 | CHAPTER V. Francis Berrian, or, The Mexican patriot |  |
5. CHAPTER V.
Through the forest aisles is glancing;
And with trembling beam on the rippling stream
A thousand stars are dancing.
No noise is heard, save the lonely bird,
That hoots from his desert dwelling;
Or the distant crash of some aged ash,
Which the axe of time is felling.
Anonymous.
We were awakened at three in the morning by the
ringing of bells, the blowing of bugles, and the noise
and bustle of preparation for the journey. Squadrons
of horse, with their heavy and measured trampling, gallopped
backwards and forwards. I was aroused by my
good friend, Bryan, who told me, how glad he was that
I was to be along with them. He brought me a billet
from the Conde, to whom I had notified, by the Condesa,
my acceptance of his proposition, politely expressing
his satisfaction on that account, and proposing
different arrangements for my comfort on the journey,
among other things, requesting me to avail myself of
the services of Bryan. He, on his part, was in raptures,
and poured out the expressions of his satisfaction with
true Irish hilarity. I left a letter for my companions,
intimating the new course I had taken, and making
arrangement for the disposal of my proportion of the
dividend of profits. I mounted the fine horse which I
Condesa and her daughter, Don Pedro and the father
confessor, rode in the family coach. The Conde rode
on his fine grey charger at the head of his troops.
As we past the family, Don Pedro had just assisted
the Condesa and her daughter into the carriage, and
was getting in himself. Bryan rode close to me, and
said, in a low tone, “Now God bless your Honor, that
is provoking. See that swarthy fellow! scorch his black
whiskers! He is going to live in clover. And they
just stuff the sweet Martha beside the polecat, like a
pig in a bag. Ay! but if she had her own heart's content,
she 'd not be there. Never mind, my master.
Every dog has his day.”
The array was soon in marching order. The band
struck up a slow and solemn march—almost a funereal
strain—a Spanish martial air of parting. The trampling
of horses disturbed the stillness of the night, and the
impression of the music and the scene thrilled through
my frame. Who can account for such a deep feeling
from circumstances, which, at another time, would have
produced no feeling at all? Our place was among the
advanced guard. We now passed through deep and
still forests; then splashed through swamps and streams.
Now we scrambled up precipitous hills; and then descended
upon the interminable grassy plains. There can
be nothing that stirs and animates the spirit more deeply,
than a ride in the brisk and cool air of the morning,
and amidst a great body of horse, swiftly moving forward
to the trumpet, the bugle, and a full band. Were
their attacks, just before Aurora was dispensing briskness
and gaiety in advance of her rising throne.
The morning dawned upon us, as we came upon the
Rio del Norte at the Parso. The river is here of
very considerable width, but white with its furious current
dashing among rocks. The scenery is most whimsically
and delightfully wild and romantic. A village
is never seen to so much advantage, as just when the
sun is rising, and the mist uncurling its white drapery,
and unshrouding the roofs, the spire, the mill, and
slowly rolling to the summits of the hills. How sweetly
the smoke raises its spiral curls from the humble sheds
of the villagers! The clink of the blacksmith's hammer,
the hum of the mill, mixing with the hundred sounds of
animals, and of peaceful and village life, at this moment
are to me inexpressibly cheering. The alluvions of
this noble and romantic river are covered with vines,
from which is made the delicious wine of the Parso.
Husbandry is here managed by irrigation. In this arid
soil and burning climate, there is, in a landscape vivified
by irrigation, a charm, which no language can paint.
Nature furnishes us with the means to create this rich
scenery, and seems to delight to put us to toil in the
use of them. The freshness and luxuriance of this
artificial landscape far transcends any freshness and
beauty which nature produces of herself in her most
indulgent mood. Each garden and patch had its own
little rill of the most limpid water. The verdure, the
prodigious grandeur and strength of the vegetation contrasted
scorched hills, by which we descended to this alluvion.
At this place we had more of the bustle of militia
parade. Our morning militia escort left us here, and
returned to Santa Fe, and was replaced by new troops
from the vicinity of the Parso. We halted in this village
for breakfast. The order of march for the remainder
of the day was here reversed. We, who had
been thus far in advance, were now to be in the rear.
In falling back for this arrangement, the Conde's family
passed us. The morning was bright and warm. The
glasses of the carriage and the curtains were raised,
and I had the mortification to see Doña Martha squeezed
on the same bench with the tall, stern, and swarthy
young Don, looking, as Bryan described it, `as grim as
a death's head.' Not even the enviable place he occupied,
could smooth his moody brow. This fellow had
always looked on me with lowering countenance from
the first. I confess I felt a singular twinge of ill feeling
towards him, as I saw them pass. It was something
like that bitter sensation, which is vulgarly called heart-burn,
or acidity, and for which they give chalk and
lime-water. “Is this,” said I again to myself, “is this
that terrible disorder, in its commencement, called love,
and in this case, silly love, without hope, or the chance
of return? Let us look to this thing. The symptoms
are bad. What will the fixed disorder be? And is
this the feeling of envy and jealousy?” I aroused myself,
looked at the sweet landscape, and felt the bright
full breakfast, and take a glass of wine. I realized that
we are best capable of self-control upon a full stomach.
My head swam a little, as I saw the young man of
whiskers lead out the Doña Martha. The heart-burn
twinged for a moment. I followed them, mounted my
horse, and said, firmly, “Not guilty, upon my honor!”
And I felt better for the effort.
The country between the Parso and Durango was
sufficiently pleasant, though destitute of the wildness
and sublimity of the country in the vicinity of the Commanches.
Red and precipitous hills, extensive grassy
plains, ragged villages, full of a mixed race of people,
composed of Spanish, Indian, and Negroe, recurred in
succession. We had still in the distance the blue outline
of mountains. We passed through Chihuahua, and
Mont el Rey, considerable towns. We were regularly
in advance in the morning, and in the rear in the evening.
I as regularly caught a glimpse of Doña Martha,
seated beside her silent and stern admirer. I made
some acquaintance with the officers of the Spanish
regiment. No one of them spoke French, but Colonel
Arredondo, and of him I shall have occasion to speak
hereafter. Of course my intimacy with the rest went
no farther than the common forms of civility. There
was a marked jealousy towards me, which I placed to
the score of my country. Such a kind of cavalcade is
apt to be very barren of incident, and ours was so. I
regularly exchanged salutations with the Conde, who
simply inquired of me, how I found the journey.
I found Bryan to possess a cleverness and a fund of
vivacity and amusement beyond all price.
It was high noon when we entered the city of Durango,
whose spires I had seen glittering in the distance
for some leagues. Before we arrived here, various circumstances
reminded us, that we were in a rich mining
district. At the haciendas, amidst mud-walled cabins,
and filth, and meanness, and the squalidness of poverty,
and the coarsest and clumsiest furniture, we often saw
the domestic vessels and utensils of massive silver. Now
and then we passed the mansion of a fortunate miner,
and the luxurious arrangements, the ostentatious display,
had its peculiar effect upon the eye, in the contrast
with the mean cottages and the primitive and savage
nature around it. The city itself presented the same
striking contrast of magnificence and littleness, of splendor
and meanness, of palaces and hovels. On one
hand was the vast cathedral, with its dome, and columns,
its silver shrine, its ornaments inlaid with gold and sparkling
with gems, and its fine paintings, beside miserable
daubs of St. Michael and his dragon; on the other, palaces
surrounded by their orangeries, and cool with the
dash of fountains, playing into basins of marble; and the
gorgeous display of temples, and peristyles, and columns,
and baths, all this ostentation of luxury, towering above
filthy and mud-walled cabins. The rational part of
the city was like the architectural. Here were men in
the richest dresses, and their ladies gaily adorned and
sparkling with diamonds, and a moving mass of life by
shirts. Such was the first aspect of the wealthy city of
Durango, the centre of a very rich mining district, and
of an episcopate, with a population of thirty thousand
souls.
I omit the circumstances of the Conde's reception
here in the central city of his government. I am not
expert at the description of these things. You can
imagine the vivas, the noise, and ringing of bells, and
the firing of cannon, and the parade of large bodies of
raw, country militia, who were fine, and expert in
managing horses. It was sufficiently imposing, and had
a kind of barbaric splendor, which brought strongly
and painfully to my recollection the same kind of display
in my own country. I remembered the clean,
healthy, and well dressed crowds of people on such
occasions, all so alike in their appearance. I recollected
the long and martial lines of uniformed soldiers.
And, more than all, I compared the aspect of this rabble
of slaves with the lofty port and firm tread of those
masses of freemen, who carry their diploma in their
countenance.
Immediately upon passing the town, we entered upon
the Conde's estate. A private road led us along an
avenue, shaded with catalpas and China trees, and the
stone cottages had a neatness and uniformity, very
different from any thing I had yet seen in the country.
The road itself was a curiosity in its kind, and wound
round the bases of fine slopes, covered with luxuriant
vines, patches of tobacco and wheat, groves of orange, fig,
bowers of the cape jessamine. That singular and most
splendid shrub, which the French call pite, and which
is, I believe, a species of the cactus, made in some
places an impenetrable wall; for no animal will brave
the steely and poisonous thorns that terminate its stems.
Through such an avenue we rode five or six miles,
until a sharp turn in the road cleared us of the hills,
and opened to our view the columns in front of the
massive and turreted stone mansion of the Conde, embowered
in the shade of huge sycamores, that reared
their white arms as high as the turrets. Amidst these
ancient bowers it occupied the centre of a gentle eminence.
A lawn of many acres, turfed with the perfect
verdure of the blue grass, sloped to the bank of a small
stream, which brawled along over pebbles and rocks,
and almost encircled the lawn. Domestic animals of
all kinds, and domesticated animals of the wild races,
as deer, buffalo, cabri, and other animals, unknown to
me, were ruminating in the shade along with sheep,
goats, and cows. A considerable village of the houses
of tenants, and the offices of servants and retainers of
the family, were built in parallel lines, with strict regard
to comfort and utility, as well as pleasing effect, in the
rear of the mansion. That and these appeared to be
coeval, and built all of the same material, a beautiful
greenish grey soap stone, which had a charming effect
upon the eye. The fences, and granges, and all the
appurtenances of this sort, were either of this stone, or
of the imperishable mulberry or cedar, and were massive,
and all seemed to have especial regard to perpetuity,
as well as beauty. Smooth mountains in the form of
cones, or towering and ragged points of granite, finished
the distant outline. The sun was descending as we
rode under the shade of the sycamores. It was a
scene of comfort, amenity, repose, and grandeur, which
filled the heart and the eye. At the entrance to the
lawn the crowds of citizens, the rabble of the city,
and the annoying cavalcade of the militia left us. A
select and invited party of the ladies and gentlemen of
the vicinity, and of favorite officers, to form a domestic
circle, remained to welcome the return of the Conde to
his mansion by a fête.
To me the joyous greeting of the servants, domestics,
and retainers of the family, who amounted to some
hundreds, formed a pageant a thousand times more
impressive, than the stern and bannered ceremonial,
with which we had been treated for some time past,
even to a surfeit. This, too, was arranged with the air
of a fête. But here the demonstrations were real.
