"The child is father of the man."
In a small marble-paved court belonging to the newly-built palace of
King Joao the First of Portugal, on a splendid summer day in the year
1415, five youths were engaged in earnest consultation. The summer air,
the luscious scent of the orange-trees beneath which they were seated,
might have inclined them to mere lazy enjoyment of their young
existence--the busy sounds from the tilt-yard near have summoned them to
the sports and exercises for which their graceful, well-grown strength
evidently fitted them, or the books, several of which were scattered on
the marble steps of the court, have employed their attention. But they
were evidently so deeply interested by the subject in hand as to have no
thoughts to spare for anything else--a fact the more remarkable as they
were not engaged in a dispute, but were discussing something on which
they were evidently all agreed, and which they regarded as of the
highest importance.
"When our great uncle, Edward the Black Prince, won his spurs," said the
eldest, a tall, dark-haired young man, with a singularly considerate and
intelligent countenance, "it was at Crecy by hard fighting. _He_ did
something to deserve knighthood. His father let him win the field for
himself. `Is my son unhorsed,' he said, `or mortally wounded? Nay,
then let him win his spurs.' And see how he won them!"
"And _he_ was only sixteen!" said the second brother, who resembled the
first speaker, but had a more fiery and vivacious expression.
"Ay, Pedro, we have waited too long for our chance; it suits not with
our honour."
"Oh," broke in the fourth boy vehemently, "why cannot the King find some
pretext for war? If Castile or Arragon would but insult us! But my
father says he cannot engage in an unjust war merely to knight his sons.
'Tis very unlucky."
"Nay," said the eldest brother, "I cannot blame him. He must consider
the country's good."
"Ah!" said Pedro, "there always _were_ wars and deeds of arms in those
good old days. But these are dull times; it is not worth while living
in the world now. Everything is for policy and justice; no one acts for
pure glory and knight-errantry."
"That is a stupid thing to say," said the third brother, who had not
hitherto spoken, a youth with broad, thoughtful brows and large grey
eyes. "We do not know what one half of the world is like; there is
quite enough to do in finding out."
"Enrique is for ever wondering about countries beyond seas," said Pedro.
"Are Duarte and he and I to seek knighthood by sailing away to look for
savages--the saints know where?"
"We have not yet killed _nearly_ all the infidels," said the youngest
brother of all, rather dreamily.
"There are no Crusades now, Fernando," said Duarte; "and to my thinking
absent sovereigns make ill-governed kingdoms."
"And are there no Infidels except in Palestine?" cried the little
Fernando, springing to his feet. "I would sooner earn _my_ knighthood
by destroying the villains who steal children and imprison noble knights
than by fighting with brave gentlemen like ourselves. I would sooner be
Godfrey de Bouillon than our uncle Edward. Let us go and take Tangiers
or Ceuta at the sword's point; then can we be knighted with honour, and
the blessed Cross--" Here the child's excitement fairly overcame him,
tears filled his eyes, and he hid his face behind Enrique.
"There is much in the child's words," said Duarte. "Weep not, Fernando,
if I go to fight the infidel, thou shalt be my page. Come, Pedro and
Enrique, walk this way with me." And the three elders strolled away
together, leaving their juniors to speculate on their subject of
conversation.
These five brothers, afterwards perhaps among the most brilliant, and
certainly among the most virtuous, princes who ever adorned a royal
house, were the sons of Joao the First of Portugal, the founder of the
house of Avis, so called from the order of knighthood of which he was
grand-master. He succeeded to the throne of Portugal rather by election
than by inheritance, and after a period of disturbance and trouble; but
his great qualities raised the little kingdom to quite a new place among
nations, and in Philippa of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt by
his first wife, he met with a Queen fully worthy of him. The interest
which John of Gaunt's second marriage gave him in the affairs of Castile
made an alliance in the Peninsula desirable to him; but Philippa was
free from the distracting claims to the Castilian succession of her
young half-sister Catherine, and involved her husband in no quarrels.
It may well be a source of pride to the English reader to remember that
her sons were of Plantagenet blood, for they inherited all the virtues
and few of the faults of that noble and generous race.
Perhaps the profound peace which made it so difficult to these young
princes to signalise their knighthood by any deed of arms worthy of
their name may seem more to King Joao's credit in modern eyes than in
those of his sons; but it was not strange that young men, all with
talents and aims far above the average in any age, rank, or country,
should wish to make a reality of that which was perhaps on the verge of
becoming a splendid form, and burning with the truest spirit of
chivalry, should, as many have done since, sigh for times when it was
easier to express it. They were all as highly educated as was possible
to the times in which they lived, and Edward, or Duarte, as he was
called by the Portuguese form of his English name, was a considerable
scholar; but war was still the calling of a prince and a gentleman, and
they felt hardly used in being debarred from it. King Joao, however,
was of so enlightened or so degenerate a spirit that he refused to
plunge his kingdom into war solely for the purpose of knighting his
sons. Hence the foregoing discussion.
