The Spanish Cavalier Part 20

Alcala's pale features showed the sufferings which he had lately undergone: he looked like one newly risen from a sick-bed, with sunken cheek, colourless lip, and languid eye. As with graceful courtesy the cavalier proffered his wasted hand to the lady, on the minds of both Alcala and Antonia flashed back memory of the hour when that hand had been deemed unworthy to touch the white kid glove of the heiress--that hour when, like an empress, she had stepped into her galley on the glittering Guadalquivir.

Silently Alcala conducted Antonia through the arched way to the carriage which was to bear her from Seville. Not till she had placed her foot on the carriage-step did the cavalier utter a word.

"Farewell, senorita!" said Alcala. Antonia turned towards him, but in silence; the eyes of the two met--it was the last look that was ever to pa.s.s between them. Soon the motion of the rolling wheels separated Alcala and Antonia de Rivadeo for ever.

But for the support of Lucius's arm, Alcala could hardly have walked back to the patio. He sank down wearily on the first seat that he reached, too much exhausted to do more than extend his hand, with a faint smile on his lips, to Inez, who knelt by his side.

"Bring wine, Teresa!" cried Inez, looking anxiously at the face of her brother.

"Wine!" exclaimed the old woman, stung into momentary forgetfulness of the presence of the English stranger--"wine!" she repeated bitterly, "when the last drop left in this ruined house was poured out for that proud woman; and there's not a cuarto in the coffer to buy more for the caballero if his life depended upon it! Woe, woe to the Aguileras!"

"Never say so!" cried Lucius Lepine, and the joy of being the bearer of good news seemed to the young man at that moment to outweigh all that he had gone through to procure it. "The Aguileras have a casket of golden plate and rich jewels safely buried near a palm-tree beside a wood, not two miles from Seville; they have only to dig it out and possess it. Donna Inez, the Englishman has kept his word."

"A casket of gold plate and jewels!" almost screamed out Teresa, who scarcely dared to believe her own ears; "you don't say it--you can't mean it!--what! the box with clamps of steel, the old senora's jewel-case, which I've handled many a day!" The wrinkled hand laid on the arm of Lucius was shaking with violent excitement.

"I do say it--I do mean it," replied Lucius, whose countenance was beaming with pleasure.

"But, my friend, how is this possible?" asked Alcala; "the miserable Chico--"

"Lies murdered by his own accomplices," said Lucius more gravely; "fearful retribution has overtaken the servant who robbed his master."

Lucius then recounted to his deeply interested hearers the tale of his night's adventures, dwelling as lightly as he could on what only related to himself. No one interrupted the narration, save Teresa, who could not refrain ever and anon from uttering some e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, now of indignation, now of delight. When Lucius came to the account of burying the box near the palm-tree, the old duenna could restrain her feelings no longer. To the astonishment of the Englishman she suddenly flung herself at his feet, and clasped his knees in an ecstasy of grat.i.tude, admiration, and joy!

"The blessing of all the saints be upon you, brave, n.o.ble Senor Inglesito!" exclaimed old Teresa, while tears streamed down her wrinkled face; "if you were as deep-dyed a heretic as Luther himself, I would bless you a thousand times over! You have saved a n.o.ble family from ruin!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

A TREASURE.

Perhaps the proudest and happiest hour of Teresa's life was that in which she saw the treasure, the family heirlooms, in the hands of Alcala de Aguilera, as they were on the following day. Teresa clasped the steel-clamped box as if it had been a living child. Would she not burnish up the rusted metal till every hinge should s.h.i.+ne as brightly as Aguilera's honour! The duenna handled the contents of the case with as much reverence as she might have shown to the hair of Santa Veronica! Every article in that jewel-box had its history for Teresa.

That bracelet was a wedding-gift from a d.u.c.h.ess to the mother of Alcala and Inez; that ring had been worn by a cavalier who had slain three Moors with his own right hand; that gold snuff-box was a gift from the Empress Catherine to an Aguilera then amba.s.sador at the Russian Court; those medals were, every one of them, tokens of some gallant deed performed by one of the ancestors of Alcala. Teresa counted each pearl in the chaplet, and every link in the ma.s.sive gold chain.

Alcala and Inez watched with amus.e.m.e.nt the old duenna's delight.

"Nay, Teresa, lay not down that chain," said De Aguilera; "you have well earned some little acknowledgment of your long and faithful service. The very first use which we make of our newly-recovered property is to show our grat.i.tude to her who in weal or woe has never forsaken our house."

"The chain--for me!" exclaimed the astonished duenna; "what could the like of me do with so costly an ornament as this?"

"Turn it into dollars," said Alcala quietly; but the Spanish cavalier could not help a flush rising to his cheek as he added, "as I am going to turn the goblet of gold."