The head of the government and of a princely establishment
had returned from a long and dangerous absence,
in which his only child had been made a captive
among the savages. It was amidst troublous and dubious
times, in which the people were constantly alarmed
with “wars, and rumours of wars,” that he had returned
to a peaceful and rural retirement. A host of dependants,
who identified their own security, comfort, and even
consequence, with his, welcomed his return. What a
heart, from that which is merely got up? With how
much sweetness and tenderness did Doña Martha receive
their caresses and congratulations? I had the
satisfaction of seeing the affectionate bursts of joy with
which she was welcomed home. Amidst the general
melting of hearts, I had the delight to receive a cordial
grasp of the hand from her, and a welcome of manner
and eye, which I treasured in my heart, as I was shown
by her to a cushioned seat in the shade. The Condesa
and the Conde, the father confessor and Don Pedro
even, seemed to have relaxed from their customary
gravity, and the latter especially were unwonted in their
cordiality to me. I was introduced in rapid succession
to the officers, and to a crowd of gentlemen and ladies.
Three or four of the latter were handsome, as many
tolerable, and the numerous remainder were yellow,
swarthy, badly formed, and dressed in fantastic finery,
and only calculated, as I could not help remarking to
Doña Martha, as foils to her. To this fine compliment,
a slight curtesy was all my reply.
For the rest, there was the usual ringing of bells,
firing of cannon, bonfires on the hills, and illumination
among the trees. Wine for the gentry, and mezcal and
agua audiente for the mob, flowed as from fountains.
A most bountiful supper, of a plenty surpassing even
Camacho's wedding, was spread on rustic tables on the
grass, and all was festivity and joy. At table, the
Conde sat on one side, Don Pedro and the father confessor
and the officers were below him. On the opposite
daughter. Amidst the Babel clatter of voices, and
plates, and gaiety, I was able to receive and return,
without notice, a great many of those kind and affectionate
remarks and welcomes, so naturally growing
out of the time and place. I was positive that Martha
evinced decided partiality for me; and that there was
a gladness of heart in her welcome to me, of which she
was not conscious. Surely, I thought, vanity could not
misinterpret all this.
After supper there was dancing. The Conde and
his lady, the officers, and the fine ladies chimed in.
The tall colonel, Don Pedro, the future son-in-law, led
out the Doña Martha to head a national dance. It is
one into which the Spanish enter to enthusiasm. I was,
and still am, morose upon this subject of dancing. I
felt my twinges of heart-burn, and was determined not
to like it. But never had I witnessed any thing to
compare with the grace, the elasticity, and sweetness of
the dancing of Doña Martha. I had never conceived
before, that there could be the highest grace, science,
and even expression of the heart in dancing. She
seemed to inspire her tall and grim partner with dignity
and grace. Clapping of hands, and the most unbounded
expressions of joy were drawn forth from the spectators.
Even the elderly dancers, who were laboriously pursuing
their vocation, were arrested by their admiration.
The incipient feeling of heart-burn was a little mitigated
by witnessing the comic distress of my friend, Bryan,
who was obliged to sustain his part in this affair with
ridiculous himself, he turned upon me an eye, in which
chagrin and laughter were curiously blended, as his
short partner shook her castanets, and rolled round his
square and erect figure. The movement called the
parties to walk slowly, and solemnly, and with frequent
and low bows past each other, until a certain part of
the tune. At this point, the parties changed the movement,
and skipped and capered as if they were mad.
There was something amusing in the perplexity and
restraint of the tall, square Irishman, compared with
the laughing gaiety of the dueña, who did her best at a
bow, and waddled with her short figure, like a duck, that
produced an uncontrolled laugh on all sides. Martha
shared in it with the highest glee. Even I could not
exercise the supplicated forbearance, which the countenance
of Bryan seemed to demand of me, and against
myself I laughed heartily with the rest.
I might have remarked, that it is the fashion in
this dance for old and young, parents and children,
masters and servants, on these occasions to join in the
same dance. The Conde and his lady had paid their
tax to the custom, and were seated under a spreading
sycamore, blazing with various-colored lights, and witnessed
with calm satisfaction the joyous group of their
friends and dependants, crossing each other in the
mazes of the dance. Her partner led their daughter
to a seat, and was engaged in conversation with an officer.
Greatly to my surprise and satisfaction, Martha
beckoned me to her side. After asking me how I was
could take no part in these innocent gaieties myself,
and remarked, how differently all this must seem from
scenes of the same kind in my own country? “I
am thinking,” she continued, “how to render you
popular in this region. Nothing would do it so effectually,
as to conform so far to our ways, as to take a part
in this dance. It is a national mania with us. You
have seen me go through with the business, and I
judged from your looks, that it struck you as a very
ridiculous affair. I am not ashamed to say, that I enjoy
it. I hold it right to countenance these people in their
innocent gaieties. I am most annoyed with the insipid and
flat compliments of these military heroes. Our national
manners call for all this, and allow strangers privileges
here, which would not be tolerated in any other place.
I should think it would be conformable to your republican
notions to see the rich and the poor mixing together
in the same sports, in which their ancestors mixed in the
generations of the past. Will you have the goodness
to walk this dance with me? With what you have
seen, and with a few directions which I can give at the
moment when wanted, I am sure, from your walk and
your figure, that we can manage the dance. It will be
acceptable to my parents, and to the people. At
another time and place, I might not be allowed this
familiarity with one of another nation. Here it will be
entirely in place.” I thought philosophy was uppermost
at the moment; but I now think, that I remembered
the applauses bestowed upon her dancing with
envy. “Thank you,” said I, and here I added all her
titles, “for your condescension, and for the care you
take to remind me of it. It is as unexpected as it is
grateful. I have seldom danced in my own country.
The dances there seem to me sufficiently ridiculous.
I confess, if you will, that yours do not seem less so.
If I wished to caricature rational beings in the deepest
malignity of heart, I would set them to capering, bowing,
skipping, cringing, and conducting after the manner
of this dance. I may as well pass for a cynic, and ill
bred, at once. But I do not love to see those for
whom I entertain the feelings I have had for you, engaged
in this way. Besides, I should not exactly choose
to be the foil, to set off the dancing of your late partner.
I must deny myself the honor which you propose me.”
She arose, and stood before me, and fixed her keen
black eyes upon me with a scrutiny at once intense,
modest, and yet firm, as though she would read to the
bottom of my heart. “Do you not only misinterpret,
Sir, but mock my purpose?” said she. “I see well
that you understand how much I wished your esteem.
I cannot even flatter myself that there is any lurking
feeling of jealousy in all this lowering of your countenance.
Your philosophy, Sir, is too hard-hearted, and
sees the ridiculous too keenly for me. I thought that a
young lady under my obligations, and who kept a strict
guard that too much of the heart should not break out
in expressing those obligations, and who had in her
viens the unpolluted blood of twenty generations of
as a condescension on my part. I see, Sir, that I have
mistaken you. I am to be your pupil, and I will show
you that I am not apt to make a second mistake, when
the first is clearly seen.”
She arose rather in sorrow than in wrath, and calmly
walked away. I was deceived, if the flashing of her
dark eye was not dimmed, and suffused with tears.
I was disarmed of envy and jealousy, and all the legion
was cast out in a moment. I never remember to have
felt worse. It was not acidity or heart-burn now, but
emotions made up of mixed ingredients, but all of them
more bitter than aloes. `Despiser of dancing!' said
I to myself, `this is your pitiful philosophy. That
piercing eye saw the envy and jealousy that you would
fain have dubbed philosophy. And then the nobleness
of her motive, her considerate and mild benevolence!
Let her ask me to dance again, and I will dance, if
I figure more ridiculously than even the fat dueña.'
But the evening passed away, without offering any
chance to manifest either repentance or reparation.
I was shown to my apartment, without being able to
catch the eye of Martha for a moment. The confused
hum of the parting company gradually lessened
upon my ear, and I had scarce pressed my pillow,
before my imagination was weaving a laborious web
of dreaming. Mrs. Radcliffe's castles, and priests,
and ghosts, and winding-sheets, and spectres, figured
in succession before my mind's eye; and the catastrophe
of each scene was Doña Martha shedding
of envy.
The next two days were days of finding my latitude
and bearings at table, in the house, and in the adjoining
walks. Bryan furnished my table in my own room, a
charming apartment, partly lighted with painted glass,
and partly ventilated with Venetian blinds. Every
thing that could be devised for the comfort of a scholar
was placed in it, books, stationary, a writing desk, a
lolling chair, and a few articles of sumptuous furniture.
The blinds opened directly among the branches of
sycamores and catalpas, and I could reach the clusters
of grapes, that hung from the interlaced vines, with my
hands. The first sounds of the morning were the
mellow whistle of the red-bird, and the matins of the
nightingale-sparrow, directly on a level with my window.
I spent a good portion of those two days in
wandering unheeded and alone under the ancient groves
of these beautiful grounds, in the shade of gigantic and
spreading trees, planted by nature, beyond all date,
and in her own order. Fine swells, verdant dells,
springs, brooks, and the river, of which I have spoken;
innumerable flocks of beasts and birds, comprising, as
it seemed, all the varieties of the ark; beautiful
stone cottages, clustered with the bignonia in full
flower; comfort, industry, and repose;—these were the
features of the landscape. Mountains towered in the
distance, and I heard frequent explosions, like thunder,
or distant earthquakes, which, they informed me, were
the blasts of the miners in the mountains, where they
and good nature of Bryan invaluable. From him I
gleaned much of that small local information, which
is at once so necessary, and so difficult to obtain.
There was something peculiarly amiable and good
about him, and I was interested in hearing his history.
He was one of those ten thousand poor Catholic adventurers,
who are seeking bread and employment more
especially in the Catholic countries. Enthusiastically
attached to every remembrance of home, the circumstance
of my speaking English drew his kind heart
towards me. The deep and grateful affection which
he felt for the Condesa and her daughter, and something
of transferred kindness to me, as her supposed
deliverer, added another tie. The only failing was one
of too much kindness, a disposition to outrun the limits
of propriety in bringing information of what passed in
the family in respect to me.
The third morning after my arrival, I was invited
again to my place at table with the family. After suitable
compliments, and inquiries if things were right in
my apartment, and other commonplace conversation,
I was informed that my limited number of six pupils
were waiting to have me arrange my time for giving
them lessons in English. I of course proposed commencing
immediately. Bryan received directions with
respect to the horses and a carriage or volante, whenever
I chose to ride, and I was invited, with great
urbanity, in all respects to consider myself as a member
of the family, and dispose of my time and amusements
I remarked, constantly wandered, as though he struggled
with the internal apprehension of rebellion and
civil discord. The father and Don Pedro had returned
to their usual stern reserve towards me. The Condesa
and her daughter, were rather formal than otherwise.
There were a few officers, beside the family, at table.
For myself, I was treated with civility enough, but I
had the uncomfortable sensation of seeming to impose
restraint upon the whole circle. It was arranged, that
I should give my lessons between three and five in the
evening, commencing with that day.
At the assigned hour, my grammars and dictionaries
were selected, and my pupils introduced to me, in the
place where I preferred to receive them, in my own
apartment. With two of them, Doña Martha and Don
Pedro you are already acquainted. A master's comfort
in the discharge of his thankless, and yet responsible
duties, depends much, as every one knows, upon
the disposition and character of his pupils. You have
passed through that bitter discipline, and have served
in that hard warfare, and you will sympathize with me,
while I give you the outlines of the rest of my pupils
in this my new charge. I comprehended in a moment,
that in Don Pedro, I had an arrogant observer,
and a vigilant spy; whose least concern was to learn
the language, and who would yet find fault with his
instructer, for his want of progress. The elder of the
four strangers I should have supposed turned of nineteen.
