The Hacienda of Arroyo Zarco.--The young Mexican Lady.--The young
Spanish Nobleman.--Don Tomas Verdugo.
The hacienda of Arroyo Zarco is a vast and imposing building, built
partly of brick and partly of large stones, situated almost at the
entrance to the extensive and fertile plains of Bajio. The place,
however, where this hacienda rises, is far from presenting the smiling
appearance which characterizes the basin bearing its name. It stands on
a flat, barren plain, where grow a few melancholy-looking stunted trees,
one or two of which shade the back walls of the building: a little brook
of bluish-looking water, the fountain-head of which is not far off,
gives the name of Arroyo Zarco (blue rivulet) to the hacienda. A large
square court, ornamented on its four sides with stone arches like the
cloisters of a convent, forms a kind of vestibule to the apartments of
the family. The rooms devoted to travelers are under these galleries.
Stables, large enough to contain with ease a whole regiment of cavalry,
make up two or three other courts. It was the only place at which I
could put up within six leagues, and here I hoped to find the travelers
I was in quest of, provided I had not taken the wrong road.
"We have come thirty-two leagues since yesterday," said Cecilio, taking
my bridle, with a sigh, "and if your lordship persist in continuing the
pursuit, perhaps it will only be prudent and advisable if I return to
Mexico to dissipate the uneasiness that will probably arise there on
your account."
"The duty of a good servant is to accompany his master every where," was
my reply; and, going up to the stable-boy, I began to put some questions
to him regarding the travelers who had arrived before us. From him I
learned that about forty travelers had stopped at the hacienda in the
afternoon, and, for want of better information, I was obliged to content
myself by a personal inspection of the stables. I ought to have gone
there at first without making any inquiries; and, as there was still
some daylight, I directed my steps to the courts. A great number of
horses were munching their provender in their stalls, and, from the
joyful eagerness with which they ate, I could see that they had come a
long distance; but I could hardly contain myself for joy when I
distinguished side by side, like two faithful companions, the iron-gray
and the peach-blossom. This was but the beginning of success; for, to
complete the discovery, I must examine nearly sixty travelers, for there
was almost that number of horses in the stables. This, to speak the
truth, was almost impracticable--dangerous, perhaps, in one respect, and
ridiculous in another.
As I was going along the lobby which led to my room, where I intended to
rest a short time previous to resuming the pursuit, a coach, drawn by
eight mules, and escorted by three horsemen armed with muskets and
sabres, came rattling into the court-yard. The arrival of a carriage at
a Mexican inn is always an event of some importance; it bespeaks
travelers of distinction, or, better still, the presence of females,
whom, though they may not perhaps be young, the excitement of travel
invests with a thousand illusory charms. While the three horsemen who
formed the escort, and the two coachmen who conducted the team, were
wrangling with the huesped, the court all the time filled with strange
figures, one of the horsemen alighted and advanced respectfully to open
the carriage door. A man of a certain age descended first, a younger
person followed, and, before any one had time to offer her their hand, a
young lady hurried out after them. She wore a costume adopted by several
rich _rancheras_ when traveling, an attire which suits equally well the
carriage or the side-saddle. She carried in her hand a hat with a broad
brim; and her manga, richly ornamented with silk velvet and gold lace,
could not hide entirely her fine flexible figure, and bare, sunburned
arms. Her uncovered head left exposed her beautiful black hair; and her
eyes, as black, and not less brilliant, gazed around in the free bold
style peculiar to Mexican women. She seemed evidently seeking for some
one in the group that surrounded her; but when she saw the unknown faces
which greeted her, she veiled them modestly under her eyelids.
Night came on, and the young lady had retired to one of the chambers of
the hacienda when another traveler entered the court-yard. The new-comer
was a young man, evidently about five or six-and-twenty, tall and well
made. Though poorly clad, his dress was unstudiously elegant, and a fine
black mustache heightened the dignity of his appearance. The predominant
expression of his countenance was at once haughty and sad, but his face
was remarkable at times for a singularly winning sweetness. A little
mandolin hung round his neck, and at the pommel of his saddle dangled an
old rusty rapier. The lean and somewhat scraggy horse he rode was
followed by another ready saddled and bridled. I could not help feeling
a touch of pity for this poor young man with the melancholy face. The
famine-stricken appearance of both horses and master, showed but too
well the hardships which they had endured in common--long journeys
executed upon little or no food, and entire days passed probably without
sustenance of any kind. Like the other travelers, the cavalier called
the huesped; but, instead of addressing him in a loud voice, he stooped
from his saddle and whispered in his ear. The huesped, in reply, shook
his head; a cloud passed over the face of the unknown, he colored
slightly, looked sorrowfully at the unharnessed carriage, twitched his
bridle, and left the hacienda.
