"Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of morning,
Her tears and her smiles are worth evening's best light."--Moore
Few are the lives in which seven years come and go with out witnessing
any great event. But whether they are eventful or no, the years that
change children into men must necessarily be important. Three years of
these important seven, Juan and Carlos Alvarez spent in their mountain
home, the remaining four at the University of Alcala, or Complutum. The
university training was of course needful for the younger brother, who
was intended for the Church. That the elder was allowed to share the
privilege, although destined for the profession of arms, was the result
of circumstances. His guardian, Don Manuel Alvarez, although worldly
and selfish, still retained a lingering regard for the memory of that
lost brother whose latest message to him had been, "Have my boy
carefully educated." And, moreover, he could scarcely have left the
high-spirited youth to wear out the years that must elapse before he
could obtain his commission in the dreary solitude of his mountain home,
with Diego and Dolores for companions, and for sole amusement, a horse
and a few greyhounds. Better that he should take his chance at Alcala,
and enjoy himself there as best he might, with no obligation to severe
study, and but one duty strongly impressed on him--that of keeping out
of debt.
He derived real benefit from the university training, though no academic
laurels rested on his brow, nor did he take a degree. Fray Sebastian
had taught him to read and write, and had even contrived to pass him
through the Latin grammar, of which he afterwards remembered scarcely
anything. To have urged him to learn more would have required severity
only too popular at the time; but this Fray Sebastian was too timid,
perhaps too prudent, to employ; while of interesting him in his studies
he never thought. At Alcala, however, he was interested. He did not
care, indeed, for the ordinary scholastic course; but he found in the
college library all the books yet written in his native language, and it
was then the palmy age of Spanish literature. Beginning with the poems
and romances relating to the history of his country, he read through
everything; poetry, romance, history, science, nothing came amiss to
him, except perhaps theology. He studied with especial care all that
had reference to the story of the New World, whither he hoped one day to
go. He attended lectures; he even acquired Latin enough to learn
anything he really wanted to know, and could not find except in that
language.
Thus, at the end of his four years' residence, he had acquired a good
deal of useful though somewhat desultory information; and he had gained
the art of expressing himself in the purest Castilian, by tongue or pen,
with energy, vigour, and precision.
The sixteenth century gives us many specimens of such men--and not a few
of them were Spaniards--men of intelligence and general cultivation,
whose profession was that of arms, but who can handle the pen with as
much ease and dexterity as the sword; men who could not only do valiant
deeds, but also describe them when done, and that often with singular
effectiveness.
With his contemporaries Juan was popular, for his pride was
inaggressive, and his fiery temper was counterbalanced by great
generosity of disposition. During his residence at Alcala he fought
three duels; one to chastise a fellow-student who had called his brother
"Dona Carlotta," the other two on being provoked by the far more serious
offence of covert sneers at his father's memory. He also caned severely
a youth whom he did not think of sufficient rank to honour with his
sword, merely for observing, when Carlos won a prize from him, "Don
Carlos Alvarez unites genius and industry, as he would need to do, who
is _the son of his own good works_." But afterwards, when the same
student was in danger, through poverty, of having to give up his career
and return home, Juan stole into his chamber during his absence, and
furtively deposited four gold ducats (which he could ill spare) between
the leaves of his breviary.
Far more outwardly successful, but more really disastrous, was the
academic career of Carlos. As student of theology, most of his days,
and even some of his nights, were spent over the musty tomes of the
Schoolmen. Like living water on the desert, his young bright intellect
was poured out on the dreary sands of scholastic divinity (little else,
in truth, than "bad metaphysics"), to no appreciable result, except its
own utter waste. The kindred study of casuistry was even worse than
waste of intellect; it was positive defilement and degradation. It was
bad enough to tread with painful steps through roads that led nowhere;
but it became worse when the roads were miry, and the mud at every step
clung to the traveller's feet. Though here the parallel must cease; for
the moral defilement, alas! is most deadly and dangerous when least felt
or heeded.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, according as we look on the things seen
or the things not seen, Carlos offered to his instructors admirable raw
material out of which to fashion a successful, even a great Churchman.
He came to them a stripling of fifteen, innocent, truthful,
affectionate. He had "parts," as they styled them, and singularly good
ones. He had just the acute perception, the fine and ready wit, which
enabled him to cut his way through scholastic subtleties and conceits
with ease and credit. And, to do his teachers justice, they sharpened
his intellectual weapon well, until its temper grew as exquisite as that
of the scimitar of Saladin, which could divide a gauze kerchief by the
thread at a single blow. But how would it fare with such a weapon, and
with him who, having proved no other, could wield only that, in the
great conflict with the Dragon that guarded the golden apples of truth?