She too was noble, was called Gauchupine, and had
names, terminating in a, and was, like Martha, an only
daughter, and heiress of a long string of titles, and
what imported much more, even there, an immense
fortune. She had a fine figure, an air rather haughty,
a brownish complexion, and the usual black locks and
eyes. She was much more gaudily dressed than Martha,
and the general expression was pride of wealth
and uncontrolled feeling. To avoid the incumbrance
of her names and titles, I shall call her by her first
name, Dorothea. The other three, were of the name
of Benvelt, daughters of a miner of Saxon descent,
who had accumulated vast wealth in his profession, had
been ennobled, and now held the office of assayer of the
mines. These daughters were from eighteen to fourteen,
beautiful girls, with round faces of the purest and
the most brilliant red and white, with flowing flaxen
curls on their alabaster necks, and mild and melting
blue eyes. They struck me, as most amiable, untamed
romps, with the kindest sensibilities, and whose good
dispositions were so unchangeable, as to have survived
the extreme indulgence, with which they had been
managed, or rather mismanaged by their widowed
father, who loved them with such a doting fondness,
as would be as apt to cherish their faults as their virtues.
Few situations can be imagined more embarrassing
and awkward than mine; a stranger, of a different nation
and religion, thus commencing a task, hard and
unthankful at the best, under every advantage, and
spoke very indifferent French, the only language, in
which I could communicate with them, and thus beginning
upon a language, which foreigners generally suppose
extremely difficult to learn. I made a few remarks,
by way of explaining my plan, and the mutual
diligence, necessary for our reciprocal duties, and I
assigned them their lesson. Martha evidently remembered
what had occurred at the fête, but she seated
herself to her task, with the unaffected docility and earnestness
of one who meant to learn. The only time,
in which I had ever seen a smile in the grim face of
Don Pedro, was when I gave him his task. There
was on his face an ironical semblance of submission,
which became him as the capers do an elephant. Dorothea,
instead of looking at the lesson, eyed me from
head to foot. The Misses Benvelt, in a language neither
French, German, nor Spanish, but a compound of
the accents of the three, eagerly proposed a great
many questions, and laughed heartily at me and
themselves, for not being able to understand each
other. A grave smile at our mutual embarrassment,
interrupted the studies of Martha, and she quietly set
us right, by interpreting for us. They thanked her in
Spanish, as they said, for bringing them so pretty a
fellow to teach them English. She bade them be
quiet, for that I understood Spanish. This produced
from them more laughter and romping, and it was some
time before I obtained stillness. I applied myself to the
Spanish, while they were engaged in their English;
should first learn the language of the other. The attention
of Martha was sustained and entire. Don Pedro
arose repeatedly, took out his watch, yawned, and
said, as plainly as manner could say it, this is a most
simple business for a man of my dignity. Dorothea
walked carelessly round the room, examined the paintings,
and looking me full in the face, asked me, if the
dress I wore, was in the fashion of my country? The
Saxon young ladies found inexplicable difficulties,
teased me with innumerable questions, but seemed
both goodnatured, and disposed to learn. The recitations
corresponded to these different degrees of attention.
That of Martha comprised all, that was within
the limits of the task assigned. Don Pedro strove to
hide his want of his lesson, under affected indifference
and disregard to the business. Dorothea answered my
questions, by proposing questions in her turn, asking
me the English of different words. The Misses Benvelt
blushed “rosy red,” attempted badinage, and the
youngest of them shed some tears. I treated them
with great gentleness, and made all possible excuses
for them. To which they replied by saying, that I
was a dear, kind master, and that they would do better
next time. Thankful was I, to get over this first formidable
business so well. Martha tarried one moment
after the departure of the other pupils. I seized that
moment, to make the amende honorable, which I had
vowed to myself to make, the first opportunity, for
my misbehaviour of the former evening. “Allow me,”
have been much dissatisfied with myself, since my
rudeness of the other evening. I shall have no more
peace of mind, until you have reconciled me to myself
by your forgiveness. The beautiful dancing of yourself
and your partner, excited envy. In the self-blindness
of the moment, I baptized the bad feeling by the
name of philosophy. Dance as charmingly as you will,
and be as happy as you will, and with whom you will.
I will witness it all, and be a philosopher no more.
Only say that you forgive me.” She held out her hand.
“Forgive you, my dear sir? That is a word utterly misapplied
in this case. If you were to put it to the account
of a little jealousy, it would be placing the thing
in so flattering a light, that any young lady would
forgive you of course. But, if it will satisfy you with
yourself, know, that the frankness of this confession,
places you, at least in my thoughts, on as high ground,
as if you had not sinned. Go, I forgive you. Be a
philosopher no more.”
This may serve as a specimen of the general order
of our recitations for a considerable time. I was
sometimes provoked with the insolence of Don Pedro.
But he always seemed to have his cue, and not to be
disposed to carry it beyond a certain point. I found
him not deficient in capacity. Sometimes, to impress
me that this was not the case, he would recite his lesson
quite well. He once or twice undertook the puzzling
me with some perplexing niceties, that he had studied
out. As soon as he found me thoroughly informed
that quarter no more. My other pupils gave me no
particular difficulty, and made the customary progress,
except one—and her progress was rapid; the task of
teaching her was delightful, and reserved as a desert to
carry down the bitterness of all the rest. My other
amusements were walking and riding. I made frequent
excursions among the mountains, and often rose
early, and scaled them, that from their summits, I
might contemplate the rising sun. I sometimes angled
in the stream, and in this amusement I had more dexterity
and success, than the inhabitants themselves.
Once or twice I rode with the Conde on his hunting
parties. I saw at once, that I never could acquire any
thing of Spanish dexterity at throwing the noose. Beside
the slaughter of such animals, as deer and buffaloes,
for sport, brought to my view such agony and struggle,
as were too painful to my feelings. The fire-huntings
by night, had a picturesque and impressive
effect, which interested me for two or three times.
But my serious amusements at home, were my books,
and playing the harpsicord, at which I had acquired
some little previous dexterity. I am inclined to think
that this latter amusement, derived its chief interest
from the circumstance, that I pursued it in the same
room with the Condesa and her daughter, and had the
instructions of the latter to help me out with the tune.
I saw her seldom alone. But I had contrived so to
manage demonstrations of a change of mind in relation
to dancing, that there seemed a tacit understanding,
that my silent apologies had been fully accepted.
A new source of satisfaction was opening to us both.
My previous knowledge of Latin and French, together
with a considerable knowledge of the philosophy of
languages in general, and, let me bring out the whole
truth, an earnest desire to converse with Doña Martha
in a language which flowed from her lips like honey,
and sounded on my ear like music, soon made me
master of the Spanish. I felt it due to the talents and
virtues, as well as the taste and literature of my fair
and amiable pupil, to propose to be guided in my course
of reading by her judgment. I perceived that it was a
compliment which counted at once, and went directly
to the point. She, in her turn, made a surprising progress
in English, so much so, that she could converse
with me in that language, before either of the other
pupils could comprehend a sentiment, expressed by the
words. They might know a particular word, and we
amused ourselves by putting them on a wrong scent,
and we so often convinced them that they totally misapprehended
our meaning, that we could, if we had
chosen, have held a confidential conversation in their
presence, and nothing but our countenances would have
betrayed a sentiment. The temptation was great, and
almost irresistible to this very point. We were both a
little guilty in this way, but I can aver, on my conscience,
that she trespassed oftener and farther in that
point, than I did myself. You can imagine my delight
in unfolding to such a pupil the treasures of our great
master-minds. But you cannot imagine her eagerness
and delight in these employments. I discovered, in
countenance of Don Pedro, that he was fully aware of
our enjoyments in these respects, and that, like the
first enemy of man, he was watching to eject us from
our paradise. I saw that, in order to the tranquil continuance
of these enjoyments, innocent as they were,
we must be more moderate in the indulgence of them.
While the countenance of the father Josephus was
lengthening, and accumulating bitterness in its expression
towards me, my young male pupil made little or
no progress, interrupted our most impressive readings
with a whistle of contempt, staring at her with an expression
of pity, and at me with scorn. I felt that
my happiness must soon have a crisis. In a morning
conversation at table, he took occasion to express a
decided dislike for the English language. He observed,
that a foolish fashion had controlled him to think of
learning it; but that it was a harsh, hissing, and vulgar
language, fit only to be spoken, as it was, by barbarians.
He thence digressed to the people of the States, and
he spoke of them with increased asperity, adding, that
the only difficulty in reducing the rebellious creoles
to proper loyalty and submission, arose from the contiguity
and the infectious example of the States.
Colonel Arredondo, who had acted so efficient a part
in putting down the beginnings of disaffection, was
present, and echoed the observation. I thought of
various replies to these rude remarks, which were evidently
personal. They were all bitter, and replies of
defiance. I received, too, at the same time, a look of
mention, as caused me to suppress the rising words.
I was too content with my situation, to commit it by
taking notice of remarks which, after all, I was not
bound to consider personal. The only reply that I
deemed it proper to make, was, by a profound bow of
apology to the family of the Conde for leaving the table,
by rising, and looking Don Pedro for a moment sternly
in the face, and leaving the room.
Bryan informed me that the Conde, who appeared
to have been absent when the conversation commenced,
and who only noticed the insulted consciousness with
which I left the room, applauded my mode of noticing
this rudeness, and observed, that whatever they might
have thought of my language and country, his personal
obligations to me, forbade their using such language at
his table in my presence, and requesting them to abstain
from it in future. He furthermore told me, that
he had, more than once, heard the father confessor
cautioning the Conde against the influence which I was
imperceptibly, as he said, but rapidly gaining over the
minds of his wife and daughter. He had heard him
warn him, that such a course would render him unpopular,
and suspicious among the ultra and fierce royalists,
that it was dangerous to the church thus to retain
a heretic of some learning and ingenuity in his family.
It is true, he informed me, that the Conde always vindicated
me from any sinister designs, and expressed an
entire confidence in my honor and fidelity. Even the
manner of the Condesa, so tender and maternal, when
and silent, when we were before witnesses, boded me
no good.
Influenced by these united considerations, I was determined
to have an explanation, at least with my fair
pupil, and either propose through her a relinquishment
of a charge, which seemed likely to produce only dissension
and uneasiness, or at least to propose to her to
shorten our readings together. A chance soon offered.
I had been in the habit of going through my tasks with
my other pupils first, and reserving the pleasure of
hearing this pupil for the last. Don Pedro had this
time made a miserable and stammering attempt at a
lesson, a thing he had not attempted before, since I left
the breakfast table so abruptly. He sometimes, as I
remarked, attempted a lesson, that he might show his
ability to do it, when he pleased. The task was of
blank verse, and somewhat difficult, and he wholly
failed, and failed, evincing an effort to succeed. This
put him in evident ill humour. Dorothea stumbled,
too, and excused herself by taxing me roundly with
taking more pains with Doña Martha than herself, and
that for this want of equal attention, she was behind
her. The two younger Misses Benvelt strove hard
to recite, and shed childish tears at their failure. The
elder one, who had always before shown great sweetness
of temper, caught the infectious ill temper, and
was stubbornly silent. The young gentleman whistled
awhile, delighted with these murky indications of ill
success to my function, and left the room. The other
of leave. I was left alone with Martha in the midst
of her recitation.
The recitation closed, and before the reading, which
generally followed it, as she took up the book for the
reading, I requested pardon for interrupting the customary
order of our pursuits. “What mean these tears
and this rudeness, Doña Martha?” said I. “I see
nothing to justify it. Constructions must have been put
upon these exercises, which I see nothing to justify.
