No intelligence arrived, and early next morning we set out to seek the
foe. M. le Tisanier was up betimes to see us off. “Expect to see me
return,” said I, “in a state of absolute exhaustion and immense
inanition, with heels hanging down over the Padre’s shoulders. In pity
have a good dinner ready.”
“I shall be prepared for you,” said M. le Tisanier.
“Of course you feel easy,” said I to the Padre as we went along,
“respecting the four Frenchmen.”
“No fear about them,” replied the Padre. “They know it is their safety
to keep quiet; and if they come to any harm, it will be their own act.
If they attempt to move, or even show themselves abroad, they will be
shot down _luego, luego_.”
Our ramble proved well worth taking for its own sake; but we saw no
Frenchmen, and very little game. The Padre was fortunate, and bagged a
fox. My success was but scanty in respect to hares and partridges. After
a long detour through a wild and very thinly inhabited district, and a
few calls at scattered cottages or rather hovels, the abode of a rough
and noble peasantry, all of whom received the Padre with profound
veneration, and me as his companion with high Spanish courtesy, we
reached at length a village which we had agreed to make the extreme
limit of our excursion. Still obtaining no intelligence, we set out,
after resting, on our return. We now, however, took the direct route
over the plain, and found our journey homeward far more agreeable than
our journey out. There was a point on which I deemed it requisite to
obtain information, and the Padre being in a remarkably conversable
vein, the present seemed a good opportunity.
“You mentioned,” said I, “that the proprietors of your abode were worthy
people. I should be sorry, for their sakes, if the house received damage
from the enemy.”
_He._ “It is not altogether for their sakes that I wish to preserve the
house.”
_I._ “Of course, not altogether. Your own property—your own effects——”
_He._ “I have no property; I have no effects; I have nothing. It is a
rule of my order. I am under a vow of poverty. No, no; my wish springs
from a principle of honour.”
_I._ “Just what I should feel towards my own landlord. But you say it is
not on your landlord’s account.”
_He._ “It is on account of the fraternity of which I am an unworthy
member.”
_I._ “Oh, oh! then your fraternity have an interest in the premises?”
_He._ “Not exactly in the building itself, but in its contents. The fact
is, our convent——but I forget. You, as a heret——pardon me; you, as an
Englishman, can have no acquaintance with our regulations. I will just
explain. Our poor indigent community has some trifling property in
lands, principally vineyards. I am their factor. That house is one of
our depôts.”
_I._ “Very good wine, too, the growth of your estates. Little did I
imagine, while seated with you at table, or puffing a cigar, that we
were sipping the property of the Church.”
_He._ “You may say smoking as well as sipping. The cigars also are the
property of our humble fraternity.”
_I._ “Well, I like that idea of a vow of poverty amazingly. You don’t
intend to convert me?”
_He_ (benignantly). “One thing at a time. As to the wine we drink, you
mistake, however, if you suppose that is the wine we grow. The wine
grown on our lands is the _ordinario_ sort—abundant, indeed, as to
quantity, and in that respect valuable; but not of a sort fit to be
drunk by my order. No, no; we exchange it for better. For example, what
you have been drinking I trust you will admit is a good sound wine.”
_I._ “As good a Spanish red wine as I ever tasted;”—and it was no
compliment.
_He._ “Yes, yes; and we sometimes exchange for foreign wines. Would that
you had been here before the branch convent, which is now your hospital,
was ransacked by the French. Have I not good reason for shooting a
Frenchman whenever I can? Ah, I would have given you such a bottle of
bordeaux! And port! As good port as you can drink in the Peninsula, and
far better than you ever are likely to drink in your own country.”
_I._ “And so it is you who have the management of all this. Surely it
must give you no end of trouble.”
_He._ “Trouble? It is my business. Besides that, it is a duty I owe my
fraternity, consequently a duty of my profession. As to trouble, my only
real trouble is in running foreign goods from the coast, or across the
frontiers. I certainly do sometimes find a little trouble in that. But
why should I complain? After all, it is exciting, and so far a pleasure.
A man of my cloth ought always to be contented.”
_I._ “French goods?”
_He._ “French goods and English. French, across the Pyrenees; English,
from the shores of the Mediterranean and Bay of Biscay. We sell again at
a very fair profit—moderate as becomes our order, but fair
nevertheless.”
_I._ “A heavy deduction, though, the fiscal exactions of your
government, no doubt.”
“Fiscal?” he exclaimed, frowning horribly. “Fiscal? Do you think me, in
managing the concerns of my venerable brotherhood, capable of such a
dereliction of principle—do you consider me such an ass as to permit any
deduction like that? Why, if we conducted our little business subject to
fiscal obstructions, we might as well have no management at all. Señor
Capitan, although this conversation was brought on by a remark on your
part, the subject is one on which I have long wished to confer with you
confidentially, and I thank you for the opportunity. And now let me
bespeak your kind, benevolent offices on behalf of my self-denying
humble brethren. As I said before, we profess poverty, we have nothing.
Charitable laics, touched by our dependent and destitute condition, have
from time to time bequeathed us trifles of landed property, which we
frugally farm to the best advantage, taking the chance—you know it is a
toss-up—of profit or loss. The produce, when realised, we turn to
account as well as our poor opportunities permit; and my object is to
supplicate your best offices in behalf of our little store in the
village, which, as well as one or two others in different localities, is
under my charge and responsibility. Some damage our store has suffered
already. After the plunder of the convent by the French, your own
troops, on their arrival in the village, found their way into the cellar
of the house, and were beginning to make free with the wine, when you
happily arrived, and order was soon restored. All I ask is, that as long
as you remain here, or have influence in this neighbourhood, you will
kindly give our depôt the benefit of your protection, so far as you may
be able. I ask it, not only on my own account, but for the sake of my
venerable brethren. Our wants are few. The French silks and English
prints we sell for what we can get. We also drive a trifling business in
English cutlery, and French _quincaillerie_. The poor must do something
to live. As to the convent in Vittoria, I forward to it from time to
time, as best I can, and when I have got them, only little supplies of
such common necessaries as bordeaux, port, champagne, sherry, French
brandy when I can get it good, sardines, gruyère cheese, caviar,
vermicelli, macaroni, spicery, Dutch herrings, maraschino, Hamburg
sausages, and a few other little knicknackeries not worth enumerating.
Our wants are few.”
Had liberal Spain, when she laid hands on the property of the religious
orders, gone through as she began, made a clean work of it, and reformed
ALL that we consider the errors and abuses of Romanism, I, as an ardent
Protestant, should have cordially rejoiced. But merely to confiscate
endowments, and to leave other things as they are, is a different thing.
There can be no doubt of it, that at the beginning of this century, when
Napoleon I. attempted to make Spain a province of France, the Spanish
clergy, by their influence with the nation, and by their success in
maintaining the spirit of national resistance, were the saviours of
their country. That these have been made the victims, and the only
victims of reform, is hard indeed.
I walked on, listening to the Padre’s discourse with so much interest,
that we arrived close upon our village before I recollected his promise
of a lift, and my own fixed purpose of taking it out of him. We were now
not a quarter of a mile from our journey’s end; and I was beginning to
muse, with complacent anticipation, on the capital dinner which M. le
Tisanier was to have ready on our arrival, when we noticed Francisco
coming down the lane to meet us.
As he approached with hasty strides, his visage was clouded. He made an
angry gesture, as if signalling us to halt.
“That endiablado doctor,” said he, “(may his soul never see the inside
of purgatory!) has armed the four Frenchmen, seized all the ammunition
in the village, and barricaded the house!”