the posada, where the horses and mules were generally stabled; from
this, an open ladder gave access to the common hall; a second ladder
led to the sleeping apartments, which were minus carpets, bells,
plaster, and almost without windows or furniture; but, as Dick said
to the grumbling captain of Grenadiers, no one looks for such things
in a Spanish inn.
Several Spanish officers were already in the public room, all
travel-stained and splashed with mud, but wrapped in their cloaks,
and all with their feet planted on the only brassero, round which
they sat in a circle, smoking and making themselves as comfortable as
circumstances would admit; while the host, an old and sour-visaged
Asturian, with clumsy hands and enormous shoulders, superintended the
cooking of various edibles, which simmered and sputtered in stone
jars on the flat hearth, the fuel piled upon which cast a lurid glow
from under the broad impending mantel-piece on his swarthy visage,
his stealthy eyes, and black grisly beard. This fellow was repulsive
in aspect; but his wife, _la patrona_, was a pretty paisana, not much
above eighteen years of age, dressed in the picturesque costume of
the country, and having her handsome legs encased in the tightest and
brightest of scarlet stockings. She welcomed us with smiles of the
utmost good humour that two brilliant eyes and a mouth filled with
the finest teeth could express.
"All right, Garriehorne," said Dick, in his bantering way; "here is
one of the beautiful sex--como esta senora, how handsome you look
to-night; 'pon my soul, I feel quite inclined to fall in love with
you. Senor Patron--what is in the crocs, old fellow?"
Displeased by Dick's mode of addressing his young wife, the host
affected not to hear.
"What can you let us have for supper, senora?" asked Garriehorne,
unbuckling his sword, "hot castanos and garlic, of course, with Xerez
and ripe grapes."
"Ripe grapes in November," growled the sulky patron; "what the devil
are you talking about, senor official?--_Ninas y vinas son mal de
guardar_!"
"Which means--"
"That ripe maidens and ripe grapes require vigilance to keep long,"
said the pretty patrona, with a waggish smile. "We have a fine
guisado in this croc, senor."
"A guisado!" exclaimed Dick "By Jove, the very thought of it makes me
more hungry than ever."
"What is it made of?" said the captain of Grenadiers, doubtfully.
"Don't you know--everything! hare, rabbit, chicken, pheasant, claret
and water, bacon, salt, garlic, onions, pepper, pimentos, Valdepenas
butter, a bunch of wild thyme--"
"The deuce! what more?"
"A little oil, and then it would add glory to the wedding of
Camacho," said Dick.
"The senor caballero is quite a Spanish cook," said the pretty
patrona; "but," she added, with a furtive glance at Dick's pair of
French pantaloons, "I hope we shall not lose--"
"Lose--not at all, my dear senora. You shall be paid in gold as pure
as your wedding ring."
"If we have it," added Garriehorne, aside.
"So serve up the guisado. Its odour is exquisite! By Jove, we four
Hannibals have here found our Capua! But, Senor Patron," continued
Dick, speaking with his mouth very full, "you are singularly like an
ugly fellow whom I met yesterday--what is your name?"
"Morello."
"The devil it is! that name proved an unlucky one to me lately."
"Where, senor?"
"At Villahoz."
"I have a son there--"
"Keeper of a venta?"
"Si, senor."
"The villain! he betrayed me to the French for ten dollars."
"Likely enough of Antonio," said the young wife; "he is my step-son,
and proves mala, mala--very bad."
"Step-sons frequently do in a step-mother's eyes, my dear patrona."
"He hates his father--"
"The unnatural wretch!"
"Hates him for having married me."
"In that I almost agree with him," said Dick.
"But he hates me, too."
"Hates you--so young, so charming!"
"Yes, senor, and daily vows to have revenge; believing that I have
cheated him out of his birthright."
"Dick, what are those fellows round the brassero jabbering about?"
asked the grenadier.
"Oh, they are mere cazadores, who say we should not have given up
Madrid, or Burgos either, without a battle."
"Faugh! don't speak of Burgos; I am sick of shelling, storming, and
mining. A battle, indeed! but, perhaps, they know better than Lord
Wellington."
"A pretty woman that patrona is, ugh!" added Dick, as he drew off his
boots. "See now muddy and deep the path that leads to glory and
Portugal is! There are three inches of the mud of immortality, at
least."
By this time our friends bad finished the guisado, which proved
excellent, and a huge leathern bota of Xerez had been passed rapidly
from hand to hand. They became comfortable--then jolly. Dick sang
his usual song, and they all retired to pass the night in a crazy
garret, and to thank Heaven that they were not for out-picquet on the
Burgos road, and that they were to halt and not march all the next
day.