Where is the wrong? I begin to be afraid that I am
fonder of learning Spanish, than teaching English. I
have a surmise, that I am rather longer in my attention
to your lesson, than the rest. It is natural to linger in
pleasure, and to hurry through toil. You had made
me a kind of promise to put me right, when you saw
me going unconsciously in the wrong. The truth is,
my conscience tells me, I am partly guilty of Dorothea's
charge. I have probably involved you in an unpleasant
predicament, as being, through your generous indulgence,
an accessary. I have been thinking, Doña
Martha, that my compatriots about this time are on
their return to the United States, and that I had better
restore tranquillity to all these ruffled countenances,
and relieve you from all charges of too much kindness
towards me, by joining them, and returning to my
country.”
During these remarks she manifested great agitation,
and replied with a voice of deep emotion, which she
endeavoured to conceal under an appearance of gaiety.
You are kind, very kind, to remind me so gently of my
own fault, by calling it your's. I will be as frank as
you have been. Where you have done badly in this
thing, I have done worse. I have determined every
day to retrench and deny myself. But it seemed so
innocent an amusement, and so little liable to misconstruction,
I have returned to my fault again and again.
I love English, that I must confess. I am sensible
that I have trespassed on your time and patience.
Your language has opened to me a new world, and
your beautiful poets have convinced me that I have a
new heart. Will you leave me just now, in the midst
of these enjoyments? You have just opened the first
pages of the book of knowledge before me, and have
raised the eagerness of desire, and you would now
leave me, not enough instructed, unaided, to read it.
We cannot spare you just now. The character which
my mother has always maintained as belonging to you, is
beginning to be developed, to convince the doubtful, and
to confound your enemies. That you have such, I will
not deny, nor that I have heard you traduced. More
shame to those who do it so unjustly. Let them go
on. Their palpable malice has half convinced my
father. In my mother you have a firm friend. Your
pupils behaved badly just now, I admit. But what of
that? I dare not tell you what these young ladies think
of you, for fear you should become vain. Stay, and
triumph over your enemies. It is unworthy of that
spirit, of which I have received such memorable proofs,
I have none too many real friends myself. Oh! if you
knew what I have recently suffered!”
It is not altogether an original remark, that human
nature is a very frail establishment. Those brilliant
and spirited eyes, melting in the tenderness of persuasion,
and fixed upon me, the frank and childlike simplicity
of her confidence, and the deep expression of
grief with which she made the last remark, completely
vanquished my resolution, and I expressed myself in
terms of unwonted bitterness towards those who could
be so base as to cause her suffering. I was vehement,
and expressed myself with an ardor, that intimated any
thing, rather than the common interest which I must be
supposed to feel in her condition.
She looked at me rather with surprise than displeasure,
holding up her hands in astonishment. “Look
you here!” said she. “This is the philosopher, the
pure and dispassionate intelligence that despises dancing.
Indeed, Sir, this declamation is more flattering
than just. It is a truth, that a personage, just so meritorious
and innocent as I am, does suffer just now, and
that bitterly. Let us both lay our wrongs out of the
question, and see which can suffer with most dignity
and patience—the dance-hating philosopher, or the
untaught, romping Spanish girl, that dearly loves the
fandango. Your readiness to fly at the first difficulty,
inclines me to think, the young lady will vanquish the
philosopher at this trial.” I answered, “When I know
the nature of your sufferings, and from what cause they
“Oh! I must make you a confidant, then, must I? I
am thinking you are rather too young, all philosopher
as you are, to receive the confessions of a young
lady. But I know of no impropriety in saying, that
the man, who the other morning so rudely caused
you to leave the table, is the cause of my suffering.
Why should I stint my confidence? They have destined
me for him. I have parried the proposition for a
long time. Once I was indifferent to him. My feelings,
I know not how, have changed, and I now positively
detest him. The worst is, that my friends, my
father, my dear mother even, are in the conspiracy
against me. They even urge me to an immediate
union. They allege the disturbances and dangers of
the times; the necessity of an equal-aged protector, a
man of the same rank, wealth, and condition with myself.
They go further. His taciturnity with them is
wisdom. His bitter temper is honorable sternness.
They even sicken me with his praises. To all this,
urged again and again, I have only to reply, that I
feel safe; that I would neither wish to leave, or survive
my mother; and that I have a fixed disinclination to
any present change in my condition. I strive to gain
time. The Virgin mother forgive me! I dare not tell
them that I hate their favourite. Once or twice they
have driven me to desperation, and then they heard all
the truth. But enough of this. I know not what has
led me into the folly of telling you my trifling secrets.
I mean to be more moderate and discreet in allowing
patient and prudent. Do you do the same. Shorten
my exercises, and prolong those of the rest. Be
marked in your civilities to them. How my heart
thanked you, for conducting in a manner equally forbearing
and spirited towards Don Pedro the other
morning! continue this course, and you will conquer
them all. Oh that the Holy Virgin would touch your
heart! Then, ah then—” she made a pause. “And
what then?” I eagerly asked. “Then you might become
to me, as a brother.”
“I implore you,” said I, “my dear Martha, not to put
any of these bribes before me, nor to make any of
these tender suppositions, which can never be. I
fear, I can never change my religion. My convictions
upon this point are settled. I should poorly win my
claim to more confidence with a mind, that weighs
character, like yours, by becoming a recreant to my
principles. I beseech you not to make me swerve from
my course by a kindness, which may set my wicked imagination
to weaving the threads of a tie, tenderer than
that of brother. I must never allow such a fancy,
much less give it utterance.” “You are right,” she replied;
“you must neither forget the latter, nor dream
of the former. But remain firm to your philosophy.
I pleased myself in fancying you were cold, disinterested,
dispassionate, and what an excellent casuist you
would be to me in cases of conscience and the heart.
In short I promised to find in you, a calm and considerate
friend and brother. Above all things, I wish
remain where you are. Things must change for the
better. Put the most favorable construction you can
upon a confidence, which departs so far from common
rules. Alas! whom have I in whom to confide, but
my mother? and, unhappily, she is in sentiment with
my father upon this point.”
It is not in man, at least it was not in me, to resist
such persuasions, which, however they may seem out
of the way in the relation, had, under the circumstances
of the case, an air of simple and modest confidence,
which, according to my notions of decorum, were in
perfect keeping with her whole deportment. My own
wrongs were forgotten, and regarding Don Pedro as
another Menko, I was determined that I would remain,
and endure all, as long as it should be endurable, and
that I would devote myself to the welfare of Martha, in
whom I began to admit to myself, that I felt to the full,
at least a fraternal interest. And with her frank admission
of claims up to that point, I determined to content
myself.
I fear, sir, that I have already wearied and cloyed
you, with these milky adventures. I have all along
felt extremely foolish about being the hero of this my
own story, and have thought often of the privileges of
the renowned author of the “Commentaries,” and have
wished, that like him, I were of sufficient consequence,
to speak of myself in the third person. But, as you
insist upon my proceeding, you must arm yourself with
patience, and I will introduce you to matters of a little
all the tender matter of this stage of my adventures
in a mass. You may infer, as you please, my inmost
thoughts, whether, or not, I am a captivating
man, since you will see from my story, that I fire
every thing that comes in my way.
It happened, the next day after this conversation
with Martha, that Dorothea and the Misses Benvelt
came in for recitation considerably earlier than usual.
The library was separated from my apartment where
we recited, by a partition, which was pierced in a number
of places to admit a free circulation of the air, and
was screened by Venetian blinds, a whisper in one
apartment, as in a whispering gallery, was audible in
the other. I had set out on my evening ride; I forget
the circumstance, but something had induced me to
return. I was in the library when the ladies entered
my apartment. I was so situated, that I could not
escape, without making it known, that I had overheard
their conversation. I heard my pupils begin to make
me the subject of a confidential conversation, premising
that they had seen me ride out, and that I should not
be back for an hour. I heard enough, before I had
determined what course I ought to pursue, to hold me
in `durance vile,' until I might escape unperceived.
I was aware that I should create a most painful
surprise, if I should open my door, and interrupt
them.
The conversation began by the Misses Benvelt inquiring
in a half whisper, “if it were certain that I was
for, as she rode into the courtyard, she had seen me
moving out on horseback. “Beside,” she added, “I
should think, he could not hear us from the library,
even if he were there. Neither do I believe, even if
he heard us, that he could make out our conversation,
when we speak in Spanish.” Elder Miss Benvelt.
“There you mistake. He speaks and understands
Spanish well. Love and Martha have taught him all
that.” Dorothea. “He learns Spanish to a miracle.
That is true. And he is a charming fellow. But I
vow to our Lady of Lisbon, that I believe not a word
of his loving Martha, though it is easy to see, poor
thing, that she is dying for him. But she is sped.
She is obliged to take Don Pedro, for better or worse.
And I see not, why she ought not to be satisfied. He
is rather solemn and grim, to be sure. Not exactly
such a man as our master, but well enough after all.
I suppose you have heard the news, that there is
another rising in Texas. A great many Americans
have come on, and are joined with the rebels. The
Conde has to go and fight them. He insists that his
daughter marries before he sets out for the army.
The Condesa is in heart with Martha, and against an
immediate union, and there has been a great storm in
the palace. I think for one, that she never will do
better. Jesu! I have seen as pretty, as she is, though
she gives herself such airs. The father confessor is
ready to excommunicate her for her obstinacy, and
Don Pedro swears, that she did formerly as good as
altar; and he lays all the blame of her present obstinacy
upon our teacher, and he swears, that if the adventurer,
as he calls him, does not leave the country, he
will call him out and fight him. That's determined
upon. Some say, he will fight, and some say, that
these people are better to fight Indians, than they are
to handle sword and pistol with a gentleman. I wish
I knew, if there were any love between them. For
my part, I always suspect such grave people. Martha,
to be sure, seems to have fire enough, but the other,
seems an insensible block of wood. I dare say, both
of them have their thoughts, as well as other people.
At any rate, Don Pedro is determined to kill him, or
drive him out of the country. They have threatened.
Martha every way, poor child; to send her to Spain,
and to a convent, or to shut her up in the palace upon
bread and water.” Second Miss Benvelt. “Poor
Martha! I am sorry for her! It must be a dreadful
thing to marry, where one does not love. We must
all allow, that Martha is a sweet girl, though she does
happen to be prettier than any of us. As for our
teacher, he is a divine young man. Certainly Martha
is an exception. But leave her out, and we must
allow that the Germans and the Americans are much
handsomer than the Spaniards. I was at Chihuahua,
and saw those fine fellows that came with Captain
Pike. I could never endure a swarthy Spaniard for
a husband, after seeing such men.” Dorothea, looking
in the glass. “I vow, Miss Benvelt, you are very
Spaniard, and a Gauchupine myself. I bless
the Virgin, my father allows me to do just as I please.
This poor fellow of ours has no money. Now would
it not be a generous thing, to take him myself. I
have wealth enough for us both. I have done every
thing to let him see, that I did not dislike him.
But he is an astonishing block, and will not take a
hint.” Elder Miss Benvelt. “My father is as rich,
as yours, and allows me as much liberty. For the matter
of that, the Saxons and Americans are much more
alike, than the Spaniards and Americans. I hate Don
Pedro! The bloody-minded wretch, to drive away our
master, or kill him. I hope, if they do fight, that Don
Pedro will fall. Do you think he will fight, Dorothea?”
Dorothea. “I dare say he will. But if he
should, these Americans have an eye and a hand, as
steady and true as steel. It is just as likely, as not,
that he kills Don Pedro, and then I am sure he would
get Martha for the prize. Now, to tell you the plain
truth, I do not value English a fig, and I am sure, I
shall never learn it. What's the use? he talks French,
and you say, he can talk Spanish. I vow to the
Virgin, I love to look at him, and that's just what I
come for; and you, German romps, you are here for
nothing else either. How is it, that Martha has already
learned to hiss in the horrid language? Is it not surprising
that the language should be so harsh, and the
men so pretty?”