It was now time for me, however, to look after my own business. The joy
of Cecilio, when he found that the two horses of our travelers were in
the stables of the inn, was changed into despair when I communicated to
him my orders. As I could not interrogate sixty travelers, I ordered him
to saddle our horses at midnight, and station himself along with me in
the court-yard near the gate. In this way not a single traveler could
leave the place at any hour of the night without my knowledge. This
point arranged, I left Cecilio plunged in melancholy reflection at the
prospect of a night to be passed in the open air, and hastened to the
kitchen, which, according to the custom of the country, served also for
a dining-room.
In this vast hall, travelers of every kind--traders, military men,
_arrieros_, and servants, were seated round a number of tables placed
near the fire. I sat down like the rest, and, during the whole time of
my meal, kept my ears open to catch the conversation that was going on.
I did not, however, pay much attention to it, as it consisted only of
stories of robbers, storms, impassable torrents--favorite topics of
conversation with all travelers. Weary at last of listening to a series
of questions and answers in which there was nothing interesting, I asked
the landlady, in a loud voice, about the two horses, the colors of which
I mentioned, that were then in the stable. I was more fortunate at first
than I hoped. I learned that one of the individuals was the Señor Don
Tomas Verdugo, who had arrived about an hour before me; but, being
pressed for time, he only waited till he got a relay of horses, and then
departed, leaving at the hacienda the two horses he had brought with him
till his next arrival.
"Although it seems strange that you can have any business with him,"
added the landlady, "I know that he will stay two days at Celayo, and
you will find him at the _Meson de Guadalupe_, where he is accustomed to
put up."
I was very anxious to elicit some more information, but the wary hostess
kept herself very reserved, and I quitted the kitchen very much
disappointed to learn that I had still a forty leagues' ride before
meeting my mysterious visitor, but delighted to find that I knew his
name, and had a certain aim to pursue. After countermanding my order to
Cecilio, as it was not late--and sleep is a long time in visiting a
stony couch, especially when one is very much fatigued--I went and sat
down at the outer gate of the hacienda, a few paces from the high road.
The country round lay as still and silent as if it had been midnight,
and the moon shone brightly overhead. In the horizon the hills began to
put on their nocturnal russet. Upon the whitened plain, the moisture
from the earth, condensed by the coldness of the night, looked in the
distance like a tranquil lake, and from among the vapor towered aloft
some aloes which grow upon this rocky soil. In this mournful solitude,
in an inhospitable country, where a thousand dangers surround the
traveler, especially when he is a foreigner, my present enterprise
appeared for the first time in its true light--a perilous folly. For the
first time, also, since my departure from Mexico, my heart failed me,
and I was almost on the point of retracing my steps, when, as I was
taking, as I fancied, a last look at the scene, I thought I heard, amid
the stillness of the night, the distant sounds of a guitar. This came,
probably, from a party of muleteers who had bivouacked at some distance,
or some groom who was playing to his fellows in one of the inn stables.
Without stirring, I listened to the strains broken by the distance, when
gradually, out of the stillness, a vocal accompaniment stole along on
the night air. Owing to the profound silence that prevailed, I easily
made out the words of the song; it was a Spanish _Romancero_; but the
musician, through some odd fancy, had accompanied it with a refrain,
consisting of some by-words very much in use among the Mexican people.
This singularity raised in me a desire to see the player. At a short
distance from the hacienda, and at the foot of a low hill which
overtopped it, I observed the flickering light of a fire. One side of
the singer's face was brightly illuminated by the blaze, and near him,
two horses, tied together by a long cord, were cropping the scanty grass
which grew on that stony soil. I advanced quietly, so as not to
interrupt the unknown; but the noise of my footsteps betrayed me, and
the music stopped all at once. The stranger rose hurriedly; the graze
of a sword which he was unsheathing struck my ear. The adventure was
becoming less pleasant than I had anticipated. I stopped, then advanced
again; and, by the light of the fire, I distinguished the young man whom
I had seen in the court-yard of the inn, but whom I little expected to
find again so near me.
