As he said this he stepped back among the trees, and Rodriguez followed
to thank him. Not finding him behind the tree where he thought to find
him, he walked round several others, and Morano joined his search; but
the stranger had vanished. When they returned again to the little
clearing they heard sounds of movement in the wood, and a little way
off where the four horses had grazed there were now only two, which
were standing there with their heads up.
"We must ride, Morano," said Rodriguez.
"Ride, master?" said Morano dolefully.
"If we walk away," said Rodriguez, "they will walk after us."
"They" meant la Garda. It was unnecessary for him to tell Morano what I
thus tell the reader, for in the wood it was hard to hear anyone else,
while to think of anyone else was out of the question.
"What shall I do to them, master?" said Morano.
They were now standing close to their captives and this simple question
calmed the four men's curses, all of a sudden, like shutting the door
on a storm.
"Leave them," Rodriguez said. And la Garda's spirits rose and they
cursed again.
"Ah. To die in the wood," said Morano. "No," said Rodriguez; and he
walked towards the horses. And something in that "No" sounding almost
contemptuous, Morano's feelings were hurt, and he blurted out to his
master "But how can they get away to get their food? It is good knots
that I tie, master."
"Morano," Rodriguez said, "I remember ten ways in the books of romance
whereby bound men untie themselves; and doubtless one or two more I
have read and forgot; and there may be other ways in the books that I
have not read, besides any way that there be of which no books tell.
And in addition to these ways, one of them may draw a comrade's sword
with his teeth and thus ..."
"Shall I pull out their teeth?" said Morano.
"Ride," said Rodriguez, for they were now come to the horses. And
sorrowfully Morano looked at the horse that was to be his, as a man
might look at a small, uncomfortable boat that is to carry him far upon
a stormy day. And then Rodriguez helped him into the saddle.
"Can you stay there?" Rodriguez said. "We have far to go."
"Master," Morano answered, "these hands can hold till evening."
And then Rodriguez mounted, leaving Morano gripping the high front of
the saddle with his large brown hands. But as soon as the horses
started he got a grip with his heels as well, and later on with his
knees. Rodriguez led the way on to the straggling road and was soon
galloping northwards, while Morano's heels kept his horse up close to
his master's. Morano rode as though trained in the same school that
some while later taught Macaulay's equestrian, who rode with "loose
rein and bloody spur." Yet the miles went swiftly by as they galloped
on soft white dust, which lifted and settled, some of it, back on the
lazy road, while some of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin on
the green silk ribbon flapped up and down as Rodriguez rode, till he
stuffed it inside his clothing and remembered no more about it. Once
they saw before them the man they had snatched from the noose: he was
going hard and leading a loose horse. And then where the road bent
round a low hill he galloped out of sight and they saw him no more. He
had the loose horse to change on to as soon as the other was tired:
they had no prospect of overtaking him. And so he passed out of their
minds as their host had done who went away with his household to
Saragossa.
At first Rodriguez' mandolin, that was always slung on his back, bumped
up and down uncomfortably; but he eased it by altering the strap: small
things like this bring contentment. And then he settled down to ride.
But no contentment came near Morano nor did he look for it. On the
first day of his wanderings he had worn his master's clothes, which has
been an experience standing somewhat where toothache does, which is
somewhere about half-way between discomfort and agony. On the second
day he had climbed at the end of a weary journey over those sharp rocks
whose shape was adapted so ill to his body. On the third day he was
riding. He did not look for comfort. But he met discomfort with an easy
resignation that almost defeated the intention of Satan who sends it,
unless--as is very likely--it be from Heaven. And in spite of all
discomforts he gaily followed Rodriguez. In a thousand days at the Inn
of the Dragon and Knight no two were so different to Morano that one
stood out from the other, or any from the rest. It was all as though
one day were repeated again and again; and at some point in this
monotonous repetition, like a milestone shaped as the rest on a
perfectly featureless road, life would end and the meaningless
repetition stop: and looking back on it there would only be one day to
see, or, if he could not look back, it would be all gone for nothing.