I heard a great deal more childish rattle of this sort.
I was presented with interior views of what was passing
in the recesses of the Conde's household. I gathered,
that Martha was more severely pressed to an union
with Don Pedro, than she had informed me; that I
might expect to be treated by him with more gross
rudeness, than I had yet experienced, and, more important
than all the rest, that there was an insurrection
in Texas. The confabulation ended by my fair pupils
proposing a walk in the garden, before recitation. The
moment they retired, I retreated too, and, by a circuitous
direction, came into my room as if from abroad,
leaving them entirely ignorant what flattering secrets
I had been compelled to hear.
This recitation passed off as usual, except that Don
Pedro did not attend it. The young ladies apologized
for their rudeness and negligence of the former day, in
such a manner, as led me to see, they had been tasked
by Martha for it. They attributed it to chagrin for not
having learned their task. They promised better attention
for the future. As we had agreed, I devoted but
little time to Martha, and more than usual to the rest,
and the exercise went off with apparent satisfaction
upon all sides.
Next morning I had still further confirmation of what
was passing at the palace respecting me. I wished to
take a ride to visit a young Englishman, that was much
esteemed, who had recently been dangerously wounded
by the unexpected explosion of a blast, which he was
superintending in the adjacent mines. He was the
husband had been settled on the Conde's estate, as
chief engineer in the mines. Bryan rode with me to
show me the way. As soon as we had cleared the
park, he addressed me in a voice, which trembled with
affectionate concern. “Now God and St. Patrick
touch the heart of your Honor, and make you a true
Roman.” “Why that prayer, Bryan?” I asked.
“Because, your Honor, father Josephus, blast his black
face! has set all the big people against you. He tells
them that you are a bad heretic, as knowing as the
devil; and that you will make all the people rebels.
He makes you a kind of Orange-man. The Indians
and the small folks like you all the better for it.
But that is no help here. For the king's men just
whip you up for nothing, and plunge you a thousand
fathoms in the mines for nothing but a word. And
these folks have all the upperhand now. And so the
Conde, to please the big folks, and the father, and the
young Don, and all, has published, that unless you will
turn round, and become a true Roman, and swear for
the king, he will send you packing. Your land is a
free one, and if you go home, unless you are pleased
to beat me back, Bryan goes with you.” “My good
friend,” said I, “I have hardly the means of taking
care of myself. But if I leave here, I certainly return
to my own free and happy country, where every honest
man does as he pleases, and there an industrious and
active lad can hardly fail of finding profitable and independent
employment.” “Ay,” said Bryan, “that's
blow, and the blow comes first. But it will please your
Honor to hear, that Martha, God bless her bright eyes!
pleaded hard for you, and said, as how an honest man
could not change his religion at once, and just when
he had a mind to it. The jewel and her mother had
a great deal to say for you. Finally, the Conde got
his blood up, and looked cross, this way; and swore,
that he had done enough to please her whims, and
those of her mother; that his mind was fixed, and that
he meant to try another hand with you, and with them.
He looked more grim and bitter than ever I saw him
before, and ordered his daughter out of the room.”
Bryan continued to give me details of this sort, until
we arrived at a most beautiful spot at the foot of the
mountains, from which burst forth great numbers of
clear and beautiful springs. In a deep grove of catalpas
and white walnuts, through which ran a rivulet,
formed by the union of these springs, was one of those
green stone cottages, of which I have spoken. Here,
Bryan informed me, lived the young man, whom I
came to visit. I knocked, and was admitted immediately.
On a clean mattress, and in a room neat and
cool, lay the unfortunate young man, whose wounds, it
was feared, would prove mortal. He had a manly
face, of the finest expression. His neck and breast
were scorched and blackened with gunpowder. He
appeared in an agony of pain, and the noble effort
which he made to suppress the expression of it before
his mother, gave his countenance a striking moral interest.
and her countenance bore the impress and the trace of
former beauty. No language can paint the maternal
affection, apprehension, and suspense, with which she
bent over the feverish and agonized form of her only
son. I told her, in a low voice, who I was, and that
having heard of her son's misfortune, and though not of
his country, yet speaking the same language and entertaining
for him the sympathies of a fellow countryman,
I had come in the hope that he would allow me to sit
with him, to watch with him, or in some way to be
serviceable to him or her. I felt affected with the
spectacle before me, and whenever the heart is moved,
the tone and the words catch the emotion. All the
mother's heart was expressed in the earnestness of her
thanks. “You are thrice welcome to my poor son,”
said she, as he fondly grasped my hand. “It will do
him good only to hear his own language spoken by one
so nearly of his own age.” After I had assisted her to
raise him, while she arranged his dressings, and after she
had informed me how he had received his wound, she
proceeded to tell her own short, but sad story. “My
husband came out here from England with an hydraulic
machine for throwing water from the mines. We were
here entirely in a region of strangers, both to our language
and religion. I heard not a word of English for
two years. But the place was delightful, the scenery
inspiring, and the people kind. So long as my dear
husband was with me, I knew no want of society or
friends. We obtained a comfortable subsistence. We
and every thing went well with us. We had but this
son. He was trained to the same employment with
his father, who lived to see him able to take his place.
The damp of the mines affected his health. He took
the fever of the country. Oh! how my heart throbbed
with apprehension, till his was still in death. Thou, O
God, sawest that it was good so to be. I was stupified,
reckless, almost motionless for months. Even this
sweet scenery, which memory still paints as it was
when my husband was with me, became tame and
gloomy. I was sure, `that the world had died to me,
and I to the world.' I mourned `in secret places;'
and I now feel that it was the insane and impious grief
which rises against that decree, which is as righteous
as it is unchangeable. God, who is rich in mercy,
bore, with his own divine forbearance, this my repining
spirit. I arose from my stupefaction, and I struggled
with myself, and I prayed and communed with God,
and became gradually composed, and the spirit of
peace revisited my bosom. This dear son began to be
to me, as the husband I had lost. He came forward,
considerate, virtuous, industrious, respected even by
these people, so different in manners and religion.
Yesterday the second blow was struck. My Heavenly
Father saw that my idolatrous leaning upon the father
was about to be transferred to the son. It may be,
God will look upon this my extreme affliction, and will
stay his hand with this solemn warning. And oh! if
he will be pleased to spare this my dear son, I here
love him more than I ought. There is nothing on earth
in which to trust, but God.”
Nothing soothes the agony even of pain, like true
sympathy and tenderness of heart. I looked on this
poor widow's all. We shed tears, the mother, the son,
and the stranger, together. I sat behind the young
man, sustaining him half raised on his pillows, and was
bathing his head, and chafing his throbbing temples
with aromatic vinegar, and the mother was fanning him,
and dropping silent tears, when the door opened, and
Doña Martha entered, without being announced. The
Conde, she said, had come out to take a look at a
new mine, excavating in the side of the mountain. He
had sent by Martha, who felt no disposition to pass by
this scene of sorrow, the preparations of the family
physician for his wounds. Her steps instinctively led
her to the abode of misery. She requested that she
might be set down at the foot of the hills, whence she
walked up to the widow's cottage, to be called for on
the return of the Conde in the evening.
The day was a holiday from the usual English exercises,
and it may be supposed, that the surprise of two
such persons, who seldom saw each other, except in
the presence of prejudiced spies, thus to be sure of the
greater part of a day together, and unsuspected, was a
pleasant one. Two circumstances concurred to open
both our hearts. We were in a scene of sorrow, peculiarly
calculated to open the heart, and we were both
of us sufficiently apprised, that these interviews must
of her ardent and affectionate character, to know what
effect it would have upon such a nature as hers, to see
me thus occupied. And if ever beauty, united with all
the adventitious circumstances of worldly estimation,
is irresistible, it is when the eye first melts in sympathetic
participation with pain and woe, and is suffused
with the tears of unaffected pity. I discovered, by the
first affectionate look of recognition, that this was not
the first time Martha had been there. I saw, too, by a
transient look, that she thought well of that part of my
religion, which led me to spend my holiday in the
abode of sickness and sorrow. She said but a few
words to the poor widow, but it was the look that
accompanied those words, which went to my heart.
The young man next received her attention. She
gave him some cordial drops, and a balsam of the country
for embrocation, and was particular in telling the
mother all that the physician had said and prescribed
in the case. The drops were given immediately, and
I raised him, and with the assistance of his mother, we
applied to his wounds these applications, which operated
almost immediately in allaying his anguish. He first
showed tranquillity, and the moment after drowsiness,
and soon he was in a quiet and refreshing sleep, the
first he had had from the time of his receiving his
wounds.
It was natural that the mother's heart should open to
confidence and hope, and while she spoke of the extreme
forlornness and destitution in which his being
dear Madam, he must, and, I trust, he will recover.
Every thing that nursing and medical aid can do, we
will have done. I hope there is no ground for apprehension.
But even if things should go different from
our hopes, as long as I am here, and have the means
of aiding you, you shall have a daughter, if not a son.
You know whether you may depend upon my promise.”
Who can trace the effect of such eyes glistening with
sympathetic tears? I felt to my cost, what it was upon
me. I perceived a certain swelling of my heart, and a
thick palpitation there, which I was sure, from what I
had read, and from the deep attention I had lately
bestowed upon these feelings. I was sure was love.
“This, then,” said I, “is that terrible disorder, as
obstinately fixed upon me, as I was supposed to be upon
all my own determinations.” Never had I watched a
conversation with such an intense interest, as that of
this blooming girl, so amply endowed with the means of
kindness and aid, holding the grasped hand of this interesting
widow, and both of them dissolved in tears.
The Conde was not expected to return until evening.
Bryan was occupied in arranging her affairs in
her barn and enclosures. The mother was in the
kitchen, preparing refreshments and dinner for her
guests. The patient slept. The intense ardors of the
sun were mitigated by passing clouds, and a pleasant
breeze. “Why should we not walk,” asked Martha,
“in these beautiful groves? I wish to show you what
a strength and beauty of vegetation we have here among
trees, plants, shrubs, and flowers, that are common to the
mountains and the valleys, meet here, and intermingle.
The fountains, that trickle from the roots of the hills,
irrigate the various tribes of vegetation, the vines and
copses, and give them a delicious verdure and coolness.
Here are the favourite haunts of the red-bird, the
mocking-bird, the parroquet, and the myriads of birds
with the most variegated and splendid plumage, with
which this region abounds.” “Let us walk, and enjoy
the coolness and the scenery;” and I, “nothing loath,”
I admit, walked with her under trees, every one of
which was “prodigal of harmony.” Immediately round
us, every thing was beauty and repose; but heavy
thunder, the clouds of which were not yet visible, rolled
among the mountains. The bald eagle and the falcon
raised their screams, and were soaring in the blue
above their loftiest summits. My fair companion seemed
to have laid aside her reserve and her distance of
manner. She spoke in English in pure words and correct
phrase, but with a Spanish accent, which possibly
I might not have admired, had the words been uttered
by the lips of age and deformity; and she quoted
Shakspeare with an enunciation, not perhaps like Garrick's,
but I am sure, I thought the words prettier, and
the quotation more apposite, than I had deemed them
before. I, too, had my quotations, and to tell you the
plain truth, we both of us verged rapidly towards that
confidential conversation, which both of us seemed to
have a presentiment would be our last. I cannot remember
had imperceptibly begun to say civil things to each
other, and to regret the want of opportunities to talk
with a little more freedom. Martha in particular expressed
herself with great energy upon the beauty of
the day, the place, the occasion; and admitting that
she had never enjoyed a walk so much, observed,
quoting from Othello, that if I had a friend, let him
desert the usual frivolous pursuits of young men, and
turn aside on a holiday, to comfort and nurse a sick
young man, the only son of his mother, and “she a
widow,”—let me bring such a friend to such a place,
and “that would woo her.”
