It was singular certainly that a muleteer should advise _him_; but then
this was a very uncommon muleteer. "And so I ought," he added, "since I
am destined for the Church."
"No, señor; not to seek peace in religion, but to seek peace from God,
and in Christ who reveals him."
"It is only the words that differ, the things are the same."
"Again I say, with all submission to your Excellency, not so. It is
Christ Jesus himself--Christ Jesus, God and man--who alone can give the
peace and happiness for which the heart aches. Are we oppressed with
sin? He says, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee!' Are we hungry? He is bread.
Thirsty? He is living water. Weary? He says, 'Come unto me, all ye that
are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!'"
"Man! who or what are you? You are quoting the Holy Scriptures to me.
Do you then read Latin?"
"No, señor," said the muleteer humbly, casting his eyes down to the
ground.
"_No?_"
"No, señor; in very truth. But--"
"Well? Go on!"
Juliano looked up again, a steady light in his eyes. "Will you promise,
on the faith of a gentleman, not to betray me?" he asked.
"Most assuredly I will not betray you."
"I trust you, señor. I do not believe it would be possible for _you_ to
betray one who trusted you."
Carlos winced, and rather shrank from the muleteer's look of hearty,
honest confidence.
"Though I cannot guess your reason for such precautions," he said, "I
am willing, if you wish it, to swear secrecy upon the holy crucifix."
"It needs not, señor; your word of honour is as much as your oath.
Though I am putting my life in your hands when I tell you that I have
dared to read the words of my Lord Christ in my own tongue."
"Are you then a heretic?" Carlos exclaimed, recoiling involuntarily, as
one who suddenly sees the plague spot on the forehead of a friend whose
hand he has been grasping.
"That depends upon your notion of a heretic, señor. Many a better man
than I has been branded with the name. Even the great preacher Don Fray
Constantino, whom all the fine lords and ladies in Seville flock to
hear, has often been called heretic by his enemies."
"I have resided in Seville, and attended Fray Constantino's theological
lectures," said Carlos.
"Then your worship knows there is not a better Christian in all the
Spains. And yet men say that he narrowly escaped a prosecution for
heresy. But enough of what men say. Let us hear what God says for once.
His words cannot lead us astray."
"No; not the Holy Scriptures, properly expounded by learned and
orthodox doctors. But heretics put their own construction upon the
sacred text, which, moreover, they corrupt and interpolate."
"Señor, you are a scholar; you can consult the original, and judge for
yourself how far that charge is true."
"But I do not want to read heretic writings."
"Nor I, señor. Yet I confess that I have read the words of my
Saviour in my own tongue, which some misinformed or ignorant persons
call heresy; and through them, to my soul's joy, I have learned to
know Him and the Father. I am bold enough to wish the same knowledge
yours, señor, that the same joy may be yours also." The poor man's eye
kindled, and his features, otherwise homely enough, glowed with an
enthusiasm that lent them true spiritual beauty.
Carlos was not unmoved. After a moment's pause he said, "If I could
procure what you style God's Word in my own tongue, I do not say that I
would refuse to read it. Should I discover any heretical mistranslation
or interpolation, I could blot out the passage; or, it necessary, burn
the book."
"I can place in your hands this very hour the New Testament of our
Saviour Christ, lately translated into Castilian by Juan Perez, a
learned man, well acquainted with the Greek."
"What! have you got it with you? In God's name bring it then; and at
least I will look at it."
"Be it truly in God's name, señor," said Juliano, as he left the room.
During his absence Carlos pondered upon this singular adventure.
Throughout his lengthened conversation with him, he had discerned no
marks of heresy in the muleteer, except his possession of the Spanish
New Testament. And being very proud of his dialectic acuteness, he
thought he should certainly have discovered such had they existed.
"He had need to be a clever heretic that would circumvent _me_," he
said, with the vanity of a young and successful scholar. Moreover,
his ten months' attendance on the lectures of Fray Constantino had,
unconsciously to himself, somewhat imbued his mind with liberal ideas.
He could have read the Vulgate at Alcala if he had cared to do so (only
he never had); where then could be the harm of glancing, out of mere
curiosity, at a Spanish translation from the same original?
