When at morn the muleteer,
With early call announces day,
Sorrowing that early call I hear
That scares the visions of delight away;
For dear to me the silent hour,
When sleep exerts its wizard power.
Southey.
"I trust you rested well last night, under the protection of your
saintly guardians," L'Isle said to Lady Mabel, when she made her
appearance down stairs, before the sun was yet up.
"Do not speak of last night," she said, throwing up her hands in a
deprecatory manner, "let it be utterly forgotten, and not reckoned
among the number of the nights. It was one of penance, not repose!
Never will I speak lightly of the saints again. I can only hope that
that and all my other sins are expiated, if I can infer any thing from
the number of my tormentors."
"Were they so numerous?" L'Isle asked, in a tone of sympathy.
"And various!" emphasized Lady Mabel. "Whole legions of various
orders, light and heavy armed. I could have forgiven the first, were
it only for their magnanimous mode of making war, always sounding the
trumpet, and giving fair warning before they charged; and the attack
being openly made, I could revenge myself on some of them by the free
use of my hands, and protect my face by covering it with my veil, at
the risk of being smothered. But the next band were so minute and
active, and secret in their movements, that I never knew where to
expect them. But the last slow, heavy legion which came crawling
insidiously on, were the most tormenting and sickening of all. To be
tortured by such a crowd of little fiends was enough to produce
delirium. But I will not recall the visions of the night. It was worse
than dreaming of being in purgatory!"
"I am sorry to hear that you had such shocking dreams," said Mrs.
Shortridge, who, as she came down the stairs, heard Lady Mabel's last
words, "I would have been thankful to be able to dream; but the mule
bells jingling under us all night were a trifling annoyance compared
to the mosquitos, fleas, and bugs, which scarcely allowed me a wink of
sleep."
"Sleep!" Lady Mabel exclaimed, "they murdered sleep, and mine were
waking torments."
"It is all owing to the filthy habits of the nation," continued
Mrs. Shortridge. "The very pigs and asses are as much a part of the
family as the children of the house."
"The fraternization of the human race with brutes, which prevails
here," L'Isle remarked, "certainly, promotes neither comfort nor
cleanliness. Indeed, it is curious, that as you go from north to
south, cleanliness should decline in the inverse ratio with the need
of it. Compared with ourselves, the French are not a cleanly people,
but become so when contrasted with their neighbors, the Spaniards, who
are, in turn, less filthy than the Portuguese, whose climate renders
cleanliness still more necessary."
"By that ratio, what standard of cleanliness will you find in
Morocco?" asked Lady Mabel.
"Perhaps a prominent and redeeming feature in their religion," said
L'Isle, "may exalt the standard there. Mahomedan ablutions may avail
much in this world, though little in the next."
"I am afraid," said Lady Mabel, "that their cleanly superstition will
make me almost regret the expulsion of the Moors."
The commissary was now bustling about, hurrying the preparations for
breakfast, and L'Isle went to see if the servants were getting ready
for the journey; but Mrs. Shortridge, full of the annoyances she had
suffered, continued to denounce their small enemies. Her talk was of
vermin.
Lady Mabel, thinking the subject had been sufficiently discussed,
interrupted her, saying, "you do not take the most philosophical and
poetical view of the subject. Is it not consolatory to reflect, that
while men, on suffering a reverse of fortune, too often experience
nothing but ingratitude and desertion from their fellows, and sadly
learn that
"'Tis ever thus: Those shadows we call friends,
Attend us through the sunshine of success,
To vanish in adversity's dark hour."
"Yet there are followers that adhere to them in their fallen fortunes
with more than canine fidelity, sticking to them like their sins,
clinging to their persons, cleaving to their garments, with an
attachment and in numbers that grow with their patron's destitution."
