If ye went where once ye went,
Only tears would fall down slowly,
As at solemn Sacrament.
Household names, that used to flutter
Through your laughter unawares,
God's divine one ye can utter
With less troubling in your prayers."
E.B. BROWNING.
A chill and dreary torpor stole over Juan's fiery spirit after the
Auto. The settled conviction that his brother was dead took possession
of his mind. Moreover, his soul had lost its hold upon the faith which
he once embraced so warmly. He had consciously ceased to be true to his
best convictions, and those convictions, in turn, had ceased to support
him. His confidence in himself, his trust in his own heart, had been
shaken to its foundations. And he was very far from having gained in
its stead that strong confidence in God which would have infinitely
more than counterbalanced its loss.
Thus two or three slow and melancholy months wore away. Then,
fortunately for him, events happened that forced him, in spite of
himself, to the exertion that saves from the deadly slumber of despair.
It became evident, that if he did not wish to see the last earthly
treasure that remained to him swept out of his reach for ever, he must
rouse himself from his lethargy so far as to grasp and hold it; for
now Don Manuel _commanded_ his ward to bestow her hand upon his rival,
Señor Luis Rotelo.
In her anguish and dismay, Beatriz fled for refuge to her kind-hearted
cousin, Doña Inez.
Doña Inez received her into her house, where she soothed and comforted
her; and soon found means to despatch an "esquelita," or billet, to Don
Juan, to the following effect:--"Doña Beatriz is here. Remember, my
cousin, 'that a leap over a ditch is better than another man's prayer.'"
To which Juan replied immediately:--
"Señora and my cousin, I kiss your feet. Lend me a helping hand, and I
take the leap."
Doña Inez desired nothing better. Being a Spanish lady, she loved an
intrigue for its own sake; being a very kindly disposed lady, she loved
an intrigue for a benevolent object. With her active co-operation and
assistance, and her husband's connivance, it was quickly arranged
that Don Juan should carry off Doña Beatriz from their house to a
little country chapel in the neighbourhood, where a priest would be
in readiness to perform the solemn rite which should unite them for
ever. Thence they were to proceed at once to Nuera, Don Juan disguising
himself for the journey as the lady's attendant. Doña Inez did not
anticipate that her father and brothers would take any hostile steps
after the conclusion of the affair--glad though they might have been
to prevent it--since there was nothing which they hated and dreaded so
much as a public scandal.
All Juan's latent fire and energy woke up again to meet the peril and
to secure the prize. He was successful in everything; the plan had been
well laid, and was well and promptly carried out. And thus it happened,
that amidst December snows he bore his beautiful bride home to Nuera in
triumph. If triumph it could be called, overcast by the ever-present
memory of the one who "was not," which rested like a deep shadow upon
all joy, and subdued and chastened it. Few things in life are sadder
than a great, long-expected blessing coming thus;--like a friend from
a foreign land whose return has been eagerly anticipated, but who,
after years of absence, meets us changed in countenance and in heart,
unrecognizing and unrecognized.
Dolores welcomed her young master and his bride with affection and
thankfulness. But he noticed that the dark hair, at the time of his
last visit still only threaded with silver, had grown white as the
mountain snows. In former days Dolores could not have told which of the
noble youths, her lady's gallant sons, had been the dearer to her. But
now she knew full well. Her heart was in the grave with the boy she had
taken a helpless babe from his dying mother's arms. But, after all,
_was_ he in the grave? This was the question which she asked herself
day by day, and many times a day. She was not quite so sure of the
answer as Señor Don Juan seemed to be. Since the day of the Auto, he
had assumed all the outward signs of mourning for his brother.
Fray Sebastian was also at Nuera, and proved a real help and comfort to
its inmates. His very presence served to shield the household from any
suspicions that might have been awakened with regard to their faith.
For who could doubt the orthodoxy of Don Juan Alvarez, while he not
only contributed liberally to the support of his parish church, but
also kept a pious Franciscan in his family, in the capacity of private
chaplain? Though it must be confessed that the Fray's duties were
anything but onerous; now, as in former days, he showed himself a man
fond of quiet, who for the most part held his peace, and let every one
do what was right in his own eyes.
