twenty years ago,--but it seems like yesterday. Folks say
there are many good things in the world, but I have known none so good
as the love of father and mother. Ay de mi, señor, _you_ never knew
either."
"When your parents died, did you return to my mother?"
"For half a year I stayed with my brother. Though no daughter ever shed
truer tears over the grave of better parents, I was not then quite
broken-hearted. There was another love to whisper hope, and to keep me
from desolation. He--Alphonso ('tis years and years since I uttered
the name save in my prayers) had gone to the war, telling me he would
come back and claim me for his bride. So I watched for him hour by
hour, and toiled and spun, and spun and toiled, that I might not go
home to him empty-handed. But at last a lad from our parish, who had
been a comrade of his, returned and told me all. _He_ was lying on the
bloody field of Marignano, with a French bullet in his heart. Señor,
the sisters you read of could 'go to the grave and weep there.' And yet
the Lord pitied them."
"He pities all who weep," said Carlos.
"All good Christians, he may. But though an old Christian, I was not
a good one. For I thought it bitter hard that my candle should be
quenched in a moment, like a wax taper when the procession is done.
And it came often into my mind how the Almighty, or Our Lady, or the
Saints, could have helped me if they would. May they forgive me; it is
hard to be religious."
"I do not think so."
"I suppose it is not hard to learned gentlemen who have been at the
colleges. But how can simple men and women tell whether they are
keeping all the commandments of God and Holy Church? It well may be
that I had done something, or left something undone, whereby Our Lady
was displeased."
"It is not Our Lady, but our Lord himself, who holds the keys of hell
and of death," said Carlos, gaining at the moment a new truth for his
own heart. "None enter the gates of death, as none shall come forth
through them, save at his command. But go on, Dolores, and tell me how
did comfort come to you?"
"Comfort never came to me, señor. But after a time there came a kind
of numbness and hardness that helped me to live my life as if I cared
for it. And your lady mother (God rest her soul!) showed me wondrous
kindness in my sorrow. It was then she took me to be her own maiden.
She had me taught many things, such as reading and various cunning
kinds of embroidery, that I might serve her with them, she said; but I
well knew they were meant to turn my heart away from its own aching. I
went with her to Seville. I could be glad for her, señor, that God had
given her the good thing he had denied to me. At last it came to be
almost like joy to me to see the great deep love there was between your
father and her."
This was a degree of unselfishness beyond the comprehension of Carlos
just then. He felt his own wound throb painfully, and was not sorry
to turn the conversation. "Did my parents reside long in Seville?" he
asked.
"Not long, señor. Their life there was a gay one, as became their rank
and wealth (for, as your worship knows, your father had a noble estate
then). But soon they both grew tired of the gay world. My lady ever
loved the free mountains, and my lord--I scarce can tell what change
passed over him. He lost his care for the tourney and the dance, and
betook himself instead to study. Both were glad to withdraw to this
quiet spot. Here your brother Don Juan was born; and for nigh a year
afterwards no lord and lady could have led a happier and, at the same
time, more pious and orderly life, than did your noble parents."
The thoughtful eye of Carlos turned to the inscription on the window,
and kindled with a strange light. "Was not this room my father's
favourite place of study?" he asked.
"It was, señor. Of course, the house was not then as it now is. Though
simple enough, after the Seville palace with its fountains and marble
statues, and doors grated with golden network, it was still a seemly
dwelling-place for a noble lord and lady. There was glass in all the
windows then, though through neglect and carelessness it has been
broken (even your worship may remember how Don Juan sent an arrow
through a quarrel-pane in the west window one day), so we thought it
best to remove the traces."
"My parents led a pious life, you say?"
"Truly they did, señor. They were good and charitable to the poor; and
they spent much of their time reading holy books, as you do now. Ay de
mi! what was wrong with them I know not, save that perhaps they were
scarce careful enough to give Holy Church all her dues. And I used
sometimes to wish that my lady would show more devotion to the blessed
Mother of God. But she _felt_ it all, no doubt; only it was not her
way, nor my lord's either, to be for ever running about on pilgrimage
or offering wax candles, nor yet to keep the father confessor every
instant with his ear to their lips."
Carlos started, and turned an earnest inquiring gaze upon her. "Did my
mother ever read to you as I have done?" he asked.
"She sometimes read me good words out of the Breviary, señor. All
thing went on thus, until one day when a letter came from the Emperor
himself (as I believe), desiring your father to go to him, to Antwerp.
The matter was to be kept very private, but my lady used to tell me
everything. My lord thought he was to be sent on some secret mission
where skill was needed, and perchance peril was to be met. For it
was well known that he loved such affairs, and was dexterous in the
management of them. So he parted cheerily from my lady, she standing
at the gate yonder, and making little Don Juan kiss hands to him as he
rode down the path. Woe for the poor babe, that never saw his father's
face again! And worse woe for the mother! But death heals all things,
except sin.
"After three weeks or a month, more or less, two monks of St. Dominic
rode to the gates one day. The younger stayed without in the hall with
us; while the elder, a man of stern and stately presence, had private
audience of my lady in this chamber where we sit now--a place of death
it has seemed to me ever since. For the audience had not lasted long
until I heard a cry--such a cry!--it rings in my ears even now. I
hastened to my lady. She had swooned--and long, long was it before
sense returned again. Do not keep looking at me, señor, with eyes so
like hers, or I cannot tell you more."
"Did she speak? Did she reveal anything to you?"
"_Nothing_, señor. During the days that followed, only things without
meaning or connection, such as those in fever speak, or broken words of
prayer, were on her lips. Until the very last, and then she was worn
and weak, and could but receive the rites of the Church, and whisper
a few directions about the poor babes. She bade us give you the name
you bear, since _he_ had said that his next boy should be called for
the great Emperor. Then she prayed very earnestly, 'Lord, take him
Thyself--take him Thyself!' Doctor Marco, who was present, thought she
meant the poor little new-born babe--supposing, and no wonder, that it
would be better tended in heaven by Our Lady and the angels, than here
on earth. But I _know_ it was not you she thought of."
"My poor mother--God rest her soul! Nay, I doubt not that now she rests
in God," Carlos added, softly.
"And so the curse fell on your house, señor; and in such sorrow were
you born. Yet you grew up merry lads, you and Don Juan."
"Thanks to thy care and kindness, well-beloved and faithful nurse. But,
Dolores, tell me truly--have you never heard anything further of, or
from, my father?"
"From him, never. Of him, that I believed, _never_."
"And what do you believe?" Carlos asked, eagerly.
"I know nothing, señor. I have heard all that your worship has heard,
and no more."
"Do you think it is true--what we have all been told--of his death in
the Indies?"
"I know nothing, señor," Dolores repeated, with the air of a person
determined to _say_ nothing.
But Carlos would not allow her to escape thus. Both had gone too far
to leave the subject without probing it to its depths. And both felt
instinctively that it was not likely again to be discussed between
them. Laying his hand on her arm, and looking steadily in her face, he
asked,--
"Dolores, are you sure my father is dead?"