Teresa looked aghast at such an unexpected announcement. She could scarcely believe that anything could induce Alcala to part with that splendid relic of family grandeur, embossed with the Aguilera arms--a goblet which had been touched by the lips of princes--a goblet which had been the most costly ornament of a table at which a hundred guests had sat down.

"Better part with anything than with that!" exclaimed the old servant, making a pa.s.sionate protest against what seemed to her little short of sacrilege.

"I have talked the subject over with my sister," replied Aguilera; "neither of us would touch our grandmother's property during her lifetime, and the greater part of the gems are hers. Nor is this a time for disposing of jewels; for that we must wait for more quiet days. Gold always commands its value."

"But that goblet," expostulated Teresa--"that which was the pride of your house!"

"Teresa, I must have nothing more to do with pride," said Alcala gravely but kindly. "I have renounced the pride of life as one of those things which are inconsistent with the character of a Christian."

Inez saw that this was an argument incomprehensible to Teresa, and in her own gentle way the Spanish maiden brought forward others which had a far greater effect upon the old servant's mind. Donna Benita should now have the little pleasures which she could yet enjoy, and the comforts which she required; so many things had long been needed by the family which could now be procured by the sacrifice of one costly cup. Surely, suggested Inez, it was better to have food in an earthenware dish, than to sit hungry at a board laden with empty plate, albeit of gold.

Teresa drew a deep sigh; she could not gainsay her young lady's words, but she looked at the doomed goblet with tearful eyes, as a parent might look at a child from whom she was forced to part.

"Oh, senor," cried Teresa with emotion, "grant to me but one boon; it is but a small one--it will cost you no effort or loss--it is the first favour which your old servant ever has asked of her master."

"It will scarcely be denied," said Alcala.

"Before you sell that precious heirloom, bid to a banquet those two English senors who have seen you in your--your difficulties; the brave caballero who recovered your treasure, and the elder one whose"--Teresa could not bring herself to say, "whose salary you have stooped to earn," so she described Mr. Pa.s.smore as he whose head was bald with age.

Alcala could not altogether disappoint the earnestly expressed wish of his old retainer, or deny her the gratification of letting his late employer see some proof of the wealth once enjoyed by the family of his clerk. Teresa's "banquet" was, however, reduced to a simple evening collation, to which not a single guest but the two Englishmen was to be invited. Teresa would fain have had all the great and wealthy inhabitants of Seville bidden to a grand entertainment, and have had the goblet of gold pa.s.s down the length of a table thronged with as many guests as had found place at the wedding-feast of Don Pedro de Aguilera.

"Our poor Teresa thinks our newly-found treasure inexhaustible," said Inez with a happy smile to her brother, when the duenna had hurried off to make purchases of some of the innumerable articles which she had now discovered to be indispensable. "Of what are you thinking, my Alcala?" continued Inez, laying her hand caressingly on that of her brother, and looking up lovingly into his face, which wore an expression of deeper thought than usual.

"I was thinking, dearest, of another to us long-buried and newly-recovered treasure, even the written Word of G.o.d," replied Alcala. "This in itself is truly inexhaustible wealth. Our country, our beautiful Spain, basely robbed of that treasure, has for ages been poor indeed! But Heaven is restoring to us now that which is beyond all price, even the knowledge of gospel truth. May we Spaniards be given grace to hold fast to the end that doctrine for which so many martyrs have perished in the flames,--the doctrine of justification by faith!"

The attention of both Alcala and of his friend Lucius being now earnestly directed to the subject of the evangelization of Spain, they found, with both pleasure and surprise, how many faithful labourers had been in the field before them. As in our own city, strangers might pa.s.s through hundreds of streets, marvel at the traffic of London, and wonder at its wealth, and yet be unaware all the time that, underground and out of sight, trains are rapidly bearing its merchant princes from place to place,--so those who had believed themselves well acquainted with Spain had lived in almost total ignorance of a great hidden work going on beneath the surface of society. Alcala and Lucius now heard for the first time of the band of Spanish reformers who had been receiving instruction from a Scotch minister[22] on the rock of Gibraltar. They now first heard of the gifted convert from Romanism, Jean Baptista Cabrera, gathering around him these his brethren, the hope of the infant Church, and organizing them to form a band of faithful confessors, who, in the name of the only Saviour, should bear the banner of the truth into Spain. Alcala found that arrangements for the revision of the Scriptures, the compilation of an evangelical creed, and the division of Spain into districts, for the better diffusion of religious knowledge, had actually been made under the shadow of the tyranny which had so long darkened the land of his birth. Cabrera's conference with other Spanish reformers had taken place in the spring of the same year of which the autumn saw the flight of Queen Isabella. I will quote from an account of this conference given in the work[23] to which I have so often referred in this little volume:--

"In this transaction we see the foundations laid of the Reformed Church of Spain. That glorious event took place under the flag of Great Britain. The day is well worthy of being noted; it was the 25th of April 1868. This was the birthday of that Church, and this day will long be a memorable one in the annals of Spain and in the annals of Christianity."

