his brother's torturers rose and surged like a flood within him. And
with these were mingled thoughts, too nearly rebellious, of Him whom
that brother trusted so firmly and served so faithfully; as if he had
used his servant hardly, and forsaken him in his hour of sorest need.
He shrank with horror from every wayfarer he chanced to meet,
imagining that his eyes might have looked on his brother's suffering.
But at last he came unawares upon the gate of San Isodro. Left unbarred
by some accident, it yielded to his touch, and he entered the monastery
grounds. At that very spot, three years ago, the brothers parted, on
the day that Carlos avowed his change of faith. Yet not even that
remembrance could bring a tear to the hot and angry eyes of Juan. But
just then he happened to recollect the book he had received from the
lay brother. He took it from its place of concealment, and eagerly
began to examine it. It was almost filled with writing; but not, alas!
from that beloved hand. So he flung it aside in bitter disappointment.
Then becoming suddenly conscious of bodily weakness, he half sat down,
half threw himself on the ground. His vigorous frame and his strong
nerves saved him from swooning outright: he only lay sick and faint,
the blue sky looking black above him, and a strange, indistinct sound,
as of many voices, murmuring in his ears.
By-and-by he became conscious that some one was holding water to his
lips, and trying, though with an awkward, trembling hand, to loose his
doublet at the throat. He drank, shook off his weakness, and looked
about him. A very old man, in a white tunic and brown mantle, was
bending over him compassionately. In another moment he was on his feet;
and having briefly thanked the aged monk for his kindness, he turned
his face to the gate.
"Nay, my son," the old man interposed; "San Isodro is changed--changed!
Still the sick and weary never left its gates unaided; and they shall
not begin now--not now. I pray you come with me to the house, and
refresh and rest yourself there."
Juan was not reckless enough to refuse what in truth he sorely needed.
He entered the monastery under the guidance of poor old Fray Bernardo,
who had been passed by, perhaps in scorn, by the persecutors: and so,
after all, he had his wish--he should die and be buried in peace where
he had passed his life from boyhood to extreme old age. Yet there was
something sad in the thought that the storm that swept by had left
untouched the poor, useless, half-withered tree, while it tore down the
young and strong and noble oaks, the pride of the now desolated forest.
The few cowed and terrified monks who had been allowed to remain in
the convent received Don Juan with great kindness. They set food and
wine before him: food he could not touch, but wine he accepted with
thankfulness. And they almost insisted on his endeavouring to take some
rest; assuring him that when his servant and horses should arrive, they
would see them properly cared for, until such time as he might be able
to resume his journey.
His journey would not brook delay, as he knew full well. That his young
wife might not be a widow and his babe an orphan, he "charged his soul
to hold his body strengthened" for the work that both had to do. Back
to Nuera for these dear ones as swiftly as the fleetest horses would
bear him, then to Seville again, and on board the first ship he could
meet with bound for any foreign port,--would the term of grace assigned
him by the Inquisitor suffice for all this? Certainly not a moment
should be lost.
"I will rest for an hour," he said. "But I pray you, my fathers, do me
one kindness first. Is there a man here who witnessed--what was done
yesterday?"
A young monk came forward. Juan led him into the cell which had been
prepared for him to rest in, and leaning against its little window,
with his face turned away, he murmured one agitated question. Three
words comprised the answer,--
"_Calmly_, _silently_, _quickly_."
Juan's breast heaved and his strong frame trembled. After a long
interval he said, still without looking,--
"Now tell me of the others. Name him no more."
"No less than _eight_ ladies died the martyr's death," said the monk,
who cared not, before _this_ auditor, to conceal his own sentiments.
"One of them was Señora Maria Gomez; your Excellency probably knows her
story. Her three daughters and her sister died with her. When their
sentences were read, they embraced on the scaffold, and bade each other
farewell with tears. Then they comforted each other with holy words
about our Lord and his passion, and the home he was preparing for them
above."
Here the young monk paused for a few moments; then went on, his voice
still trembling: "There were, moreover, two Englishmen and a Frenchman,
who all died bravely. Lastly, there was Juliano Hernandez."
"Ah! tell me of him."
"He died as he had lived. In the morning, when brought out into the
court of the Triana, he cried aloud to his fellow-sufferers,--'Courage,
comrades! Now must we show ourselves valiant soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Let us bear faithful testimony to his truth before men, and in a
few hours we shall receive the testimony of his approbation before
angels, and triumph with him in heaven.' Though silenced, he continued
throughout the day to encourage his companions by his gestures. On the
Quemadero, he knelt down and kissed the stone upon which the stake was
erected; then thrust his head among the fagots to show his willingness
to suffer. But at the end, having raised his hands in prayer, one of
the attendant priests--Dr. Rodriguez--mistook the attitude for a sign
that he would recant, and made intercession with the Alguazils to give
him a last opportunity of speaking. He confessed his faith in a few
strong, brief words; and knowing the character of Rodriguez, told him
he thought the same himself, but hid his true belief out of fear. The
angry priest bade them light the pile at once. It was done; but the
guards, with kind cruelty, thrust the martyr through with their lances,
so that he passed, without much pain, into the presence of the Lord
whom he served as few have been honoured to do."