Exhausted by toil, and perhaps somewhat overcome by their potations,
and what our old friend Sancho Fanza would term "the blessed scum" of
the hot and savoury guisado, Colquhoun Grant and Garriehorne fell
into a sound sleep on the hard floor, with plaids around them, and
their swords at hand; but poor Dick Duff's restless disposition kept
him long awake.
He thought of the young and pretty patrona, with her taper legs and
melting black eyes; of her scowling old spouse, and the rascal,
Antonio Morello, who yesterday had so nearly procured him--the said
Dick Duff--three inches of a French bayonet, or a three years'
sojourn at Bitche or Verdun on parole. Then, as the moon shone
brightly, he rose and looked out upon the scenery, where the bright
flood of her silver light fell aslant on the spires of the churches,
and gilded with a white lustre the pinnacles and little square
belfries of the convents. On one side lay a narrow street which led
to the Plaza Mayor; on the other, spread a wilderness of flat roofs,
from amid which the huge cathedral, begun, but never finished, by
Philip II., reared its dark outline; beyond, lay the beautiful plain
watered by the Esqueva, stretching away in the moonlight and the haze
it exhaled. All was silent and still, and no one seemed abroad save
one man, whom Dick perceived to be reconnoitring the posada with
stealthy eyes and steps. He placed a short ladder against one of the
lower windows, which opened in two halves. He pushed the lattice
open and entered.
"Is this fellow a thief or a lover?" thought Dick; "if an affair of
gallantry, it is no business of mine. Bah! what is there to steal
from a Spanish posada? and to interfere with the nocturnal rambles of
some loving stableboy or amatory muleteer would be rather an insane
proceeding on my part."
With these reflections he resumed his place on the floor, and was
about to drop asleep--for on service all curiosity becomes blunted;
the value of property and the risk of death but of little
consequence--when a cry pierced his ear.
A cry! it was a wild and despairing one, that rang terribly along the
wooden corridor; a struggle--the stamping of feet--the explosion of a
pistol, with the fall of a body heavily on the floor followed; and
then all became still save the barking of the _perro de caza_, or
house-dog, in the yard. Duff's first thought was of the enemy--that
their cavalry were in the town--and that the picquets had been
repulsed on the Burgos road. Then he thought of the intruder.
"Up, Grant," said he; "get your sword, Garriehorne--the French or the
devil are at work here!"
"Help, senores caballeros--help!" cried a piteous voice in the
corridor.
"Is that you, senor patron?"
"Si, senor--'tis I and the senora patrona--open, por amor de
Dios--the posada has been attacked by thieves."
"By thieves"--
"Yes; and by the holy of holies, I have had the narrowest of
escapes," he added, dragging in his young and pretty wife. Both were
in their night dresses; both were breathless and ghastly pale.
"What was the meaning of that pistol-shot?"
"You shall hear, senor--you shall hear," replied the host, staggering
to a seat. "Dios mio! I was sound asleep, my day's work has been a
severe one, so many noble caballeros have been about the house all
day long. I was asleep; but the senora patrona saw a man in our
room; he carried a pistol in one hand, a lantern in the other. Her
cries awoke me, and I sprang from my bed to reach my Albacete knife,
which usually lies on a stool close by; when lo! there was a flash in
my eyes, a pistol-ball grazed my right ear, and buried itself in the
pillow I had just left! Santiago! my knife was in my hand; I became
blind! I rushed upon the would-be assassin; once, twice, ay, thrice,
my knife was buried in his heart; at first there was a cry of agony,
then I heard the breast-bone crack, as, with a heavy sob, he was
dead. Ouf!" he added, as a light was brought; "see how my right hand
and arm are drenched in blood."
He flung the knife on the floor, and it sounded like a knell.
"Grant, look to the poor patrona," said Duff. "Come, Garriehorne,
the man may not be dead yet."
"O, senor, I warrant him dead enough; my first stab went straight to
the heart," replied the hostalero, grinding his teeth with savage
energy.
Proceeding along the dingy corridor, they reached his bedroom, where
a man, in a pool of thickening blood, lay prostrate on the floor.
"He is quite dead," said Garriehorne.
"Grant, turn the poor devil over, and let us see what like he is,"
said Dick Duff.
He was turned on his back, and a hoarse cry burst from old Morello,
on recognising in the relaxed jaw and fixed eye-balls of the corpse
the features of----_his son Antonio_!