Upon the hint, the same purpose with Othello's,
sprung to my lips; but prudence and honor laid their
imperious injunctions upon me, and suppressed the
expression of it. I only observed, that when I saw
such a friend standing on a precipice, with temptations
almost too strong for human nature to resist, I should
advise him, if honor or duty had placed a single obstacle
in the way of winning the prize, not to woo it,
but to fly. “In truth,” said I, “Doña Martha, if I
had not made an inviolable covenant with my thoughts
and resolutions, it would not be safe for me to be here.”
A long and foolish silence ensued, each waiting for the
other to begin the conversation again. She resumed
first, by remarking, that she had been introduced, just
before her embarkation, to the splendid court of Ferdinand
VII. “I was very young, but I had the customary
share of compliment and attention. But with what
in that scene of splendor and dissipation, from
the calm satisfaction of comforting the desolate heart of
this poor widow, and walking in this sweet place, contemplating
this grand and awful nature above and
around us; seeing these gay birds, dressed still more
gaudily than the ladies of that court; hearing that
distant thunder echo in the mountains; feeling myself
secure in the society of a man, who has opened
to me a new and an enchanting page in the book of
knowledge, in having taught me his language; and
finding myself here with him (both led by the same
impulse to do good) who feels on so many points
in common with myself.” I replied, by applauding her
taste, and by saying, that although poets and philosophers
had prosed upon the subject so much and so
often, it was not the less true, that there was no real
and healthful enjoyment, that would at once satisfy and
last, but that which proceeded from truth and nature.
“The real and deep satisfactions of life are cheap and
common. The feverish and noxious pleasures, that
cost much, and are seasoned with pride, luxury, and
ambition, are within the reach of but few. With respect
to the affection, upon which you have touched in quoting
from our bard, there is no doubt that luxury, and
dissipation, and splendor, and courts, are fatal to its
pure and genuine influence. That we can be happy,
let divines and poets say as they may, I know and
feel. Let the past and the future be blotted from the
records of memory. I can live long and happily on
replied, “have been so happy, that I want words to
express my sensations. I have felt before this, that
certain places and scenes, and even a certain temperature
of the air, must concur with the tone of our
thoughts and feelings, to produce high enjoyment.
What a beautiful canopy of shade! Look at that distant
outline of mountains, that seem to be points from
which the mind can take its departure towards the
eternal throne! How grand those distant peals of thunder!
And yet what repose and tranquillity about us!
Scarcely a leaf trembles, to disturb the singing of the
birds. This place, I should think, would almost suggest
thoughts of love to a philosopher, who held himself
above the joys and pursuits of the vulgar. What beautiful
verses were those which you read to me the other
day from Wordsworth. See if I quote them right.
His daily teachers had been woods and rills;
The silence that is in the starry sky;
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
I have heard my companions often talk with a foolish
cant about woods and solitudes, and love and a cottage.
Nothing is to me more disgusting, than the affectation
of fondness for these things, as nothing is more delightful,
than the real, deep, and cordial relish for them.
Instead of affecting any delight which I do not feel in
these simple satisfactions, how many times have I suppressed
emotions of this sort, struggling for utterance,
lest I should be thought extravagant and romantic.”
While we were thus conversing, the thunder, which
had been rolling at a distance in the mountains, approached
nearer. The peals were more frequent, and
the echoes more loud and awful. The brassy edges
of clouds rolled together, and sweeping forward, like
the smouldering pillars of smoke from some mighty
conflagration, were seen lowering from the heights,
and beginning to cover the sun. Gleams of lightning
darted far into the regions of the atmosphere, that were
as yet of cloudless blue. The crash that followed
interrupted our conversation. “Hark,” said she,
“what terrible peals of thunder!” and she clung involuntarily
to my arm. I asked her, if she were accustomed
to be frightened at thunder. She answered,
“Not with thunder storms of a common character.
But I have been so happy, and have enjoyed these
hours so much, that I know not why, at this moment I
feel not precisely terror, but as your poet says, `awe
struck.' How grand and how awful are the forms and
foldings of those clouds, `tempest o'er tempest rolled.'
Why is it, that in such perfect repose of the heart,
and such delightful exercise of its best affections,
images of terror and destruction should bring with
them peculiar alarm? It is in these moments, when
we feel in the highest degree our capabilites of enjoyment,
that the idea of death, strikes me with chill
and with fear. `D'ou part l'éclair, que nous appelons
existence, et dans quelle nuit va-t-il s'éteindre?
L'Eternel a placé la naissance et la mort sous la forme
de deux fantômes voilés aux deux bouts de nôtre
nôtre vie, que l'autre s'empresse de dévorer.' ”
By this time the horizon was covered. There was a
rushing sound in the air, and we were reluctantly
compelled to return to the house for shelter. The
thunder storms of the northern regions, seldom give
an idea of the assemblage of terrific accompaniments,
belonging to a severe one in the tropics. A thick
mist fills all the distance between the clouds and the
earth. A dim and yellowish twilight throws a frightful
yellow upon the verdure of the trees and the earth.
The storm was tremendous. The commencement was
in the stillness of death, and the burst of the winds was
as instantaneous, as the crash of the thunder. The
rain did not descend in drops, or in sheets, but the
terrible phenomenon of the bursting of the clouds upon
the mountains took place. The roar of the new formed
torrents and cascades, pouring from the mountains,
mingled with that of the rain, the thunder, and the
winds. The atmosphere was a continued and lurid
glare of lightning, which threw a portentous brilliance
through the descending waters and the darkness of the
storm. Many an aged tree, that had remained unscathed
for ages, was stript from its summits to its
roots by the descending fires of the sky. The people,
used as they were to thunder storms, were appalled
by the fury of this. The sick young man, aroused
from his sleep, rested his head upon his hand, and his
pains seemed to be suspended, while he contemplated
the uproar and apparent conflagration of the elements
thunderbolt fell upon a vast eypress, but a few feet
from the house. The shock was so violent, that each
one, that was sitting in the room, was thrown from his
seat. As we recovered from the blow, we saw how
naturally, in such moments, each one flies to the object,
in which he has most confidence. The widowed
mother, sprang to the arms of her son, and Martha,
at the same moment, clung to my side. The scene,
so terific to them, was to me, one of the grandest in
nature. I enjoyed the commotion and the darkness of
the storm. All the energies of my nature were awakened.
I would have been willing, that such peals
should have been repeated every moment, so that the
bolt fell not on the house. The impulse, which had
led Martha to fly to me in the moment of terror, was
the most unequivocal proof, I had yet experienced,
that I was not indifferent to her. Here the heart had
spoken; but the moment of recovered self-possession,
replaced the paleness of surprise and terror, with the
blushes of consciousness. The entire calmness, which
I felt and avowed, drew from them expressions of
astonishment, almost of reproach. But it gradually
communicated, as it invariably does in such cases, composure
to the rest. We resumed our seats in a kind
of tranquil astonishment, as the storm gradually subsided.
The thunder rolled sublimely still, but at a greater
distance. The blue of the atmosphere began to show
itself at the zenith. The clouds rolled away towards
the east, and the sun came forth in his brightness, just
that was terrific in the fury of the storm, was now an indescribable
mixture of beauty and grandeur. Frequent
gleams of the most vivid lightning played on the passing
extremities of the clouds, rolled together, pile
above pile, like precipices of brass. White pillars of
mist arose from the earth. The birds welcomed the
return of the sun, and the renewed repose of nature,
with a thousand mingled songs. Occasionally, a louder
peal of thunder, made the cottage tremble to its foundation,
and the hollow roar of the torrents, that the
shower had formed in the mountains, sounded like the
distant tones of an organ.
The young man was revived, by the cheering freshness
of the atmosphere, and that balmy odour and
richness of the earth and the sky, after such a shower,
that every one has felt, and that so few have described.
We sat at the door of the cottage, looking abroad upon
the scene, and inhaling the breeze, too full at heart, and
too happy, at least two of us, for any thing, but silence
and interior enjoyment. We were aroused from our
pleasant reverie, by the rattling of the Conde's carriage,
as it drove towards the cottage. Martha turned pale,
as she discovered that we were thus recognised together.
There was no retreat. The family had not
known, that I was to visit there, and this meeting had
but too much the appearance of having been preconcerted
on both sides. This appearance was strengthened
by the evident perturbation in her face. Even
the countenance of the Condesa, as she came in, had
into the cottage. The Conde, the priest, and Don Pedro,
each reddened with undisguised resentment. The
physician was with them, and while he and the Conde
were examining the case of the young man, and the
Condesa was engaged in conversation with the widow,
Don Pedro requested me to walk abroad with him.
The very manner in which he made this request, was
an affront. However extraordinary the request, and the
manner in which he made it, I saw no reason why I
should decline. I foresaw, in fact, the course which
our conversation would assume. It did not contribute
to my composure, to remark, that his request had been
noticed by the Condesa and her daughter, and that
they were both, as I went out, as pale as death.
We were scarcely cleared of the cottage, before he
began in Spanish, for he was evidently in too much
perturbation, to speak in a foreign language. “Sir,
it is full time, that you and I have an explanation.” I
begged him to proceed, and tell me upon what subject.
“You know too well,” he replied, “the subject I mean.
I have had good reason before to complain, but have
forborne, till your conduct is no longer endurable. I
find you here in company with Doña Martha. The
meeting is evidently preconcerted. When a young
lady of her rank and standing so degrades herself,
whatever may be her share of the fault and folly, I
shall consider you answerable for the whole. You are
perfectly aware of my right to interfere in the case.
You must be equally aware, that at this stage of your stay
you seem disposed to prosecute to the utmost, seeking
opportunities of private interviews with that lady, must
be as unpleasant and offensive to her parents, as it is
affronting to me. You seem to have imposed upon
her gratitude, and subsequently, to have weakened her
reason and good sense, to the point of inducing her
to dishonor her noble name and family. The parents
have finally seen their error in allowing themselves to
be influenced by the foolish fancies of their daughter.
They propose a summary way of bringing this affair
to a crisis. But it is my cause, and I propose to take
it into my own hands. I wave all objections to you on
the score of birth, standing, and character. If you are
the undoubted chevalier, which you are estimated from
one fortunate adventure, you will meet me, and we will
decide our pretensions to the young lady in question,
in the proper way. If you refuse, she will at least see
the true nature of the heroism of her chivalrous and
heretical champion. You understand me, sir?”
“Yes,” I answered, somewhat bitterly. “Your
head, heart, and language are but too easily comprehended.
In the first place, sir, you have no right
whatever to tax me in this way. I respect myself too
much, and you too little, to vindicate myself, or obviate
your charges. I owe it to Doña Martha, however, still
more than to myself (for I would not reply to it on my
own account), to affirm on my honor, that no knowledge
of her intended visit here, induced me to come, and
that if I had known that she would have been here,
whether I am brave, or a coward, it becomes not me
to say. It is contrary to my settled principles of right
and wrong, contrary to my religious, my heretical principles,
if you please, to fight a duel. No temptation
shall seduce me, no provocation goad me, to violate my
principles. Doña Martha, and every other person, will
think me chevalier, or not, as they choose. I will not
meet you in that way. Even upon your calculations,
in staking our lives on this issue, I do not estimate the
stakes to be equal. Whatever difference fortune has
made between us, I have always felt myself, I will not
say so much above you, but so different from you, that
all your attempts to insult me, have been, and are now
utterly unavailing.”