He was now on far more cordial terms with Dolores than he had ever been
before. This was partly because he had learned that worse physical
evils than ollas of lean mutton, or cheese of goat's milk, _might_ be
borne with patience, even with thankfulness. But partly also because
Dolores now really tried to consult his tastes and to promote his
comfort. Many a savoury dish "which the Fray used to like" did she
trouble herself to prepare; many a flask of wine from their diminishing
store did she gladly produce, "for the kind words that he spake to
_him_ in his sorrow and loneliness."
In spite of the depressing influences around her, Doña Beatriz could
not but be very happy. For was not Don Juan hers, all her own, her own
for ever? And with the zeal love inspires, and the skill love imparts,
she applied herself to the task of brightening his darkened life. Not
quite without effect. Even from that stern and gloomy brow the shadows
at length began to roll away.
Don Juan could not speak of his sorrow. For weeks indeed after his
return to Nuera his brother's name did not pass his lips. Better had
it been otherwise, both for himself and for Dolores. Her heart, aching
with its own lonely anguish and its vague, dark surmisings, often
longed to know her young master's true innermost thought about his
brother's fate. But she did not dare to ask him.
At last, however, this painful silence was partially broken through.
One morning the old servant accosted her master with an air of some
displeasure. It was in the inner room within the hall. Holding in her
hand a little book, she said,--"May it please your Excellency to pardon
my freedom, but it is not well done of you to leave this lying open on
your table. I am a simple woman; still I am at no loss to know what and
whence it is. If you will not destroy it, and cannot keep it safe and
secret, I implore of your worship to give it to me."
Juan held out his hand for it. "It is dearer to me than any earthly
possession," he said briefly.
"It had need to be dearer than your life, señor, if you mean to leave
it about in that fashion."
"I have lost the right to say so much," Juan answered.
"And yet, Dolores--tell me, would it break your heart if I sold this
place--you know it is mortgaged heavily already--and quitted the
country?"
Juan expected a start, if not a cry of surprise and dismay. That
Alvarez de Meñaya should sell the inheritance of his fathers seemed
indeed a monstrous proposal. In the eyes of the world it would be an
act of insanity, if not a crime. What then would it appear to one who
loved the name of Santillanos y Meñaya far better than her life?
But the still face of Dolores never changed. "Nothing would break my
heart _now_," she said calmly.
"You would come with us?"
She did not even ask _whither_. She did not care: all her thoughts were
in the past.
"That is of course, señor," she answered. "If I had but first assurance
of _one_ thing."
"Name it; and if I can assure you, I will."
Instead of naming it she turned silently away. But presently turning
again, she asked, "Will your Excellency please to tell me, is it that
book that is driving you into exile?"
"It is. I am bound to confess the truth before men; and that is
impossible here."
"But are you sure then that it is the truth?"
"Sure. I have read God's message both in the darkness and in the light.
I have seen it traced in characters of blood--and fire."
"But--forgive the question, señor--does it make you happy?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because, Señor Don Juan"--she spoke with an effort, but firmly, and
fixing her eyes on his face--"he who gave you yon book found therein
that which made him happy. I know it; he was here, and I watched him.
When he came first, he was ill, or else very sorrowful, I know not
why. But he learned from that book that God Almighty loved him, and
that the Lord and Saviour Christ was his friend; and then his sorrow
passed away, and his heart grew full of joy, so full that he must needs
be telling me--ay, and even that poor dolt of a cura down there in
the village--about the good news. And I think"--but here she stopped,
frightened at her own boldness.
"What think you?" asked Juan, with difficulty restraining his emotion.
"Well, Señor Don Juan, I think that if that good news be true, it would
not be so hard to suffer for it. Blessed Virgin! Could it be aught
but joy to me, for instance, to lie in a dark dungeon, or even to be
hanged or burned, if that could work out _his_ deliverance? There be
worse things in the world than pain or prisons. For where there's
love, señor---- Moreover, it comes upon me sometimes that the Lords
Inquisitors may have mistaken his case. Wise and learned they may he,
and good and holy they are, of course--'twere sin to doubt it--yet they
_may_ mistake sometimes. 'Twas but the other day, my old eyes growing
dim apace, that I took a blessed gleam of sunlight that had fallen on
yon oak table for a stain, and set to work to rub it off; the Lord
forgive me for meddling with one of the best of his works! And, for
aught we know, just so may they be doing, mistaking God's light upon
the soul for the devil's stain of heresy. But the sunlight is stronger
than they, after all."
