THE TWO BROTHERS.
After quitting the Red Room, Don Rodolfo, under the weight of the
condemnation pronounced against him, with broken heart and burning head
had rushed onwards, flying the paternal anger, and resolved to leave
the hacienda as quickly as possible, never to return to it. His horse
was still in the first yard, where he had tied it up. The young man
went up to it, seized the bridle, and placed his foot in the stirrup.
At the same moment a hand was laid on his shoulder--Don Rodolfo turned
as if seared with a hot iron. His brother was standing before him.
A feverish redness suffused his face; his hands closed, and his eyes
flashed lightning; but at once extinguishing the fire of his glance and
affecting a forced calmness, he said, in a firm voice--
"What do you want brother?"
"To press your hand before your departure, Rodolfo," the young man
said, with a whining voice.
Rodolfo looked at him for a moment with an expression of profound
disdain, then unhooking the sword that hung at his side, he handed it
to his brother.
"There, Hernando," he said, ironically, "it is only right that, since
you will henceforth bear the name and honour of our family, this sword
should revert to you. You desired my inheritance, and success has
crowned your efforts."
"Brother," the young man stammered.
"I am not reproaching you," Don Rodolfo continued, haughtily. "Enjoy
in peace those estates you have torn from me. May Heaven grant that
the burden may not appear to you some day too heavy, and that the
recollection of the deed you have done may not poison your last years.
Henceforth we shall never meet again on this earth. Farewell!" And
letting the sword he had offered his brother fall on the ground, he
leaped on his horse and went off at full speed, without even giving a
parting glance at those walls which had seen his birth, and from which
he was now eternally banished. Don Hernando stood for a moment with
hanging head and pale face, crushed by the shame and consciousness
of the bad action he had not feared to commit. Already remorse was
beginning to prey on him. At length, when the galloping of the horse
had died away in the distance, he raised his eyes, wiped away the
perspiration that inundated his face, and picked up the sword lying at
his feet.
"Poor Rodolfo!" he muttered, stifling a sigh; "I am very guilty."
And he slowly returned to the hacienda. Count Don Rodolfo de Moguer
kept the word he had given his brother: he never reappeared. Nothing
was ever heard of him, and his intimate friends never saw him again
after his journey to the hacienda, nor knew what had become of him. The
next year, a few Indians who escaped from the massacre at the bridge
of Calderón, when Hidalgo was defeated by the Spanish General Calleja,
spread the report that Don Rodolfo, who during the whole action kept by
Hidalgo's side, was killed in a desperate charge he made into the heart
of the Spanish lines, in the hope of restoring the fortunes of the day;
but this rumour was not confirmed. In spite of all the measures taken
by the Marquis, the young man's body was not found among the dead, and
his fate remained a mystery for the family.
In the meanwhile, Don Hernando, by his father's orders, had succeeded
to his brother's title, and almost immediately married Doña Aurelia de
la Torre Azul, originally destined for Don Rodolfo. The Marquis and
Marchioness lived some few years longer. They died a few days after
one another, bearing with them a poisoned sting of remorse for having
banished their firstborn son from their presence.
But, inflexible up to his dying hour, the Marquis never once made a
complaint, and died without mentioning his son's name. However, the
Marquis's hopes were realized ere he descended to the grave, for he
had the supreme consolation of seeing his family continued in his
grandchildren.
At the funeral, a man was noticed in the crowd wrapped up in a wide
cloak, and his features concealed by the broad brim of his hat being
pulled over them. No one was able to say who this man was, although one
old servant declared he had recognised Don Rodolfo. Was it really the
banished son who had come for the last time to pay homage to his father
and weep on his tomb? The arrival of the stranger was so unexpected,
and his departure so sudden, that it was impossible to get at the truth
of the statement.
Then, time passed away, important events succeeded each other, and Don
Rodolfo, of whom nothing was heard, was considered dead by his family
and friends, and then forgotten; and Don Hernando inherited without
dispute the title and estates.