* * * * * *
"Come, gentlemen, let us quit this place," said Dick, with a shudder;
and, as they issued into the empty streets, daylight was beginning to
struggle through their sinuous windings, while the merry rat-tat of
the British and Portuguese drums was heard, as they beat _reveille_
in El Campo, the market-place, and before the old royal palace, where
Anne of Austria first saw the light, and which, to the fourth story,
was full of allied troops. The inlying picquets (always turned out
in those days an hour before daylight) were standing under arms,
looking pale, wan, and drowsy in their dark great-coats, in the Plaza
Mayor. This place was square, and surrounded by an arcade, within
which are shops, and the brick houses have balconies of gilded iron
at all the windows. At a corner of the old palace our ramblers
passed under a curious projecting clock, like that of Strasbourg; but
being a loyal old Spanish clock, of true Castilian origin, it had
never gone since the French entered Spain.
"Senor," said Dick Duff to a Spanish cazadore who passed, and who
seemed, like himself, to be on the look-out for a place of
entertainment, "what house is that?"
"You mean the house without windows?"
"Si, senor, and which has only those little holes to admit light
through its high walls."
"The Holy Office, senor."
Dick shrugged his shoulders and quickened his pace.
"And is that place opposite the convent so famed for its pretty nuns?"
"Which, senor?"
"The convent of the Bleeding Heart."
"No, senor," said the don, with a dark look; "it is the monastery of
the Bloody Nose."
"You seem to be a wag, my friend--well, and what place is that which
the staff are just leaving?"
"El Colegio de los Escosses."
"Bravo--the Scots College!" said they altogether; "muchos gratias,
senor--we shall go there."
And just as Wellington, cloaked and muffled, with a telescope slung
over his shoulder, his blue cape and cocked hat covered by oiled
skins, trotted into the Plaza Mayor, followed by his aides-de-camp,
one of whom was Prince Leopold, now King of the Belgians, Dick Duff
and his comrades presented themselves at the arched doorway of the
ancient Catholic seminary.
"A college of priests!" said Dick; "I would infinitely prefer a
convent of nuns--but we cannot choose, unfortunately."
"Now, Duff," said Garriehorne, "you must behave with propriety."
"Oh, you shall see; I am arranging my face to a most becoming length."
While they were speaking the door unfolded, and a grave,
dark-complexioned priest, clad in a long black satann, appeared
before them. His mild glance of anxious inquiry expanded into a kind
smile when he saw the tartans and plumed bonnets of the visitors; for
he was a Scotsman, and in those days, anterior to the Catholic
emancipation, the Scottish clergy of the ancient faith were all but
outcasts, and usually exiles from their own country; thus the poor
man's heart filled and his eyes glistened, as he stretched out his
hands inviting them to enter, and led them through the garden towards
the main building of the college.
This Scottish college at Valladolid was founded by the family of
Semple, one of whom, Robert, known as the great Lord Semple, was long
ambassador from James VI. of Scotland to Philip II. of Spain; a
service on which he acquitted himself with reputation and honour to
his country, while his rigid adherence to the Catholic Church won him
the respect of the Spaniards. The revenue of this college is about
1000_l._ per annum, and the edifice was anciently a house of the
Jesuits. Its lands are to be held of the Spanish crown _while vines
shall continue to grow on them_, and in its cellars is a jolly
wine-tun capable of holding eighteen thousand bottles--the mention of
which made Dick Duff's eyes twinkle with delight. Its chapel had a
crucifix which grew out of a thorn-tree to convert a Jew, but is now
in the cathedral; and still better, it had a valuable library,
wherein hangs a portrait of the founder in rich robes carrying a
baton, and another of his lady, Agnes Montgomery, daughter of Hugh,
Earl of Eglinton. Six miles from the city, the college has a
handsome country mansion, which Wellington occupied for one night
during the Burgos retreat.
The ancient faith in Scotland was then all but extinct. A few
wandering priests, braving the severe penalties of the Scottish law,
lurked in the wildest parts of the Highlands, and, protected by the
gentle ties of clanship, administered the rites of the Roman Church
to its scattered adherents. At Glenlivat, in the eighteenth century,
a little academy was maintained by them almost in secret; there
philosophy and divinity were taught to boys of talent, after which
they were sent abroad to the Scottish colleges of Rome, Douay,
Ratisbon, or Valladolid, from whence, as Jesuits or secular priests,
they returned to preach once more unto the clans the faith in which
their fathers died.