And then, into that one day that he was living on in the gloaming of
that grim inn, Rodriguez had appeared, and Morano had known him for one
of those wandering lights that sometimes make sudden day among the
stars. He knew--no, he felt--that by following him, yesterday today and
tomorrow would be three separate possessions in memory. Morano gladly
gave up that one dull day he was living for the new strange days
through which Rodriguez was sure to lead him. Gladly he left it: if
this be not true how then has a man with a dream led thousands to
follow his fancy, from the Crusades to whatever gay madness be the
fashion when this is read? As they galloped the scent of the flowers
rushed into Rodriguez' nostrils, while Morano mainly breathed the dust
from the hooves of his master's horse. But the quest was favoured the
more by the scent of the flowers inspiring its leader's fancies. So
Morano gained even from this.
In the first hour they shortened by fifteen miles the length of their
rambling quest. In the next hour they did five miles; and in the third
hour ten. After this they rode slowly. The sun was setting. Morano
regarded the sunset with delight, for it seemed to promise jovially the
end of his sufferings, which except for brief periods when they went on
foot, to rest--as Rodriguez said--the horses, had been continuous and
even increasing since they started. Rodriguez, perhaps a little weary
too, drew from the sunset a more sombre feeling, as sensitive minds do:
he responded to its farewell, he felt its beauty, and as little winds
turned cool and the shine of blades of grass faded, making all the
plain dimmer, he heard, or believed he heard, further off than he could
see, sounds on the plain beyond ridges, in hollows, behind clumps of
bushes; as though small creatures all unknown to his learning played
instruments cut from reeds upon unmapped streams. In this hour, among
these fancies, Rodriguez saw clear on a hill the white walls of the
village of Lowlight. And now they began to notice that a great round
moon was shining. The sunset grew dimmer and the moonlight stole in
softly, as a cat might walk through great doors on her silent feet into
a throne-room just as the king had gone: and they entered the village
slowly in the perfect moment of twilight.
The round horizon was brimming with a pale but magical colour, welling
up to the tips of trees and the battlements of white towers. Earth
seemed a mysterious cup overfull of this pigment of wonder. Clouds
wandering low, straying far from their azure fields, were dipped in it.
The towers of Lowlight turned slowly rose in that light, and glowed
together with the infinite gloaming, so that for this brief hour the
things of man were wed with the things of eternity. It was into this
wide, pale flame of aetherial rose that the moon came stealing like a
magician on tip-toe, to enchant the tips of the trees, low clouds and
the towers of Lowlight. A blue light from beyond our world touched the
pink that is Earth's at evening: and what was strange and a matter for
hushed voices, marvellous but yet of our earth, became at that touch
unearthly. All in a moment it was, and Rodriguez gasped to see it. Even
Morano's eyes grew round with the coming of wonder, or with some dim
feeling that an unnoticed moment had made all things strange and new.
For some moments the spell of moonlight on sunlight hovered: the air
was brimming and quivering with it: magic touched earth. For some
moments, some thirty beats of a heron's wing, had the angels sung to
men, had their songs gone earthward into that rosy glow, gliding past
layers of faintly tinted cloud, like moths at dusk towards a
briar-rose; in those few moments men would have known their language.
Rodriguez reined in his horse in the heavy silence and waited. For what
he waited he knew not: some unearthly answer perhaps to his questioning
thoughts that had wandered far from earth, though no words came to him
with which to ask their question and he did not know what question they
would ask. He was all vibrating with the human longing: I know not what
it is, but perhaps philosophers know. He sat there waiting while a late
bird sailed homeward, sat while Morano wondered. And nothing spake from
anywhere.
And now a dog began to notice the moon: now a child cried suddenly that
had been dragged back from the street, where it had wandered at
bedtime: an old dog rose from where it had lain in the sun and feebly
yet confidently scratched at a door: a cat peered round a corner: a man
spoke: Rodriguez knew there would be no answer now.
Rodriguez hit his horse, the tired animal went forward, and he and
Morano rode slowly up the street.