"But I maintain," Mrs. Shortridge replied, "that it is not only the
poor and destitute that here support such a retinue. I have repeatedly
seen in Lisbon, and elsewhere, young ladies, and among others a young
widow of high rank, the sister of the Bishop of Oporto, lying with her
head in the lap of her friend, who parted the locks of her hair to
search--"
"Stop!" said Lady Mabel, laying her hand on Mrs. Shortridge's mouth,
"you need not chase those small deer any further through the
wood. Leave that privileged sport to the natives."
Breakfast was now ready, and Shortridge called to the ladies to lose
no time. L'Isle, seeing the young friar in front of the _venda_,
brought him in and seated him beside him. He pressed upon him many
good things, which the house did not furnish; and this being no
fast-day, the friar eat a meal better proportioned to his youth, his
bulk, and his health, than his last night's meagre fare. He showed his
patriotism by his approval of one of those hams of marvelous flavor,
the boast of Portugal, the product of her swine, not stuffed into
obesity in prison, but gently swelling to rotundity while ranging the
free forest, and selecting the _bolotas_, and other acorns, as they
drop fresh from the boughs. The friar was not so busy with his meal
but what he continued to observe his new friends closely, and while
the servants were getting their breakfast, he seized the leisure
afforded to converse with L'Isle, and with Lady Mabel through
him. After many questions asked and answered, the friar became
thoughtful and abstracted, as if he had been brought in contact with a
new class of persons and ideas, which he could not at once comprehend.
L'Isle now asked him, "When and why he had put on St. Francis' frock?"
"I do not remember when I wore any other dress. I was not four years
old when I was seized with a violent sickness, and soon at the point
of death. My mother vowed that if St. Francis would hear her prayer,
and spare me, her only son, she would devote me to his service. From
that moment, as my mother has often told me, I began to mend. As soon
as a dress of the order could be made for me, I put it on. From that
day I grew and strengthened rapidly, and have not had a day's sickness
since. When old enough I was sent to school, and then served my
noviciate in the Franciscan convent in Villa Viçosa. I am now on leave
to visit my mother and sisters, who live near Ameixial."
"If you had chosen for yourself," L'Isle suggested, "perhaps you would
not have been a friar."
"Perhaps not," said the young friar, hesitating. "Indeed, I have been
lately told, though I am loath to admit it, that, urgent as the
necessity was that gave rise to our order, and great as its services
have been, especially in former days, our holy mother, the Church, can
be better served now, by servants who assume a more polished exterior,
and obeying St. Paul's injunction to be all things to all men, mingle
on a footing of equality with men of this world, although they are not
of it."
"Who told you this?" asked L'Isle.
"A learned and traveled priest, whom I lately met with. He delighted
me with his knowledge, while he startled me by the boldness of some of
his opinions."
"But, perhaps," L'Isle persisted, "if left to your own unbiassed
choice, you would not have taken orders at all."
The young man paused, evidently unable to shut out the thought, "Are
there callings, which, without doing violence to my nature, are
compatible with the service of God?" At length he answered, with a
reserve not usual to him, "It is not every man whose way of life is,
or can be, chosen by himself." Then, crossing himself earnestly, as if
stifling the thought, and trampling down the tempting devil within
him, he exclaimed, "I _must_ believe that my instant recovery from
deadly sickness as soon as I was devoted to St. Francis, proves that
he has chosen me for his service and God's."
He said this eagerly and with an air of sincerity, and again made the
sign of the cross. Yet the doubting devil seemed to linger about him,
and he sunk into silence, seeming little satisfied with himself.
Meanwhile, during his conference with L'Isle and Lady Mabel, old
Moodie stood near, eyeing him with sinister looks, as if he had been
the inventor, not the victim, of the popish system, and all its
corruptions rested on his head. The old man now urged them to take
horse, and allowed them no respite from his bustling interference
until the party was again on the road.
The friar watched their motions with interest; and when, after
crossing the valley and ascending the hill before them, Lady Mabel
turned to take a last look at the ruinous old venda, she saw him still
standing like a statue in the archway, doubtless with eye and thought
following their steps.