"Who goes there?" he exclaimed in Spanish, and in a pure Castilian
accent.
"A friend!" I cried; "but put up your rapier; I am alone and unarmed."
The moon lighted up the surrounding objects so clearly that the Spaniard
was convinced that I had spoken the truth, and he returned it to its
sheath.
"Pardon my indiscretion, Señor Cavalier," I said, advancing into the
illuminated circle; "I have been drawn to you, I must say, only by a
motive of curiosity. If I am not deceived, you are, like myself, a
foreigner, and, as such, almost a friend."
In spite of my politeness, the stranger's features still kept an air of
haughty defiance. He seated himself, however, and invited me, with a
wave of his hand, to do the same. I did so without ceremony.
"I am a Spaniard, it is true," answered my new companion, haughtily;
"but, throughout the whole of America, is not a Spaniard at home? It is
now my turn to ask pardon of you for deeming you a spy sent by--"
The Spaniard stopped all at once.
"By whom?" I inquired.
"You are welcome," said the unknown, without replying. He accepted a
cigar which I offered him, and we began to smoke with all the gravity
which characterizes Indian warriors round a council fire. By the light
of the moon, aided by that of the fire, I could easily see, what I had
before noticed, that the hard privations which the Spaniard had endured
had left ineffaceable traces of mental suffering on his brow, but
without altering in the least his noble physiognomy.
"Did you compose those verses yourself," I asked, "which I have so
indiscreetly interrupted, and whose originality has struck me so much?"
"No; I only adapted them to an air of my own composition for an affair
which it would be too tedious to relate to you."
There was evidently an attempt at concealment in this reply, which
whetted my curiosity. I resolved to make a confidant of the young
Spaniard by telling him the object of my journey, and the many checks I
had experienced since my departure from Mexico.
"Our positions are not dissimilar," said the Spaniard, when I had done.
"Like you, I am pursuing a nameless object; but thank God that you have
been saved from the dangers that I have undergone."
"Tell me about them," I said. "I like a story told in the open air--at
night above all, and in the light of a fire like this."
"Be it so," said the Spaniard. "I shall begin by telling you that I am a
Biscayan and a nobleman; not by election, like most of my Compatriots,
but descended from a long line of ancestors, who recognize Lope Chouria
as the chief of their ancient clan. My name is Don Jaime de Villalobos.
I bear another name here for common use. My mother has the first rank in
my affection, then my father, and lastly my country. You now know me,
Señor Cavalier. I am now about to tell you of the affair in which I am
at present engaged."
The slight air of superciliousness with which he began his story was
not displeasing to me; it was like a continuation of the Romancero of
which the young nobleman had been singing a verse a short time before.
He continued with more simplicity.
"Unfortunately, I was born poor, though of noble blood. More than once
during my infancy have I been awakened from sleep by the rude ice-wind
which whistled without obstruction through the ruined manor-house in
which my mother and I dwelt. As a compensation, God gave me a good
appetite, which made me forget the cold. I shot up apace; my noble birth
interdicted me from all manual labor and servile employment; and to
leave my mother, who was now growing old, and take service in the army,
was a step which was not in accordance with my inclination. However, I
could not long remain a stranger to the civil war which was then raging
in the Basque Provinces. Don Carlos, you are perhaps aware, often forgot
to pay his officers and soldiers, and all that I gained in his service
was the honor of being a creditor of his noble highness. Returning to my
maternal abode, I was grieved to find it more dilapidated than ever, and
to feel still more the anguish which rent my mother's heart, for I saw
her sinking day after day under the double burden of old age and
poverty. One evening a peddler came and demanded hospitality of us, and
as he only asked for shelter, we granted it. His wandering life had
enabled him to pick up all sorts of news, and I learned from him that
one of our neighbors had made a wealthy marriage in New Spain.
"'What a capital thing it would be,' said he, 'if a young nobleman like
you could be so lucky in that land of gold and silver, where the
ambition of all the women is summed up in the couplet,
"'Canrisas de Britaña,[25]
Y maridos de España.'