Dona Serafina of the Valley of Dawnlight had left the heat of the room
that looked on the fields, and into which the sun had all day been
streaming, and had gone at sunset to sit in the balcony that looked
along the street. Often she would do this at sunset; but she rather
dreamed as she sat there than watched the street, for all that it had
to show she knew without glancing. Evening after evening as soon as
winter was over the neighbour would come from next door and stretch
himself and yawn and sit on a chair by his doorway, and the neighbour
from opposite would saunter across the way to him, and they would talk
with eagerness of the sale of cattle, and sometimes, but more coldly,
of the affairs of kings. She knew, but cared not to know, just when the
two old men would begin their talk. She knew who owned every dog that
stretched itself in the dust until chilly winds blew in the dusk and
they rose up dissatisfied. She knew the affairs of that street like an
old, old lesson taught drearily, and her thoughts went far away to
vales of an imagination where they met with many another maiden fancy,
and they all danced there together through the long twilight in Spring.
And then her mother would come and warn her that the evening grew cold,
and Serafina would turn from the mystery of evening into the house and
the candle-light. This was so evening after evening all through spring
and summer for two long years of her youth. And then, this evening,
just as the two old neighbours began to discuss whether or not the
subjugation of the entire world by Spain would be for its benefit, just
as one of the dogs in the road was rising slowly to shake itself,
neighbours and dogs all raised their heads to look, and there was
Rodriguez riding down the street and Morano coming behind him. When
Serafina saw this she brought her eyes back from dreams, for she
dreamed not so deeply but that the cloak and plume of Rodriguez found
some place upon the boundaries of her day-dream. When she saw the way
he sat his horse and how he carried his head she let her eyes flash for
a little moment along the street from her balcony. And if some critical
reader ask how she did it I answer, "My good sir, I can't tell you,
because I don't know," or "My dear lady, what a question to ask!" And
where she learned to do it I cannot think, but nothing was easier. And
then she smiled to think that she had done the very thing that her
mother had warned her there was danger in doing.
"Serafina," her mother said in that moment at the large window, "the
evening grows cold. It might be dangerous to stay there longer." And
Serafina entered the house, as she had done at the coming of dusk on
many an evening.
Rodriguez missed as much of that flash of her eyes, shot from below the
darkness of her hair, as youth in its first glory and freedom misses.
For at the point on the road called life at which Rodriguez was then,
one is high on a crag above the promontories of watchmen, lower only
than the peaks of the prophets, from which to see such things. Yet it
did not need youth to notice Serafina. Beggars had blessed her for the
poise of her head.
She turned that head a little as she went between the windows, till
Rodriguez gazing up to her saw the fair shape of her neck: and almost
in that moment the last of the daylight died. The windows shut; and
Rodriguez rode on with Morano to find the forge that was kept by
Fernandez the smith. And presently they came to the village forge, a
cottage with huge, high roof whose beams were safe from sparks; and its
fire was glowing redly into the moonlight through the wide door made
for horses, although there seemed no work to be done, and a man with a
swart moustache was piling more logs on. Over the door was burned on
oak in ungainly great letters--
"FERNANDEZ"
"For whom do you seek, señor?" he said to Rodriguez, who had halted
before him with his horse's nose inside the doorway sniffing.
"I look," he said, "for him who is not Fernandez."
"I am he," said the man by the fire.
Rodriguez questioned no further but dismounted, and bade Morano lead
the horses in. And then he saw in the dark at the back of the forge the
other two horses that he had seen in the wood. And they were shod as he
had never seen horses shod before. For the front pair of shoes were
joined by a chain riveted stoutly to each, and the hind pair also; and
both horses were shod alike. The method was equally new to Morano. And
now the man with the swart moustache picked up another bunch of
horseshoes hanging in pairs on chains. And Rodriguez was not far out
when he guessed that whenever la Garda overtook their horses they would
find that Fernandez was far away making holiday, while he who shod them
now would be gone upon other business. And all this work seemed to
Rodriguez not to be his affair.
"Farewell," he said to the smith that was not Fernandez; and with a pat
for his horse he left it, having obtained a promise of oats. And so
Rodriguez and Morano went on foot again, Morano elated in spite of
fatigue and pain, rejoicing to feel the earth once more, flat under the
soles of his feet; Rodriguez a little humbled.
