joyous greeting of the hounds, who rushed with much clamour from the
castle-yard to welcome him. There they were, all of them--Pedro, Zina,
Pepe, Grullo, Butron--it was Juan who had named them, every one. And
there, at the gate, stood Diego and Dolores, ready to give him joyful
welcome. Throwing himself from his horse, he shook hands with these
faithful old retainers, and answered their kindly but respectful
inquiries both for himself and Señor Don Juan. Then, having caressed
the dogs, inquired for each of the under-servants by name, and given
orders for the due entertainment of his guard, he passed on slowly into
the great deserted hall.
His arrival being unexpected, he merely surrendered his travelling
cloak into the hands of Diego, and sat down to wait patiently while the
servants, always dilatory, prepared for him suitable accommodation.
Dolores soon appeared with a flask of wine and some bread and grapes;
but this was only a _merienda_, or slight afternoon luncheon, which
she laid before her young master until she could make ready a supper
fit for him to partake of. Carlos spent half an hour listening to her
tidings of the household and the village, and felt sorry when she
quitted the room and left him to his own reflections.
Every object on which his eyes rested reminded him of his brother.
There hung the cross-bow with which, in old days, Juan had made such
vigorous war on the rooks and the sparrows. There lay the foils and
the canes with which they had so often fenced and played; Juan, in his
unquestioned superiority, usually so patient with the younger brother's
timidity and awkwardness. And upon that bench he had carved, with a
hunting-knife, his name in full, adding the title that had expired with
his father, "Conde de Nuera."
The memories these things recalled were becoming intrusive; he would
fain shake them off. Gladly would he have had recourse to his favourite
pastime of reading, but there was not a book in the castle, to his
knowledge, except the breviary he had brought with him. For lack of
more congenial occupation, he went out at last to the stable to look at
the horses, and to talk to those who were grooming and feeding them.
Later in the evening Dolores told him that supper was ready, adding
that she had laid it in the small inner room, which she thought Señor
Don Carlos would find more comfortable than the great hall.
That inner room was, even more than the hall, haunted by the shadowy
presence of Juan. But it was usually daylight when the brothers were
there together. Now, a tapestry curtain shaded the window, and a silver
lamp shed its light on the well-spread table with its snowy drapery,
and cover laid for one.
A lonely meal, however luxurious, is always apt to be somewhat dreary;
it seems a provision for the lowest wants of our nature, and nothing
more. Carlos sought to escape from the depressing influence by giving
wings to his imagination, and dreaming of the time when wealth enough
to repair and refurnish that half-ruinous old homestead might be his.
He pleased himself with pictures of the long tables in the great hall,
groaning beneath the weight of a bountiful provision for a merry
company of guests, upon whom the sweet face of Doña Beatriz might
beam a welcome. But how idle such fancies! The castle, after all, was
Juan's, not his. Unless, indeed, more difficulties than one should
be solved by Juan's death upon some French or Flemish battle-field.
This thought he could not bear to entertain. Grown suddenly sick at
heart, he pushed aside his plate of stewed pigeon, and, regardless
of the feelings of Dolores, sent away untasted her dessert of sweet
butter-cakes dipped in honey. He was weary, he said, and he would go to
rest at once.
It was long before sleep would visit his eyelids; and when at last
it came, his brother's dark reproachful eyes haunted him still. At
daybreak he awoke with a start from a feverish dream that Juan, all
pale and ghostlike, had come to his bedside, and laying his hand on his
arm, said solemnly, "I claim the jewel I left thee in trust."
Further sleep was impossible. He rose, and wandered out into the fresh
air. As yet no one was astir. Fair and sweet was all that met his gaze:
the faint pearly light, the first blush of dawn in the quiet sky, the
silvery dew that bathed his footsteps. But the storm within raged more
fiercely for the calm without. There was first an agonizing struggle
to repress the rising thought, "Better, after all, _not_ to do this
thing." But, in spite of his passionate efforts, the thought gained a
hearing, it seemed to cry aloud within him, "Better, after all, not to
betray Juan!" "And give up Beatriz for ever? _For ever!_" he repeated
over and over again, beating it
"In upon his weary brain,
As though it were the burden of a song."
He had climbed, almost unawares, to the top of a rocky hill; and now
he stood, looking around him at the prospect, just as if he saw it.
