"And I should evermore be vexed with thee
In vacant robe, or hanging ornament,
Or ghostly foot-fall lingering on the stair."--Tennyson
The journey from the city of oranges to the green slopes of the Sierra
Morena ought to have been a delightful one to Don Carlos Alvarez. It
was certainly bright with hope. He scarcely harboured a doubt of the
ultimate success of his plans, and the consequent attainment of all his
wishes. Already he seemed to feel the soft hand of Dona Beatriz in his,
and to stand by her side before the high altar of the great Cathedral.
And yet, as days passed on, the brightness within grew fainter, and an
acknowledged shadow, ever deepening, began to take its place. At last
he drew near his home, and rode through the little grove of cork-trees
where he and Juan had played as children. When last they were there
together the autumn winds were strewing the leaves, all dim and
discoloured, about their paths. Now he looked through the fresh green
foliage at the deep intense blue of the summer sky. But, though
scarcely more than twenty, he felt at that moment old and worn, and
wished back the time of his boyish sports with his brother. Never again
could he feel quite happy with Juan.
Soon, however, his sorrowful fancies were put to flight by the joyous
greeting of the hounds, who rushed with much clamour from the
castle-yard to welcome him. There they were, all of them--Pedro, Zina,
Pepe, Grullo, Butron--it was Juan who had named them, every one. And
there, at the gate, stood Diego and Dolores, ready to give him joyful
welcome. Throwing himself from his horse, he shook hands with these
faithful old retainers, and answered their kindly but respectful
inquiries both for himself and Senor Don Juan. Then, having caressed
the dogs, inquired for each of the under-servants by name, and given
orders for the due entertainment of his guard, he passed on slowly into
the great deserted hall.
His arrival being unexpected, he merely surrendered his travelling cloak
into the hands of Diego, and sat down to wait patiently while the
servants, always dilatory, prepared for him suitable accommodation.
Dolores soon appeared with a flask of wine and some bread and grapes;
but this was only a _merienda_, or slight afternoon luncheon, which she
laid before her young master until she could make ready a supper fit for
him to partake of. Carlos spent half an hour listening to her tidings
of the household and the village, and felt sorry when she quitted the
room and left him to his own reflections.
Every object on which his eyes rested reminded him of his brother.
There hung the cross-bow with which, in old days, Juan had made such
vigorous war on the rooks and the sparrows. There lay the foils and the
canes with which they had so often fenced and played; Juan, in his
unquestioned superiority, usually so patient with the younger brother's
timidity and awkwardness. And upon that bench he had carved, with a
hunting-knife, his name in full, adding the title that had expired with
his father, "Conde de Nuera."
The memories these things recalled were becoming intrusive: he would
fain shake them off. Gladly would he have had recourse to his favourite
pastime of reading, but there was not a book in the castle, to his
knowledge, except the breviary he had brought with him. For lack of
more congenial occupation, he went out at last to the stable to look at
the horses, and to talk to those who were grooming and feeding them.
Later in the evening Dolores told him that supper was ready, adding that
she had laid it in the small inner room, which she thought Senor Don
Carlos would find more comfortable than the great hall.
That inner room was, even more than the hall, haunted by the shadowy
presence of Juan. But it was usually daylight when the brothers were
there together. Now, a tapestry curtain shaded the window, and a silver
lamp shed its light on the well-spread table with its snowy drapery, and
cover laid for one.
A lonely meal, however luxurious, is always apt to be somewhat dreary;
it seems a provision for the lowest wants of our nature, and nothing
more. Carlos sought to escape from the depressing influence by giving
wings to his imagination, and dreaming of the time when wealth enough to
repair and refurnish that half-ruinous old homestead might be his. He
pleased himself with pictures of the long tables in the great hall,
groaning beneath the weight of a bountiful provision for a merry company
of guests, upon whom the sweet face of Dona Beatriz might beam a
welcome. But how idle such fancies! The castle, after all, was Juan's,
not his. Unless, indeed, more difficulties than one should be solved by
Juan's death upon some French or Flemish battle-field. This thought he
could not bear to entertain. Grown suddenly sick at heart, he pushed
aside his plate of stewed pigeon, and, regardless of the feelings of
Dolores, sent away untasted her dessert of sweet butter-cakes dipped in
honey. He was weary, he said, and he would go to rest at once.