He regarded the New Testament in the light of some very dangerous,
though effective, weapon of the explosive kind; likely to overwhelm
with terrible destruction the careless or ignorant meddler with its
intricacies, and therefore wisely forbidden by the authorities; though
in able and scientific hands, such as his own, it might be harmless and
even useful.
But it was a very different matter for the poor man who brought it
to him. Was he, after all, a madman? Or was he a heretic? Or was he
a great saint or holy hermit in disguise? But whatever his spiritual
peril might or might not be, it was only too evident that he was
incurring temporal dangers of a very awful kind. And perhaps he was
doing so in the simplicity of ignorance. Carlos could not do less than
warn him of them.
He soon returned; and drawing a small brown volume from beneath his
leathern jerkin, handed it to the young nobleman.
"My friend," said Carlos kindly, as he took it from him, "do you know
what you dare by offering this to me, or even by keeping it yourself?"
"I know it well, señor," was the calm reply; and the muleteer's dark
eye met his undauntedly.
"You are playing a dangerous game. This time you are safe. But take
care. You may try it once too often."
"I shall not, señor. I shall witness for my Lord just so often as he
permits. When he has no more need of me, he will call me home."
"God help you. I fear you are throwing yourself into the fire. And for
what?"
"For the joy of bringing food to the perishing, water to the thirsty,
light to those that sit in darkness, rest to the weary and heavy-laden.
Señor, I have counted the cost, and I shall pay the price right
willingly."
After a moment's silence he continued: "I leave within your hands the
treasure brought at such cost. But God alone, by his Divine Spirit,
can reveal to you its true worth. Señor, seek that Spirit. Nay, be not
offended. You are very noble and very learned; and it is a poor and
ignorant man who speaks to you. But that poor man is risking his life
for your soul's salvation; and thus he proves, at least, how true his
desire to see you one day at the right hand of Christ, his King and
Master. Adios, señor."
He bowed low; and before Carlos had sufficiently recovered from his
astonishment to say a word in answer, he had left the room and closed
the door behind him.
"Strange being!" thought Carlos; "but I shall talk with him again
to-morrow." And ere he was aware, his eyelids were wet; for the courage
and self-sacrifice of the poor muleteer had stirred some answering
chord of emotion in his heart. Probably, in spite of all appearances to
the contrary, he was a madman; or else he was a heretical fanatic. But
he was a man willing to brave numberless sufferings (of which a death
of torture was the last and least), to bring his fellow-men something
which he imagined would make them happy. "The Church has no more
orthodox son than I," said Don Carlos Alvarez; "but I shall read his
book for all that."
Then, the hour being late, he retired to rest, and slept soundly.
He did not rise exactly with the sun, and when he came forth from his
chamber breakfast was already in preparation.
"Where is the muleteer who was here last night?" he asked Dolores.
"He was up and away at sunrise," she answered. "Fortunately, it is
not my custom to stop in bed and see the sunshine; so I just caught
him loading his mules, and gave him a piece of bread and cheese and
a draught of wine. A smart little man he is, and one who knows his
business."
"I wish I had seen him ere he left," said Carlos aloud. "Shall I ever
look upon his face again?" he added mentally.
Carlos Alvarez saw that face again, not by the ray of sun or moon, nor
yet by the gleam of the student's lamp, but clear and distinct in a
lurid awful light more terrible than Egyptian darkness, yet fraught
with strange blessing, since it showed the way to the city of God,
where the sun no more goes down, neither doth the moon withdraw herself.
Juliano el Chico, otherwise Julian Hernandez, is no fancy sketch, no
"character of fiction." It is matter of history that, cunningly stowed
away in his alforjas, amongst the ribbons, laces, and other trifles
that formed their ostensible freight, there was a large supply of
Spanish New Testaments, of the translation of Juan Perez. And that, in
spite of all the difficulties and dangers of his self-imposed task, he
succeeded in conveying his precious charge safely to Seville.
Our cheeks grow pale, our hearts shudder, at the thought of what he and
others dared, that they might bring to the lips of their countrymen
that living water which was truly "the blood of the men that went for
it in jeopardy of their lives." More than jeopardy. Not alone did
Juliano brave danger, he encountered certain death. Sooner or later,
it was impossible that he should not fall into the pitiless grasp of
that hideous engine of royal and priestly tyranny, called the Holy
Inquisition.