In truth, he saw nothing, felt nothing outward, until at last a misty
mountain rain swept in his face, refreshing his burning brow with a
touch as of cool fingers.
Then he descended mechanically. Exchanging salutations (as if nothing
were amiss with him) with the milk-maid and the wood-boy, he crossed
the open courtyard and re-entered the hall. There Dolores, and a girl
who worked under her, were already busy, so he passed by them into the
inner room.
Its darkness seemed to stifle him; with hasty hand he drew aside the
heavy tapestry curtain. As he did so something caught his eye. For the
hundredth time he re-read the mystic inscription on the glass:
"El Dorado
Yo hé trovado."
And, as an infant's touch may open a sluice that lets in the mighty
ocean, those simple words broke up the fountains of the great deep
within. He gave full course to the emotions they awakened. Again he
heard Juan's voice repeat them; again he saw Juan's deep earnest eyes
look into his; not now reproachfully, but with full unshaken trust, as
in the old days when first he said, "We will go forth together and find
our father."
"Juan--brother!" he cried aloud, "I will never wrong thee, so help
me God!" At that moment the morning sun, having scattered the mists
with the glory of its rising, sent one of its early beams to kiss the
handwriting on the window-pane. "Old token for good," thought Carlos,
whose imaginative nature could play with fancies even in the hours of
supreme emotion. "And true still even yet. Only the good is all for
Juan; for me--nothing but despair."
And so Don Carlos found his "desengaño," or disenchantment, and it was
a very thorough one.
Body and mind were well-nigh exhausted with the violence of the
struggle. Perhaps this was fortunate, in so far that it won for the
decision of his better nature a more rapid and easy acceptance. In
a sense and for a season any decision was welcome to the weary,
tempest-tossed soul.
It was afterwards that he asked himself how were long years to be
dragged on without the face that was the joy of his heart and the life
of his life? How was he to bear the never-ending pain, the aching
loneliness, of such a lot? Better to die at once than to endure this
slow, living death. He knew well that it was not in his nature to point
the pistol or the dagger at his own breast. But he might pine away and
die silently--as many thousands die--of blighted hopes and a ruined
life. Or--and this was more likely, perhaps--as time passed on he
might grow dead and hard in soul; until at last he would become a dry,
cold, mechanical mass-priest, mumbling the Church's Latin with thin,
bloodless lips, a keen eye to his dues, and a heart that might serve
for a Church relic, so much faith would it require to believe that it
had been warm and living once.
Still, laudably anxious to provide against possible future waverings
of the decision so painfully attained, he wrote informing his uncle
of his safe arrival; adding that he had fully made up his mind to
take Orders at Christmas, but that he found it advisable to remain in
his present quarters for a month or two. He at once dispatched two of
the men-at-arms with the letter; and much was the thrifty Don Manuel
surprised that his nephew should spend a handful of silver reals in
order to inform him of what he knew already.
Gloomily the day wore on. The instinctive reserve of a sensitive nature
made Carlos talk to the servants, receive the accounts, inspect the
kine and sheep--do everything, in short, except eat and drink--as he
would have done if a great sorrow had not all the time been crushing
his heart. It is true that Dolores, who loved him as her own son, was
not deceived. It was for no trivial cause that the young master was
pale as a corpse, restless and irritable, talking hurriedly by fitful
snatches, and then relapsing into moody silence. But Dolores was a
prudent woman, as well as a loving and faithful one; therefore she held
her peace, and bided her time.
But Carlos noticed one effort she made to console him. Coming in
towards evening from a consultation with Diego about some cork-trees
which a Morisco merchantman wished to purchase and cut down, he saw
upon his table a carefully sealed wine-flask, with a cup beside it. He
knew whence it came. His father had left in the cellar a small quantity
of choice wine of Xeres; and this relic of more prosperous times being,
like most of their other possessions, in the care of Dolores, was only
produced very sparingly, and on rare occasions. But she evidently
thought "Señor Don Carlos" needed it now. Touched by her watchful,
unobtrusive affection, he would have gratified her by drinking; but he
had a peculiar dislike to drinking alone, while he knew he would only
render his sanity doubtful by inviting either her or Diego to share
the luxurious beverage. So he put it aside for the present, and drew
towards him a sheet of figures, an ink-horn, and a pen. He could not
work, however. With the silence and solitude, his great grief came back
upon him again. But nature all this time had been silently working
for him. His despair was giving way to a more violent but less bitter
sorrow. Tears came now: a long, passionate fit of weeping relieved his
aching heart. Since his early childhood he had not wept thus.