"I am afraid," said L'Isle, "that our young gownsman will have to
undergo a ruinous conflict in the struggle between his nature and his
fate. His is the worst possible condition for a man of vigorous
character and inquiring mind. He has not arrived at his convictions,
but had prematurely thrust upon him the convictions he is professedly
bound to hold."
"And you have helped him into the conflict," said Lady Mabel, "without
staying to see him through it."
"I trust not. But, anyhow, it would have come. Were he a monk even,
seclusion and devotion might protect, study might withdraw him from
many temptations. Were he a secular priest, the active and definite
duties of a parish, fulfilling and inculcating the obligations of
Christian morals, which are the same in every church, might have
tasked his energies. But, to be all his life a wandering beggar, in
the name of God and St. Francis! If enthusiasts are to be pitied, how
much more those who, without being, are compelled to lead the life of
enthusiasts! Is it wonderful that many of these men are apostles only
of ignorance and profligacy?"
"But this young man has a mind too active and enquiring for contented
ignorance," said Lady Mabel. "From his very nature he must go on
adding fact to fact, and thought to thought."
"Until he has built up a system of his own," answered L'Isle. "And, a
hundred chances to one, that will not coincide with the teachings of
St. Francis and of Rome. What must he do, then? He, a professed
Franciscan, has lost his faith in St. Francis, in Rome, perhaps in
Christ!--known to him only through Rome. Must he persevere? or shall
he abjure? Between hypocrisy and martyrdom, he now must choose. Think
not, because the fires of the _auto da fe_ are extinct, a churchman
here can safely abjure his profession and his faith. A man may live a
life of martyrdom, although he escape a martyr's death."
They had ridden on some miles, and new scenes had suggested other
topics, when they heard a shout behind them, and, looking round, saw
the old man of the _Venda_ displaying unwonted energy. He was
vigorously pummeling with his heels the vicious _burro_ on which he
followed them, while he held up some article of clothing, and shouted
after them at the top of his voice.
They stopped for him to come up, and he handed to Lady Mabel a rich
shawl, which she had left behind in her bed-room, and a scrap of dingy
white paper. Refusing any reward for his trouble and honesty, he at
once took leave and turned back, the ass showing a more willing spirit
on his homeward path.
After trying in vain to decipher the scroll, Lady Mabel handed it to
L'Isle. "_Cito, tute, jucunde peregrineris_." "Swift, safe and
pleasant may your journey be," said L'Isle, translating it. "This is,
doubtless, from the young friar. He is anxious to show you at once his
scholarship and his good-will. We must not find fault with his Latin,
which is capital--for a friar!"
"Give it to me. I will keep it as a talisman of safety, and as a
memorial of our friar. Poor fellow!" continued Lady Mabel, "I suppose
the best wish I can return him is, that enthusiasm may carry him, in
sincerity and purity, through the path others have chosen for him."
"He is an impudent fellow!" growled out old Moodie. "You set too great
store, my lady, by this young vagabond!"
"Vagabond!" she exclaimed, with a look and tone of grave rebuke, "I am
afraid, Moodie, if you had met St. Paul wandering through Macedonia
without staff or scrip, or the cloak he left behind at Troas, you
would have found no better title for him."
"Is this man like St. Paul?" asked Moodie, startled at the profane
supposition.
"I do not say so. But the whole order of friars, renouncing worldly
objects, devote themselves to the imitation of the seventy disciples
in Scripture, who were sent out by two and two to evangelize the
Jews."
"I never expected, my lady, to hear you liken these lazy monks to our
Lord's disciples."
"They are not monks, but friars," said Lady Mabel quietly, "and,
without answering for their practice, I cannot but approve of what
they profess. They do not shut themselves up from the world, like the
monks, under pretence of escaping contamination, but devote themselves
to the mission of traveling about in apostolic poverty from house to
house, and, by prayer and preaching, by inculcating charity, and
receiving alms, sow every where the seeds of the faith they profess."