Seemingly relieved by the form the question had taken, she met his gaze
without flinching, and answered in tones of evident sincerity, "Sure as
that I sit here--so help me God." After a long pause she added, as she
rose to go, "Señor Don Carlos, be not offended if I counsel you this
once, since I held you a babe in my arms, and you will find none that
loves you better--if a poor old woman may say so to a young and noble
caballero."
"Say all you think to me, my dear and kind nurse."
"Then, señor, I say, leave vain thoughts and questions about your
father's fate. 'There are no birds in last year's nests;' and 'Water
that has run by will turn no mill.' And I entreat of you to repeat the
same to your noble brother when you find opportunity. Look before you,
señor, and not behind; and God's best blessings rest on you!"
Dolores turned to go, but turning back again, stood irresolute.
"What is it, Dolores?" Carlos asked; hoping, perhaps, for some further
glimmer of light upon that dark past, from which she implored him to
turn his thoughts.
"If it please you, Señor Don Carlos--" and she paused and hesitated.
"Can I do anything for you?" said Carlos, in a kind, encouraging tone.
"Ay, señor, that you can. With your learning and your good Book, surely
you can tell me whether the soul of my poor Alphonso, dead on the
battle-field without shrift or sacrament, has yet found rest with God?"
Thus the true woman's heart, though so full of sympathy for others,
still turned back to its own sorrow, which lay deepest of all.
Carlos felt himself unexpectedly involved in a difficulty. "My book
tells me nothing on the subject," he said, after some thought. "But I
am sure you may be comforted, after all these years, during which you
have diligently prayed, and sought the Church's prayers for him."
The long eager gaze of her wistful eyes asked mournfully, "Is this
_all_ you can tell me?" But her lips only said, "I thank your
Excellency," as she withdrew.
XI.
The Light Enjoyed.
"Doubt is slow to clear and sorrow is hard to bear,
And each sufferer has his say, his scheme of the weal and the woe;
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome, 'tis we musicians _know_."
R. BROWNING.
Bewildering were the trains of thought which the conversation just
narrated awakened in the mind of Carlos. On the one hand, a gleam
of light was shed upon his father's career, suggesting a possible
interpretation of the inscription on the window, that thrilled his
heart with joy. On the other, the termination of that career was
involved in even deeper obscurity than before; and he was made to feel,
more keenly than ever, how childish and unreal were the dreams which he
and his brother had been wont to cherish upon the subject.
Moreover, Dolores, just before she left him, had drawn a bow at a
venture, and most unintentionally sent a sharp arrow through a joint
in his harness. Why could he find no answer to a question so simple
and natural as the one she had asked him? Why did the Book, which had
solved so many mysteries for him, shed not a ray of light upon this
one? Whence this ominous silence of the apostles and evangelists upon
so many things that the Church most loudly proclaimed? Where, in his
Book, was purgatory to be found at all? Where was the adoration of the
Virgin and the saints? Where were works of supererogation? But here
he started in horror, as one who suddenly saw himself on the brink of
a precipice. Or rather, as one dwelling secure and contented within
a little circle of light and warmth, to whom such questions came as
intimations of a chaos surrounding it on every side, into which a
chance step might at any moment plunge him.
Most earnestly he entreated that the Lord of his life, the Guide of
his spirit, would not let him go forth to wander there. He prayed,
expressly and repeatedly, that the doubts which began to trouble him
might be laid and silenced. His prayer was answered, as all true prayer
is sure to be, but it was not _granted_. He whose love is strong
and deep enough to work out its good purpose in us even against the
pleadings of our own hearts, saw that his child must needs pass through
"a land of darkness" to reach the clearer light beyond. Conflicts
fierce and terrible must be his portion, if indeed he were to take his
place amongst those "called and chosen and faithful" ones who, having
stood beside the Lamb in his contest with Antichrist, shall stand
beside him on the sea of glass mingled with fire.
Already Carlos was in training for that contest--though as yet he knew
not that there was any contest before him, save the general "striving
against sin" in which all Christians have to take part. For the joy
of the Lord is the Christian's strength in the day of battle. And he
usually prepares those faithful soldiers whom he means to set in the
forefront of the hottest battle, by previously bestowing that joy upon
them in very full measure. He who is willing to "sell all that he
hath," must first have found a treasure, and what "the joy thereof" is
none else may declare.
In this joy Carlos lived now; and it was as yet too fresh and new to be
greatly disturbed by haunting doubts or perplexing questions. These,
for the present, came and passed like a breath upon a surface of molten
gold, scarcely dimming its lustre for a moment.
It had become his great wish to receive Orders as soon as possible,
that he might consecrate himself more entirely to the service of his
Lord, and spread abroad the knowledge of his love more widely. With
this view, he determined on returning to Seville early in October.
He left Nuera with regret, especially on account of Dolores, who had
taken a new place in his consideration, and even in his affections,
since he had begun to read to her from his Book. And, though usually
very calm and impassive in manner, she could scarcely refrain from
tears at the parting. She entreated him, with almost passionate
earnestness, to be very prudent and careful of himself in the great
city.
Carlos, who saw no special danger likely to menace him, save such as
might arise from his own heart, felt tempted to smile at her foreboding
tone, and asked her what she feared for him.
"Oh, Señor Don Carlos," she pleaded, with clasped hands, "for the love
of God, take care; and do not be reading and telling your good words to
every one you meet. For the world is an ill place, your worship, where
good is ofttimes evil-spoken of."
"Never fear for me," returned Carlos, with his frank, pleasant smile.
"I have found nothing in my Book but the most Catholic verities, which
will be useful to all and hurtful to none. But of course I shall be
prudent, and take due care of my words, lest by any extraordinary
chance they might be misinterpreted. So that you may keep your mind at
peace, dear Mother Dolores."
XII.
The Light Divided from the Darkness.
"I felt and feel, what'er befalls,
The footsteps of thy life in mine."
TENNYSON.
In the glorious autumn weather, Don Carlos rode joyfully through cork
and chestnut groves, across bare brown plains, and amidst gardens
of pale olives and golden orange globes shining through dark glossy
leaves. He had long ago sent back to Seville the guard with which his
uncle had furnished him, so that his only companion was a country
youth, trained by Diego to act as his servant. But although he passed
through the very district afterwards immortalized by the adventures of
the renowned Don Quixote, no adventure fell to his lot. Unless it may
count for an adventure that near the termination of his journey the
weather suddenly changed, and torrents of ruin, accompanied by unusual
cold, drove him to seek shelter.
"Ride on quickly, Jorge," he said to his attendant, "for I remember
there is a venta[4] by the roadside not far off. A poor place truly,
where we are little likely to find a supper. But we shall find a roof
to shelter us and fire to warm us, and these at present are our most
pressing needs."
[4] An inn.
Arrived at the venta, they were surprised to see the lazy landlord
so far stirred out of his usual apathy as to busy himself in trying
to secure the fastening of the outer door, that it might not swing
backwards and forwards in the wind, to the great discomfort of all
within the house. The proud indifferent Spaniard looked calmly up from
his task, and remarked that he would do all in his power to accommodate
his worship. "But unfortunately, señor and your Excellency, a _very_
great and principal nobleman has just arrived here, with a most
distinguished train of fine caballeros--his lordship's gentlemen and
servants; and kitchen, hall, and chamber are as full of them as a hive
is full of bees."