An approaching footstep recalled him to himself. He rose with haste and
shame, and stood beside the window, hoping that his position and the
waning light might together shield him from observation. It was only
Dolores.
"Señor," she said, entering somewhat hastily, "will it please you to
see to those men of Seville that came with your Excellency? They are
insulting a poor little muleteer, and threatening to rob his packages."
Yanguesian carriers and other muleteers, bringing goods across the
Sierra Morena from the towns of La Mancha to those of Andalusia, often
passed by the castle, and sometimes received hospitality there. Carlos
rose at once at the summons, saying to Dolores--
"Where is the boy?"
"He is not a boy, señor, he is a man; a very little man, but with a
greater spirit, if I mistake not, than some twice his size."
It was true enough. On the green plot at the back of the castle, beside
which the mountain pathway led, there were gathered the ten or twelve
rough Seville pikemen, taken from the lowest of the population, and
most of them of Moorish blood. In their midst, beside the foremost of
his three mules, with one arm thrown round her neck and the other
raised to give effect by animated gestures to his eager oratory, stood
the muleteer. He was a very short, spare, active-looking man, clad from
head to foot in chestnut-coloured leather. His mules were well laden;
each with three large alforjas, one at each side and one laid across
the neck. But they were evidently well fed and cared for also; and they
presented a gay appearance, with their adornments of bright-coloured
worsted tassels and tiny bells.
"You know, my friends," the muleteer was saying, as Carlos came within
hearing, "an arriero's alforjas[3] are like a soldier's colours,--it
stands him upon his honour to guard them inviolate. No, no! Ask him for
aught else--his purse, his blood--they are at your service; but never
touch his colours, if you care for a long life."
[3] _Arriero_, muleteer; _alforjas_, bags.
"My honest friend, your colours, as you call them, shall be safe here,"
said Carlos, kindly.
The muleteer turned towards him a good-humoured, intelligent face, and,
bowing low, thanked him heartily.
"What is your name?" asked Carlos; "and whence do you come?"
"I am Juliano; Juliano el Chico (Julian the Little) men generally call
me--since, as your Excellency sees, I am not very great. And I come
last from Toledo."
"Indeed! And what wares do you carry?"
"Some matters, small in bulk, yet costly, which I am bringing for
a Seville merchant--Medel de Espinosa by name, if your worship has
heard of him? I have mirrors, for example, of a new kind; excellent in
workmanship, and true as steel, as well they may be."
"I know the shop of Espinosa well. I have been much in Seville," said
Carlos, with a sudden pang, caused by the recollection of the many
pretty trifles that he had purchased there for Doña Beatriz. "But
follow me, my friend, and a good supper shall make you amends for the
rudeness of these fellows.--Andres, take the best care thou canst of
his mules; 'twill be only fair penance for thy sin in molesting their
owner."
"A hundred thousand thanks, señor. Still, with your worship's good
leave, and no offence to friend Andres, I had rather look to the beasts
myself. We are old companions; they know my ways, and I know theirs."
"As you please, my good fellow. Andres will show you the stable, and I
shall tell my mayor-domo to see that you lack nothing."
"Again I render to your Excellency my poor but hearty thanks."
Carlos went in, gave the necessary directions to Diego, and then
returned to his solitary chamber.
VIII.
The Muleteer.
"Are ye resigned that they be spent
In such world's help? The spirits bent
Their awful brows, and said, 'Content!'
"Content! It sounded like Amen
Said by a choir of mourning men:
An affirmation full of pain
"And patience,--ay, of glorying,
And adoration, as a king
Might seal an oath for governing."
E.B. BROWNING.
When Carlos stood once more face to face with his sorrow--as he did as
soon as he had closed the door--he found that it had somewhat changed
its aspect. A trouble often does this when some interruption from the
outer world makes us part company with it for a little while. We find
on our return that it has developed quite a new phase, and seldom a
more hopeful one.
