Boyhood.
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."--Longfellow.
On one of the green slopes of the Sierra Morena, shaded by a few
cork-trees, and with wild craggy heights and bare brown wastes
stretching far above, there stood, about the middle of the sixteenth
century, a castle even then old and rather dilapidated. It had once
been a strong place, but was not very spacious; and certainly, according
to our modern ideas of comfort, the interior could not have been a
particularly comfortable dwelling-place. A large proportion of it was
occupied by the great hall, which was hung with faded, well-repaired
tapestry, and furnished with oaken tables, settles, and benches, very
elaborately carved, but bearing evident marks of age. Narrow unglazed
slits in the thick wall admitted the light and air; and beside one of
these, on a gloomy autumn morning, two boys stood together, watching the
rain that poured down without intermission.
They were dressed exactly alike, in loose jackets of blue cloth,
homespun, indeed, but so fresh and neatly-fashioned as to look more
becoming than many a costlier dress. Their long stockings were of silk,
and their cuffs and wide shirt-frills of fine Holland, carefully
starched and plaited. The elder--a very handsome lad, who looked
fourteen at least, but was really a year younger--had raven hair, black
sparkling eager eyes, good but strongly-marked features, and a
complexion originally dark, and well-tanned by exposure to sun and wind.
A broader forehead, wider nostrils, and a weaker mouth, distinguished
the more delicate-looking younger brother, whose hair was also less
dark, and his complexion fairer.
"Rain--rain! Will it rain for ever?" cried, in a tone of impatience,
the elder, whose name was Juan; or rather, his proper style and title
(and very angry would he have felt had any part been curtailed or
omitted) was Don Juan Rodrigo Alvarez de Santillanos y Menaya. He was
of the purest blood in Spain; by the father's side, of noblest Castilian
lineage; by the mother's, of an ancient Asturian family. Well he knew
it, and proudly he held up his young head in consequence, in spite of
poverty, and of what was still worse, the mysterious blight that had
fallen on the name and fortunes of his house, bringing poverty in its
train, as the least of its attendant evils.
"'Rising early will not make the daylight come sooner,' nor watching
bring the sunshine," said the quick-witted Carlos, who, apt in learning
whatever he heard, was already an adept in the proverbial philosophy
which was then, and is now, the inheritance of his race.
"True enough. So let us fetch the canes, and have a merry play. Or,
better still, the foils for a fencing match."
Carlos acquiesced readily, though apparently without pleasure. In all
outward things, such as the choice of pursuits and games, Juan was the
unquestioned leader, Carlos never dreamed of disputing his fiat. Yet in
other, and really more important matters, it was Carlos who, quite
unconsciously to himself, performed the part of guide to his
stronger-willed but less thoughtful brother.
Juan now fetched the carefully guarded foils with which the boys were
accustomed to practise fencing; either, as now, simply for their own
amusement, or under the instructions of the gray-haired Diego, who had
served with their father in the Emperor's wars, and was now mayor-domo,
butler, and seneschal, all in one. He it was, moreover, from whom
Carlos had learned his store of proverbs.
"Now stand up. Oh, you are too low; wait a moment." Juan left the hall
again, but quickly returned with a large heavy volume, which he threw on
the floor, directing his brother to take his stand upon it.
Carlos hesitated. "But what if the Fray should catch us using our great
Horace after such a fashion!"
"I just wish he might," answered Juan, with a mischievous sparkle in his
black eyes.
The matter of height being thus satisfactorily adjusted, the game began,
and for some time went merrily forward. To do the elder brother
justice, he gave every advantage to his less active and less skilful
companion; often shouting (with very unnecessary exertion of his lungs)
words of direction or warning about fore-thrust, side-thrust, back-hand
strokes, hitting, and parrying. At last, however, in an unlucky moment,
Carlos, through some awkward movement of his own in violation of the
rules of the game, received a blow on the cheek from his brother's foil,
severe enough to make the blood flow. Juan instantly sprang forward,
full of vexation, with an "Ay de mi!" on his lips. But Carlos turned
away from him, covering his face with both hands; and Juan, much to his
disgust, soon heard the sound of a heavy sob.
"You little coward!" he exclaimed, "to weep for a blow. Shame--shame
upon you."
"Coward yourself, to call me ill names when I cannot fight you,"
retorted Carlos, as soon as he could speak for weeping.
"That is ever your way, little tearful. _You_ to talk of going to find
our father! A brave man you would make to sail to the Indies and fight
the savages. Better sit at home and spin, with Mother Dolores."