This was evil news to Carlos. Proud, sensitive, and shy, there could
be nothing more foreign to his character than to throw himself into
the society of a person who, though really only his equal in rank, was
so much his superior in all that lends rank its charm in the eyes of
the vulgar. "We had better push on to Ecija," said he to his reluctant
attendant, bravely turning his face to the storm, and making up his
mind to ten miles more in drenching rain.
At that moment, however, a tall figure emerged from the inner door,
opening into the long room behind the stable and kitchen, that formed
the only tolerable accommodation the one-storied venta afforded.
"Surely, señor, you do not intend to go further in this storm," said
the nobleman, whose fine thoughtful countenance Carlos could not but
fancy that he had seen before.
"It is not far to Ecija, señor," returned Carlos, bowing. "And 'First
come first served,' is an excellent proverb."
"The first-comer has certainly one privilege which I am not disposed
to waive--that of hospitably welcoming the second. Do me the favour to
come in, señor. You will find an excellent fire."
Carlos could not decline an invitation so courteously given. He was
soon seated by the wood fire that blazed on the hearth of the inner
room, exchanging compliments, in true Spanish fashion, with the
nobleman who had welcomed him so kindly.
Though no one could doubt for an instant the strangers possession of
the pure "sangre azul,"[5] yet his manners were more frank and easy and
less ceremonious than those to which Carlos had been accustomed in the
exclusive and privileged class of Seville society--a fact accounted for
by the discovery, afterwards made, that he was horn and educated in
Italy.
[5] "Blue blood."
"I have the pleasure of recognizing Don Carlos Alvarez de Santillanos y
Meñaya," said he. "I hope the babe about whom his worship showed such
amiable anxiety recovered from its indisposition?"
This then was the personage whom Carlos had seen in such close
conversation with the physician Losada. The association of ideas
immediately brought back the mysterious remark about his father he
had overheard on that occasion. Putting that aside, however, for the
present, he answered, "Perfectly, I thank your grace. We attribute the
recovery mainly to the skill and care of the excellent Dr. Cristobal
Losada."
"A gentleman whose medical skill cannot be praised too highly,
except, indeed, it were exalted at the expense of his other excellent
qualities, and particularly his charity to the poor."
Carlos heartily acquiesced, and added some instances of the physician's
kindness to those who could not recompense him again. They were new to
his companion, who listened with interest.
During this conversation supper was laid. As the principal guest had
brought his own provisions with him, it was a comfortable and plentiful
repast. Carlos, ere he sat down, left the room to re-arrange his
dress, and found opportunity to ask the innkeeper if he knew the noble
strangers name.
"His Excellency is a great noble from Castile," returned mine host,
with an air of much importance. "His name, as I am informed, is Don
Carlos de Seso; and his illustrious lady, Doña Isabella, is of the
blood royal."
"Where does he reside?"
"His gentlemen tell me, principally at one of his fine estates in the
north, Villamediana they call it. He is also corregidor[6] of Toro.
He has been visiting Seville upon business of importance, and is now
returning home."
[6] Mayor.
Pleased to be the guest of such a man (for in fact he was his guest),
Carlos took his seat at the table, and thoroughly enjoyed the meal. An
hour's intercourse with a man who had read and travelled much, but had
thought much more, was a rare treat to him. Moreover, De Seso showed
him all that fine courtesy which a youth so highly appreciates from a
senior, giving careful attention to every observation he hazarded, and
manifestly bringing the best of his powers to bear on his own share of
the conversation.
He spoke of Fray Constantino's preaching, with an enthusiasm that made
Carlos regret that he had been hitherto such an inattentive hearer.
"Have you seen a little treatise by the Fray, entitled 'The Confession
of a Sinner'?" he asked.
Carlos having answered in the negative, his new friend drew a tract
from the pocket of his doublet, and gave it to him to read while he
wrote a letter.
Carlos, after the manner of eager, rapid readers, plunged at once into
the heart of the matter, disdaining beginnings.
Almost the first words upon which his eyes fell arrested his attention
and drew him irresistibly onwards. "Such has been the pride of man,"
he read, "that he aimed at being God; but so great was thy compassion
towards him in his fallen state, that thou abasedst thyself to become
not only of the rank of men, but a true man, and the least of men,
taking upon thee the form of a servant, that thou mightest set me at
liberty, and that by means of thy grace, wisdom, and righteousness,
man might obtain more than he had lost by his ignorance and pride....
Wast thou not chastised for the iniquity of others? Has not thy blood
sufficient virtue to wash out the sins of all the human race? Are not
thy treasures more able to enrich me than all the debt of Adam to
impoverish me? Lord, although I had been the only person alive, or the
only sinner in the world, thou wouldst not have failed to die for me.
O my Saviour, I would say, and say it with truth, that I individually
stand in need of those blessings which thou hast given to all. What
though the guilt of all had been mine? thy death is all mine. Even
though I had committed all the sins of all, yet would I continue to
trust thee, and to assure myself that thy sacrifice and pardon is all
mine, though it belong to all."
So far he read in silence, then the tract fell from his hand, and an
involuntary exclamation broke from his lips--"Passing strange!"
De Seso paused, pen in hand, and looked up surprised. "What find you
'passing strange,' señor?" he asked.
"That he--that Fray Constantino should have felt precisely what--what
he describes here."
"That such a holy man should feel so deeply his own utter sinfulness?
But you are doubtless aware that the holiest saints in all ages have
shared this experience. St. Augustine, for instance, with whose
writings so ripe a theological scholar is doubtless well acquainted."
"Such," returned Carlos, "are not worse than others; but they know what
they are as others do not."
"True. Tried by the standard of God's perfect law, the purest life must
appear a miserable failure. We may call the marble of our churches and
dwellings white, until we see God's snow, pure and fresh from heaven,
upon it."
"Ay, señor," said Carlos, with joyful eagerness; "but the Hand that
points out the stains can cleanse them. No snow is half so pure as the
linen clean and white which is the righteousness of saints."
It was De Seso's turn to be astonished now. In the look that, half
leaning over the table, he bent upon the eager face of Carlos, surprise
and emotion blended. For a moment their eyes met with a flash, like
that which flint strikes from steel, of mutual intelligence and
sympathy. But it passed again as quickly. De Seso said, "I suspect
that I see in you, Señor Don Carlos, one of those admirable scholars
who have devoted their talents to the study of that sacred language in
which the words of the holy apostles are handed down to us. You are a
Grecian?"
Carlos shook his head. "Greek is but little studied at Complutum now,"
he said, "and I confined myself to the usual theological course."
"In which, I have heard, your success has been brilliant. But it is a
sore disgrace to us, and a heavy loss to the youth of our nation, that
the language of St. John and St. Paul should be deemed unworthy of
their attention."
"Your Excellency is aware that it was otherwise in former years,"
returned Carlos. "Perhaps the present neglect is owing to the suspicion
of heresy which, truly or falsely, has attached itself to most of the
accomplished Greek scholars of our time."
"A miserable misapprehension; the growth of monkish ignorance and envy,
and popular superstition. Heresy is a convenient stigma with which men
ofttimes brand as evil the good they are incapable of comprehending."