It was long before sleep would visit his eyelids; and when at last it
came, his brother's dark reproachful eyes haunted him still. At
daybreak he awoke with a start from a feverish dream that Juan, all pale
and ghostlike, had come to his bedside, and laying his hand on his arm,
said solemnly, "I claim the jewel I left thee in trust."
Further sleep was impossible. He rose, and wandered out into the fresh
air. As yet no one was astir. Fair and sweet was all that met his
gaze: the faint pearly light, the first blush of dawn in the quiet sky,
the silvery dew that bathed his footsteps. But the storm within raged
more fiercely for the calm without. There was first an agonizing
struggle to repress the rising thought, "Better, after all, _not_ to do
this thing." But, in spite of his passionate efforts, the thought
gained a hearing, it seemed to cry aloud within him, "Better, after all,
not to betray Juan!" "And give up Beatriz forever? _For ever!_" he
repeated over and over again, beating it
"In upon his weary brain,
As though it were the burden of a song."
He had climbed, almost unawares, to the top of a rocky hill; and now he
stood, looking around him at the prospect, just as if he saw it. In
truth, he saw nothing, felt nothing outward, until at last a misty
mountain rain swept in his face, refreshing his burning brow with a
touch as of cool fingers.
Then he descended mechanically. Exchanging salutations (as if nothing
were amiss with him) with the milk-maid and the wood-boy, he crossed the
open courtyard and re-entered the hall. There Dolores, and a girl who
worked under her, were already busy, so he passed by them into the inner
room.
Its darkness seemed to stifle him; with hasty hand he drew aside the
heavy tapestry curtain. As he did so something caught his eye. For the
hundredth time he re-read the mystic inscription on the glass:
"El Dorado
Yo he trovado."
And, as an infant's touch may open a sluice that lets in the mighty
ocean, those simple words broke up the fountains of the great deep
within. He gave full course to the emotions they awakened. Again he
heard Juan's voice repeat them; again he saw Juan's deep earnest eyes
look into his; not now reproachfully, but with full unshaken trust, as
in the old days when first he said, "We will go forth together and find
our father."
"Juan--brother!" he cried aloud, "I will never wrong thee, so help me
God!" At that moment the morning sun, having scattered the mists with
the glory of its rising, sent one of its early beams to kiss the
handwriting on the window-pane. "Old token for good," thought Carlos,
whose imaginative nature could play with fancies even in the hours of
supreme emotion. "And true still even yet. Only the good is all for
Juan; for me--nothing but despair."
And so Don Carlos found his "desengano," or disenchantment, and it was a
very thorough one.
Body and mind were well-nigh exhausted with the violence of the
struggle. Perhaps this was fortunate, in so far that it won for the
decision of his better nature a more rapid and easy acceptance. In a
sense and for a season any decision was welcome to the weary,
tempest-tossed soul.
It was afterwards that he asked himself how were long years to be
dragged on without the face that was the joy of his heart and the life
of his life? How was he to bear the never-ending pain, the aching
loneliness, of such a lot? Better to die at once than to endure this
slow, living death. He knew well that it was not in his nature to point
the pistol or the dagger at his own breast. But he might pine away and
die silently--as many thousands die--of blighted hopes and a ruined
life. Or--and this was more likely, perhaps--as time passed on he might
grow dead and hard in soul; until at last he would become a dry, cold,
mechanical mass-priest, mumbling the Church's Latin with thin, bloodless
lips, a keen eye to his dues, and a heart that might serve for a Church
relic, so much faith would it require to believe that it had been warm
and living once.
Still, laudably anxious to provide against possible future waverings of
the decision so painfully attained, he wrote informing his uncle of his
safe arrival; adding that he had fully made up his mind to take Orders
at Christmas, but that he found it advisable to remain in his present
quarters for a month or two. He at once dispatched two of the
men-at-arms with the letter; and much was the thrifty Don Manuel
surprised that his nephew should spend a handful of silver reals in
order to inform him of what he knew already.
Gloomily the day wore on. The instinctive reserve of a sensitive nature
made Carlos talk to the servants, receive the accounts, inspect the kine
and sheep--do everything, in short, except eat and drink--as he would
have done if a great sorrow had not all the time been crushing his
heart. It is true that Dolores, who loved him as her own son, was not
deceived. It was for no trivial cause that the young master was pale as
a corpse, restless and irritable, talking hurriedly by fitful snatches,
and then relapsing into moody silence. But Dolores was a prudent woman,
as well as a loving and faithful one; therefore she held her peace, and
bided her time.