"In my present position a rich marriage was the only resource left me,
and I resolved to go to the New World and seek my fortune. I
communicated my hopes to my mother. The payment of a debt gave me the
means of procuring a passage in a ship from Bilboa; and full of hopes of
being able to bring back a fortune to my mother, which was my only
ambition, I set sail. I arrived at Vera Cruz a year ago, and visited the
churches assiduously, the only place where the fair inhabitants delight
to show themselves, but not one deigned to give me the slightest
countenance. At night in the deserted streets I watched long, but to no
purpose, for none appeared. I knew well that if I did not announce my
presence under a window, I ran a risk of spending my nights as
fruitlessly as my days. I had then recourse to music, and purchased a
mandolin. Unluckily, though a passable musician, I was not poet enough
to compose a good serenading song, and was forced to tack on to an old
Romancero a piece of a wretched ballad that I remembered--the miserable
bit of doggerel which had incited me to quit the old manor-house. I was
engaged in singing that when you interrupted me."
The Spaniard here began to smoke with the air of a man who is resolved
to do his duty conscientiously.
"And you are not much older than a boy," said I, much surprised at the
abrupt conclusion of Don Jaime's story.
"An old maid, a sort of duenna, who had worn linen of Brittany for many
years, had no objection to me on that score. You understand my object in
coming here was to get a young, rich, and beautiful wife. Had the duenna
been rich, for my mother's sake I would have married her, but she was
neither rich nor young, and had never been pretty."
"'Tis a thousand pities," said I; "you are half a century behind, Señor
Don Jaime. Fifty years ago every chance would have been in favor of a
cavalier of your figure and appearance. Now I am afraid that time is
past."
An almost imperceptible smile broke upon the lips of the Biscayan, but I
could not guess whether it was caused by the compliment I had paid him,
or pity for the incredulity I had manifested.
"Since you are in the indulgent vein, and I in the indiscreet one, Señor
Don Jaime, allow me to ask you this last question--Have you supped
to-night?"
The brow of the Spaniard lowered. I feared I had abused rights acquired
on such a slender acquaintance as mine; but his noble self-respect never
gave way. He was, besides, too much of a gentleman to blush because he
was poor.
"I have," replied he, with a gracious smile. "May I have the honor of
offering you a portion of my supper?"
The Spaniard tendered me a cigarette.
"What! was that all your supper?"
"A cigarette! fie on it; it is, in truth, somewhat too meagre a repast
for the last descendant of the Counts of Biscay. I have consumed more
than a dozen of them, and have not made a very good supper."
This seemed to have exhausted the patience of the poor nobleman. He
said nothing for a few moments, and then, with an air of calm dignity,
exclaimed,
"Señor Cavalier, I have granted you the only thing it was in my power to
bestow in this world--my hospitality, such as it is. Enjoy yourself at
my fire as much as you please; but, after a hard day's journey, you will
pardon me if I betake myself to rest. May God bless and protect you!"
The Biscayan threw some sticks upon the fire, wrapped himself up in his
cloak, and, after bidding me good-night with a wave of his hand, lay
down. I threw my eyes mechanically around. More fortunate than their
master, and half hidden by the icy fog of evening, the two horses
cropped the short, withered grass which grew on the stony plain. My
heart swelled, and a deep feeling of respectful sympathy took possession
of me at seeing this deep misery so nobly supported.
"Señor Don Jaime," said I, with a broken voice, "I thank you for the
hospitality you have shown me, and, in return, I should be both proud
and happy if you would take the use of my chamber in the _venta_."
The young traveler started and sat up; his eyes sparkled in his pale
face. He seemed to hesitate for a moment; he then held out his hand.
"I accept your offer," he said; "you will do me a service I shall never
forget. I must now tell you, in confidence, that I had vainly solicited
that accommodation from the huesped, for which I was too poor to pay,
but which on this night, and this night only, I would thankfully have
paid for with my heart's blood."
This reply was an additional mystery to me; but I had now become Don
Jaime's host, and that prevented me from asking any questions. We took
the two horses by the bridle, and, without exchanging a word, returned
to the venta.
FOOTNOTE:
[25]
Chemises from Brittany,
And husbands from Spain.