Far too deeply stung to find a proverb suited to the occasion, or indeed
to make any answer whatever, Carlos, still in tears, left the hall with
hasty footsteps, and took refuge in a smaller apartment that opened into
it.
The hangings of this room were comparatively new and very beautiful,
being tastefully wrought with the needle; and the furniture was much
more costly than that in the hall. There was also a glazed window, and
near this Carlos took his stand, looking moodily out on the falling
rain, and thinking hard thoughts of his brother, who had first hurt him
so sorely, then called him coward, and last, and far worst of all, had
taunted him with his unfitness for the task which, child as he was, his
whole heart and soul were bent on attempting.
But he could not quarrel very seriously with Juan, nor indeed could he
for any considerable time do without him. Before long his anger began
to give way to utter loneliness and discomfort, and a great longing to
"be friends" again.
Nor was Juan much more comfortable, though he told himself he was quite
right to reprove his brother sharply for his lack of manliness; and that
he would be ready to die for shame if Carlos, when he went to Seville,
should disgrace himself before his cousins by crying when he was hurt,
like a baby or a girl. It is true that in his heart he rather wished he
himself had held his peace, or at least had spoken more gently; but he
braved it out, and stamped up and down the hall, singing, in as cheery a
voice as he could command,--
"The Cid rode through the horse-shoe gate, Omega like it stood,
A symbol of the moon that waned before the Christian rood.
He was all sheathed in golden mail, his cloak was white as
shroud:
His vizor down, his sword unsheathed, corpse still he rode, and
proud."
"Ruy!" Carlos called at last, just a little timidly, from the next
room--"Ruy!"
Ruy is the Spanish diminutive of Rodrigo, Juan's second name, and the
one by which, for reasons of his own, it pleased him best to be called;
so the very use of it by Carlos was a kind of overture for peace. Juan
came right gladly at the call; and having convinced himself, by a
moment's inspection, that his brother's hurt signified nothing, he
completed the reconciliation by putting his arm, in familiar boyish
fashion, round his neck. Thus, without a word spoken, the brief quarrel
was at an end. It happened that the rain was over also, and the sun
just beginning to shine out again. It was, indeed, an effect of the
sunlight which had given Carlos a pretext for calling Juan again to his
side.
"Look, Ruy," he said, "the sun shines on our father's words!"
These children had a secret of their own, carefully guarded, with the
strange reticence of childhood, even from Dolores, who had been the
faithful nurse of their infancy, and who still cast upon their young
lives the only shadow of motherly love they had ever known--a shadow, it
is true, pale and faint, yet the best thing that had fallen to their
lot: for even Juan could remember neither parent; while Carlos had never
seen his father's face, and his mother had died at his birth.
Yet it happened that in the imaginary world which the children had
created around them, and where they chiefly lived, their unknown father
was by far the most important personage. All great nations in their
childhood have their legends, their epics, written or unwritten, and
their hero, one or many of them, upon whose exploits Fancy rings its
changes at will during the ages when national language, literature, and
character are in process of development. So it is with individuals.
Children of imagination--especially if they are brought up in seclusion,
and guarded from coarse and worldly companionship--are sure to have
their legends, perhaps their unwritten epic, certainly their hero. Nor
are these dreams of childhood idle fancies. In their time they are good
and beautiful gifts of God--healthful for the present, helpful for
after-years. There is deep truth in the poet's words, "When thou art a
man, reverence the dreams of thy youth."
The Cid Campeador, the Charlemagne, and the King Arthur of our youthful
Spanish brothers, was no other than Don Juan Alvarez de Menaya, second
and last Conde de Nuera. And as the historical foundation of national
romance is apt to be of the slightest--nay, the testimony of credible
history is often ruthlessly set at defiance--so it is with the romances
of children; nor did the present instance form any exception. All the
world said that their father's bones lay bleaching on a wild Araucanian
battle-field; but this went for nothing in the eyes of Juan and Carlos
Alvarez. Quite enough to build their childish faith upon was a
confidential whisper of Dolores--when she thought them sleeping--to the
village barber-surgeon, who was helping her to tend them through some
childish malady: "Dead? Would to all the Saints, and the blessed Queen
of Heaven, that we only had assurance of it!"
They had, however, more than this. Almost every day they read and
re-read those mysterious words, traced with a diamond by their father's
hand--as it never entered their heads to doubt--on the window of the
room which had once been his favourite place of retirement:--
"El Dorado
Yo he trovado."