THE SIXTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING
They walked back slowly in silence up the street down which they had
ridden. Earth darkened, the moon grew brighter: and Rodriguez gazing at
the pale golden disk began to wonder who dwelt in the lunar valleys;
and what message, if folk were there, they had for our peoples; and in
what language such message could ever be, and how it could fare across
that limpid remoteness that wafted light on to the coasts of Earth and
lapped in silence on the lunar shores. And as he wondered he thought of
his mandolin.
"Morano," he said, "buy bacon."
Morano's eyes brightened: they were forty-five miles from the hills on
which he had last tasted bacon. He selected his house with a glance,
and then he was gone. And Rodriguez reflected too late that he had
forgotten to tell Morano where he should find him, and this with night
coming on in a strange village. Scarcely, Rodriguez reflected, he knew
where he was going himself. Yet if old tunes lurking in its hollows,
echoing though imperceptibly from long-faded evenings, gave the
mandolin any knowledge of human affairs that other inanimate things
cannot possess, the mandolin knew.
Let us in fancy call up the shade of Morano from that far generation.
Let us ask him where Rodriguez is going. Those blue eyes, dim with the
distance over which our fancy has called them, look in our eyes with
wonder.
"I do not know," he says, "where Don Rodriguez is going. My master did
not tell me."
Did he notice nothing as they rode by that balcony?
"Nothing," Morano answers, "except my master riding."
We may let Morano's shade drift hence again, for we shall discover
nothing: nor is this an age to which to call back spirits.
Rodriguez strolled slowly on the deep dust of that street as though
wondering all the while where he should go; and soon he and his
mandolin were below that very balcony whereon he had seen the white
neck of Serafina gleam with the last of the daylight. And now the
spells of the moon charmed Earth with their full power.
The balcony was empty. How should it have been otherwise? And yet
Rodriguez grieved. For between the vision that had drawn his footsteps
and that bare balcony below shuttered windows was the difference
between a haven, sought over leagues of sea, and sheer, uncharted
cliff. It brought a wistfulness into the music he played, and a
melancholy that was all new to Rodriguez, yet often and often before
had that mandolin sent up through evening against unheeding Space that
cry that man cannot utter; for the spirit of man needs a mandolin as a
comrade to face the verdict of the chilly stars as he needs a bulldog
for more mundane things.
Soon out of the depth of that stout old mandolin, in which so many
human sorrows had spun tunes out of themselves, as the spiders spin
misty grey webs, till it was all haunted with music, soon the old cry
went up to the stars again, a thread of supplication spun of the matter
which else were distilled in tears, beseeching it knew not what. And,
but that Fate is deaf, all that man asks in music had been granted then.
What sorrows had Rodriguez known in his life that he made so sad a
melody? I know not. It was the mandolin. When the mandolin was made it
knew at once all the sorrows of man, and all the old unnamed longings
that none defines. It knew them as the dog knows the alliance that its
forefathers made with man. A mandolin weeps the tears that its master
cannot shed, or utters the prayers that are deeper than its master's
lips can draw, as a dog will fight for his master with teeth that are
longer than man's. And if the moonlight streamed on untroubled, and
though Fate was deaf, yet beauty of those fresh strains going starward
from under his fingers touched at least the heart of Rodriguez and
gilded his dreams and gave to his thoughts a mournful autumnal glory,
until he sang all newly as he never had sung before, with limpid voice
along the edge of tears, a love-song old as the woods of his father's
valleys at whose edge he had heard it once drift through the evening.
And as he played and sang with his young soul in the music he fancied
(and why not, if they care aught for our souls in Heaven?) he fancied
the angles putting their hands each one on a star and leaning out of
Heaven through the constellations to listen.
"A vile song, señor, and a vile tune with it," said a voice quite close.
However much the words hurt his pride in his mandolin Rodriguez
recognised in the voice the hidalgo's accent and knew that it was an
equal that now approached him in the moonlight round a corner of the
house with the balcony; and he knew that the request he courteously
made would be as courteously granted.
"Señor," he said, "I pray you to permit me to lean my mandolin against
the wall securely before we speak of my song."
"Most surely, señor," the stranger replied, "for there is no fault with
the mandolin."