"And--Fray Constantino?" Juan questioned.
"He was not, for God took him. They had only his dust to burn. They
have sought to slander his memory, saying he raised his hand against
his own life. But we knew the contrary. It has reached our ears--I dare
not tell you how--that he died in the arms of one of our dear brethren
from this place--poor young Fray Fernando, who closed his eyes in
peace. It was from one of the dark underground cells of the Triana that
he passed straight to the glory of God."[35]
[35] At the Auto they produced his effigy, of the size of life,
clad in his canon's robe, and with the arms stretched out in the
gesture he had been wont to use in preaching; but it caused such a
demonstration of feeling among the people, that they were obliged
hastily to withdraw it.
It was at this Auto that Maria Gonsalez was sentenced to receive two
hundred lashes, and to be imprisoned for ten years, for the kindnesses
she had shown the prisoners. An equally severe punishment was awarded
to the under-gaoler Herrera for the offence of having allowed a
mother and three daughters, who were imprisoned in separate cells, an
interview of half an hour; while the many cruelties and peculations of
the infamous Benevidio were only chastised by the loss of his situation
and its advantages, and banishment from Seville.
"I thank you for your tidings," said Juan, slowly and faintly. "And now
I pray of you to leave me."
After a considerable time, one of the monks softly opened the door of
their visitor's cell. He sat on the pallet prepared for him, his head
buried in his hands.
"Señor," said the monk, "your servant has arrived, and begs you to
excuse his delay. It may be there are some instructions you wish him to
receive."
Juan roused himself with an effort.
"Yes," he said; "and I thank you. Will you add to your kindness by
bidding him immediately procure for us fresh horses, the best and
fleetest that can be had?" He sought his purse; but, remembering in a
moment what had become of it, drew a ring from his finger to supply
its loss. It was the diamond ring that the Sieur de Ramenais had given
him. A keen pang shot through his heart. "No, not that; I cannot part
with it." He took two others instead--old family jewels. "Bid him bring
these," he said, "to Isaac Ozorio, who dwells in La Juderia[36]--any
man there will show him the house; take for them whatever he will give
him, and therewith hire fresh horses--the best he can--from the posada
where he rested, leaving our own in pledge. Let him also buy provisions
for the way; for my business requires haste. I will explain all to you
anon."
[36] The Jewish quarter of Seville.
While the monk did the errand, Don Juan sat still, gazing at the
diamond ring. Slowly there came back upon his memory the words spoken
by Carlos on the day when the sharp facets cut his hand, unfelt by
him: "If He calls me to suffer for him, he may give me such blessed
assurance of his love, that in the joy of it pain and fear will vanish."
Could it be possible He _had_ done this? Oh, for some token, to relieve
his breaking heart by the assurance that thus it had been! And yet,
wherefore seek a sign? Was not the heroic courage, the calm patience,
given to that young brother, once so frail and timid, as plain a token
of the sunlight of God's peace and presence as is the bow in the cloud
of the sun shining in the heavens? True; but not the less was his soul
filled with passionate longing for one word--only one word--from the
lips that were dust and ashes now. "If God would give me _that_," he
moaned, "I think I could weep for him."
It occurred to him then that he might examine the book more carefully
than he had done before. Don Juan, of late, had been no great reader,
except of the Spanish Testament. Instead of glancing rapidly through
the volume with a practised eye, he carefully began at the beginning
and perused several pages with diligence, and with a kind of compelled
and painful attention.
The writer of the diary with which the book seemed filled had not
prefixed his name. Consequently Juan, who was without a clue to the
authorship, saw in it merely the effusions of a penitent, with whose
feelings he had but little sympathy. Still, he reflected that if the
writer had been his brother's fellow-prisoner, some mention of his
brother would probably reward his persevering search. So he read on;
but he was not greatly interested, until at length he came to one
passage which ran thus:--
"Christ and Our Lady forgive me, if it be a sin. Ofttimes, even by
prayer and fasting, I cannot prevent my thoughts from wandering to the
past. Not to the life I lived, and the part I acted in the great world,
for that is dead to me and I to it; but to the dear faces my eyes shall
never see again. My Costanza!"--("Costanza!" thought Juan with a start,
"that was my mothers name!")--"my wife! my babe! O God, in thy great
mercy, still this hungering and thirsting of the heart!"