The three elder brothers walked up and down under the shade of the
orange-trees--tall and stately youths, with serious faces, and minds set
on the subject in hand. Duarte walked in the middle, and seemed to be
weighing the arguments addressed to him by Enrique; his more rounded
outlines, and a certain tender gentleness of expression in his dark
eyes, gave him the air of being younger than Pedro, whose colouring was
darker and his face sterner and more impetuous. He was sometimes
arrogant and hasty; but no one ever heard a sharp word from the just and
gentle Duarte, whose mental power and high scholarship seemed but to add
to his unselfish consideration. The tallest of the three was Enrique,
in whose great size and strength and fair skin the English mother loved
to trace the characteristics of the Plantagenets. He talked with
intense eagerness, and his great dark eyes were full of ardour, but of
the dreaminess accompanying ardour for an unseen object. The two
younger boys had meanwhile remained sitting on the steps, ostensibly
learning their lessons from a very crabbed-looking Latin manuscript
spread out between them. Joao was a fine dark-eyed boy of fourteen,
with an exceedingly acute and intelligent countenance. Fernando was two
years younger, and though tall for his age, was slender and fragile. He
had the flaxen hair and brilliant fairness of his mother's race, but the
large blue eyes had the same dreamy intensity that marked Enrique's,
with a sweetness all their own. These two were kindred spirits beyond
the bond that united all the five, and never failed them through the
long lives spent in toil and self-denial.
Enrique having parted from the two elder ones came up to the steps, and
Fernando looked up at him eagerly, while Joao jumped up, announcing that
he knew his lesson, and should go and play.
"But I do not know mine," said Fernando, disconsolately.
Enrique sat down on the step, and drawing the child up to his side,
began to translate the Latin for him into French, in which language the
Portuguese court, in imitation of the English one, usually conversed.
Fernando was so delicate that the strict and severe system under which
they were all educated was sometimes relaxed in his favour. He was,
however, an apt pupil, and presently Enrique closed the book.
"There, now you can go and play."
"No," said Fernando, pressing up to his brother. "Tell me, have you
been talking about the knighthood?"
"Yes," said Enrique; "we are resolved that if we have to wait for ever,
we will not make a pretence of that which should be so great a thing.
Not the year of tournaments shall tempt us."
"When I am knighted," said Fernando, "I will go and fight the Moors in
Africa, and destroy the castles where they make good Christians to toil
as slaves. Would it not be joy to open the prisons and set them free?"
"Ay," said Enrique, looking straight out of his wide-opened eyes as if
he saw far away. "Then, too, should we see what lies behind--behind
Tangiers and Ceuta, beyond the sands. There might we spread the Cross."
"And there maybe are the two-headed giants and the dragons like the one
Saint George of England killed; and magic castles, and fiery pits, the
very entrance of hell. You used to say so."
"Ah, maybe," said Enrique, smiling. "Anyway there is the wide earth,
the world that we do not know."
"Then you do not think all the countries are discovered yet?" looking up
in his face.
"Nay, surely not," said Enrique, with gathering eagerness. "There,"
pointing to the sparkling bay before them, "does that go on for ever,
and for ever. Well is the Atlantic called the Sea of Darkness, blue and
bright as it may be! But the lost path to the Indies, where is it?
Where is that island the Englishman saw in mid-ocean? Where, where?"
Enrique paused, his face one unanswered question. "Some day I will
know."
"But in the meantime," said Fernando, "the enemies of the Blessed
Saviour are here close by, killing and destroying good Christians?"
"Well," said Enrique, coming out of the clouds, "we will deal first with
them, sooner maybe than you think for! But there are more ways than one
of subduing the world for Christ. You can win your knighthood in
Barbary by and by, while _I_ look for the fiery dragons beyond."
He pulled a roughly-drawn map towards him, and began to study it.
"Ah, but not all alone," said Fernando, vehemently; "the fiery dragons
might kill you, and I could not fight the infidels by myself."
"Not yet," said Enrique, soothingly, "you have to grow strong first."
He stretched himself out, leaning on his elbow, and knitting his brows
in absorbed study of the map before him. Fernando sat leaning against
him in silence. His brothers were all tender and good to him; but
Enrique was the best-loved of them all, and the idea that these
eagerly-desired adventures involved a parting had never been realised by
him before. Presently he raised himself, and sat a little apart,
looking before him with a face that, with all its fair tinting and
delicate outline, set into lines of remarkable force and firmness.
"Enrique," he said, presently.
"Well?"
"I _will_ go without you to fight the infidel if there is no other way.
For we are soldiers of the Cross, and our Blessed Lord is our Captain,
and He would be with me. But oh! dear Enrique, I will pray every day
that He will send you too."
"Now, then, mother will be angry," said Enrique, as the excitable boy
broke into a passion of tears.
"Did she not say you should not talk of infidels, or Christians either,
if it made you cry? I feel sure our uncle Edward did not cry at the
thought of the French."
"I am not afraid; it is not that I am afraid," sobbed Fernando,
indignantly.
"No, no! I know. See, Fernando, I promise I will go with you when you
win your spurs. Hush, now, it is almost supper-time. Shall I take you
to mother first?"
"No," said Fernando, recovering himself. "I will not cry."
"Come then," said Enrique, pulling his long limbs up from their lounging
attitude, and holding out his hand. "Come and see the English mastiffs,
and some day, maybe, I will tell you a secret."