The Marquis de Moguer, in spite of the light under which we have shown
him to our readers, was not a wicked man, as might be supposed; but
as a younger son, with no other hope than the tonsure, devoured by
ambition, and freely enjoying life, he internally rebelled against the
harsh and unjust law which exiled him from the pleasures of the world,
and condemned him to the solitude of the cloister. Assuredly, had his
brother frankly accepted his position as firstborn, and consented to
undertake its duties, Don Hernando would never have thought for a
moment of defrauding him of his rights. But when he saw Don Rodolfo
despise the old tradition of his race--forget what he owed to his
honour as a gentleman, so far as to marry an Indian girl and make
common cause with the partisans of the Revolution, he eagerly seized
the opportunity chance so providentially offered him to seize the power
lost by his brother, and quietly put himself in his place. He thought
that, in acting thus he was not committing a bad action, but almost
asserting a right by substituting himself for a man who seemed to care
very little for titles and fortune.
Don Hernando, while whitewashing himself in this way, only obeyed that
law of justice and injustice which God has placed in the heart of man,
and which impels him, when he does any dishonourable deed, to seek
excuses in order to prove to himself that he was bound to act as he
had done. Still, the Marquis did not dare to confess to himself that
the chance by which he profited he had helped by all his power, by
envenoming by his speeches and continual insinuations his brother's
actions, ruining him gradually in his father's mind, and preparing,
long beforehand, the condemnation eventually uttered in the Red Room
against the unfortunate Rodolfo.
And yet strange contradiction of the human heart, Don Hernando dearly
loved his brother; he pitied him--he would like to hold him back on
the verge of the precipice down which he thrust him, as it were. Once
master of the estates and head of the family, he would have liked to
find his brother again, in order to share with him this badly-acquired
fortune, and gain pardon for his usurpation.
Unfortunately these reflections came too late--Don Rodolfo had
disappeared without leaving a trace, and hence the Marquis was
compelled to restrict himself to sterile regrets. At times, tortured
with the ever-present memory of the last scene at the hacienda, he
asked himself whether it would not have been better for him to have
had a frank explanation with his brother, after which Don Rodolfo,
whose simple tastes agreed but badly with the exigencies of a great
name, would have amicably renounced in his favour the rights which his
position as elder brother gave him.
But now to continue our narrative, which we have too long interrupted.
At the beginning of 1822, on a day of madness which was to be expiated
by years of disaster, the definitive separation took place between
Spain and Mexico, and the era of _pronunciamientos_ set in. After the
ephemeral reign of the Emperor Iturbide, Mexico reverted to a republic,
or, more correctly, to a military government. Under the pressure of
an army of 20,000 soldiers, which had 24,000 officers, the Presidents
succeeded each other with headlong speed, burying the nation deeper
and deeper in the mire, in which it is now struggling, and which will
eventually swallow it up.
By _pronunciamiento_ on _pronunciamiento_ Mexico had reached the period
when this story begins; but her wealth had been swallowed up in the
tornado--her commerce was annihilated, her cities were falling in
ruins, and New Spain had only retained of her old splendours fugitive
recollections and piles of ruins. The Spaniards had suffered greatly
during the War of Independence, as had their partisans, whose property
had been burned and plundered by the revolutionists. The fatal decree
of 1827, pronouncing the expulsion of the Spaniards, dealt the final
and most terrible blow to their fortunes.
The Marquis de Moguer was one of the persons most affected by this
measure, although, during the entire War of Independence and the
different governments that succeeded each other, he had taken the
greatest care not to mix himself up at all in politics, and remained
neutral between all parties. This position, which it was difficult and
almost impossible to maintain for any length of time, had compelled him
to make concessions painful to his pride: unfortunately, his fortune
consisted of land and mines, and if he left Mexico he would be a ruined
man.
His friends advised him frankly to join the Mexican government, and
give up his Spanish nationality. The Marquis, forced by circumstances,
followed their advice; and, thanks to the credit some persons enjoyed
with the President of the Republic, Don Hernando was not only not
disturbed, but authorized to remain in the country, where he was
naturalized as a Mexican.
But things had greatly changed with the Marquis. His immense fortune
had vanished with the Spanish government. During the ten years of the
War of Independence, his estates had lain fallow, and his mines,
deserted by the workmen he formerly employed, had gradually become
filled with water. They could not be put in working order again except
by enormous and most expensive works. The situation was critical,
especially for a man reared in luxury and accustomed to sow his money
broadcast. He was now compelled to calculate every outlay with the
utmost care, if he did not wish to see the hideous spectre of want rise
implacable before him.