Immediately beneath this entry was another. "_May 21._ My Costanza, my
beloved wife, is in heaven. It is more than a year ago, but they did
not tell me till to-day. Does death only visit the free?"
Yet another entry caught the eye of Juan. "Burning heat to-day. It
would be cool enough in the halls of Nuera, on the breezy slope of the
Sierra Morena. What does my orphaned Juan Rodrigo there, I wonder?"
"Nuera! Sierra Morena! Juan Rodrigo!" reiterated the astonished reader.
What did it all mean? He was stunned and bewildered, so that he had
scarcely power left even to form a conjecture. At last it occurred
to him turn to the other end of the book, if perchance some name,
affording a clue to the mystery, might be inscribed there.
And then he read, in another, well-known hand, a few calm words,
breathing peace and joy, "quietness and assurance for ever."
He pressed the loved handwriting to his lips, to his heart. He sobbed
over it and wept; blistering it with such burning tears as scarcely
come from a strong man's eyes more than once in a lifetime. Then,
flinging himself on his knees, he thanked God--God whom he had doubted,
murmured against, almost blasphemed, and who yet had been true to his
promise--true to his tried and suffering servant in the hour of need.
When he rose, he took up the book again, and read and re-read those
precious words. All but the first he thought he could comprehend. "My
beloved father is gone to Him in peace." Would the preceding entries
throw any light upon _that_ saying?
Once more, with changed feelings and quickened perceptions, he turned
back to the records of the penitent's long captivity. Slowly and
gradually the secret they revealed unfolded itself before him. The
history of the last nine months of his brother's life lay clearly
traced; and the light it shed illumined another life also, longer,
sadder, less glorious than his.
One entry, almost the last, and traced with a trembling hand, he read
over and over, till his eyes grew too dim to see the words.
"He entreats of me to pray for my absent Juan, and to bless him. My
son, my first-born, whose face I know not, but whom he has taught me
to love, I do bless thee. All blessings rest upon thee--blessings of
heaven above, blessings of the earth beneath, blessings of the deep
that lieth under! But for _thee_, Carlos, what shall I say? I have no
blessing fit for thee--no word of love deep and strong enough to join
with that name of thine. Doth not He say, of whose tenderness thou
tellest me ours is but the shadow, 'He will _be silent_ in his love'?
But may he read my heart in its silence, and bless thee, and repay thee
when thou comest to thy home, where already thy heart is."
It might have been two hours afterwards, when the same friendly monk
who had narrated to Don Juan the circumstances of the Auto-da-fé, came
to apprise him that his servant had fulfilled his errand, and was
waiting with the horses.
Don Juan rose and met him. His face was sad; it would be a sad face
always; but there was in it a look as of one who saw the end, and
who knew that, however dark the way might be, the end was light
everlasting. "Look here, my friend," he said, for no concealment was
necessary there; truth could hurt no one. "See how wondrously God has
dealt with me and mine. Here is the record of the life and death of my
honoured father. For three-and-twenty years he lay in the Dominican
monastery, a prisoner for Christ's sake. And to my heroic martyr
brother God has given the honour and the joy of unravelling the mystery
of his fate, and thus fulfilling our youthful dream. Carlos has found
our father!"
He went forth into the hall, and bade the other monks a grateful
farewell. Old Fray Bernardo embraced and blessed him with tears, moved
by the likeness, now discerned for the first time, between the stately
soldier and the noble and gentle youth, whose kindness to him, during
his residence at the monastery three years before, he well remembered.
Then Don Juan set his face towards Nuera, with patient endurance,
rather sad than stern, upon his brow, and in his heart "a grief as deep
as life or thought," but no rebellion, and no despair. Something like
resignation had come to him; already he could say, or at least try to
say, "Thy will be done." And he foresaw, as in the distance, far off
and faintly, a time when he might even be able to share in spirit the
joy of the crowned and victorious one, to whom, in the dark prison,
face to face with death, God had so wondrously given the desire of his
heart, and not denied him the request of his lips.
XLIX.
Farewell.
"My country is there;
Beyond the star pricked with the last peak of snow."
E.B. BROWNING.
About a fortnight afterwards, a closely veiled lady, dressed in deep
mourning, leaned over the side of a merchant vessel, and gazed into the
sapphire depths of the Bay of Cadiz. A respectable elderly woman was
standing near her, holding her pretty dark-eyed babe. They seemed to be
under the protection of a Franciscan friar; and of a stately, handsome
serving-man, whose bearing and appearance were rather out of keeping
with his supposed rank. It was said amongst the crew that the lady
was the widow of a rich Sevillian merchant, who during a residence in
London some years before had married an Englishwoman. She was now going
to join her kindred in the heretical country, and much compassion was
expended on her, as she was said to be very Catholic and very pious.
