Don Hemstitch Blodoza was an hidalgo--one of the highest dalgos of old
Spain. He had a comfortably picturesque castle on the Guadalquiver,
with towers, battlements, and mortages on it; but as it belonged, not
to his own creditors, but to those of his bitterest enemy, who
inhabited it, Don Hemstitch preferred the forest as a steady
residence. He had that curse of Spanish pride which will not permit
one to be a burden upon the man who may happen to have massacred all
one's relations, and set a price upon the heads of one's family
generally. He had made a vow never to accept the hospitality of Don
Symposio--not if he died for it. So he pervaded the romantic dells,
and the sunless jungle was infected with the sound of his guitar. He
rose in the morning and laved him in the limpid brooklet; and the
beams of the noonday sun fell upon him in the pursuit of diet--
"The thistle's downy seed his fare,
His drink the morning dew."
He throve but indifferently upon this meagre regimen, but beyond all
other evils a true Spaniard of the poorer sort dreads obesity. During
the darkest night of the season he will get up at an absurd hour and
stab his best friend in the back rather than grow fat.
It will of course be suspected by the experienced reader that Don
Hemstitch did not have any bed. Like the Horatian lines above quoted--
"He perched at will on every spray."
In translating this tale into the French, M. Victor Hugo will please
twig the proper meaning of the word "spray"; I shall be very angry if
he make it appear that my hero is a gull.
One morning while Don Hemstitch was dozing upon his leafy couch--not
his main couch, but a branch--he was roused from his tranquil nap by
the grunting of swine; or, if you like subtle distinctions, by the
sound of human voices. Peering cautiously through his bed-hangings, he
saw below him at a little distance two of his countrymen in
conversation. The fine practised phrenzy of their looks, their
excellently rehearsed air of apprehensive secrecy, showed him they
were merely conspiring against somebody's life; and he dismissed the
matter from his mind until the mention of his own name recalled his
attention. One of the conspirators was urging the other to make one of
a joint-stock company for the Don's assassination; but the more
conscientious plotter would not consent.
"The laws of Spain," said the latter, "with which we have an
acquaintance meanly withheld from the attorneys, enjoin that when one
man murders another, except for debt, he must make provision for the
widow and orphans. I leave it to you if, after the summer's
unprofitable business, we are in a position to assume the care and
education of a large family. We have not a single asset, and our
liabilities amount to fourteen widows, and more than thirty children
of strong and increasing appetite.
"_Car-r-rajo!"_ hissed the other through his beard; "we will slaughter
the lot of them!"
At this cold-blooded proposition his merciful companion recoiled
aghast.
"_Diablo_!" he shrieked. "Tempt me no farther. What! immolate a whole
hecatomb of guiltless women and children? Consider the funeral
expense!"
There is really no moving the law-abiding soul to crime of doubtful
profit. But Don Hemstitch was not at ease; he could not say how soon
it might transpire that he had nor chick nor child. Should Don
Symposio pass that way and communicate this information--and he was in
a position to know--the moral scruples of the conscientious plotter
would vanish like the baseless fabric of a beaten cur. Moreover, it is
always unpleasant to be included in a conspiracy in which one is not a
conspirator. Don Hemstitch resolved to sell his life at the highest
market price.
Hastily descending his tree, he wrapped his cloak about him and
stood for some time, wishing he had a poniard. Trying the temper of
this upon his thumbnail, he found it much more amiable than his own.
It was a keen Toledo blade--keen enough to sever a hare. To nerve
himself for the deadly work before him, he began thinking of a lady
whom he had once met--the lovely Donna Lavaca, beloved of El
Toro-blanco. Having thus wrought up his Castilian soul to a high pitch
of jealously, he felt quite irresistible, and advanced towards the two
ruffians with his poniard deftly latent in his flowing sleeve. His
mien was hostile, his stride puissant, his nose tip-tilted--not to put
too fine a point upon it, petallic. Don Hemstitch was upon the
war-path with all his might. The forest trembled as he trode, the
earth bent like thin ice beneath his heel. Birds, beasts, serpents,
and poachers fled affrighted to the right and left of his course. He
came down upon the unsuspecting assassins like a mild Spanish
avalanche.
[Illustration]
"_Senores!_" he thundered, with a frightful scowl and a faint aroma of
garlic, "patter your _pater-nosters_ as fast as you conveniently may.
You have but ten minutes to exist. Has either of you a watch?"
Then might you have seen a guilty dismay over-spreading the faces of
two sinners, like a sudden snow paling twin mountain peaks. In the
presence of Death, Crime shuddered and sank into his boots. Conscience
stood appalled in the sight of Retribution. In vain the villains
essayed speech; each palsied tongue beat out upon the yielding air
some weak words of supplication, then clave to its proper concave. Two
pairs of brawny knees unsettled their knitted braces, and bent limply
beneath their loads of incarnate wickedness swaying unsteadily above.
With clenched hands and streaming eyes these wretched men prayed
silently. At this supreme moment an American gentleman sitting by,
with his heels upon a rotted oaken stump, tilted back his chair, laid
down his newspaper, and began operating upon a half-eaten apple-pie.
One glance at the title of that print--one look at that calm angular
face clasped in its crescent of crisp crust--and Don Hemstitch Blodoza
reeled, staggered like an exhausted spinning-top. He spread his
baffled hand upon his eyes, and sank heavily to earth!
"Saved! saved!" shrieked the penitent conspirators, springing to their
feet. The far deeps of the forest whispered in consultation, and a
distant hillside echoed back the words. "Saved!" sang the
rocks--"Saved!" the glad birds twittered from the leaves above. The
hare that Don Hemstitch Blodoza's poniard would have severed limped
awkwardly but confidently about, saying, "Saved!" as well as he knew
how.
Explanation is needless. The American gentleman was the Special
Correspondent of the "New York Herald." It is tolerably well known
that except beneath his searching eye no considerable event can
occur--and his whole attention was focused upon that apple-pie!
That is how Spanish vengeance was balked of its issue.
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