"The words old Chaucer puts into the mouth of his friar," said L'Isle,
"well express the objects of the order:
"In shrift, in preaching is my diligence,
And study in Peter's words and in Paul's;
I walk and fish Christian men's souls,
To yield my Lord Jesu his proper rent;
To spread his word is set all mine intent."
"A truly apostolic aim!" Lady Mabel exclaimed, looking triumphantly
round on her old follower.
The descending road here narrowed suddenly, and Moodie reined back his
horse, silent in the sad conviction that Lady Mabel had already got
beyond that half-way house between the region of evangelical purity
and idolatrous Rome.
In the narrow valley, overgrown with shrubs and brushwood at the foot
of the hill, they came suddenly on a large number of swine luxuriating
in the cool waters, or on the shady banks of a brook. The swine
vanished instantly amidst the thickets, though hundreds were still
heard grunting and squealing around them, and the travelers might have
taken them for wild denizens of the wilderness, had not a fierce growl
attracted their attention, and they saw on the opposite bank a man
reclining under a _carob_ tree, one hand resting on the neck of a huge
dog, who yet showed two savage rows of teeth, and fixed his vigilant
and angry eyes on the intruders. The wild air of the master delighted
Lady Mabel, for there was mingled with it a savage dignity as he
stretched his manly form on the wolf-skin spread out under him, and
gazed calmly on the party drawing near. While their horses stopped to
drink at the stream, they observed him narrowly--he receiving this
attention with stoic indifference. A long gun lay on the ground beside
him, and his garments, made chiefly of the dressed skins of animals,
defied brier or thorn.
"Are we on the road to Evora?" L'Isle asked, by way of opening a
parley; but the man merely waved his hand gently toward the hill and
path before them. Resolved to make him speak, L'Isle asked, "What game
have you killed to-day?"--for he saw some animal lying in the moss at
the foot of the tree. The hunter silently held up a lynx and an otter,
which he had lately snared, and seemed to forget the presence of
strangers in contemplating his game. Despairing of extracting a word,
the travelers rode on.
"What a silent, unsocial wretch!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed. "He seems
to prefer the company of a savage hound, and his dead game, to that of
living Christians."
"He thinks a heretic no Christian, if he thinks at all," said L'Isle;
and he called to the guide, to ask what this wild man was.
"He is a swine-herd."
"Indeed!" said Lady Mabel. "I took him for a bandit, or a bold hunter,
at least."
"But he is the swine-herd of the great monastery of the Paulists, who
own half the lands on the southern slope of Serra d'Ossa. He is a
matchless hunter too, spending fewer nights under a roof than on the
mountain-side, where all the game is as much his, as the swine he
keeps is the property of the good fathers. They have the best bacon in
all Portugal, and plenty of it, as many a poor man can tell; and they
know this man's value, for he were a bold thief that pinched the ear
of his smallest pig."
"As soon as I get back to Elvas," said Lady Mabel, "I will send Major
Warren to make his acquaintance. The major will be charmed with
him. For his ambition is to take all sorts of game, in every possible
way; and though I have, or might have had, the history of all his
hunts by heart, neither lynx or otter has yet figured in the scene.
You remember, Colonel L'Isle, how much satisfaction he expressed when
you lately hinted at the probability of our brigade finding itself in
the north of Portugal early in the coming campaign. I at first thought
that the soldier saw some military advantage in the movement, but
found it was only the sportsman's delight at the hope of visiting
Truzos Montes, and killing one of the few Caucasian goats that yet
linger on the most inaccessible heights there."
"No gamester," said L'Isle, "is more a slave to the dice. That at this
time a soldier should be so little 'lost in the world's debate' as to
be eager, above all things, to kill a goat!"