We have no words in which to praise such heroism as his. We leave
that--and we may be content to leave it--to Him whose lips shall one
day pronounce the sublime award, "Well done, good and faithful servant;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." But in the view of such things
done and suffered for his name's sake, there is another thought that
presses on the mind. How real and great, nay, how unutterably precious,
must be that treasure which men were found willing, at such cost, not
only to secure for themselves, but even to impart to others.
IX.
El Dorado Found.
"So, the All-Great were the all-loving too--
So, through the thunder comes a human voice,
Saying, O heart I made, a heart beats here!
Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself!
Thou hast no power, nor mayest conceive of mine:
But love I gave thee with myself to love,
And thou must love me who have died for thee!"
R. BROWNING.
Three silent months stole away in the old castle of Nuera. No outward
event affecting the fortunes of its inmates marked their progress.
And yet they were by far the most important months Don Carlos had
ever seen, or perhaps would ever see. They witnessed a change in him,
mysterious in its progress but momentous in its results. An influence
passed over him, mighty as the wind in its azure pathway, but, like it,
visible only by its effects; no man could tell "whence it cometh or
whither it goeth."
Again it was early morning, a bright Sunday morning in September.
Already Carlos stood prepared to go forth. He had quite discarded his
student's habit, and was dressed like any other young nobleman, in a
doublet and short cloak of Genoa velvet, with a sword by his side. His
Breviary was in his hand, however, and he was on the point of taking
up his hat when Dolores entered the room, bearing a cup of wine and a
manchet of bread.
Carlos shook his head, saying, "I intend to communicate. And you,
Dolores," he added, "are you not also going to hear mass?"
"Surely, señor; we will all attend our duty. But there is still time to
spare; your worship sets us an example in the matter of early rising."
"It were shame to lose such fair hours as these. Prithee, Dolores, and
lest I forget, hast thou something savoury in the house for dinner?"
"Glad I am to hear you ask, señor. Hitherto it has seemed alike to your
Excellency whether they served you with a pottage of lentils or a stew
of partridges. But since Diego had the good fortune to kill that buck
on Wednesday, we are better than well provided. Your worship shall dine
on roast venison to-day."
"That will do. And if thou wouldst add some of the batter ware, in
which thou art so skilful, it would be better still; for I intend to
bring home a guest."
"Now, the Saints help me, that is news! Without meaning offence, your
worship might have told me before. Any noble caballero coming to these
parts to visit you must needs have bed as well as board found him. And
how can I, in three hours, more or less--"
"Nay, be not alarmed, Dolores; no stranger is coming here. Only I wish
to bring the cura home to dinner."
Even the self-restrained Dolores could not repress an exclamation of
surprise. For both the brothers had been accustomed to regard the
ignorant vulgar cura of the neighbouring village with unmitigated
dislike and contempt. In old times Dolores herself had sometimes tried
to induce them to show him some trifling courtesies, "for their soul's
health." They were willing enough to send "that beggar"--as Don Juan
used to call him--presents of meat or game when they could, but these
they would not have grudged to their worst enemy. To converse with
him, or to seat him at their table, was a very different matter. He was
"no fit associate for noblemen," said the boys; and Dolores, in her
heart, agreed with them. She looked at her young master to see whether
he were jesting.
"He likes a good dinner," Carlos added quietly. "Let us for once give
him one."
"In good faith, Señor Don Carlos, I cannot tell what has come to you.
You must be about doing penance for your sins, though I will say no
young gentleman of your years has fewer to answer for. Still, to please
your whim, the cura shall eat the best we have, though beans and bacon
would be more fitting fare for him."
"Thank you, mother Dolores," said Carlos kindly. "In truth, neither Don
Juan nor I had ever whim yet you did not strive to gratify."
"And who would not do more than that for so pleasant and kind a young
master?" thought Dolores, as she withdrew to superintend the cooking
operations. "God's blessing and Our Lady's rest on him, and in sooth I
think they do. Three months ago he came here looking like a corpse out
of the grave, and fitter, as it seemed to me, to don his shroud than
his priest's frock. But the free mountain air wherein he was born is
bringing back the red to his cheek and the light to his eye, thank the
holy Saints. Ah, if his lady mother could only see her gallant sons
now!"