The pride of the Marquis was broken in this struggle against poverty;
his love for his children restored his failing courage, and he bravely
resolved to make head against the storm. Like the ruined gentleman who
tilled the soil, with their sword by their side, as a proof of their
nobility, he openly became hacendero and miner,--that is to say, he
cultivated his estates on a large scale, and bred cattle and horses,
while trying to pump out the water which had taken possession of his
mines. Unfortunately, he was deficient in two important things for the
proper execution of his plans: the necessary knowledge to assist the
different operations he meditated: and, above all, money, without which
nothing was possible. The Marquis was therefore compelled to engage a
majordomo, and borrow on mortgage. For the first few years all went
well, or appeared to do so. The majordomo, Don José Paredes, to whom
we shall have occasion to refer more fully hereafter, was one of those
men so valuable in haciendas, whose life is spent on horseback, whose
attention nothing escapes, who thoroughly understand the cultivation of
the soil, and know what it ought to produce, almost to an arroba.
But if the estates of the Marquis were beginning to regain their
value under the skilful direction of the bailiff, it was not the same
with the mines. Taking advantage of the convulsions in which Mexico
was writhing, the independent Indians, no longer held in subjection
by the fear of the powerful military organization of the Spaniards,
had crossed the frontiers and regained a certain portion of their
territory. They had permanently settled upon it, and would not allow
white men to encroach on it. Most of the Marquis's mines being situated
in the very country now occupied by the Indians, were consequently
lost to him. The others, almost entirely inundated, in spite of the
incessant labour bestowed on them, did not yet hold out any hopes of
becoming productive again.
What Don Hernando gained on one side he lost on the other; and his
position, in spite of his efforts, became worse and worse, and the
abyss of debt gradually enlarged. The Marquis saw with terror the
moment before him when it would be impossible for him to continue the
struggle. Sad and aged by sorrow rather than years, the Marquis no
longer dared to regard the future, which daily became more gloomy for
him. He watched in mournful resignation the downfall of his house--the
decay of his race; seeking in vain, like the man without a compass on
the mighty ocean, from what point of the horizon the vessel that would
save him from shipwreck would arrive.
But, alas! Days succeeded days without bringing any other change in
the position of the Marquis, save greater poverty, and more nearly
impending ruin. In proportion as the misfortune came nearer, the
Marquis had seen his relations and friends keep aloof from him; all
abandoned him, with that selfish indifference which seems a fundamental
law of every organized society, when the precept, "Each man for
himself," is put in practice, with all the brutal force of the _vae
victis_.
Hence Don Hernando resided alone, with his son, at the Hacienda del
Toro; for he had lost his wife several years before, and his daughter
was being educated in a convent at the town of Rosario; with that
noble pride which so admirably becomes men of well-tempered minds, the
Marquis had accepted without a murmur the ostracism passed upon him.
Far from indulging in useless recriminations with men, the majority of
whom had, in other days, received obligations from him, he had made his
son a partner in his labours, and, aided by him, redoubled his efforts
and his courage.
Some months before the period when our story begins, ill fortune had
seemed, not to grow weary of persecuting the Marquis, but desirous
of granting him a truce--this is how a gleam of sunshine penetrated
the gloomy atmosphere of the hacienda. One morning, a stranger, who
appeared to have come a great distance, stopped at the gate, leading a
mule loaded with two bales. This man, on reaching the first courtyard,
threw the mule's bridle to a peon, with the simple remark,--"For Signor
Don Hernando de Moguer--" and, without awaiting an answer, he started
down the rocky road at a gallop and was lost in the windings of the
path ere the peon had recovered from the surprise caused by the strange
visit. The Marquis, at once warned, had the mule unloaded, and the
bales conveyed to his study. They each contained twenty-five thousand
piastres in gold, or nearly eleven thousand pounds of our money: on a
folded paper was written one word--Restitution.
It was in vain that the Marquis ordered the most minute researches;
the strange messenger could not be found. Don Hernando was therefore
compelled to keep this large sum, which arrived so opportunely to
extricate him from a difficult position, for he had a considerable
payment to make on the morrow. Still, it was only on the repeated
assurances of Don Ruiz and the majordomo, that the money was really
his, that he consented to use it.
Cheered by this change of fortune, Don Hernando at length consented
that Don Ruiz should go and fetch his sister, and bring her back to the
hacienda, where her presence had been long desired; though there had
been an obstacle, in the dangers of such a journey.
We will now resume our narrative, begging the reader to forgive this
long digression, which was indispensable for the due comprehension of
what is about to follow, and lead him to the Hacienda del Toro, a few
hours before the arrival of Don Ruiz and his sister; that is to say,
about three weeks since we left them at the post of San Miguel.