"Most true, señor. Even Fray Constantino has not escaped."
"His crime has been, that he has sought to turn the minds of men from
outward acts and ceremonies to the great spiritual truths of which
these are the symbols. To the vulgar, Religion is nothing but a series
of shows and postures."
"Yes," answered Carlos; "but the heart that loves God, and truly
believes in our Lord and Saviour, is taught to put such in their
proper place. 'These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other
undone.'"
"Señor Don Carlos," said De Seso, with surprise he could no longer
suppress, "you are evidently a devout and earnest student of the
Scriptures."
"I search the Scriptures; in them I think I have eternal life. And they
testify of Christ," promptly responded the less cautious youth.
"I perceive that you do not quote the Vulgate."
Carlos smiled. "No, señor. To a man of your enlightened views I am
not afraid to acknowledge the truth. I have seen--nay, why should I
hesitate?--I possess a rare treasure--the New Testament of our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ in our own noble Castilian tongue."
Even through the calm and dignified deportment of his companion Carlos
could perceive the thrill that this communication caused. There was
a pause; then he said softly, "And your treasure is also mine." The
low quiet words came from even greater depths of feeling than the
eager tremulous tones of Carlos. For _his_ convictions, slowly reached
and dearly purchased, were "built below" the region of the soul that
passions agitate,--
"Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity."
The heart of Carlos glowed with sudden ardent love towards the man
who shared his treasure, and, he doubted not, his faith also. He
could joyfully have embraced him on the spot. But the force of habit
and the sensitive reserve of his character checked this impetuous
demonstrativeness. He only said, with a look that was worth an embrace,
"I knew it. Your Excellency spoke as one who held our Lord and his
truth in honour."
"_Ella es pues honor a vosotros que creeis._"[7]
[7] Unto you who believe he is precious," or "an honour."
It would have been hard to begin a verse that Carlos could not at this
time have instantly completed. He went on: "_Mas para los que no creen,
la piedra que los edificatores reprobaron_."[8]
[8] "But unto those that believe not, the stone that the builders
reject."
"A sorrowful truth," said De Seso, "which my young friend must needs
bear in mind. His Word, like himself, is rejected by the many. Its very
mention may expose to obloquy and danger."
"Only another instance, señor, of those lamentable prejudices about
heresy about which we spoke anon. I am aware that there are those that
would brand me (_me_, a scholar too!) with the odious name of heretic,
merely for reading God's Word in my own tongue. But how utterly absurd
the charge! The blessed Book has but confirmed my faith in all the
doctrines of our holy Mother Church."
"Has it?" said De Seso, quietly, perhaps a little drily.
"Most assuredly, señor," Carlos rejoined, with warmth. "In fact I never
understood, or, I may say, truly believed those holy verities until
now. Beginning with the Credo itself, and the orthodox Catholic faith
in our Lord's divinity and atonement."
Here their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of the
attendants, who removed supper, replenished the lamp, and heaped fresh
chestnut logs on the fire. But as soon as the room was cleared they
returned eagerly to subjects so interesting to both.
"Our salvation rests," said De Seso, "upon the great cardinal truths
you have named. By the faith which receives into your heart the
atonement of Christ as a work done for you, you are justified."
"I am forgiven, and I shall be justified."
"Pardon me, señor; Scripture teaches that your justification is already
complete. Therefore, _being justified by faith_, we have peace with
God."
"But that cannot surely be the apostle's meaning," said Carlos, "Ay de
mi! I know too well that I am not yet completely justified. Far from
it; evil thoughts throng my heart; and not with heart alone, but with
lips, eyes, hands, I transgress daily."
"Yet, you see, peace can only be consequent on justification. And peace
you have."
Carlos looked perplexed. Misled by the teaching of his Church, he
confused justification with sanctification; consequently he could
not legitimately enjoy the peace that ought to flow from the one as
a complete and finished work, because the other necessarily remained
imperfect.
De Seso explained that the word justify is never used in Scripture in
its derivative sense, to _make_ righteous; but always in its common and
universally accepted sense, to _account_ or _declare_ righteous. Quite
easily and naturally he glided into the teacher's place, whilst Carlos
gladly took that of the learner; not, indeed, without astonishment at
the layman's skill in divinity, but with too intense an interest in
what he said to waste much thought upon his manner of saying it.
Hitherto he had been like an unlearned man, who, without guide or
companion, explores the trackless shores of a newly-discovered land.
Should such an one meet in his course a scientific explorer, who has
mapped and named every mountain, rock, and bay, who has traced out
the coast-line, and can tell what lies beyond the white hills in the
distance, it is easy to understand the eagerness with which he would
listen to his narrative, and the intentness with which he would bend
over the chart in which the scene of his own journeyings lies portrayed.
Thus De Seso not only taught Carlos the true meaning of Scripture
terms, and the connection of Scripture truths with each other; he also
made clear to him the facts of his own experience, and gave names to
them for him.
"I think I understand now," said Carlos after a lengthened
conversation, in which, moving from point to point, he had suggested
many doubts and not a few objections, and these in turn had been taken
up and answered by his friend. "God be thanked, there is no more
condemnation, no more punishment for us. Nothing, either in act or
suffering, can be added to the work of Christ, which is complete."
"Ay, now you have grasped the truth which is the source of our joy and
strength."
"It must then be our sanctification which suffering promotes, both in
this life and in purgatory."
"All God's dealings with us in this life are meant to promote our
sanctification. Joy may do it, by his grace, as well as sorrow. It is
written, not alone, 'He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger,' but
also, 'He fed thee with manna, to teach the secret of life in him, from
him, and by him.'"
"But suffering is purifying--like fire."
"Not in itself. Criminals released from the galleys usually come forth
hardened in their crimes by the lash and the oar."
Having said this, De Seso rose and extinguished the expiring lamp,
while Carlos remained thoughtfully gazing into the fire. "Señor,"
he said, after a long pause, during which the stream of thought ran
continuously underground, to reappear consequently in an unexpected
place--"Señor, do you think God's Word, which solves so many mysteries,
can answer every question for us?"
"Scarcely. Some questions we may ask, of which the answers, in our
present state, would be beyond our comprehension. And others may
indeed be answered there, but we may miss the answers, because through
weakness of faith we are not yet able to receive them."
"For instance?"
"I had rather not name an instance--at present," said De Seso, and
Carlos thought his face had a sorrowful look as he gazed at it in the
firelight.
"I would not willingly miss anything my Lord meant to teach. I desire
to know _all_ his will, and to follow it," Carlos rejoined earnestly.
"It may be that you know not what you desire. Still, name any question
you wish; and I will tell you freely whether in my judgment God's Word
contains an answer."
Carlos stated the difficulty suggested by the inquiry of Dolores. Who
can tell the exact moment when his bark leaves the gently-flowing river
for the great deep ocean? That of Carlos, on the instant when he put
this question, was met by the first wave of the mighty sea upon which
he was to be tossed by many a storm. But he did not know it.
"I agree with you as to the silence of God's Word about purgatory,"
returned his friend; and for some time both gazed into the fire without
speaking.