Meanwhile Don Carlos leisurely took his way down the hill. Having
abundance of time to spare, he chose a solitary, devious path through
the cork-trees and the pasture land belonging to the castle. His heart
was alive to every pleasant sight and sound that met his eye and ear;
although, or rather because, a low, sweet song of thankfulness was all
the while chanting itself within him.
During his solitary walk he distinctly realized for the first time the
stupendous change that had passed over him. For such changes cannot
be understood or measured until afterwards, perhaps not always then.
Drawing from his pocket Juliano's little book, he clasped it in both
hands. "_This_, God be thanked, has done it all, under him. And yet, at
first, it added to my misery a hundred-fold." Then his mind ran back
to the dreary days of helpless, almost hopeless wretchedness, when he
first began its perusal. Much of it had then been quite unintelligible
to him; but what he understood had only made his darkness darker still.
He who had but just learned from that stern teacher, Life, the meaning
of sorrow, learned from the pages of his book the awful significance
of that other word, Sin. Bitter hours, never to be remembered without
a shudder, were those that followed. Already prostrate on the ground
beneath the weight of his selfish sorrow for the love that might never
be his, cruel blows seemed rained upon him by the very hand to which
he turned to lift him up. "All was his own fault," said conscience.
But had conscience, enlightened by his book, said no more, he could
have borne it. It was a different thing to recognize that all was his
own _sin_--to feel more keenly every day that the whole current of his
thoughts and affections was set in opposition to the will of God as
revealed in that book, and illustrated in the life of him of whom it
told.
But this sickness of heart, deadly though it seemed, was not unto
death. The Word had indeed proved a mirror, in which he saw his own
face reflected with the lines and colours of truth. But it had a
farther use for him. As he did not fling it away in despair, but still
gazed on, at length he saw in its clear depths another Face--a Face
radiant with divine majesty, yet beaming with tender love and pity. He
whom the mirror thus gave back to him had been "not far" from him all
his life; had been standing over against him, watching and waiting for
the moment in which to reveal himself. At last that moment came. He
looked up from the mirror to the real Face; from the Word to him whom
the Word revealed. He turned himself and said unto him, "Rabboni, which
is to say, My Master." He laid his soul at his feet in love, in trust,
in gratitude. And he knew then, not until then, that this was the
"coming" to him, the "believing" on him, the receiving him, of which He
spoke as the condition of life, of pardon, and of happiness.
From that hour he possessed life, he knew himself forgiven, he was
_happy_. This was no theory, but a fact--a fact which changed all his
present and was destined to change all his future.
He longed to impart the wonderful secret he had found. This longing
overcame his contempt for the cura, and made him seek to win him by
kindness to listen to words which perhaps might open for him also the
same wonderful fountain of joy.
"Now I am going to worship my Lord, afterwards I shall speak of him,"
he said, as he crossed the threshold of the little village church.
In due season the service was over. Its ceremonies did not pain or
offend Carlos in any way; he took part in them with much real devotion,
as acts of homage paid to his Lord. Still, if he had analyzed his
feelings (which he did not), he would have found them like those of a
king's child, who is obliged, on days of courtly ceremonial, to pay
his father the same distant homage as the other peers of the realm,
and yet knows that all this for him is but an idle show, and longs to
throw aside its cumbrous pomp, and to rejoice once more in the free
familiar intercourse which is his habit and his privilege. But that the
ceremonial itself could be otherwise than pleasing to his King, he had
not the most distant suspicion.
He spoke kindly to the priest, and inquired by name after all the sick
folk in the village, though in fact he knew more about them himself by
this time than did Father Tomas.
The cura's heart was glad when the catechism came to a termination so
satisfactory as an invitation to dine at the castle. Whatever the fare
might be--and his expectations were not extravagantly high--it could
scarce fail to be an improvement on the olla of which he had intended
to make his Sunday repast. Moreover, one favour from the castle might
be the earnest of others; and favours from the castle, poor though its
lords might be, were not to be despised. Nor was he ill at ease in the
society of an accomplished gentleman, as a man just a little better
bred would probably have been. A wealthy peasant's son, and with but
scanty education, Father Tomas was so hopelessly vulgar that he never
once imagined he was vulgar at all.