All these odds and ends of information _anent_ this Scoto-Spanish
establishment were told to the military visitors by Father John
Cameron, in a low and gentle tone, as if he feared to wake some one,
and all the Scottish priests and students, who crowded about the
Highland officers in the little refectory, where wine and fruit were
freely proffered, spoke in the same remarkable manner, stopping ever
and anon as if to listen for a passing sound; while gravity and
anxiety were impressed on every face.
Rattling Dick Duff had so completely adopted the bearing of a modest,
quiet, and seriously-disposed young man, that the heart of Father
John Cameron, a priest well up in years, was quite won; and Dick
began to feel some compunction, while telling him with the utmost
gravity, that "a natural abhorrence of gaiety and military uproar,
with a love of retirement and of cloistral seclusion, &c. &c., had
brought him and his companions, Captain Garriehorne and Colquhoun
Grant, the famous scout who so tormented the Duc de Raguse, to visit
them;" but he added, "what the devil is the matter? Is any one dead
or hidden here--what's the row, that you all speak in whispers, as if
the walls had ears?"
"It is a strange story," said the old priest, Father Cameron; "our
beloved rector, without an apparent ailment, believes himself at the
point of death. It is a sad narrative to me, for I loved the rector
as a younger brother; although many years his senior (more than I
dare reckon now), his talents and his piety made him superior to us
all. He believes that the day, the hour--yea, the moment of his
departure _is fixed:_ it is a solemn, a terrible presentiment--but
you, as soldiers, will be inclined to smile at it and me."
"Nay, sir," replied Dick, "you wrong us there; for on service we see
every day the most terrible fulfilment of presentiments. I had a
brother drowned upon the 16th of November--my father ever said it was
_our fatal day_, and had been so for ages. He was wounded by my side
on the 16th of November, when our Highlanders stormed one of the West
India Isles, and on the 16th of November he was killed near the city
of Alexandria, and with my own hands I buried him the day before we
marched towards the Nile. Poor old man!"
"And there was poor old Major Wallace of Ours," said Grant, "who had
always a presentiment that he would die on the 18th of March, the day
he was wounded as an ensign at the blockade of Alexandria in 1801,
and on the 18th of last March we found him dead in his tent, killed
by a random shot, when we were covering the siege of Badajoz."
"Ay," sighed the priest, "there was poured forth the hot blood of
many a gallant heart."
"So you see, my dear sir, that solemn presentiments are to be found
in the camp as well as in the cloister," added Dick, draining his
wine-horn, with a thoughtful smile.
"Our reverend rector is powerfully possessed by the idea that he will
not outlive the 16th of this month of November, the day on which his
patron----"
The priest hesitated.
"Don't hesitate, my dear sir," said Dick; "for I am come of an old
Catholic stock--say on."
"The day on which his patron-saint died, and for a year past this
conviction has become stronger in his mind as the time approached;
yet he is a hale man and well, though somewhat more feeble than he
was wont to be. His patron is Margaret, Queen of Scotland, who died
on the 16th of November, and this day is the _fifteenth_. A month
ago, he felt this presentiment come more strongly, mysteriously, and
solemnly upon him; so that he could no longer attend to his duties as
rector, but spent his whole time in abstemious fasting and earnest
prayer, as one preparing for a great change. He dismissed all the
professors, students, servants, and other inmates to a country house
which we possess, six miles from the city, telling us to enjoy
ourselves for a brief space, as a dark day of mourning was at hand.
"Impressed by the solemnity of his manner, we set out for the place,
and remained there anxiously waiting to hear tidings from him, for he
is dearly loved by us all, and by none more than me. A week elapsed,
but we heard nothing from Valladolid; at last, I turned back, being
his dearest friend, and moreover, the oldest priest in the
college--for I can remember the days when Charles of the Two Sicilies
sat on the Spanish throne, and I was one of those who chanted the _De
Profundis_ by the grave of Charles Edward Stuart; I can remember when
the spires of seventy convents towered over Valladolid, for in El
Campo every alternate house was a religious one; and now there are
but sixteen and _only_ twenty-four convents. Well, gentlemen, I came
back to inquire, and soon saw enough to fill me with alarm. In our
absence the rector had hung the college chapel with black; he had
moreover raised the pavement before the shrine of St. Margaret, and
after measuring his own height, had there dug a grave for himself,
eight feet deep, and as I crossed the aisle, its ghastly depth in the
black and bone-impregnated earth that lay piled on each side, struck
me with awe and terror. I searched for the rector, but was unable to
find him in any of the dormitories, refectory, library, or garden.