It now entered the mind of Carlos, for the first time, that he had
been acting very basely towards his brother. Not only had he planned
and intended a treason, but by endeavouring to engage the affections
of Doña Beatriz, he had actually committed one. Heaven grant it might
not prove irreparable! Though the time that had passed since his better
self gained the victory was only measured by hours, it represented to
him a much longer period. Already it enabled him to look upon what
had gone before from the vantage-ground that some degree of distance
gives. He now beheld in true, perhaps even in exaggerated colours, the
meanness and the treachery of his conduct. He, who prided himself upon
the nobility of his nature matching that of his birth--he, Don Carlos
Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya, the gentleman of stainless manners,
of reputation untarnished by a single blot--he, who had never yet been
ashamed of anything,--in his solitude he blushed and covered his face
in shame, as the villany he had planned rose up before his mind. It
would have broken his heart to be scorned by any man; and was it not
worse a thousand-fold to be thus scorned by himself? He thought even
more of the meanness of his plan than of its treachery. Of its sin he
did not think at all. Sin was a theological term which he had been
wont to handle in the schools, and to toss to and fro with the other
materials upon which he showed off his dialectic skill; but it no more
occurred to him to take it out of the scholastic world and to bring it
into that in which he really lived and acted, than it did to talk Latin
to Diego, or softly to whisper quotations from Thomas Aquinas into the
ear of Doña Beatriz between the pauses of the dance.
Scarcely any consideration, however, could have made him more miserable
than he was. Past and future--all alike seemed dreary. Not a happy
memory, not a cheering anticipation could he find to comfort him. He
was as one who goes forth to face the driving storm of a wintry night:
not strong in hope and courage--a warm hearth behind him, and before
him the pleasant starry glimmer that tells of another soon to be
reached--but chilled, weary, forlorn, the wind whistling through thin
garments, and nothing to meet his eye but the bare, bleak, shelterless
moor stretching far out into the distance.
He sat long, too crushed in heart even to finish his slight,
unimportant task. Sometimes he drew towards him the sheet of figures,
and for a moment or two tried to fix his attention upon it; but soon
he would push it away again, or make aimless dots and circles on its
margin. While thus engaged, he heard a cheery and not unmelodious
voice chanting a fragment of song in some foreign tongue. Listening
more attentively, he believed the words were French, and supposed the
singer must be his humble guest, the muleteer, on his way to the stable
to take a last look at the beloved companions of his toils before he
lay down to rest. The man had probably exercised his vocation at some
former period in the passes of the Pyrenees, and had thus acquired some
knowledge of French.
Half an hour's talk with any one seemed to Carlos at that moment a
most desirable diversion from the gloom of his own thoughts. He might
converse with this stranger when he dared not summon to his presence
Diego or Dolores, because they knew and loved him well enough to
discover in two minutes that something was seriously wrong with him.
He waited until he heard the voice once more close beneath his window;
then softly opening it, he called the muleteer. Juliano responded with
ready alertness; and Carlos, going round to the door, admitted him, and
led him into his sanctum.
"I believe," he said, "that was a French song I heard you sing. You
have been in France, then?"
"Ay, señor; I have crossed the Pyrenees more than once. I have also
been in Switzerland."
"You must, then, have visited many places worthy of note; and not with
your eyes shut, I think. I wish you would tell me, for pastime, the
story of your travels."
"Willingly, señor," said the muleteer, who, though perfectly
respectful, had an ease and independence of manner that made Carlos
suspect it was not the first time he had conversed with his superiors.
"Where shall I begin?"
"Have you ever crossed the Santillanos, or visited the Asturias?"
"No, señor. A man cannot be everywhere; 'he that rings the bells does
not walk in the procession.' I am only master of the route from Lyons
here; knowing a little also, as I have said, of Switzerland."
"Tell me first of Lyons, then. And be seated, my friend."
The muleteer sat down, and began his story, telling of the places he
had seen with an intelligence that more and more engaged the attention
of Carlos, who failed not to draw out his information by many pertinent
questions. As they conversed, each observed the other with gradually
increasing interest. Carlos admired the muleteer's courage and energy
in the prosecution of his calling, and enjoyed his quaint and shrewd
observations. Moreover, he was struck by certain indications of a
degree of education and even of refinement not usual in his class.
Especially he noticed the small, finely-formed hand, which was
sometimes in the warmth of conversation laid on the table, and which
looked as if it had been accustomed to wield some implement far more
delicate than a riding-whip. Another thing he took note of. Though
Juliano's language abounded in proverbs, in provincialisms, in quaint
and racy expressions, not a single oath escaped his lips. "I never
saw an arriero before," thought Carlos, "who could get through two
sentences without half a dozen of them."