Carlos bore as patiently as he could with his coarse manners, and
conversation something worse than commonplace. Not until the repast
was concluded did he find an opportunity of bringing forward the topic
upon which he longed to speak. Then, with more tact than his guest
could appreciate, he began by inquiring--as one himself intended for
the priesthood might naturally do--whether he could always keep his
thoughts from wandering while he was celebrating the holy mysteries of
the faith.
Father Tomas crossed himself, and answered that he was a sinner like
other men, but that he tried to do his duty to our holy Mother Church
to the best of his ability.
Carlos remarked, that unless we ourselves know the love of God by
experience we cannot love him, and that without love there is no
acceptable service.
"Most true, señor," said the priest, turning his eyes upwards. "As the
holy St. Augustine saith. Your worship quotes from him, I believe."
"I have quoted nothing," said Carlos, beginning to feel that he was
speaking to the deaf; "but I know the words of Christ." And then he
spoke, out of a full heart, of Christ's work for us, of his love to us,
and of the pardon and peace which those receive that trust him.
But his listener's stolid face betrayed no interest, only a vague
uneasiness, which increased as Carlos proceeded. The poor parish cura
began to suspect that the clever young collegian meant to astonish and
bewilder him by the exhibition of his learning and his "new ideas."
Indeed, he was not quite sure whether his host was eloquently enlarging
all the time upon Catholic truths, or now and then mischievously
throwing out a few heretical propositions, in order to try whether he
would have skill enough to detect them. Naturally, he did not greatly
relish this style of entertainment. Nothing could be got from him save
a cautious, "That is true, señor," or, "Very good, your worship;" and
as soon as his notions of politeness would permit, he took his leave.
Carlos marvelled greatly at his dulness; but soon dismissed him
from his mind, and took his Testament out to read under the shade
of the cork-trees. Ere long the light began to fade, but he sat
there still in the fast deepening twilight. Thoughts and fancies
thronged upon his mind; and dreams of the past sought, as even yet
they often did, to reassert their supremacy over his heart. One of
those apparently unaccountable freaks of memory, which we all know by
experience, brought back to him suddenly the luscious perfume of the
orange-blossoms, called by the Spaniards the azahar. Such fragrance had
filled the air, and such flowers had been strewed upon his pathway,
when last he walked with Donna Beatriz in the fairy gardens of the
Alcazar of Seville.
Keen was the pang that shot through his heart at the remembrance. But
it was conquered soon. As he went in-doors he repeated the words he had
just been reading, "'He that cometh unto me shall never hunger; he that
believeth on me shall never thirst.' And _this_ hunger of the soul, as
well as every other, He can stay. Having him, I have all things.
'El dorado
Yo hé trovado.'
Father, dear, unknown father, I have found the golden country! Not in
the sense thou didst fondly seek, and I as fondly dream to find it. Yet
the only true land of gold I have found indeed--the treasure unfailing,
the inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for me."
X.
Dolores.
"Oh, hearts that break and give no sign,
Save whitening lip and fading tresses;
Till death pours out his cordial wine,
Slow dropped from misery's crushing presses,
If singing breath or echoing chord
To every hidden pang were given,
What endless melodies were poured,
As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven."
O.W. HOLMES.
A great modern poet has compared the soul of man to a pilgrim who
passes through the world staff in hand, never resting, ever pressing
onwards to some point as yet unattained, ever sighing wearily, "Alas!
that _there_ is never _here_." And with deep significance adds his
Christian commentator, "In Christ _there_ is _here_."
He who has found Christ "is already at the goal." "For he stills our
innermost fears, and fulfils our utmost longings." "In him the dry
land, the mirage of the desert, becomes living water." "He who knows
him knows the reason of all things." Passing all along the ages, we
might gather from the silent lips of the dead such words as these,
bearing emphatic witness to what human hearts have found in him. Yet,
after all, we would come back to his own grand and simple words, as
best expressing the truth: "I am the bread of life;" "I will give you
rest;" "In me ye shall have peace."