"This and similar discoveries have sometimes given me, I own, a feeling
of blank disappointment, and even of terror," said Carlos at length.
For with him it was one of those rare hours in which a man can bear
to translate into words the "dark misgivings" of the soul, usually
unacknowledged even to himself.
"I cannot say," was the answer, "that the thought of passing through
the gate of death into the immediate presence of my glorified Lord
affects me with 'blank disappointment' or 'terror.'"
"How?--What do you say?" cried Carlos, starting visibly.
"'Absent from the body, present with the Lord.' 'To depart and to be
with Christ is far better.'"
"But it was San Pablo, the great apostle and martyr, who said that. For
us,--we have the Church's teaching," Carlos rejoined in quick, anxious
tones.
"Nevertheless, I venture to think that, in the face of all you have
learned from God's Word, you will find it a task somewhat of the
hardest to prove purgatory."
"Not at all," said Carlos; and immediately he bounded into the
arena of controversy, laid his lance in rest, and began an animated
tilting-match with his new friend, who was willing (of course, thought
Carlos, for argument's sake alone, and as an intellectual exercise) to
personate a Lutheran antagonist.
But not a few doughty champions have met the stern reality of a bloody
death in the mimic warfare of the tilting-field. At every turn Carlos
found himself answered, baffled, confounded. Yet, how could he, how
dared he, acknowledge defeat, even to himself, when with the imperilled
doctrine so much else must fall? What would become of private masses,
indulgences, prayers for the dead? Nay, what would become of the
infallibility of Mother Church herself?
So he fought desperately. Fear, ever increasing, quickened his
preceptions, baptized his lips with eloquence, made his sense acute
and his memory retentive. Driven at last from the ground of Scripture
and reason, he took his stand upon that of scholastic divinity. Using
the weapons with which he had been taught to play so deftly for once
in terrible earnest, he spun clever syllogisms, in which he hoped to
entangle his adversary. But De Seso caught the flimsy webs in the naked
hand of his strong sense, and crushed them to atoms.
Then Carlos knew that the battle was lost. "I can say no more," he
acknowledged, sorrowfully bowing his head.
"And what I have said--is it not in accordance with the Word of God?"
With a cry of dismay on his lips, Carlos turned and looked at him--"God
help us! Are we then Lutherans?"
"It may be Christ is asking another question--Are we amongst those who
follow him _whithersoever_ he goeth?"
"Oh, not _there_--not to _that_!" cried Carlos, rising in his agitation
and beginning to pace the room. "I abhor heresy--I eschew the thought.
From my cradle I have done so. Anywhere but that!"
Pausing at last in his walk before the place where De Seso sat, he
asked, "And you, señor, have you considered whither this would lead?"
"I have. I do not ask thee to follow. But this I say: if Christ bids
any man leave the ship and come to him upon these dark and stormy
waters, he will stretch out his own right hand to uphold and sustain
him."
"To leave the ship--his Church? That would be leaving him. And leaving
him, I am lost, soul and body--lost--lost!"
"Fear not. At his feet, clinging to him, soul of man was never lost
yet."
"I will cleave to him, and to the Church too."
"Still, if one must be forsaken, let not that one be Christ."
"Never, _never_--so help me God!" After a pause he added, as if
speaking to himself, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life."
He stood motionless, wrapt in thought; while De Seso rose softly, and
going to the window, put aside the rude shutter that had been fastened
across it.
"The night is bright," said Carlos dreamily. "The moon must have risen."
"That is daylight you see," returned his companion with a smile. "Time
for wayfarers to seek rest in sleep."
"Prayer is better than sleep."
"True, and we who own the same precious faith can well unite in prayer."
With the willing consent of Carlos, his new friend laid their common
desires and perplexities before God. The prayer was in itself a
revelation to him; he forgot even to wonder that it came from the lips
of a layman. For De Seso spoke as one accustomed to converse with the
Unseen, and to enter by faith to the inner sanctuary, the very presence
of God himself. And Carlos found that it was good thus to draw nigh
to God. He felt his troubled soul returning to its rest, to its quiet
confidence in Him who, he knew, would guide him by his counsel, and
afterwards receive him into glory.
When they rose, instinctively their right hands sought each other, and
were locked in that strong grasp which is sometimes worth more than an
embrace.
"We have confidence each in the other," said De Seso, "so that we need
exchange no pledge of faithfulness or secrecy."
Carlos bowed his head. "Pray for me, señor," he said. "Pray that God,
who sent you here to teach me, may in his own time complete the work he
has begun."
Then both lay down in their cloaks; one to sleep, the other to ponder
and pray.
In the morning each went his several way. And never was it given to
Carlos, in this world, to look upon that face or to grasp that hand
again.
He who had thus crossed his path, as it were for a moment, was perhaps
the noblest of all the heroic band of Spanish martyrs, that forlorn
hope of Christ's army, who fought and fell "where Satan's seat was."
His high birth and lofty station, his distinguished abilities, even
those more superficial graces of person and manner which are not
without their strong fascination, were all--like the precious ointment
with the odour of which the house was filled--consecrated to the
service of the Lord for whom he lived and died. The eye of imagination
lingers with special and reverential love upon that grand calm figure.
But our simple story leads us far away amongst other scenes and other
characters. We must now turn to a different part of the wide missionary
harvest-field, in which the lowly muleteer Juliano Hernandez, and the
great noble Don Carlos de Seso, were both labouring. Was their labour
in vain?
XIII.
Seville.
"There is a multitude around,
Responsive to my prayer;
I hear the voice of my desire
Resounding everywhere."
A.L. WARING.
Don Carlos felt surprised, on returning to Seville, to find the circle
in which he had been wont to move exactly as he left it. His absence
appeared to him a great deal longer than it really was. Moreover,
there lurked in his mind an undefined idea that a period so fraught
with momentous change to him could not have passed without change over
the heads of others. But the worldly only seemed more worldly, the
frivolous more frivolous, the vain more vain than ever.
Around the presence of Doña Beatriz there still hung a sweet dangerous
fascination, against which he struggled, and, in the strength of his
new and mighty principle of action, struggled successfully. Still, for
the sake of his own peace, he longed to find some fair pretext for
making his home elsewhere than beneath his uncle's roof.
One great pleasure awaited his return--a letter from Juan. It was the
second he had received; the first having merely told of his brother's
safe arrival at the headquarters of the royal army at Cambray. Don
Juan had obtained his commission just in time for active service in
the brief war between France and Spain that immediately followed the
accession of Philip II. And now, though he said not much of his own
exploits, it was evident that he had already begun to distinguish
himself by the prompt and energetic courage which was a part of his
character. Moreover, a signal piece of good fortune had fallen to his
lot. The Spaniards were then engaged in the siege of St. Quentin.
Before the works were quite completed, the French General--the
celebrated Admiral Coligny--managed to throw himself into the town
by a brilliant and desperate _coup-de-main_. Many of his heroic band
were killed or taken prisoners, however; and amongst the latter was a
gentleman of rank and fortune, a member of the admiral's suite, who
surrendered his sword into the hands of young Don Juan Alvarez.
