THE WAYSIDE CROSS AND WELL.
"If in this exile dark and drear,
To which my fate has doomed me now,
I should unnoticed die--what tear,
What tear of sympathy will flow?
For I have sought an exile's woe,
And fashioned my own misery;
Who then will pity me?"
_Cancionero de Amberes_, 1557.
As Quentin walked on in solitude after Rowland Askerne left him, he
could not help musing, as he frequently did, on the changes a short
time had wrought in him and in his ideas. It would seem that from a
mere day-dreaming schoolboy, whose most onerous purposes were to fill
his basket with trout from the Girvan, the Doon, or the Lollards'
Linn; to supply the cook with an occasional brace of ptarmigan from
the oakwood shaw, or of blackcock from the Mains of Kilhenzie; from
trying a pad for Flora, or culling the flowers which he knew she
loved most, he had risen to be a man and a soldier, valued by his
comrades, all officers of bravery and position, trusted by his
superiors, and charged with a great and confidential duty--a portion
of the vast game of war and politics now played by Britain for the
deliverance of Spain; and yet, withal, he longed for a companion, and
to hear the voice of a friend, for a sense of intense loneliness
gradually stole over him as the twilight deepened, and the purple
shadows grew more sombre on the hills of Portuguese Estremadura.
To Quentin it seemed that his bodily strength and bulk had increased,
for drill and marching had developed every muscle to the fullest
extent; thus he was stronger, more active and hardy than before.
He felt too, that the time had come when youth was no longer a libel
against him; the time for doing something worthy of being mentioned
in a despatch of the commander-in-chief, in the government gazette,
in general orders--something gallant, manly, and dashing; and that he
would turn the occasion to its best account, and achieve something
glorious, "or," as romances and melo-dramas have it, "perish in the
attempt."
"If I acquit myself well in this, my first duty, it shall in itself
prove a revenge upon Cosmo!" thought he.
And so he trod manfully and hopefully on, dreaming of the future,
knowing but little of the path he was at present to pursue, and less
of the perils and pit-falls that were around it.
As the evening deepened into night with great rapidity, for there is
very little twilight in those regions--the mighty shadows of the
sierra fell eastward in a sombre mass across the valley through which
lay the road--a mere bridle path--towards the Spanish frontier, while
the ranges of peaks that faced the west were still glowing in ruddy
saffron or pale purple against the blue dome of the star-studded sky.
About twelve miles from Portalegre, the road pursued by Quentin
enters a narrow gorge or immense chasm or cleft which rends the
mountains from their summit to their base. Down the steep wall of
rock on one side, a spring trickles for some hundred feet, and at the
foot, near the road-way, it is received into the quaintly carved
basin of an ancient stone fountain, behind which stands a memorial
cross.
A niche in the shaft of the latter contains a little wayside altar.
An image of the Madonna was rudely and gaudily painted in the recess,
and before it a copper lamp was always kept burning. This shrine,
once reputed to be of great sanctity, had been mutilated and its lamp
destroyed by the French; but it had been replaced by another, which
was always supplied with wick and oil by the passing muleteers,
contrabandists, guerillas, and others.
The rays of this lamp were burning feebly in the vast rocky solitude,
forming a strange and picturesque feature in the deep dark dell, the
silence of which was broken only by the plash of the slender thread
of liquid that filtered or trickled down the granite face of the
dissevered mountain.
This cross and well had been built by Alphonso I., in the year that
he achieved his greatest victory over the united arms of five Moorish
sovereigns. It had been deemed holy even in those days, for there he
had halted and prayed when on the march with his mail-clad knights to
the capture of Santarem; and an inscription, frequently renewed,
invited the passer to say a prayer for the repose of his soul, and
the souls of all the good and true Portuguese who drew their swords
against the Moslem.
A long ray of light shed by the rising moon, shone down the cleft at
the bottom of which the road lay, casting the shadows of the well and
votive cross far along the narrow gorge. The thick foliage of some
gigantic Portuguese laurels, which grew in the interstices of the
rocks, glittered like bronze gemmed with silver sheen, and offered a
resting place for the night; so Quentin, as he felt weary, crept
under the branches, which formed a pleasant shelter.
The turf below was soft and dry, and to him, who had slept so often
on the bare earth during his march to the frontier, it seemed a
comfortable couch enough. The shaft of King Alphonso's cross on one
side and the wall of rock on the other protected him from prowling
wolves in the front and rear; the stems of the giant laurels formed
barrier on a third side, and the fourth, which was open, he might
defend with his weapons if attacked.