"Yes, the Lord Bishop of Cadiz had some cause to sound his cry of alarm!" exclaimed Lucius, after he and Alcala had been reading together a copy of the soul-stirring address of Cabrera. "The grand struggle between light and darkness has begun already, thank G.o.d! my own dear old country has furnished weapons for the warfare;" and the Englishman laid his hand on a complete Spanish Bible, which had been Aguilera's first purchase with the treasure so lately restored.

But though the hopeful Briton looked forward to a speedy and glorious termination to that warfare, Alcala revolved with some anxiety the difficulties which were likely to obstruct the progress of the evangelization of Spain. Isabella, that bigoted votary of Rome, no longer, indeed, bore sway; a priest-ridden government had fallen, and the Spanish people had shown little desire to uphold the Papal power; but all the political horizon was overspread with a dense mist of uncertainty regarding the future. Who would take the reins of government that had dropped from the hands of the Queen? Who would manage obstinate Juntas, control violent mobs, and guide the chariot of the State into anything resembling an orderly course? The eyes of Spain were turned towards her banished General Prim, that man who was, though but for a brief period, to play so important a part in her history. Prim would return to his country, would rise to be a ruler in the land from whence he had once been driven. His coming triumph was the perpetual theme of the exultant Diego, who now filled the place in Alcala's household which had been occupied by Chico. Alcala, too, foresaw that General Prim was likely to be the leader of the Spanish people: but was his accession to power an event to be desired or dreaded by those whose dearest object in life was the evangelization of Spain? Would Prim come to sustain the power of the Romish priesthood with the support of the secular arm? Would he, like his predecessors, regard Protestantism as a punishable crime? Was the circulation of the Scriptures to be prohibited, and a dungeon to be deemed the fittest place for the bold evangelist who should proclaim its life-giving truths? What was a subject of anxiety to De Aguilera was also a subject for fervent prayer. Earnestly he besought the Ruler of all the events of this changing scene to raise up a powerful protector for the infant Reformed Church of Spain.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] The Rev. A. Sutherland. _Vide_ "Daybreak in Spain."

[23] "Daybreak in Spain."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

GLAD TIDINGS.

It was with an expression of amus.e.m.e.nt and surprise on his heavy features that Mr. Pa.s.smore read a note inviting him to pa.s.s an evening at the house of Don Alcala de Aguilera, some little time after the events related in the preceding chapters. Peter Pa.s.smore turned the paper over with his thick, short fingers, and laughed aloud.

"I shall take care to fortify myself by a good dinner beforehand--ho!

ho! ho!--lest the entertainment prove as unsubstantial as the Barmecide's feast!" said the manufacturer to himself. "But there is something extraordinary after all in this Spanish clerk or caballero.

If he's mad, 'there's method in his madness,' as Walter Scott would have said. It was frantic folly to stand the onslaught of a bull to please some silly senorita; scarcely better to get thrown into prison for the sake of reading a book. I thought Aguilera insane when he went forward to meet a mob that looked ready to dash out the brains of any man who stood in their way; but somehow or other this Quixote has contrived to get through all his adventures with credit, if not always with success. He subdued all those blood-thirsty ruffians with a few sentences uttered in his sonorous Spanish, better than a squad of their alguazils could have done with bludgeons and pikes. And certainly the dwelling of this Aguilera looks more fit to lodge a grandee of Spain than a clerk of the firm of Pa.s.smore and Perkins. A man has not time to look about him as he would at an exhibition when a set of howling ragam.u.f.fins are battering the door, and he expects soon to have his throat cut with their horrid long knives, but it seemed to me as if the place in which I stood was a palace. It might not answer our notions of English comfort, for we Islanders like to have a roof over our sitting-rooms, and don't care for gardens in the middle of 'em; and I confess to preferring a well-stuffed arm-chair to the finest seat carved in marble. But it gave an idea of grandeur. Well, well, I should like to see more of this Spanish palace, and I will certainly accept the invitation of Don Alcala de Aguilera, even at the risk of coming in for another adventure."

So, on the appointed evening, Mr. Pa.s.smore, dressed more carefully than usual, but wearing with indifferent grace his gay neck-tie and tight-fitting gloves, made his appearance in the patio of the house in the Calle de San Jose. Aguilera received his guest with the refined courtesy natural to Spanish gentlemen, and introduced him to Donna Inez.