Juliano, on the other hand, was observing his host, and with a far
shrewder and deeper insight than Carlos could have imagined. During
supper he had gathered from the servants that their young master was
kind-hearted, gentle, easy-tempered, and had never injured any one in
his life; and knowing all this, he was touched with genuine sympathy
for the young noble, whose haggard face and sorrowful looks told but
too plainly that some great grief was pressing on his heart.
"Your Excellency must be weary of my stories," he said at length. "It
is time I left you to your repose."
And so indeed it was, for the hour was late.
"Ere you go," said Carlos kindly, "you shall drink a cup of wine with
me."
He had no wine at hand but the costly beverage Dolores had produced
for his own especial use. Wondering a little what Juliano would think
of such a luxurious beverage, he sought a second cup, for the proud
Castilian gentleman was too "finely courteous" not to drink with his
guest, although that guest was only a muleteer.
Juliano, evidently a temperate man, remonstrated: "But I have already
tasted your Excellency's hospitality."
"That should not hinder your drinking to my good health," said Carlos,
producing a small hunting-cup, forgotten until now, from the pocket of
his doublet.
Then filling the larger cup, he handed it to Juliano. It was a very
little thing, a trifling act of kindness. But to the last hour of his
life, Carlos Alvarez thanked God that he had put it into his heart to
offer that cup of wine.
The muleteer raised it to his lips, saying earnestly, "God grant you
health and happiness, noble señor."
Carlos drank also, glad to relieve a painful feeling of exhaustion.
As he set down the cup, a sudden impulse prompted him to say, with a
bitter smile, "Happiness is not likely to come my way at present."
"Nay, señor, and wherefore not? With your good leave be it spoken, you
are young, noble, amiable, with much learning and excellent parts, as
they tell me."
"All these things may not prevent a man being very miserable," said
Carlos frankly.
"God comfort you, señor."
"Thanks for the good wish," said Carlos, rather lightly, and conscious
of having already said too much. "All men have their troubles, I
suppose, but most men contrive to live through them. So shall I, no
doubt."
"But God _can_ comfort you," Juliano repeated with a kind of wistful
earnestness.
Carlos, surprised at his manner, looked at him dreamily, but with some
curiosity.
"Señor," said Juliano, leaning forward and speaking in a low tone
full of meaning. "Let your worship excuse a plain man's plain
question--Señor, _do you know God_?"
Carlos started visibly. Was the man mad? Certainly not; as all
his previous conversation bore witness. He was evidently a very
clever, half-educated man, who spoke with just the simplicity and
unconsciousness of an intelligent child. And now he had asked a true
child's question; one which it would exhaust a wise man's wisdom to
answer. Thoroughly perplexed, Carlos at last determined to take it in
its easiest sense. He said, "Yes; I have studied theology, and taken
out my licentiate's degree at the University of Alcala."
"If it please your worship, what may that fine word theology mean?"
"You have said so many wise things, that I marvel you know not. Science
about God."
"Then, señor, your Excellency knows _about God_. But is it not another
thing _to know God_? I know much about the Emperor Carlos, now at San
Yuste; I could tell you the story of all his campaigns. But I never
saw him, still less spoke with him. And far indeed am I from knowing
him to be my friend; and so trusting him that if my mules died, or the
Alguazils seized me at Cordova for bringing over something contraband,
or other mishap befell me, I should go or send to him, certain that he
would help and save me."
"I begin to understand you," said Carlos; and a suspicion crossed his
mind that the muleteer was a friar in disguise. But that could scarcely
be, since his black abundant hair showed no marks of the tonsure.
"After the manner you speak of, only great saints know God."
"Indeed, señor! Can that be true? For I have heard that our Lord
Christ"--(at the mention of the name Carlos crossed himself, a
ceremony which the muleteer was so engrossed by his argument as to
forget)--"that our Lord Christ came into the world to make men know the
Father; and that, to all that believe on him, he truly reveals him."
"Where did you get this strange learning?"
"It is simple learning; and yet very blessed, señor," returned Juliano,
evading the question. "For those who know God are happy. Whatever
sorrows they have without, within they have joy and peace."