This I said firmly, and in good set Spanish. It
seemed equally to rouse his confidence and his rage.
He seemed to have had some modest apprehensions
that I would fight him. When they were removed, his
insolence knew no bounds. He poured out terms corresponding
to the words, poltron, coward, scoundrel, &c.
in rapid succession, and told me, that if he did not fear
the interference of the family, he would chastise me
with his cane on the spot. I was wholly unarmed, but
in bodily strength much his superior. I advanced near
him, and directly in front, eyeing him sternly, “Sir,”
said I, “that is another affair. Nothing will provoke
me to be the aggressor, and nothing will make me swerve
from my purpose not to fight you. Attempt the least
personal violence, and, Sir, I have principles for that
moment the power of my muscles, and I have a surmise,
that one experiment would satisfy you for ever.”
In his trembling hands, and in his pale face, and a kind
of impulse to retreat, I saw that he was not nerved to
the point of immediate contest. He retired, uttering
as he went, the terms “loquacious coward,” and entered
the cottage, and the family soon after took their
leave. I entered the cottage, and repeated my offers
of watching and aid, received the affectionate and cordial
thanks of the widow, and followed the carriage at
a distance.
On my return, I learned by Bryan, that Don Pedro
had been particular to have it known that he had challenged
me, and that I had refused to fight him, “And,”
said he, “God bless your Honor, but it has turned the
Conde's heart still more against you. Every tongue
wags upon the subject, but Martha's, and she, the jewel,
just turned her face, and looked t'other way. Every
body fights here, when he is asked. Ah! by St.
Patrick, had it been me, your Honor, that he had been
asking that way, he should have tasted my shelalah,
any how. I see clearly that your Honor has to leave
the family, and this business of learning them English.
May be, it is not your Honor's way of doing business.
Even the jewel herself would have liked you none the
worse, for giving that grim whelp a basting.”
Thus I saw that even the kind heart of Bryan had
been carried away by their prejudices, and chilled
against me, for refusing to fight. You must be perfectly
and western country against the young man, who
refuses a challenge. It is considered not only as the
touchstone of courage, but the test of all kinds of worth.
An unknown young man can hardly expect to sail before
the full gale of public opinion, until he has been
known to have fought, or to have given a challenge.
A prejudice so brutal, pervades all classes of the community.
Even the few, who profess to act under the
influence of the Gospel, evidently grow cool towards a
person, after he has been known to have refused a
challenge. The same prejudice to the same extent
prevailed here. I no longer disguised from myself that
I loved Martha fervently, and with all my soul. I had
flattered myself that I was beloved in turn, and persons
at that time of life who love, and believe themselves
beloved, will conjure up visions of hope. Impossibilities
vanish before the buoyancy of youthful hope and love.
I knew her heart, and the excellence of her understanding,
and the correctness of her moral feelings.
But I knew, too, that the strongest minds never completely
disentangle themselves from the ties of the web
of early associations and impressions. It was a reflection
of unmingled bitterness, that I should, after all, be
banished from the palace, my pursuits, and Martha,
and be stigmatized as a coward; while the only achievement
that I ever fancied I had performed, would be laid
to accident, and I be thought to retreat before the insults
of the acknowledged admirer of Martha, and my avowed
enemy from the first. I found it hard, and even impossible
I thought, for this ride, with the admirable, but
vanquished and forsaken Brutus, “O virtue, I have worshipped
thee as a real divinity, and I find thee but an
empty name.” It was not long that I “chewed the cud
of these bitter fancies,” before I retracted all my infidelity
as to the doctrine, that Virtue is her own divine
reward. We rode on in silence, for even Bryan, having
given unequivocal vent to his feelings, and having said
his say, rode beside me in a kind of sullen silence.
As we approached the river, near the castle, the twilight
was fast fading away. The carriage might be in
advance of us a third of a mile. I heard a loud and
mingled shriek of terror and distress. We put spurs to
our horses, and were on the banks of the river in a
moment. Our arrival was at a critical period for the
family. The carriage, and all that were in it, had been
carried away with the horses by the stream. The
coach-door was closed, and the Conde, his lady, and
their daughter were drowning, without the possibility,
as it seemed, of escape. The attendant servants on
horseback and the physician had crossed by swimming,
and were crying for help on the opposite bank. The
priest, with either a more reverend care for his health,
or with earlier foresight of the danger, had cleared himself
of the carriage, and hung fast to the roof. Don
Pedro, too, had been in season to escape, and had
floated before the furious current, until he had seized a
long branch, which waved up and down, and sometimes
sunk him quite under the water. He and the priest
help. Bryan did not want for energy, but he seemed
as one distracted. The physician and the servants, the
coachman and footmen, who were all safe ashore on
the opposite bank, answered to all these cries of distress
by still louder shrieks, by crossing themselves,
telling their beads, and making vows to Our Lady of the
Pillar. I stripped myself to my pantaloons in a moment,
plunged into the foaming current, and found the advantage
of having been an early and an expert swimmer.
The horses were already sunk and drowned, and the
carriage, impeded in its downward course by swinging
against a clump of small trees in the stream, just sunk
the party shut up in it, up to their chins, and sometimes
under water, according to the waving of the bushes.
The priest on the roof begged me for the love of God
and the Virgin, to give him the first deliverance. I disregarded
his cries, and was obliged to dive in order to get
at the opening of the door. I soon rescued the Conde,
who was nearest the door, and who was not so exhausted,
but what he was able to swim ashore. I then drew
out the Condesa and her daughter, who both clung to
me at once, and I was in danger of being drowned with
them. I disengaged their hands, which they clasped
firmly upon each of my arms, and pushed them from
me at my arm's length. The Condesa and her daughter,
disengaged from me, clung to each other. I grasped
the robe of the mother with one hand, and with great
offorts contrived to waft them, almost unconscious and
half drowned, ashore. To some in my situation, it would
of the two friends of mine still in the stream. As Don
Pedro seemed in the greatest danger, I purposed to
rescue him first. I rested a moment on the bank to
recover breath, and then plunged in. He had, as I have
remarked, enormous black whiskers. I remembered
his recent insults. I twisted my fingers in the curls of
his whiskers, by which I had the finest management
of him, and in this manner I fished this young limb
of the Spanish nobility safely from the stream.
The father alone remained perched on the roof, and
he was now apparently sinking. His cries of “Help!
murder! I drown!” were interrupted by loud and
earnest recitations of the pater noster, and prayers to
the Virgin. I took one end of a handkerchief, and
gave him the other to hold, and in this way I brought
him off safe. Horses and servants had already conveyed
the father, the mother, and daughter to the house.
Don Pedro, exhausted with fear and the water he had
swallowed, was obliged to be aided to the house. The
priest had suffered in no other way, than by fright.
On the road to the house, I was informed that the
coachman drove the carriage down the usual ford. The
horses had been accustomed to pass it so frequently,
that they plunged into it, not observing that by the late
shower it had been swollen to a furious torrent. Just
below the usual ford, a bar, that reached across the
channel, fell perpendicularly into a broad and deep
basin. The horses were frightened with the unusual
fury and foaming of the current, and plunged, and were
happened in this way.
The following morning I had a visit in my own apartment
from the Conde before breakfast. He saluted
me gravely, and with great deference. “You are an
astonishing man,” said he; “and if I believed in destiny,
I should be compelled to suppose that fate had
some how united the influence of your star with mine.
You may not have known that I have been suffering
among my best, in fact, my only friends, for retaining
in my family such a young man, a heretic, a republican,
of the same nation, and participating the same sentiments,
no doubt, with men, who are now united with
the rebellious creoles in an insurrection against my
government. I have vindicated your integrity. I have
indignantly repelled charges against you, as a dangerous
man. I have urged obligations of such a nature, as
could never be repaid. With respect to fears from
another quarter, they might be excusable in Don Pedro,
but I would hope, that nothing could ever influence my
daughter to do violence to her standing and religion,
by the thought of a mis-alliance. You have been made
aware, how incompatible we have considered your nation,
religion, and condition of life with mine. I feel it
necessary to be perfectly frank with you. I have admired
your character, at the same moment that I have
entertained these views. I have suffered so much from
suspicion, my government having had to encounter
charges diametrically opposite, and the father and Don
Pedro have had so much to say against your residence
daughter at the widow's cottage, determined to break
with you, and dismiss you. I found, on inquiry of her,
that this meeting was merely accidental, and without
concert. Returning from that meeting, you have triumphed
over us all again. We appear to be plunged
into danger, only to bring you to our rescue. It was a
noble return to Don Pedro for the insults of an hour before.
I owe you my life, in common with the rest. Even
the father admits, that he is ashamed to see you, after
what you have done for him. My wife and daughter,
God be praised, are quite recovered this morning.
Our proverb says, `that words are wind.' I am so
peculiarly situated, that I know not how to frame words
in which to thank you. If money could discharge my
obligations, and you would receive it, I would soon
wipe out the score. We all feel as we ought, and you
should place all our distrust of you merely to circumstances,
and our peculiar position. Shall I be still plainer?
My daughter probably feels too much, though, as I
have said, I have had no fears that either of you would
depart from the decorum expected from both. She is,
as you must see, my all, the apple of my eye. There
is not an alliance that fits us in all the government, but
that of Don Pedro. He is noble, rich, brave, loyal, a
colonel, high in the favor of this government, of the
same race and religion, in short, compatible in every
respect. I grant you to be worthy in the endowments
of nature, but I need not contrast you with him in some
of these particulars. My first object ought to be my
is, to see my daughter united to Don Pedro, to continue
my race and honors, when I am no more. I put it to
yourself to weight these circumstances. These evil
times, upon which we are fallen, give them an invincible
pressure at this time. It distresses me to tell you,
that I was forewarned of the result of permitting your
stay in my family. I flattered myself, that my daughter
would see all these things, as I see them. I perceive
that I mistook, from a blind confidence in her pride.
You have been too long and too intimately known to
her, for her repose. I acquit you, from my heart, of
every thing that is not perfectly correct and honorable
in your intercourse with her. But if you were to leave
us now, even after you have saved her a second time,
she is a woman, and you know, semper varium et mutabile.
Time will operate upon her, as upon upon the
rest. The peace and honor of her and of my family
are now in your hands. I have tried you sufficiently
upon the score of compensation. I can offer you nothing,
and you must rest satisfied with the applauses of
your own noble heart. And in your own country,
which I believe to be, as you represent it, great and
rising, such a mind as yours cannot fail to find its place,
and meet its reward. Were you a royalist and a Catholic,
untitled, and without a peso, you should fight Don
Pedro, for I do not believe you want courage, and
you should be my son-in-law. I can only mourn, as it
is, your unchangeable perseverance, and leave you to
infer my wishes.”