"Dolores, you are half a Lutheran already yourself," answered Juan in
surprise.
"I, señor! The Lord forbid! I am an old Christian, and a good Catholic,
and so I hope to die. But if you must hear all the truth, I would
walk in a yellow sanbenito, with a taper in my hand, before I would
acknowledge that _he_ ever said one word or thought one thought that
was not Catholic and Christian too. All his crime was to find out that
the good Lord loved him, and to be happy on account of it. If that
be your religion also, Señor Don Juan, I have nothing to say against
it. And, as I have said, God granting me, in his great mercy, one
assurance first, I am ready to follow you and your lady to the world's
end."
With these words on her lips she left the room. For a time Juan sat
silent in deep thought. Then he opened the Testament, and turned over
its leaves until he found the parable of the sower. "'Some fell upon
stony places,'" he read, "'where they had not much earth; and forthwith
they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the
sun was up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they
withered away.' There," he said within himself, "in those words is
written the history of my life, from the day my brother confessed his
faith to me in the garden of San Isodro. God help me, and forgive my
backsliding! But at least it is not too late to go humbly back to the
beginning, and to ask him who alone can do it to break up the fallow
ground."
He closed the book, walked to the window and looked out. Presently his
eye was attracted to those dear mystic words on the pane, which both
the brothers had loved and dreamed over from their childhood,--
"El Dorado
Yo hé trovado."
And at that moment the sun was shining on them as brightly as it used
to do in those old days gone by for ever.
No vague dream of any good, foreshadowed by the omen to him or to his
house, crossed the mind of the practical Don Juan. But he seemed to
hear once more the voice of his young brother saying close beside him,
"Look, Ruy, the light is on our father's words." And memory bore him
back to a morning long ago, when some slight boyish quarrel had been
ended thus.
Over his stern, handsome face there passed a look that shaded and
softened it, and his eyes grew dim--dim with tears.
But just then Doña Beatriz, radiant from a morning walk, and with
her hands full of early spring flowers, tripped in, singing a Spanish
ballad,--
"Ye men that row the galleys,
I see my lady fair;
She gazes at the fountain
That leaps for pleasure there."
Beatriz was a child of the city; and, moreover, her life hitherto had
been an unloved and unloving one. Now her nature was expanding under
the wholesome influences of home life and home love, and of simple
healthful pleasures. "Look, Don Juan, what pretty things grow in your
fields here! I have never seen the like," she said, breaking off in her
song to exhibit her treasures.
Don Juan looked carelessly at them, lovingly at her. "I would fain hear
a morning hymn from those sweet, tuneful lips," he pleaded.
"Most willingly, amigo mio,--
'Ave Sanctissima--'"
"Hush, my beloved; hush, I entreat of you." And laying his hand lightly
on her shoulder, he gazed in her face with a mixture of fond and tender
admiration and of gentle reproach difficult to describe. "_Not that._
For the sake of all that lies between us and the old faith, not that.
Rather let us sing together,--
'Vexilla Regis prodeunt.'
For you know that between us and our King there stands, and there needs
to stand, no human mediator. Do you not, my beloved?"
"I know that _you_ are right," answered Beatriz, still reading her
faith in Don Juan's eyes. "But we can sing afterwards, whatever you
like, and as much as you will. I pray you let us come forth now into
the sunshine together. Look, what a glorious morning it is!"
XXXIX.
Left Behind.
"They are all gone into a world of light,
And I alone am lingering here."
HENRY VAUGHAN.
The change of seasons brought little change to those dark cells in the
Triana, where neither the glory of summer nor the breath of spring
could come. While the world, with its living interests, its hopes and
fears, its joys and sorrows, kept surging round them, not even an echo
of its many voices reached the doomed ones within, who lay so near, yet
so far from all, "fast bound in misery and iron."
