ANNOUNCEMENTS.
It has been seen that rumours of Alcala's proposed venture had reached
the ears of Lucius Lepine, but he had not been disposed to give full
credence to such reports. Lucius had been long enough in Spain to be
aware that in the nineteenth century it is as unusual for a Spanish
nobleman to take an active part in the bull-circus, as it would be for
an English one to show off his strength in the prize-ring. The strange
report was, however, painfully confirmed in the mind of Lucius when on
that Saturday evening he was proceeding on his way to the house of Mr.
Passmore, where he was engaged to take dinner.
A large lamp burning before an image of the Virgin Mary, at the corner
of one of the narrow lanes through which Lucius was passing, threw
light on the opposite side, where a large space of boarding had been
taken advantage of by the bill-posters of Seville. It would have
required less light to have deciphered the large red capital letters
in which appeared the following announcement:--
"GRAND AND EXTRAORDINARY ATTRACTION.
"To-morrow, August --, 1868, the most noble and illustrious
caballero, Don Alcala de Aguilera, mounted on his superb
charger, will encounter a bull of unequalled size and
fierceness in the circus of the Coliseo."
The red letters seemed to swim before the eyes of Lucius Lepine. He
stood as if rooted to the ground, till roused by a light touch on the
shoulder. Turning round, he saw a stout personage, who from his black
robe, huge hat with flaps turned up at the sides, and rosary with
crucifix suspended from his neck, he knew to be one of the Spanish
priests.
"Inglesito, mark _that_ well!" said the priest emphatically, pointing,
ere he passed on, to another placard which, printed in black and in
smaller type, and therefore not so conspicuous, appeared close to the
announcement of the bull-fight in the Plaza de Toros. The attention of
Lucius being thus directed towards it, he read with surprise the
following extraordinary charge from the Lord Bishop of Cadiz:--[10]
"The Enemy of mankind desists not from his infernal task of sowing
tares in the field of the Great Husbandman, and to us it belongs, as
sentinels of the advanced post of the house of Israel, to sound the
alarm, lest his frauds and machinations should prevail. We say this,
because we have read with profound grief, in a periodical lately
published, that the Protestant Bible Societies and Associations for
the distribution of bad books are redoubling their efforts for
inoculating our Catholic Spain with the venom of their errors and
destructive doctrines, selecting, in particular, our religious
Andalusia as the field of their operations," &c. &c.
At another time such a placard as this would have been read by Lucius
with intense interest, and would have wholly engrossed his thoughts
for the time. Even under present circumstances, with his mind
painfully preoccupied by anxiety for his friend, the charge of the
Bishop of Cadiz left a deep impression on Lucius. Others then were
actually doing the work from which he had shrunk. Others were coming
forward, like Gideon's three hundred heroes moving bravely on through
the darkness. Already the lights which they bore must be flashing here
and there; for Rome would not sound such a cry of alarm had she not
heard the tramp of an enemy's feet in her camp, and caught sight of
gleams of evangelical truth carried into the midst of her hosts.
"There must be a movement going on, even in Seville," thought Lucius,
"of which I never knew till this moment. Not all of my countrymen have
been cold-hearted laggards like me."
Lucius, for once, arrived late for dinner, found the company already
seated at table, and forgot to make an apology. Mr. Passmore, at the
head of a board loaded with a repast more profuse than elegant, was
too much engaged with his double occupation of eating and talking even
to notice the entrance of his clerk. The familiar sound of the
snorting laugh of his employer reached Lucius before he came into the
room.
"Ho, ho, ho! it was a shabby trick in the cavalier to engage himself
as a butcher, without giving due notice that he intended to leave the
ironware business! And I paid the fine gentleman his quarter's salary
only last week! Don Alcala de Aguilera is no great loss to the firm,
for he took his very pay with an air which seemed to say, 'I'm a
hidalgo, a gentleman born; I honour you too much by soiling my fingers
with an Englishman's dirty cash.'"
"Aguilera has not a bad headpiece, though," observed one of the party.
"Oh, for a Spaniard he's clever enough," replied Passmore, speaking
with his mouth full; "had it not been for his ridiculous Spanish
pride, the don would have made a fair man of business. Save in that
matter of the translation yesterday;--I told you that capital story!
ho, ho, ho! I see now how twenty dozen bulls came to be running in the
poor fellow's head; no wonder that he looked pale at the idea of such
an awful squad of the beasts!" Peter Passmore leant back in his chair,
and laughed till he seemed to be in danger of suffocation.
"Aguilera will find one of them enough, and too much, I'm afraid,"
said the former speaker.
"Perhaps the don thought that he'd do a sharp bit of business,"
resumed Mr. Passmore, as soon as his explosive mirth had sufficiently
subsided; "he'd contrive to get double pay for double work, by writing
on week-days and fighting on Sundays. I wonder now what he'll receive
for sticking his bull!"
"Nothing but honour," said an onion-merchant who was one of the
guests. "Folk say that there is some fair donna of Seville mixed up
with the business."
"Then Don Alcala de Aguilera is a greater idiot than I took him for!"
exclaimed the ironware manufacturer. "I can imagine a man's selling
his blood to support himself and his family; every soldier does that,
and if he get a cannon-ball instead of promotion, one can only say
that the poor fellow has had the worst of the bargain. But a man who
is willing to run the chance of being gored or tossed for the sake of
the prettiest girl that ever danced a bolero, is madder, in my
opinion, than Moliere's far-famed knight of La Mancha. Ah! Lepine, so
you're here at last. You are Aguilera's friend; did you know anything
beforehand of this freak of romantic folly?"
Lucius only shook his head; he could not trust himself to make other
reply.
"They say," observed the merchant who had spoken before, "that Don
Aguilera's family, of whom he is the chief if not the only support,
are mightily distressed at his venturing as a picador into the Plaza
de Toros. I hear that he has a poor old grandmother, who lost her
husband in the war with the first Napoleon; and a young sister who, it
is said, is breaking her heart with grief."
Lucius remembered the light graceful form which he had seen springing
across the patio, and the tones of the sweet eager voice which had
exclaimed, "Alcala, is it you at last?" The young Englishman thought
of his own favourite sister, and felt for the Spanish girl, though the
reality of her misery exceeded the picture drawn by his fancy.
The conversation now turned on other subjects, but the mind of Lepine
was full of but one. He could not join in discussions on Spanish
politics, or the current business of the day. The untasted viands lay
before him; he cared not to touch food, though he had fasted since the
morning. Lucius took the earliest opportunity of quitting the party
and returning to a small lodging which he had taken in one of the
humbler streets of Seville.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] This is taken verbatim from a translation of the charge, given in
"Daybreak In Spain," by the Rev. J. Wylie, D.D.