He took a draught from his canteen, which was filled with rum and
water, and placing it under his head for a pillow, with his sword and
loaded pistols ready by his side, he addressed himself to sleep.
The air was filled with a strange but delicious perfume, which came
from those little aromatic shrubs that grow wild everywhere
throughout Spain and Portugal. The intense stillness of the place,
the only sounds there being the trickle of the far-falling water and
the croakings of some bull-frogs among the long grass, made him
wakeful for a time.
He felt neither alarm nor anxiety, but utterly lonely, and he said
over a prayer that in infancy he had often repeated at Lady
Rohallion's knee; then something holy and placid stole over his
heart; sleep at last closed his eyes and he slumbered peacefully
besides the old stone cross of our Lady of Battles.
So passed the first night of his absence from head-quarters.
When Quentin awoke next morning after a long and sound slumber, the
result of youth, high health, and the toil of the past day, though he
had acquired all a soldier's facility for sleeping in strange places
and strange beds, or without other couch than the bare sod, he was at
first somewhat confused and puzzled on perceiving the bower of leaves
above him, and a minute elapsed before he could remember where he
was, and how he came to be roosting under those huge Portuguese
laurels.
Then the despatch rushed upon his memory; he searched his breast
pocket, and found the important document was safe; his weapons were
all right, and he was about to creep forth, when he suddenly
perceived the figure of a man near the well, and, remembering the
reiterated advices of Askerne and others, he paused to observe him.
His first idea was that the stranger must be a robber, for, to a
Briton, Portuguese and Spaniards too have usually that unpleasant
character in their aspect. Their sallow visages, deep dark eyes,
densely black beards and moustaches, with their slouching sombrero,
and large, many-folded cloak of dark brown stuff, together with a
certain fixed scrutiny of expression when observing strangers, give
them all the bravo look and bearing of the "sensation" ruffian or
mysterious bandit of a minor melo-drama; thus, says a recent writer,
"in consequence of the difficulty of outliving what has been learnt
in the nursery, many of our countrymen have, with the best
intentions, set down the bulk of the population of the Peninsula as
one gang of robbers."
The Spaniard in question, for such he seemed to be, was a young man
of powerful and athletic form; his face was sallow and colourless,
and his hair and eyes were black. He was closely shaven, save a
heavy moustache, which had a very ferocious twist across each cheek
towards the tip of the ear. His features were very handsome, and his
whole appearance was eminently striking.
He had a huge cloak--what Spaniard has not, generally to cover his
rags rather than his finery--but this he had flung aside, and Quentin
could perceive that he had a well-worn zamarra of sheepskin over a
gaily embroidered shirt, a pair of crimson pantaloons, which seemed
to have belonged to a hussar, and they ended in strong leather
_abarcas_, which were laced with thongs from the ankle to the knee.
He had a dagger and pair of pistols in his flowing yellow sash, and
close by him lay one of those long, old-fashioned travelling staffs,
shod with iron and loaded with lead, called by the Portuguese a
_cajado_.
Thus, upon the whole, considering the difference of their stature and
bodily strength, Quentin prudently thought that the stranger was not
a personage to be intruded upon without due consideration.
Reverently removing his black sombrero, which was rather battered and
rusty, and had a gilt image of our Lady del Pilar on the gay broad
scarlet band thereof, the Spaniard approached the wayside shrine, and
kneeling before it, crossed himself three times with great devotion,
while muttering a short prayer. Then seating himself on the grassy
sward behind the well, he pulled a little book from the pocket of his
zamarra, and began to peruse it very leisurely while smoking a
cigarito and making his frugal breakfast on a few dry raisins and a
crust of hard bread, which he dipped from time to time in the cool
water of the gurgling fountain.
"This cannot be a bad kind of fellow," thought Quentin, who felt
somewhat ashamed of lurking from one man; so he half-cocked his
pistols, placed them in his girdle, and crept forth from behind the
stone cross, saying:
"_Buenos dias_, senor."
"Senor, good morrow," replied the Spaniard, with a hand on his
dagger, while he surveyed Quentin with a quietly grim, but unmoved
countenance, without rising from his recumbent posture; "are there
any more of you under these bushes?"
"No--I am alone."