Juan was delighted with his prize, as he well might be. Not only was
the distinction an honourable one for so young a soldier; but the
ransom he might hope to receive would serve very materially to smooth
his pathway to the attainment of his dearest wishes.
Carlos was now able to share his brother's joy with unselfish sympathy.
With a peculiar kind of pleasure, not quite unmixed with superstition,
he recalled Juan's boyish words, more than once repeated, "When I go
to the wars, I shall make some great prince or duke my prisoner." They
had found a fair, if not exactly literal, fulfilment, and that so early
in his career. And a belief that had grown up with him from childhood
was strengthened thereby. Juan would surely accomplish everything upon
which his heart was set. Certainly he would find his father--if that
father should prove to be after all in the land of the living.
Carlos was warmly welcomed back by his relatives--at least by all of
them save one. To a mild temper and amiable disposition he united the
great advantage of rivalling no man, and interfering with no man's
career. At the same time, he had a well-defined and honourable career
of his own, in which he bid fair to be successful; so that he was
not despised, but regarded as a credit to the family. The solitary
exception to the favourable sentiments he inspired was found in the
bitter disdain which Gonsalvo, with scarcely any attempt at disguise,
exhibited towards him.
This was painful to him, both because he was sensitively alive to the
opinions of others; and also because he actually preferred Gonsalvo,
notwithstanding his great and glaring faults, to his more calculating
and worldly-minded brothers. Force of any kind possesses a real
fascination for an intellectual and sympathetic, but rather weak
character; and this fascination grows in intensity when the weaker has
a reason to pity and a desire to help the stronger.
It was not altogether grace, therefore, which checked the proud words
that often rose to the lips of Carlos in answer to his cousin's sneers
or sarcasms. He was not ignorant of the cause of Gonsalvo's contempt
for him. It was Gonsalvo's creed that a man who deserved the name
always got what he wanted, or died in the attempt; unless, of course,
absolutely insuperable physical obstacles interfered, as they did in
his own case. As he knew well enough what Carlos wanted before his
departure from Seville, the fact of his quietly resigning the prize,
without even an effort to secure it, was final with him.
One day, when Carlos had returned a forbearing answer to some taunt,
Doña Inez, who was present, took occasion to apologize for her brother,
as soon as he had quitted the room. Carlos liked Doña Inez much better
than her still unmarried sister, because she was more generous and
considerate to Beatriz. "You are very good, amigo mio," she said,
"to show so great forbearance to my poor brother. And I cannot think
wherefore he should treat you so uncourteously. But he is often rude to
his brothers, sometimes even to his father."
"I fear it is because he suffers. Though rather less helpless than he
was six months ago, he seems really more frail and sickly."
"Ay de mi, that is too true. And have you heard his last whim? He tells
us he has given up physicians for ever. He has almost as ill an opinion
of them as--forgive me, cousin--of priests."
"Could you not persuade him to consult your friend, Doctor Cristobal?"
"I have tried, but in vain. To speak the truth, cousin," she added,
drawing nearer to Carlos, and lowering her voice, "there is another
cause that has helped to make him what he is. No one knows or even
guesses aught of it but myself; I was ever his favourite sister. If I
tell you, will you promise the strictest secrecy?"
Carlos did so; wondering a little what his cousin would think could she
surmise the weightier secrets which were burdening his own heart.
"You have heard of the marriage of Doña Juana de Xeres y Bohorques with
Don Francisco de Vargas?"
"Yes; and I account Don Francisco a very fortunate man."
"Are you acquainted with the young lady's sister, Doña Maria de
Bohorques?"
"I have met her. A fair, pale, queenly girl. She is not fond of gaiety,
but very learned and very pious, as I have been told."
"You will scarce believe me, Don Carlos, when I tell you that pale,
quiet girl is Gonsalvo's choice, his dream, his idol. How she contrived
to gain that fierce, eager young heart, I know not--but hers it is, and
hers alone. Of course, he had passing fancies before; but she was his
first serious passion, and she will be his last."
Carlos smiled. "Red fire and white marble," he said. "But, after all,
the fiercest fire could not feed on marble. It must die out, in time."
"From the first, Gonsalvo had not the shadow of a chance," Doña Inez
replied, with an expressive flutter of her fan. "I have not the least
idea whether the young lady even knows he loves her. But it matters
not. We are Alvarez de Meñaya; still we could not expect a grandee of
the first order to give his daughter to a younger son of our house.
Even before that unlucky bull-feast. _Now_, of course, he himself would
be the first to say, 'Pine-apple kernels are not for monkeys,' nor fair
ladies for crippled caballeros. And yet--you understand?"
"I do," said Carlos; and in truth he _did_ understand, far better than
Doña Inez imagined.
She turned to leave the room, but turned back again to say kindly, "I
trust, my cousin, your own health has not suffered from your residence
among those bleak inhospitable mountains? Don Garçia tells me he has
seen you twice, since your return, coming forth late in the evening
from the dwelling of our good Señor Doctor."
There was a sufficient reason for these visits. Before they parted, De
Seso had asked Carlos if he would like an introduction to a person in
Seville who could give him further instruction upon the subjects they
had discussed together. The offer having been thankfully accepted,
he was furnished with a note addressed, much to his surprise, to the
physician Losada; and the connection thus begun was already proving a
priceless boon to Carlos.
But nature had not designed him for a keeper of secrets. The colour
mounted rapidly to his cheek, as he answered,--
"I am flattered by my lady cousin's solicitude for me. But, I thank
God, my health is as good as ever. In truth, Doctor Cristobal is
a man of learning and a pleasant companion, and I enjoy an hour's
conversation with him. Moreover, he has some rare and valuable books,
which he is kind enough to lend me."
"He is certainly very well-bred, for a man of his station," said Doña
Inez, condescendingly.
Carlos did not resume his attendance upon the lectures of Fray
Constantino at the College of Doctrine; but when the voice of the
eloquent preacher was heard in the cathedral, he was never absent.
He had no difficulty _now_ in recognizing the truths that he loved
so well, covered with a thin veil of conventional phraseology. All
mention, not absolutely necessary, of dogmas peculiarly Romish was
avoided, unless when the congregation were warned earnestly, though
in terms well-studied and jealously guarded, against "risking their
salvation" upon indulgences or ecclesiastical pardons. The vanity of
trusting to their own works was shown also; and in every sermon Christ
was faithfully held up before the sinner as the one all-sufficient
Saviour.
Carlos listened always with rapt attention, usually with keen delight.
Often would he look around him upon the sea of earnest upturned faces,
saying within himself, "Many of these my brethren and sisters have
found Christ--many more are seeking him;" and at the thought his heart
would thrill with thankfulness. But even at that moment some word from
the preacher's lips might change his joy into a chill of apprehension.
It frequently happened that Fray Constantino, borne onward by the
torrent of his own eloquence, was betrayed into uttering some sentiment
so very nearly heretical as to make his hearer tingle with the peculiar
sense of pain that is caused by seeing one rush heedlessly to the verge
of a precipice.
"I often thank God for the stupidity of evil men and the simplicity of
good ones," Carlos said to his new friend Losada, after one of these
dangerous discourses.