They had now reached a point which gave them a fine view of the
southern side of Serra d'Ossa, so different from the northern, being
fertile, and showing many a cultivated spot upon its lower slopes,
while the light, fleecy clouds, gathering before the gentle western
wind, now veiled and then revealed the overhanging dark blue ridge
that crowned the scene. The guide pointed out the broad possessions of
the great monastery of the Paulists. At a distance, on the right, rose
Evora Monte, built like a watch-tower on a lofty hill; and, to the
south, the monastic towers and Gothic spires of Evora, the city of
monks, raised high above the plain, could be seen from afar.
"Why," asked Mrs. Shortridge, "do these people always build their
towns on hills?"
"That is a true English question," answered L'Isle. "At home, in our
bleak northern climate, we naturally seek sheltered situations. These
people as naturally select an airy site, above the parching heat and
poisoned air of the valleys. In founding colonies in tropical
countries we English, and the Dutch, have constantly blundered, acting
as if still at home; and choosing low and pestilential spots,
establish only hospitals and graveyards where we meant to build towns;
while the Spaniards and Portuguese, from the instinct of habit, select
the most salubrious situations within their reach. Moreover, high
points are safer from attack, and stronger to resist an enemy; and the
Christians of the peninsula were taught by seven centuries of conflict
with the Moors, that the safety of a man's house is the first point,
its convenience the second. Now, we islanders have long been but a
half military people. Content with incuring the guilt of war abroad,
we have carefully abstained from bringing it home to our own doors."
"But we never wage any but just wars," said Lady Mabel.
"We, at least," said L'Isle, "always find some plausible grounds on
which to justify our wars--to ourselves."
They were now on the outskirts of the undulating plain, on which a
rich soil overlying the granite rocks extends from Evora southward to
the city of Beja. The signs of cultivation and population multiplied
as they went on. The fields became larger and more frequent; detached
farm houses were seen on either hand, and they fell in on the road
with many peasants riding large and spirited asses, or driving oxen
all light bays with enormous horns, and so sleek and well grown, that
the commissary gazed on them with admiring eye and watering mouth, and
pronounced them equally fit for the yoke or the shambles.
It was a relief to find themselves once more in a cultivated country,
and Lady Mabel gazed round, admiring the prospect. "There is," she
observed, "one drawback to the landscape. At home, one of the most
enlivening features in our rural scenes, are the white sheep scattered
on the hills, but here they are almost black."
"But the goats you see are generally white," answered L'Isle. "It is,
too, the more picturesque animal, and well supplies what is wanting in
the sheep."
Evora was at hand. L'Isle launched out into an erudite discourse on
the aqueduct of Sertorius, which, stretching its long line of arches
from the neighboring hills, was converging with their road to the
city. As they entered it he was giving Lady Mabel all the pros and
cons, as to whether it was really the work of that redoubtable Roman.
The commissary was luxuriously anticipating the shade and rest before
him, when to his surprise and regret, L'Isle led the party another
way, and halted them before a small but striking building, which here
crowned the aqueduct at its termination in the city.
"Look, Lady Mabel. Observe it well, Mrs. Shortridge. This castellum is
a miniature embodiment of Roman taste and skill in architecture. This
is no ruin calling upon the imagination to play the hazardous part of
filling up the gaps made by the hand of time. We see it as the Moor,
the Goth, the Roman saw it, save the loss of a few vases which adorned
the depressed parapet, and the scaling plaster which here and there
betrays that the builder used that cheap but immortal material, the
Roman brick."
Much did Lady Mabel admire this architectural gem, scarcely tarnished
by the elements in nineteen centuries, and much more would L'Isle have
found to say of it, when the commissary, impatiently fanning himself
with his hat, ventured to ask, "how much longer shall we stay broiling
in the noon-day sun, staring at this Roman sentry-box?"
"Sentry-box!" said Mrs. Shortridge, with a puzzled air, "were the
Romans a gigantic people?"
"There were giants in those days," said Lady Mabel, gravely, gazing on
the castellum. But a crowd of idlers and beggars began to collect
around the cavalcade, and turning, they rode off, and were soon
enjoying the shelter, if not the more substantial hospitality, of the
_Estalagem de San Antonio_.