"_Por mi vida_, but you chose a strange hiding-place!" said the
other, with a glance of distrust.
"A strange sleeping-place, you should say rather, senor--yet not a
bad one," said Quentin, laughing, and willing to conciliate the
stranger, who closed his book after quietly turning down a leaf to
mark his place; "I crept in over night, and have slept there until
now."
"Signs of a good digestion or a clear conscience."
"Of both, I hope, thank Heaven."
"I am indifferently provided with either; yet I can breakfast on this
poor crust, and be thankful to God and our Blessed Lady for it."
"I can give you something better, Senor Portuguese," said Quentin,
unbuttoning his havresack.
"_Muchos gracias_," replied the other; "but remember, senor, that I
am a Castilian, and in Spain we have a belief that a bad Spaniard
makes a tolerably good Portuguese."
"I beg pardon, senor, but your dress----"
"My dress!" interrupted the other, with a sardonic grin; "_oh, por el
vida del Satanos_, the less you say about that the better. I was not
wont to sport such a costume when rendering Virgil into Castilian,
and Las Comedias de Calderon into Latin, in the Arzobispo College at
old Salamanca."
"A student?"
"Perhaps--it was as might be," replied the other, with sudden
reserve; "and you are----"
"What you see me."
Quentin gave a portion of his ration-beef and biscuit to the
Spaniard, who took them with many thanks, and with an air that showed
he was a man of breeding far above what his present paisano costume
seemed to indicate. His hands were strong, white, and muscular, yet
seemed never to have been used to work, and a valuable diamond
sparkled in a ring on one of his fingers. In the course of
conversation, Quentin could gather that he was remarkably well
informed of the strength, number, position, and divisions of the
British Army, together with the probable movements towards Castile,
thus he felt the necessity of acting with the greatest reserve, and
getting rid of him as soon as possible; for the most subtle, wily,
and dangerous Spaniards were those in the French interest, which, at
first, he feared his new friend to be.
"By my life, Senor Inglese," said the Spaniard, laughing, "with all
this victual in your wallet, 'tis a miracle of our Lady's Cross that
the wolves did not come snuffing about you in the night."
"You are a traveller?" observed Quentin, after a pause, during which
they had been observing each other furtively.
"I hinted that I had been a student among Salamanquinos," replied the
Spaniard, coldly.
"And you are now----"
"What the Fiend and the French have made me!" said he, with a lurid
gleam in his fine dark eyes.
"And that is----"
"My secret, senor," said the other, bluntly, adding "_muchos
gracias_," as Quentin smilingly proffered his canteen, the contents
of which he declined to taste. "The well of our Blessed Lady will
suffice for me," he said, and proceeded to twist up another cigarito.
"You are very curious about me, senor; but pray what are you?"
"What my uniform declares me," said Quentin, showing the scarlet
uniform, which his grey coat had concealed; "a British soldier."
"Bueno! Your hand. And whither go you?"
"On duty."
"Where--to whom?"
"That is _my secret_," retorted Quentin, laughing. But a dark
expression began to gather in the Spaniard's face, and he looked
searchingly at the young volunteer.
"Are you going to the front?" he asked.
"Yes, senor."
"Strange!"
"How so?"
"The British troops have not yet begun to cross the frontier into
Spain. They are still in quarters."
"Yes."
"You are not going to the French head-quarters?"
"No."
"Still monosyllables!" said the Spaniard, impetuously. "I must be
plain, I find. You are a deserter!"
"I have said that I am going on duty," replied Quentin, haughtily.
"You need question me no further. I am not bound to satisfy the
curiosity of every wayfarer I may meet."
"_Morte de Dios!_" swore the Spaniard, with a scowl in his deep eye,
and a hand on his stiletto.
"I, too, have arms to repress insolence," said Quentin, grasping his
sword.
On this the Spaniard laughed, and said--
"Come--don't let us quarrel. You are a brave boy, and your little
breakfast came to me most opportunely. Let us enjoy the present
without thinking of the future. _Demonio!_ Neither of us may be
what we seem. We more often look like spits than swords in this
world!"
"Senor, excuse me; but I don't understand your proverb."
"It means simply, that all men are not what they seem. To you I
appear a _gitano_, a _mendigo_--it may be, a _ladrone_; you appear to
me a deserter; so our circumstances may change--you prove the spit,
and I the sword."
"Spit again!" said Quentin, angrily, as he conceived there was some
sarcasm concealed in the word.