For by this time, what De Seso had first led him to suspect, had
become a certainty with him. He knew himself _a heretic_--a terrible
consciousness to sink into the heart of any man in those days,
especially in Catholic Spain. Fortunately the revelation had come to
him gradually; and still more gradually came the knowledge of all that
it involved. Yet those were sorrowful hours in which he first felt
himself cut off from every hallowed association of his childhood and
youth; from the long chain of revered tradition, which was all he knew
of the past; from the vast brotherhood of the Church visible--that
mighty organization, pervading all society, leavening all thought,
controlling all custom, ruling everything in this world, even if not
in the next. His own past life was shattered: the ambitions he had
cherished were gone--the studies he had excelled and delighted in were
proved for the most part worse than vain. It is true that he believed,
even still, that he might accept priestly ordination from the hands
of Rome (for the idolatry of the mass was amongst the things not yet
revealed to him); but he could no longer hope for honour or preferment,
or what men call a career, in the Church. Joy enough would it be if
he were permitted, in some obscure corner of the land, to tell his
countrymen of a Saviour's love; and perpetual watchfulness, extreme
caution, and the most judicious management would be necessary to
preserve him--as hitherto they had preserved Fray Constantino--from the
grasp of the Holy Inquisition.
To us, who read that word in the lurid light that martyr fires kindled
after this period have flung upon it, it may seem strange that Carlos
was not more a prey to fear of the perils entailed by his heresy.
But so slowly did he pass out of the stage in which he believed
himself still a sincere Catholic into that in which he shudderingly
acknowledged that he was in very truth a Lutheran, that the shock
of the discovery was wonderfully broken to him. Nor did he think
the danger that menaced him either near or pressing, so long as he
conducted himself with reserve and prudence.
It is true that this reserve involved a degree of secrecy, if not of
dissimulation, that was fast becoming very irksome. Formerly the kind
of fencing, feinting, and doubling into which he was often forced,
would rather have pleased him, as affording scope for the exercise of
ingenuity. But his moral nature was growing so much more sensitive,
that he began to recoil from slight departures from truth, in which
heretofore he would only have seen a proper exercise of the advantage
which a keen and quick intellect possesses over dull ones. Moreover,
he longed to be able to speak freely to others of the things which he
himself found so precious.
Though quite sufficiently afraid of pain and danger, the thought of
disgrace was still more intolerable to him. Keener than any suffering
he had yet known--except the pang of renouncing Beatriz--was the
consciousness that all those amongst whom he lived, and who now
respected and loved him, would, if they guessed the truth, turn away
from him with unutterable scorn and loathing.
One day, when walking in the city with his aunt and Doña Sancha, they
turned down a side-street to avoid meeting the death procession of a
murderer on his way to the scaffold. The crime for which he suffered
had been notorious; and with the voluble exclamations of horror and
congratulations at getting safely out of the way to which the ladies
gave expression, were mingled prayers for the soul of the miserable
man. "If they knew all," thought Carlos, as the slight, closely-veiled
forms clung trustingly to him for protection, "they would think _me_
worse, more degraded, than yon wretched being. They pity _him_, they
pray for _him_; _me_ they would only loathe and execrate. And Juan, my
beloved, my honoured brother--what will he think?" This last thought
was the one that haunted him most frequently and troubled him most
deeply.
But had he nothing to counter-balance these pangs of fear and shame,
these manifold dark misgivings? He had much. First and best, he had
the peace that passeth all understanding shed abroad in his heart. Its
light did not grow pale and faint with time; on the other hand, it
increased in brightness and steadiness, as new truths arose like stars
upon his soul, every new truth being in itself "a new joy" to him.
Moreover, he found keen enjoyment in the communion of saints. Great was
his surprise when, after sufficiently instructing him in private, and
satisfactorily testing his sincerity, Losada cautiously revealed to him
the existence of a regularly-organized Lutheran Church in Seville, of
which he himself was actually the pastor. He invited Carlos to attend
its meetings, which were held, with due precaution, and usually after
nightfall, in the house of a lady of rank--Doña Isabella de Baena.
Carlos readily accepted the perilous invitation, and with deep emotion
took his place amongst the band of "called, chosen, and faithful" men
and women, every one of whom, as he believed, shared the same joys and
hopes that he did. They were not at all such a "little band" as he
expected to find them. Nor were they, with very few exceptions, of the
poor of this world. If that bright southern land, so rich in all that
kindles the imagination, eventually to her own ruin rejected the truth
of God, at least she offered upon his altar some of her choicest and
fairest flowers. Many of those who met in Doña Isabella's upper room
were "chief men" and "devout and honourable women." Talent, learning,
excellence of every kind was largely represented there; so also was
the _sangre azul_, the boast of the proud Spanish grandees. One of
the first faces that Carlos recognized was the sweet, thoughtful one
of the young Doña Maria de Bohorques, whose precocious learning and
accomplishments had often been praised in his hearing, and in whom he
had now a new and peculiar interest.
There were two noblemen of the first order--Don Domingo de Guzman, son
of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and Don Juan Ponce de Leon, son of the
Count of Baylen. Carlos had often heard of the munificent charities of
the latter, who had actually embarrassed his estates by his unbounded
liberality to the poor. But while Ponce de Leon was thus labouring
to relieve the sorrows of others, a deep sadness brooded over his
own spirit. He was wont to go forth by night, and pace up and down
the great stone platform in the Prado San Sebastian, that bore the
ghastly name of the Quemadero, or _Burning-place_, while in his heart
the shadow of death--the darkest shadow of the dreadest death--was
struggling with the light of immortality.
Did the rest of that devoted band share the agony of apprehension that
filled those lonely midnight hours with passionate prayer? Some amongst
them did, no doubt. But with most, the circumstances and occupations
of daily life wove, with their multitudinous slender threads, a veil
dense enough to hide, or at least to soften, the perils of their
situation. The Protestants of Seville contrived to pass their lives
and to do their work side by side with other men; they moved amongst
their fellow-citizens and were not recognized; they even married and
were given in marriage; though all the time there fell upon their daily
paths the shadow of the grim old fortress where the Holy Inquisition
held its awful secret court.
But then, at this period the Holy Inquisition was by no means
exhibiting its usual terrible activity. The Inquisitor-General,
Fernando de Valdez, Archbishop of Seville, was an old man of
seventy-four, relentless when roused, but not particularly
enterprising. Moreover, he was chiefly occupied in amassing enormous
wealth from his rich and numerous Church preferments. Hitherto, the
fires of St. Dominic had been kindled for Jews and Moors; only one
Protestant had suffered death in Spain, and Valladolid, not Seville,
had been the scene of his martyrdom. Seville, indeed, had witnessed two
notable prosecutions for Lutheranism--that of Rodrigo de Valer and that
of Juan Gil, commonly called Dr. Egidius. But Valer had been only sent
to a monastery to die, while, by a disgraceful artifice, retraction had
been obtained from Egidius.
During the years that had passed since then, the Holy Office had
appeared to slumber. Victims who refused to eat pork, or kept Sabbath
on Saturday, were growing scarce for obvious reasons. And not yet had
the wild beast "exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron and his
nails of brass," begun to devour a nobler prey. Did the monster, gorged
with human blood, really slumber in his den; or did he only assume the
attitude and appearance of slumber, as some wild beasts are said to do,
to lure his unwary victims within the reach of his terrible crouch and
spring?