It was a signal proof of these dispositions that she ventured to bring
with her, as private chaplain, the Franciscan friar, who, the sailors
thought, would probably soon fall a martyr to his attachment to the
Faith.
But a few illusions might have been dispelled, if the conversation
of the party, when for a brief space they had the deck to themselves,
could have been overheard.
"Dost thou mourn that the shores of our Spain are fading from us?" said
the lady to the supposed servant.
"Not as I should once have done, my Beatriz; though it is still my
fatherland, dearest and best of all lands to me. And you, my beloved?"
"Where thou art is my country, Don Juan. Besides," she added softly,
"God is everywhere. And think what it will be to worship him in peace,
none making us afraid."
"And you, my brave, true-hearted Dolores?" asked Don Juan.
"Señor Don Juan, my country is _there_; with those that I love best,"
said Dolores, with an upward glance of the large wistful eyes, which
had yet, in their sorrowful depths, a look of peace unknown in past
days. "What is Spain to me--Spain, that would not give to the noblest
of them all a few feet of her earth for a grave?"
"Do not let us stain with one bitter thought our last look at those
shores," said Don Juan, with the gentleness that was growing upon him
of late. "Remember that they who denied a grave to our beloved, are
powerless to rob us of one precious memory of him. His grave is in our
hearts; his memorial is the faith which every one of us now standing
here has learned from him."
"That is true." said Doña Beatriz. "I think that not all thy teaching,
Don Juan, made me understand what 'precious faith' is, until I learned
it by his death."
"He gave up all for Christ, freely and joyfully," Juan continued.
"While I gave up nothing, save as it was wrenched from my unwilling
hand. Therefore for him there is the 'abundant entrance,' the 'crown of
glory.' For me, at the best, 'Seekest thou great things for thyself,
seek them not. But thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all
places whither thou goest.'"
Fray Sebastian drew near at the moment, and happening to overhear the
last words, he asked, "Have you any plan, señor, as to whither you will
go?"
"I have no plan," Don Juan answered. "But I think God will guide us. I
have indeed a dream," he added, after a pause, "which may, or may not,
come true eventually. My thoughts often turn to that great New World,
where, at least, there should be room for truth and liberty. It was
our childhood's dream, to go forth to the New World and to find our
father. And the lesser half of it, comparatively worthless as it is,
may fitly fall to my lot to fulfil, another worthier than I having done
the rest." His voice grew gentler, his whole countenance softened as
he continued,--"That the prize was his, not mine, I rejoice. It is but
an earnest of the nobler victory, the grander triumph, he enjoys now,
amongst those who stand evermore before the King of kings--CALLED,
CHOSEN, AND FAITHFUL."
Historical Note.
It may be asked by some thoughtful reader who has followed the
narrative of the foregoing pages, How much is fact, how much fiction?
As the writers sole object is to reveal, to enforce, and to illustrate
Truth, an answer to the question is gladly supplied. All is fact,
except what concerns the personal history of the Brothers and their
family. Whatever relates to the rise, progress, and downfall of the
Protestant Church in Spain, is strictly historical. Especially may be
mentioned the story of the two great Autos at Seville. But much of
interest on the subject remains untold, as nothing was taken up but
what would naturally amalgamate with the narrative; and it was not
designed to supersede history, only to stimulate to its study. Except
in the instance of a conversation with Juliano Hernandez, another with
Don Carlos de Seso, and a few words required by the exigencies of the
tale from Losada, the glorious martyr names have been left untouched
by the hand of fiction. It was a sense of their sacredness which led
the writer to choose for hero a character not historical, but typical
and illustrative. But nothing is told of him which did not occur over
and over again, if we except the act of mercy which is supposed to have
shed a brightness over his last days. He is merely a given example, a
specimen of the ordinary fate of such prisoners of the Inquisition as
were enabled to remain faithful to the end; and, thank God, these were
numerous. He is even a favourable specimen; for the conditions of art
require that in a work of fiction a veil should be thrown over some of
the worst horrors of persecution. Those who accuse Protestant writers
of exaggeration in these matters, little know what they say. Easily
could we show greater abominations than these; but we forbear.
As for the joy and triumph ascribed to the steadfast martyr at the
close of his career, we have a thousand well-authenticated instances
that such has been really given. These embrace all classes and ages,
and all varieties of character, and range throughout all time, from the
day that Stephen saw Christ sitting on the right hand of God, until the
martyrs of Madagascar sang hymns in the fire, and "prayed as long as
they had any life; and then they died, softly, gently."
It is not fiction, but truest truth, that He repays his faithful
servants an hundred-fold, even in this life, for anything they do or
suffer for his name's sake.
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