Not yet had the Deliverer come to Carlos. More than once he had seemed
very near. During the summer heats, so terrible in that prison, fever
had wasted the captive's already enfeebled frame; but this was the
means of prolonging his life, for the eve of the Auto found him unable
to walk across his cell. Still he heard without very keen sorrow the
fate of his beloved friends, so soon did he hope to follow them.
And yet, month after month, life lingered on. In his circumstances
restoration to health was simply impossible. Not that he endured more
than others, or even as much as some. He was not loaded with fetters,
or buried in one of the frightful subterranean cells where daylight
never entered. Still, when to the many physical sufferings his
position entailed was added the weight of sickness, weakness, and utter
loneliness, they formed together a burden heavy enough to have crushed
even a strong heart to despair.
Long ago the last gleam of human sympathy and kindness had faded from
him. Maria Gonsalez was herself a prisoner, receiving such payment as
men had to give her for her brave deeds of charity. God's payment,
however, was yet to come, and would be of another sort. Herrera, the
under-gaoler, was humane, but very timid; moreover, his duties seldom
led him to that part of the prison where Carlos lay. So that he was
left dependent upon the tender mercies of Gaspar Benevidio, which were
indeed cruel.
And yet, in spite of all, he was not crushed, not despairing. The lamp
of patient endurance burned on steadily, because it was continually fed
with oil by an unseen Hand.
It has been beautifully said, "The personal love of Christ to you,
felt, delighted in, returned, is actually, truly, simply, without
exaggeration, the deepest joy and the deepest feeling that the heart of
man or woman can know. It will absolutely satisfy your heart. It would
satisfy your heart if it were his will that you should spend the rest
of your life alone in a dungeon."
Just this, nothing else, nothing less, sustained Carlos throughout
those long slow months of suffering, which had now come to "add
themselves and make the years." It proved sufficient for him. It has
proved sufficient for thousands--God's unknown saints and martyrs,
whose names we shall learn first in heaven.
Those who still occasionally sought access to him, in the hope of
transforming the obstinate heretic into a penitent, marvelled greatly
at the cheerful calm with which he was wont to receive them and to
answer their arguments.
Sometimes he would even brave all the wrath of Benevidio, and raising
his voice as loud as he could, he would make the gloomy vaults re-echo
to such words as these: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom
shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be
afraid?" Or these: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none
upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth;
but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."
But still it was not in Christ's promise, nor was it to be expected,
that his prisoner should never know hours of sorrow, weariness, and
heart-sinking. Such hours came sometimes. And on the very morning when
Don Juan and Doña Beatriz were going forth together into the spring
sunshine through the castle gate of Nuera, Carlos, in his dungeon, was
passing through one of the darkest of these. He lay on his mat, his
face covered with his wasted hands, through which tears were slowly
falling. It was but very seldom that he wept now; tears had grown rare
and scarce with him.
The evening before, he had received a visit from two Jesuits, bound
on the only errand which would have procured their admission there.
Irritated by his bold and ready answers to the usual arguments, they
had recourse to declamation. And one of them bethought himself of
mentioning the fate of the Lutherans who suffered at the two great
Autos of Valladolid. "Most of the heretics," said the Jesuit, "though
when they were in prison they were as obstinate as thou art now, yet
had their eyes opened in the end to the error of their ways, and
accepted reconciliation at the stake. At the last great Act of Faith,
held in the presence of King Philip, only Don Carlos de Seso--" Here
he stopped, surprised at the agitation of the prisoner, who had heard
their threatenings against himself so calmly.
"De Seso! De Seso! Have they murdered him too?" moaned Carlos, and
for a few brief moments he gave way to natural emotion. But quickly
recovering himself he said, "I shall only see him the sooner."
"Were you acquainted with him?" asked the Jesuit.
"I loved and honoured him. My avowing that cannot hurt him _now_,"
answered Carlos, who had grown used to the bitter thought that any name
would be disgraced and its owner imperilled, by _his_ mentioning it
with affection.
"But if you will do me so much kindness," he added, "I pray you to tell
me anything you know of his last hours. Any word he spoke."