At last, barefooted and bareheaded, clad in sackcloth, and girt by a
cord of discipline, I found him kneeling near the grave he had dug;
he was praying earnestly, and never did the divine Murillo conceive a
head more noble, or a face more expressive of piety, enthusiasm,
worship, and prayer, in all its glory, than those of our rector as I
saw him at that moment, with his eyes uplifted from a book of vespers
towards the crowned statue of the Scottish Queen, around which twelve
little lights were sparkling; and I could hear the words that came
from his pale lips, though they fell faintly and slowly,
"'Deus, qui beatam Margaritam, Scotorum Reginam, eximiâ in pauperes
charitate mirabilem effecisti: da, ut ejus intercessione et exemplo,
tua in cordibus nostris charitas jugiter augeatur.'
"When I approached, he fainted. I had him at once conveyed to bed
and applied restoratives; but so low had his strength and system
ebbed by excessive fatigue, prayer, and fasting, that we have
scarcely a hope of recovering him, and the conviction that he shall
die to-morrow, on the 16th November, the anniversary of his patron's
death, seven hundred years ago, is so vividly impressed upon his
mind, that knowing its breadth of thought and unyielding energy of
purpose, a solemn sadness has come upon us all, and we wait in terror
the issue of this gloomy presentiment."
The military visitors were deeply impressed by this strange and
fantastic story; and on Father Cameron requesting them to visit the
couch where the rector lay, in the hope that their Highland garb
might rouse some old or other emotions in his breast, they at once
assented and followed in silence to his chamber.
Under cloisters arched and old, they were led through the ancient
chapel, where many a stern Jesuit who had heard Loyola preach, and
where many a poor priest of the Scottish mission, were at rest from
their labours; and past the newly-dug grave where a stone already
bore the name of the rector, cut by his own hand. Duff paused for a
moment and read thereon,
M.S.
_Don Iago de Santa, Margareta; Rector del Collegia de los Escosses;
Valladolid. Requien a Dios por el._
"Mater Salvatoris, ora pro nobis!" muttered Father Cameron, as he
hurried past, and led them into the gloomy little apartment, in which
the further to mortify his flesh, the rector had taken up his
quarters.
It was square, and floored with red tiles; on the dull and
discoloured walls were two or three Murillos and Alonzo Canos; in the
window, around which the naked vines had clambered, lay a skull
before a crucifix; around were shelves laden with books, many being
old tomes of Scottish theology; and there were many old engravings of
the House of Stuart in ebony frames, Prince Charles, James VIII., and
Cardinal York.
Dick Duff took all this in at a rapid glance, and then his eyes
rested on a thin, wan, and emaciated figure that lay on a plain and
uncurtained Spanish bed in a corner of the apartment. The rector's
eyes were closed and his hands were clasped. He scarcely seemed to
breathe, and yet he was praying earnestly. His profile was sharp and
thin; he did not seem to be much above forty years of age; yet the
hair that clustered round his high and intellectual temples was
prematurely silvered over.
"Heavens!" exclaimed Dick, in a suppressed voice, and with a start of
terror, "how like my poor old father he looks just now!"
"Like your father?" reiterated Garriehorne.
"Yes--yes: he is the poor old man's image--just as he lay dead at
Alexandria, when I rolled him in my blanket and buried him in the
sand, digging his grave with my bayonet--God rest him!"
"The rector's history is a strange one," said Father Cameron; "but we
know not his name, therefore we call him James of St. Margaret."
"But how came he here?"
"Listen," replied the priest in a low voice, and they all drew aside.
"Many years ago I was at sea, flying for safety from Argyllshire,
having been hunted from parish to parish, because I had dared to say
mass in secret to our people--for to perform the offices of our faith
in Scotland was then to commit a crime. Our vessel was running
seaward down the Sound of Mull, when a boat was discovered adrift,
without sails or oars; and in that boat we found a little child--a
boy--asleep, or worn by terror and the tossing waves into a dreamless
torpor. He was brought on board, and to me the discovery of a boy
floating thus upon the sea, like Amadis de Gaul or Florizel in their
baskets, as we read in the old romances; or like Moses or Judas
Iscariot, as we may read in the writings of the Fathers, seemed of
great import--the more so, as I found an amulet, or reliquary, at his
neck, wherein was a relic of St. Margaret, with a prophecy written by
one whom I knew, for I was then but a youth--yea, knew well----"
"Father John of Douay?" exclaimed Dick Duff.
"Yes; John Macdonald of Douay--how know you that?"