But Carlos noticed one effort she made to console him. Coming in towards
evening from a consultation with Diego about some cork-trees which a
Morisco merchantman wished to purchase and cut down, he saw upon his
table a carefully sealed wine-flask, with a cup beside it. He knew
whence it came. His father had left in the cellar a small quantity of
choice wine of Xeres; and this relic of more prosperous times being,
like most of their other possessions, in the care of Dolores, was only
produced very sparingly, and on rare occasions. But she evidently
thought "Senor Don Carlos" needed it now. Touched by her watchful,
unobtrusive affection, he would have gratified her by drinking; but he
had a peculiar dislike to drinking alone, while he knew he would only
render his sanity doubtful by inviting either her or Diego to share the
luxurious beverage. So he put it aside for the present, and drew
towards him a sheet of figures, an inkhorn, and a pen. He could not
work, however. With the silence and solitude, his great grief came back
upon him again. But nature all this time had been silently working for
him. His despair was giving way to a more violent but less bitter
sorrow. Tears came now: a long, passionate fit of weeping relieved his
aching heart. Since his early childhood he had not wept thus.
An approaching footstep recalled him to himself. He rose with haste and
shame, and stood beside the window, hoping that his position and the
waning light might together shield him from observation. It was only
Dolores.
"Senor," she said, entering somewhat hastily, "will it please you to see
to those men of Seville that came with your Excellency? They are
insulting a poor little muleteer, and threatening to rob his packages."
Yanguesian carriers and other muleteers, bringing goods across the
Sierra Morena from the towns of La Mancha to those of Andalusia, often
passed by the castle, and sometimes received hospitality there. Carlos
rose at once at the summons, saying to Dolores--
"Where is the boy?"
"He is not a boy, senor, he is a man; a very little man, but with a
greater spirit, if I mistake not, than some twice his size."
It was true enough. On the green plot at the back of the castle, beside
which the mountain pathway led, there were gathered the ten or twelve
rough Seville pikemen, taken from the lowest of the population, and most
of them of Moorish blood. In their midst, beside the foremost of his
three mules, with one arm thrown round her neck and the other raised to
give effect by animated gestures to his eager oratory, stood the
muleteer. He was a very short, spare, active-looking man, clad from
head to foot in chestnut-coloured leather. His mules were well laden;
each with three large alforjas, one at each side and one laid across the
neck. But they were evidently well fed and cared for also; and they
presented a gay appearance, with their adornments of bright-coloured
worsted tassels and tiny bells.
"You know, my friends," the muleteer was saying, as Carlos came within
hearing, "an arriero's alforjas[#] are like a soldier's colours,--it
stands him upon his honour to guard them inviolate. No, no! Ask him for
aught else--his purse, his blood--they are at your service; but never
touch his colours, if you care for a long life."
[#] _Arriero_, muleteer; _alforjas_, bags.
"My honest friend, your colours, as you call them, shall be safe here,"
said Carlos, kindly.
The muleteer turned towards him a good-humoured, intelligent face, and,
bowing low, thanked him heartily.
"What is your name?" asked Carlos; "and whence do you come?"
"I am Juliano; Juliano el Chico (Julian the Little) men generally call
me--since, as your Excellency sees, I am not very great. And I come
last from Toledo."
"Indeed! And what wares do you carry?"
"Some matters, small in bulk, yet costly, which I am bringing for a
Seville merchant--Medel de Espinosa by name, if your worship has heard
of him? I have mirrors, for example, of a new kind; excellent in
workmanship, and true as steel, as well they may be."
"I know the shop of Espinosa well. I have been much in Seville," said
Carlos, with a sudden pang, caused by the recollection of the many
pretty trifles that he had purchased there for Dona Beatrix. "But
follow me, my friend, and a good supper shall make you amends for the
rudeness of these fellows.--Andres, take the best care thou canst of his
mules; 'twill be only fair penance for thy sin in molesting their
owner."
"A hundred thousand thanks, senor. Still, with your worship's good
leave, and no offence to friend Andres, I had rather look to the beasts
myself. We are old companions; they know my ways, and I know theirs."
"As you please, my good fellow. Andres will show you the stable, and I
shall tell my mayor-domo to see that you lack nothing."
"Again I render to your Excellency my poor but hearty thanks."
Carlos went in, gave the necessary directions to Diego, and then
returned to his solitary chamber.