"He could speak nothing," said the younger of his two visitors. "Before
he left the prison he had uttered so many horrible blasphemies against
Holy Church and Our Lady that he was obliged to wear the gag during the
whole ceremony, 'lest he should offend the little ones.'"[31]
[31] A genuine inquisitorial expression.
This last cruel wrong--the refusal of leave to the dying to speak one
word in defence of the truths he died for--stung Carlos to the quick.
It wrung from lips so patient hitherto words of indignant threatening.
"God will judge your cruelty," he said. "Go on, fill up the measure
of your guilt, for your time is short. One day, and that soon, there
will be a grand spectacle, grander than your Autos. Then shall you,
torturers of God's saints, call upon the mountains and rocks to cover
you, and to hide you from the wrath of the Lamb."
Once more alone, his passionate anger died away. And it was well.
Surrounded as he was on every side by strong, cold, relentless wrong
and cruelty, if his spirit had beaten its wings against those bars of
iron, it would soon have fallen to the ground faint and helpless, with
crushed pinions. It was not in such vain strivings that he could find,
or keep, the deep calm peace with which his heart was filled; it was in
the quiet place at his Saviour's feet, from whence, if he looked at his
enemies at all, it was only to pity and forgive them.
But though anger was gone, a heavy burden of sorrow remained. De Seso's
noble form, shrouded in the hideous zamarra, his head crowned with the
carroza, his face disfigured by the gag,--these were ever before his
eyes. He well-nigh forgot that all this was over now--that for him the
conflict was ended and the triumph begun.
Could he have known even as much as we know now of the close of that
heroic life, it might have comforted him.
Don Carlos de Seso met his doom at the second of the two great Autos
celebrated at Valladolid during the year 1559. At the first, the most
steadfast sufferers were Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, one of a family
of confessors; and Antonio Herezuelo, whose pathetic story--the most
thrilling episode of Spanish martyrology--would need an abler pen than
ours.
During his lingering imprisonment of a year and a half, De Seso never
varied in his own clear testimony to the truth, never compromised any
of his brethren. Informed at last that he was to die the next day, he
requested writing materials. These being furnished him, he placed on
record a confession of his faith, which Llorente, the historian of the
Inquisition, thus describes:--"It would be difficult to convey an idea
of the uncommon vigour of sentiment with which he filled two sheets of
paper, though he was then in the presence of death. He handed what he
had written to the Alguazil, with these words: 'This is the true faith
of the gospel, as opposed to that of the Church of Rome, which has been
corrupted for ages. In this faith I wish to die, and in the remembrance
and lively belief of the passion of Jesus Christ, to offer to God my
body, now reduced so low.'"
All that night and the next morning were spent by the friars in vain
endeavours to induce him to recant. During the Auto, though he could
not speak, his countenance showed the steadfastness of his soul--a
steadfastness which even the sight of his beloved wife amongst those
condemned to perpetual imprisonment failed to disturb. When at last, as
he was bound to the stake, the gag was removed, he said to those who
stood around him, still urging him to yield, "I could show you that
you ruin yourselves by not following my example; but there is no time.
Executioners, light the fire that is to consume me."
Even in the act of death it was given him, though unconsciously,
to strengthen the faith of another. In the martyr band was a poor
man, Juan Sanchez, who had been a servant of the Cazallas, and was
apprehended in Flanders with Juan de Leon. He had borne himself bravely
throughout; but when the fire was kindled, the ropes that bound him
to the stake having given way, the instinct of self-preservation made
him rush from the flames, and, not knowing what he did, spring upon
the scaffold where those who yielded at the last were wont to receive
absolution. The attendant monks at once surrounded him, offering him
the alternative of the milder death. Recovering self-possession, he
looked around him. At one side knelt the penitents, at the other,
motionless amidst the flames, De Seso stood,
"As standing in his own high hall."
His choice was made. "I will die like De Seso," he said calmly; and
then walked deliberately back to the stake, where he met his doom with
joy.
Another brave sufferer at this Auto, Don Domingo de Roxas, ventured to
make appeal to the justice of the King, only to receive the memorable
reply, never to be read without a shudder,--"I would carry wood to burn
my son, if he were such a wretch as thou!"