"It is a fable. Listen while I read to you what, I suppose, you
never heard before."
And, opening his book, which proved to be the little pocket edition
of the quaint old literary fables of Don Tomaso de Yriarte, he
rapidly read over the story of the "Spit and Espada."
"Once upon a time there was a rapier of Toledo; a better was never
seen in the Alcazar, or tempered in the waters of the Tagus. After
having been in many battles, and belonging to many brave cavaliers,
by one of the vicissitudes of fortune which lay the greatest low, it
came at length to lie forgotten in the corner of a scurvy posada.
"There, desirous in vain to breathe a vein and flash once more in
battle, it lay long unnoticed and covered with rust, till, by command
of her master, a greasy kitchen-wench stuck it through a large capon,
and thus forced that which had been a rapier of high renown, arming
the hands of the noble and valiant, to degenerate into a mere spit!
"About this time, it likewise chanced that a clownish paisano, by the
sport of fortune became a hidalgo at court, and as he must needs have
a sword, he repaired to the booth of an espadero, who no sooner saw
the kind of customer he had to deal with, than he knew that anything
having a hilt and scabbard would do, and so desired him to call next
day.
"Against the time of his coming he furbished up an old spit that lay
in his kitchen, and sold it to our courtier as Tisona, the very same
blade with which the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar made the Arabian Khalifs
skip at Cordova, and the Moorish dogs at Jaen. Hence we see that the
innkeeper was a very great fool, and the espadero a very great rogue."
"And what am I to understand by all this?" asked Quentin, who with
some impatience had permitted the Spaniard to read thus far.
"Simply, senor, that though by the vicissitudes of fortune, I seem a
spit at present, I may prove in the end to be a good Toledo blade;
for we should never judge solely by appearances;" and pointing to a
hole in his sheepskin zamarra, he laughed and added, "Farewell--I go
towards the mountains."
"And I towards Spain: I have but two wishes--to reach Herreruela, and
to avoid the French in Valencia."
"Truly, they are well and wisely avoided," said the Spaniard through
his clenched teeth, while his face became distorted and convulsed by
concentrated hate and passion. "Save myself and another, my whole
family have perished under their hands. Not even our aged mother was
spared, for she died like my helpless old father by their bayonets,
on the night that Junot entered Salamanca; and well would it have
been if some of the young had suffered the same fate _first_. I had
three sisters, senor--three lovelier girls, or three more loving,
good, and gentle, God's blessed sun never shone on. Two suffered
such wrongs on that night of horrors at Salamanca, that they could
not or would not survive them; the youngest, Isidora, happily escaped
by being in the convent of Santa Engracia, at Portalegre."
Impressed by the undoubted earnestness of the Spaniard, Quentin said--
"I am bound to the frontier, bearer of a secret despatch."
"To whom?"
"Honour ties my tongue for the present, senor."
"Enough, then; continue to pursue this road for some miles, you will
find a branch to the left where it runs parallel with the river
Figuero, and leads to Castello de Vide. Proceed straight on and you
will come to Marvao; six miles further on is Valencia de Alcantara,
garrisoned by the French; cross the river Sever, and a league or so
further brings you to Herreruela. Ere long I, too, shall be there,
so we may meet again; but remember that the whole country swarms with
the accursed French, and that your red coat will ensure your
captivity or death."
"I shall be wary."
"Be so, or, Santos! I would not give a _claco_ for your life! Do
you see yonder hill?" asked the Spaniard, pointing to a lofty
peak--the highest of the mountain range.
"Yes--a vapour hovers near it."
"I am going there to see what news the eagles have for the loyal
Portuguese."
"The eagles!"
"Exactly--but I forget that you are a stranger and don't understand
me," replied the other, laughing.
"Adios, senor," said Quentin, preparing to start.
"Adios, senor soldado--adios, vaya!"
The Spaniard pocketed his book of fables, threw his mantle over his
left shoulder, grasped his cajado, and waving his hat, proceeded to
ascend with great activity a steep zigzag path up the mountain side,
while Quentin Kennedy pursued his solitary way, which opened into a
level district covered with green orange, lemon, and olive groves;
and though the warnings of his late acquaintance did not fail to
impress him with anxiety, he felt hopeful that he would achieve in
safety and with honour the duty assigned him--escaping the perils
that might be set him, and the deadly snare into which Cosmo hoped he
might fall.