No one can certainly tell; but however it may have been, we doubt not
the Master used the breathing-time thus afforded his Church to prepare
and polish many a precious gem, destined to shine through all ages in
his crown of glory.
XIV.
The Monks of San Esodro.
"The earnest of eternal joy
In every prayer I trace;
I see the likeness of the Lord
In every patient face.
How oft, in still communion known,
Those spirits have been sent
To share the travail of my soul,
Or show me what it meant."
A.L. WARING.
It is amongst the perplexing conditions of our earthly life, that we
cannot first reflect, then act; first form our opinions, then, and
not till then, begin to carry them out into practice. Thought and
action have usually to run beside each other in parallel lines; a
terrible necessity, and never more terrible than during the progress of
momentous inward changes.
A man becomes convinced that the star by which he has hitherto been
steering is not the true pole-star, and that if he perseveres in his
present course his barque will inevitably be lost. At his peril,
he must find out the one unerring guide; yet, while he seeks it,
his hand must not for an instant quit his hold on the helm, for the
winds of circumstance fill his sails, and he cannot choose whether he
will go, he can only choose where. This lies at the root of much of
the apparent inconsistency which has often been made a reproach to
reformers.
Though Carlos did not feel this difficulty as keenly as some of his
brethren in the faith, he yet felt it. His uncle was continually
pressing him to take Orders, and to seek for this or that tempting
preferment; whilst every day he had stronger doubts as to the
possibility of his accepting any preferment in the Church, and was even
beginning to entertain scruples about taking Orders at all.
During this period of deliberation and uncertainty, one of his new
friends, Fray Cassiodoro, an eloquent Jeromite friar, who assisted
Losada in his ministrations, said to him, "If you intend embracing a
religious life, Señor Don Carlos, you will find the white tunic and
brown mantle of St. Jerome more to your taste than any other habit."
Carlos pondered the hint; and shortly afterwards announced to his
relatives that he intended to "go into retreat" for a season, at the
Jeromite Convent of San Isodro del Campo, which was about two miles
from Seville.
His uncle approved this resolution; and none the less, because he
thought it was probably intended as a preparation for taking the cowl.
"After all, nephew, it may turn out that you have the longest head
amongst us," he said. "In the race for wealth and honours, no man can
doubt that the Regulars beat the Seculars now-a-days. And there is
not a saint in all the Spains so popular as St. Jerome. You know the
proverb,--
"'He who is a count, and to be a duke aspires,
Let him straight to Guadaloupe, and sing among the friars.'"
Gonsalvo, who was present, here looked up from his book and observed
sharply,--
"No man will ever be a duke who changes his mind three times within
three months."
"But I only changed my mind once," returned Carlos.
"You have never changed it at all, that I wot of," said Don Manuel.
"And I would that thine were turned in the same profitable direction,
son Gonsalvo."
"Oh yes! By all means. Offer the blind and the lame in sacrifice. Put
Heaven off with the wreck of a man that the world will not condescend
to take into her service."
"Hold thy peace, son born to cross me!" said the father, losing his
temper at by no means the worst of the many provocations he had
recently received. "Is it not enough to look at thee lying there a
useless log, and to suffer thy vile temper; but thou must set thyself
against me, when I point out to thee the only path in which a cripple
such as thou could earn green figs to eat with his bread, not to speak
of supporting the rank of Alvarez de Meñaya as he ought."
Here Carlos, out of consideration for the feelings of Gonsalvo, left
the room; but the angry altercation between the father and son lasted
long after his departure.
The next day Don Carlos rode out, by a lonely path amidst the gray
ruins of old Italica, to the stately castellated convent of San
Isodro. Amidst all his new interests, the young Castilian noble still
remembered with due enthusiasm how the building had been reared, more
than two hundred years ago, by the devotion of the heroic Alonzo Guzman
the Good, who gave up his own son to death, under the walls of Tarifa,
rather than surrender the city to the Moors.
Before he left Seville, he placed a copy of Fray Constantino's "Sum of
Christian Doctrine" between two volumes of Gonsalvo's favourite "Lope
de Vega." He had previously introduced to the notice of the ladies
several of the Fray's little treatises, which contained a large amount
of Scripture truth, so cautiously expressed as to have not only escaped
the censure, but actually obtained the express approbation of the Holy
Office. He had also induced them occasionally to accompany him to the
preachings at the Cathedral. Further than this he dared not go; nor
did he on other accounts think it advisable, as yet, to permit himself
much communication with Doña Beatriz.
The monks of San Isodro welcomed him with that strong, peculiar
love which springs up between the disciples of the same Lord, more
especially when they are a little flock surrounded by enemies. They
knew that he was already one of the initiated, a regular member of
Losada's congregation. Both this fact, and the warm recommendations of
Fray Cassiodoro, led them to trust him implicitly; and very quickly
they made him a sharer in their secrets, their difficulties, and their
perplexities.
To his astonishment, he found himself in the midst of a community,
Protestant in heart almost to a man, and as far as possible acting out
their convictions; while at the same time they retained (how could they
discard them?) the outward ceremonies of their Church and their Order.
He soon fraternized with a gentle, pious young monk named Fray
Fernando, and asked him to explain this extraordinary state of things.
"I am but just out of my novitiate, having been here little more than
a year," said the young man, who was about his own age; "and already,
when I came, the fathers carefully instructed the novices out of the
Scriptures, exhorting us to lay no stress upon outward ceremonies,
penances, crosses, holy water, and the like. But I have often heard
them speak of the manner in which they were led to adopt these views."
"Who was their teacher? Fray Cassiodoro?"
"Latterly; not at first. It was Dr. Blanco who sowed the first seed of
truth here."
"Whom do you mean? We in the city give the name of Dr. Blanco (the
white doctor), from his silver hairs, to a man of your holy order,
certainly, but one most zealous for the old faith. He is a friend
and confidant of the Inquisitors, if indeed he is not himself a
Qualificator of Heresy:[9] I speak of Dr. Garçias Ariâs."
[9] One of the learned men who were appointed to assist the
Inquisitors, and whose duty is was to decide whether doubtful
propositions were, or were not, heretical.
"The same man. You are astonished, señor; nevertheless it is true.
The elder brethren say that when he came to the convent all were sunk
in ignorance and superstition. The monks cared for nothing but vain
repetitions of unfelt prayers, and showy mummeries of idle ceremonial.
But the white doctor told them all these would avail them nothing,
unless their hearts were given to God, and they worshipped him in
spirit and in truth. They listened, were convinced, began to study the
Holy Scriptures as he recommended them, and truly to seek Him who is
revealed therein."
"'Out of the eater came forth meat,'" said Carlos. "I am truly amazed
to hear of such teaching from the lips of Garçias Ariâs."
"Not more amazed than the brethren were by his after conduct," returned
Fray Fernando. "Just when they had received the truth with joy, and
were beginning heartily to follow it, their teacher suddenly changed
his tone, and addressed himself diligently to t
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