"I have found El Dorado."
No eyes but their own had ever noticed this inscription; and marvellous
indeed was the superstructure their fancy contrived to raise on the
slight and airy foundation of its enigmatical five words. They had
heard from the lips of Diego many of the fables current at the period
about the "golden country" of which Spanish adventurers dreamed so
wildly, and which they sought so vainly in the New World. They were
aware that their father in his early days had actually made a voyage to
the Indies: and they had thoroughly persuaded themselves, therefore, of
nothing less than that he was the fortunate discoverer of El Dorado;
that he had returned thither, and was reigning there as a king, rich and
happy--only, perhaps, longing for his brave boys to come and join him.
And join him one day they surely would, even though unheard of dangers
(of which giants twelve feet high and fiery dragons--things in which
they quite believed--were among the least) might lie in their way, thick
as the leaves of the cork-trees when the autumn winds swept down through
the mountain gorges.
"Look, Ruy," said Carlos, "the light is on our father's words!"
"So it is! What good fortune is coming now? Something always comes to
us when they look like that."
"What do you wish for most?"
"A new bow, and a set of real arrows tipped with steel. And you?"
"Well--the 'Chronicles of the Cid,' I think."
"I should like that too. But I should like better still--"
"What!"
"That Fray Sebastian would fall ill of the rheum, and find the mountain
air too cold for his health; or get some kind of good place at his
beloved Complutum."
"We might go farther and fare worse, like those that go to look for
better bread than wheaten," returned Carlos, laughing. "Wish again,
Juan; and truly this time--your wish of wishes."
"What else but to find my father?"
"I mean, next to that."
"Well, truly, to go once more to Seville, to see the shops, and the
bull-fights, and the great Church; to tilt with our cousins, and dance
the cachuca with Dona Beatriz."
"That would not I. There be folk that go out for wool, and come home
shorn. Though I like Dona Beatriz as well as any one."
"Hush! here comes Dolores."
A tall, slender woman, robed in black serge, relieved by a neat white
head-dress, entered the room. Dark hair, threaded with silver, and
pale, sunken, care-worn features, made her look older than she really
was. She had once been beautiful; and it seemed as though her beauty
had been burned up in the glare of some fierce agony, rather than had
faded gradually beneath the suns of passing years. With the silent
strength of a deep, passionate heart, that had nothing else left to
cling to, Dolores loved the children of her idolized mistress and
foster-sister. It was chiefly her talent and energy that kept together
the poor remains of their fortune. She surrounded them with as many
inexpensive comforts as possible; still, like a true Spaniard, she would
at any moment have sacrificed their comfort to the maintenance of their
rank, or the due upholding of their dignity. On this occasion she held
an open letter in her hand.
"Young gentlemen," she said, using the formal style of address no
familiarity ever induced her to drop, "I bring your worships good
tidings. Your noble uncle, Don Manuel, is about to honour your castle
with his presence."
"Good tidings indeed! I am as glad as if you had given me a satin
doublet. He may take us back with him to Seville," cried Juan.
"He might have stayed at home, with good luck and my blessing," murmured
Carlos.
"Whether you go to Seville or no, Senor Don Juan," said Dolores,
gravely, "may very probably depend on the contentment you give your
noble uncle respecting your progress in your Latin, your grammar, and
your other humanities."
"A green fig for my noble uncle's contentment!" said Juan, irreverently.
"I know already as much as any gentleman need, and ten times more than
he does himself."
"Ay, truly," struck in Carlos, coming forward from the embrasure of the
window; "my uncle thinks a man of learning--except he be a fellow of
college, perchance--not worth his ears full of water. I heard him say
such only trouble the world, and bring sorrow on themselves and all
their kin. So, Juan, it is you who are likely to find favour in his
sight, after all."
"Senor Don Carlos, what ails your face?" asked Dolores, noticing now for
the first time the marks of the hurt he had received.
Both the boys spoke together.
"Only a blow caught in fencing; all through my own awkwardness. It is
nothing," said Carlos, eagerly.
"I hurt him with my foil. It was a mischance. I am very sorry," said
Juan, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.
Dolores wisely abstained from exhorting them to greater carefulness.
She only said,--
"Young gentlemen who mean to be knights and captains must learn to give
hard blows and take them." Adding mentally--"Bless the lads! May they
stand by each other as loyally ten or twenty years hence as they do
now."