"Señor," Rodriguez said, "I thank you profoundly." And he bowed to the
gallant, whom he now perceived to be young, a youth tall and lithe like
himself, one whom we might have chosen for these chronicles had we not
found Rodriguez.
Then Rodriguez stepped back a short way and placed his kerchief on the
ground; and upon this he put his mandolin and leaned it against the
wall. When the mandolin was safe from dust or accident he approached
the stranger and drew his sword.
"Señor," he said, "we will now discuss music."
"Right gladly, señor," said the young man, who now drew his sword also.
There were no clouds; the moon was full; the evening promised well.
Scarcely had the flash of thin rapiers crossing each other by moonlight
begun to gleam in the street when Morano appeared beside them and stood
there watching. He had bought his bacon and gone straight to the house
with the balcony. For though he knew no Latin he had not missed the
silent greeting that had welcomed his master to that village, or failed
to interpret the gist of the words that Rodriguez' dumb glance would
have said. He stood there watching while each combatant stood his
ground.
And Rodriguez remembered all those passes and feints that he had had
from his father, and which Sevastiani, a master of arms in Madrid, had
taught in his father's youth: and some were famous and some were little
known. And all these passes, as he tried them one by one, his unknown
antagonist parried. And for a moment Rodriguez feared that Morano would
see those passes in which he trusted foiled by that unknown sword, and
then he reflected that Morano knew nothing of the craft of the rapier,
and with more content at that thought he parried thrusts that were
strange to him. But something told Morano that in this fight the
stranger was master and that along that pale-blue, moonlit, unknown
sword lurked a sure death for Rodriguez. He moved from his place of
vantage and was soon lost in large shadows; while the rapiers played
and blade rippled on blade with a sound as though Death were gently
sharpening his scythe in the dark. And now Rodriguez was giving ground,
now his antagonist pressed him; thrusts that he believed invincible had
failed; now he parried wearily and had at once to parry again; the
unknown pressed on, was upon him, was scattering his weakening parries;
drew back his rapier for a deadlier pass, learned in a secret school,
in a hut on mountains he knew, and practised surely; and fell in a heap
upon Rodriguez' feet, struck full on the back of the head by Morano's
frying-pan.
"Most vile knave," shouted Rodriguez as he saw Morano before him with
his frying-pan in his hand, and with something of the stupid expression
that you see on the face of a dog that has done some foolish thing
which it thinks will delight its master.
"Master! I am your servant," said Morano.
"Vile, miserable knave," replied Rodriguez.
"Master," Morano said plaintively, "shall I see to your comforts, your
food, and not to your life?"
"Silence," thundered Rodriguez as he stooped anxiously to his
antagonist, who was not unconscious but only very giddy and who now
rose to his feet with the help of Rodriguez.
"Alas, señor," said Rodriguez, "the foul knave is my servant. He shall
be flogged. He shall be flayed. His vile flesh shall be cut off him.
Does the hurt pain you, señor? Sit and rest while I beat the knave, and
then we will continue our meeting."
And he ran to his kerchief on which rested his mandolin and laid it
upon the dust for the stranger.
"No, no," said he. "My head clears again. It is nothing."
"But rest, señor, rest," said Rodriguez. "It is always well to rest
before an encounter. Rest while I punish the knave."
And he led him to where the kerchief lay on the ground. "Let me see the
hurt, señor," he continued. And the stranger removed his plumed hat as
Rodriguez compelled him to sit down. He straightened out the hat as he
sat, and the hurt was shown to be of no great consequence.
"The blessed Saints be praised," Rodriguez said. "It need not stop our
encounter. But rest awhile, señor."
"Indeed, it is nothing," he answered.
"But the indignity is immeasurable," sighed Rodriguez. "Would you care,
señor, when you are well rested to give the chastisement yourself?"
"As far as that goes," said the stranger, "I can chastise him now."
"If you are fully recovered, señor," Rodriguez said, "my own sword is
at your disposal to beat him sore with the flat of it, or how you will.
Thus no dishonour shall touch your sword from the skin of so vile a
knave."
The stranger smiled: the idea appealed to him.
"You make a noble amend, señor," he said as he bowed over Rodriguez'
proffered sword.