The question is idle, for truth was a luxury of which Carlos was not
taught to dream. To find truth, to think truth, to speak truth, to act
truth, was not placed before him as an object worth his attainment. Not
the _True_, but the _Best_, was always held up to him as the mark to be
aimed at: the best for the Church, the best for his family, the best for
himself.
He had much imagination, he was quick in invention and ready in
expedients; good gifts in themselves, but very perilous where the sense
of truth is lacking, or blunted. He was timid, as sensitive and
reflective natures are apt to be, perhaps also from physical causes.
And in those rough ages, the Church offered almost the only path in
which the timid man could not only escape infamy, but actually attain to
honour. In her service a strong head could more than atone for weak
nerves. Power, fame, wealth, might be gained in abundance by the
Churchman without stirring from his cell or chapel, or facing a single
drawn sword or loaded musket. Always provided that his subtle,
cultivated intellect could guide the rough hands that wielded the
swords, or, better still, the crowned head that commanded them.
There may have been even then at that very university (there certainly
were a few years earlier), a little band of students who had quite other
aims, and who followed other studies than those from which Carlos hoped
to reap worldly success and fame. These youths really desired to find
the truth and to keep it; and therefore they turned from the pages of
the Fathers and the Schoolmen to the Scriptures in the original
languages. But the "Biblists," as they were called, were few and
obscure. Carlos did not, during his whole term of residence, come in
contact with any of them. The study of Hebrew, and even of Greek, was
by this time discouraged; the breath of calumny had blown upon it,
linking it with all that was horrible in the eyes of Spanish Catholics,
summed up in the one word, heresy. Carlos never even dreamed of any
excursion out of the beaten path marked out for him, and which he was
travelling so successfully as to distance nearly all his competitors.
Both Juan and Carlos still clung fondly to their early dream; though
their wider knowledge had necessarily modified some of its details.
Carlos, at least, was not quite so confident as he had once been about
the existence of El Dorado; but he was as fully determined as Juan to
search out the mystery of their father's fate, and either to clasp his
living hand, or to stand beside his grave. The love of the brothers,
and their trust in each other, had only strengthened with their years,
and was beautiful to witness.
Occasional journeys to Seville, and brief intervals of making holiday
there, varied the monotony of their college life, and were not without
important results.
It was the summer of 1556. The great Carlos, so lately King and Kaiser,
had laid down the heavy burden of sovereignty, and would soon be on his
way to pleasant San Yuste, to mortify the flesh, and prepare for his
approaching end, as the world believed; but in reality to eat, drink,
and enjoy himself as well as his worn-out body and mind would allow him.
Just then our young Juan, healthy, hearty, hopeful, and with the world
before him, received the long wished-for appointment in the army of the
new King of all the Spains, Don Felipe Segunde.
The brothers have eaten their last temperate meal together, in their
handsome, though not very comfortable, lodging at Alcala. Juan pushes
away the wine-cup that Carlos would fain have refilled, and toys
absently with the rind of a melon. "Carlos," he says, without looking
his brother in the face, "remember that thing of which we spoke;" adding
in lower and more earnest tones, "and so may God remember thee."
"Surely, brother. You have, however, little to fear."
"Little to fear!" and there was the old quick flash in the dark eyes.
"Because, forsooth, to spare my aunt's selfishness and my cousin's
vanity, she must not be seen at dance, or theatre, or bull-feast? It is
enough for her to show her face on the Alameda or at mass to raise me up
a host of rivals."
"Still, my uncle favours you; and Dona Beatriz herself will not be found
of a different mind when you come home with your promotion and your
glory, as you will, my Ruy!"
"Then, brother, watch thou in my absence, and fail not to speak the
right word at the right moment, as thou canst so well. So shall I hold
myself at ease, and give my whole mind to the noble task of breaking the
heads of all the enemies of my liege lord the king."
Then, rising from the table, he girt on his new Toledo sword with its
embroidered belt, threw over his shoulders his short scarlet cloak, and
flung a gay velvet montero over his rich black curls. Don Carlos went
out with him, and mounting the horses a lad from their country-home held
in readiness, they rode together down the street and through the gate of
Alcala Don Juan followed by many an admiring gaze, and many a hearty
"Vaya con Dios,"[#] from his late companions.
[#] Go with God.