I have observed in such cases, that the first resolution
which offers, is ordinarily the right one; and that all
attempts to gain time for deliberation, are poor efforts
to throw dust in the eyes of conscience. The undisguised
and frank admissions of the Conde placed the
straight course clearly in my view. I might regret as
bitterly as I would, the obstacles of prejudice, nation,
birth, wealth, and religion. But these obstacles were
not the less real, or unchangeable. My conscience
admitted even, that they existed every where. Though
I was not sharp-sighted enough to see the utility of
these things in the general system, I was not repining
enough to doubt that they have their advantages in the
order of things. I painfully felt that I loved Martha,
but I hope I might say, without boasting, that I loved
honor and duty more. I admitted, then, to him in
reply, that I had staid too long in his family, if not
for his daughter's peace, at least for my own; that I
was well aware of all the obstacles of which he had
been pleased to remind me, but that I was no swindling
adventurer to take advantage of his confidence and of
circumstances; and that I would repair my fault as fast
as possible, by leaving his family, and returning to my
own country, never, I hoped, to leave it again. I assured
him, that my residence for even this short time
in his country, had learned me one great, practical
lesson, and that was, suitably to prize every thing that
appertained to my own.
He politely tried to disguise his joy at this determination,
and the old topic of compensation was resumed,
receive, under the name of salary, a sufficient sum to enable
me to return to Santa Fe, and thence, with the party
that I came with, to my own country. I confess, that the
thought more than once flashed across my mind, of joining
the patriots; but my only clear and fixed purpose was,
to return home. My departure was fixed to take place
in three days from that time, and I somewhat sternly
requested of the Conde, that during that interval, I
might not meet the members of a family, where I
seemed so dangerous, and that I might be served in my
own apartment. He appeared to feel much mortified,
at least he said much upon that point, that a person,
who had rendered him such signal services, should
seem to be driven, without compensation and almost in
disgrace, from his family. The father, he understood,
since the affair of the last evening, had felt more earnest
desires to converse with me on the subject of religion.
Possibly he might present views of the subject that had
never yet occurred to me, as I admitted that I was
very little acquainted with the points in dispute between
their church and ours. If I should yet see cause to
change my religion, all his views with respect to my
departure, might be reversed. He recommended to
me, to receive the father with a docile mind, and a
heart open to conviction. He promised to ascribe my
departure to motives most honorable to me, and to notify
it to my other pupils accordingly, and then left me.
In these remote regions, and in establishments like
this, where the duties assigned to the different members
in towns, where the people have important pursuits.
Every person in and about the house knew in
half an hour, that I was shortly to leave them. If I
might estimate my standing with these humble, but
amiable people, by attentions and demonstrations of
sorrow and regret, which must now at least be disinterested,
I had been a personage of no small consideration
in the palace. These people are naturally
affectionate, and there was a strife among them, who
should render me most kindnesses. The affectionate
Bryan had tears in his eyes, when he brought in my
breakfast. “God bless your Honor,” said he, “you
ought to kill the swaggering young Don, and instead of
that, you are going to break the heart of Martha.
Satan roast them all, but her. Don't you save their
lives, once and again, and drag out the young Don by
the whiskers, and the father, devil roast him! like a
drowning rat there, from the top of the coach, and
what do they do, but drive you out of the house, like a
mad dog? By Jasus! you have only to say one mass,
and scorch the whiskers of the young puppy, and you
will walk cock of the roost, after all. By St. Patrick,
your Honor, Martha is worth that much, and then I
will serve you for ever, and the day after. At any rate,
if you are wilful about saying the mass, as it is like you
may be, go where you will, if you will let me, I go with
you, and I have told them all as much.” “Certainly,
Bryan,” said I, “you can go with me, if you choose.
But I have been used to serve myself, and have no use
you choose to connect yourself with my fortunes, I will
always do the best for you I can.” “That is all I
want,” said he, “and you shall see whether I am any
loss to you. As for money, Martha and her mother,
the kind souls, have taken care to provide for that case.
Martha says to me, `Go with him, Bryan;' and the
tears fell from her eyes, like rain; `and if you love
Martha, show it by being kind to him, and taking good
care of him.' And she put into my hand a bag, so
heavy, and full of doubloons, and she says, `Bryan,
put it in your trunk, and apply the money to his use,
for the sake of Martha and the holy Virgin.' So your
Honor sees, there is no want of money at all, at all.”
After breakfast I took my accustomed walk, and in
the course of it was joined by father Josephus. His
manner towards me was wholly changed. The haughty
distance, with which he had hitherto treated me, was
converted into the most winning suavity, which he
knew so well how to assume. He reverted with the
politest expressions of thanks to the scene of the evening
before, remarking, that he had now another motive
to wish my conversion, since he understood I was about
to return to the land of licentiousness and heresy, and
that his sense of right told him that the most worthy
return he could render me, for having saved his life,
was for him in return to attempt to save the life of my
soul. “Do you feel docile, my son?” said he. “Can
you listen with an unprejudiced mind?” “Certainly,
holy father,” I answered; “I shall only ask as much
to reply to your arguments?” “Listen, then,” said he,
“and I will condense my view of the subject as much
possible.
“It is admitted by your teachers, that the holy
Roman Catholic church is that form of doctrine and
discipline, transmitted by Christ to his apostles. The
fathers were all of this church. No other was thought
of for a long succession of centuries. A few wild and
transient heresies, indeed, sprung up in different ages
of that period, but so wild, that they fell by their own
absurdity, or were dispersed before the wholesome instructions
of our church, like `chaff before the wind.'
Our church was clearly and indisputably the church
universal, down to those times of ignorance, heresy, and
misrule, which you call the Reformation. We have,
then, the most appropriate sanction which can belong to
this awful subject, antiquity in our favor. Compared
with the age of our church, all your new-born heresies
are but as the prophet's gourd, the birth of a night, and
to die in a night. We have in our church the keys of
the kingdom, and of death and hell. Christ said to
us, `On the rock of this unchangeable church will I
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.' When he thus laid the corner-stone of our
edifice, he gave the keys to St. Peter, to be transmitted
down through the church universal in the hands of the
holy father, as the lawful successor of St. Peter. He
opens, and no man shuts; and he shuts, and no man opens.
We are in no danger of your heresies and wild mistakes,
in the expoundings of an infallible church. Christ
promised always to be with this church to the end of
the world, to enlighten and guide it into all truth; and
the proof that this promise is always fulfilling, is, that our
church is, and has been one, entire, and identically the
same in all ages, countries, and conditions of the world.
The same prayers are recited, the same doctrines
taught, the same venerable rites solemnized in the
Vatican, in the Indies, the interior of Africa, in the
wildernesses of the new world; the same extreme
unction now infuses confidence, joy, and peace into the
departing soul of the obedient son of the church in this
day, as it did in the times of the first Christian emperors.
Thus we transmit a wholesome and unchangeable
doctrine, consoling sacraments, awful mysteries, and an
undivided faith from age to age. While the dying
penitent is uttering Ex profundis here, he knows that
hundreds of the faithful departing, of all languages and
climes, are uttering the same words, at the same moment.
“What is the fruit of your self-styled Reformation?
A thousand sects of wild and gloomy fanaticism, with
names too barbarous to be translated into Catholic
Spanish and Italian. The very catalogue of your heresies
is the most horrible vocabulary, that ever yet found
its way through the organs of speech. Such are the
fruits of a thousand ignorant and presumptuous founders
of sects, interpreting the scriptures for themselves, the
multiplication of sects upon sects, until, in the midst of
the people end in unbelief. Look, my son, at our
rites. How awful and imposing! See our priest giving
the consecrated wafer, and uttering the sublime words,
`Depart, Christian soul!' Behold the countenance of
the penitent, who feels all the tranquillity of pardoned
sin, brightening with faith, hope, and love, the moment
before it is rendered unchangeable in death. You object
to us the worship of images. We deny the charge,
and throw it back in the face of its inventors. We
venerate the Redeemer, and the Mother of God, and
the saints. We have preserved, by holy and primitive
painters, their countenances, as they were in the flesh.
Instead of reserving them for the private chamber, or
the cabinet alone, we place them in our churches.
We look at them, and our hearts are strongly called
out towards the archetypes of these dim resemblances,
that are in glory. We remember their toils and temptations
along the same thorny path which we ourselves
are travelling. We contemplate the visages of the
holy pilgrims that have arrived at our home before us,
and we bedew these images with the tears of memory
and tenderness of heart. This is our worship of images.
You call us persecutors, and yourselves have persecuted,
as often as you have had power. Ask your
Quakers. Search the records of those times, when superannuated
and broken-down old women were burned
as witches. Look at the church records of Geneva,
and, in fact, of every place where you have had power.
We grant you, it is right that the great Master of the
that the chaff should burn with unquenchable fire. The
true Catholic church never did, and never could persecute.
Whenever she has used a wholesome and necessary
severity, it has been only to apply an energetic
medicine to a desperate case, to purge away the leaven
of heresy, and avail herself of that temporal sword,
which has been given her, to vindicate her own glory
and advantage.”
I cannot follow, and it would be useless to follow
him in his long and labored harangue. In the same
spirit, he discussed and apologized for the decrees of
the councils, the protestant charges of corruption and
tyranny in the papacy, and in the religious houses, the
sale of indulgencies, the doctrine of purgatory, of the
real presence, and the other peculiar dogmas of the
Romish church. Sometimes his arguments were ingenious,
and his apologies and defences plausible.
Sometimes he availed himself of the most palpable
sophisms; as, for instance, he was an assertor of infallibility
in the church universal, and not alone in the
Pope, the head of his church. “I do not say,” said
he, “that any individual, or any portion of this church
is infallible. Every constituent member of the church
is fallible. But the whole, taken together, is infallible,
and so of the rest.” He insisted most earnestly on the
patronage which the Catholic church had always afforded
to genius, talent, investigation, and discovery, and
adverted to the great inventions, as having been universally
of Catholic origin. He spoke of the unequalled
care of Leo X. He summoned all his rhetoric,
and called in aid all his insinuation, in syllogizing one
grand ultimate maxim. “You cannot but admit, and
your church does admit, that we may be right. You
know our grand maxim, Point de salut hors de l'église,
`There can be no salvation out of the church.' You
admit, that there may be salvation in ours. Upon
your admitted principles, we are safe, and you are not.
My dear son,” said he, “who have yielded temporal
salvation to me, Oh! allow me to be instrumental in
the salvation of your soul. The Condesa and her
daughter pray for you, and wrestle with the saints and
the Mother of God for your conversion. No words
could describe the joy, which I should carry them,
could I inform them, that a wanderer, so dear to them,
was reclaimed, and brought home to the fold. There
is nothing, which you might not hope from their favor
and mine, and that of the country. You would yet
stay with us, and I should fold you to my bosom as a
son, `begotten in my bonds.' ” I clearly saw, how
well he understood the weak points of human nature,
and the seductions, which would be most likely to
seize upon any unfortified part of the heart. In addition
to his own entreaties in this peroration, he availed
himself, at the close, of all the trick of tears and exclamations.
On the whole, I inferred, that he had, according
to the proverb, “two strings to his bow.” If I were
dismissed, he seemed to feel, that he should make
enemies of the Condesa and her daughter, and rivet
the case would be reversed by my conversion. The
glory of adding an obstinate American heretic to the
church, appeared to weigh down the scale in favor of
desiring my conversion.
It was but right, to be grateful for such disinterested
concern for my soul, and I said as much to the father.
“But,” said I, in return, “though I may not be able
with so much address, as you have shown, to follow
you through your whole discussion, you will allow me
to suggest the thoughts, which occurred to me upon
some of your positions. I shall take them up in the
scriptural arrangement; the last shall be first, and I
shall remark on your harangue from the end to the beginning.
My understanding and my heart equally revolt
against that bigoted maxim, Point de salut hors
de l'église. If I could believe such a maxim for a moment,
I should doubt at once, the wisdom, benevolence,
and mercy of the Universal Father. Neither has
your church alone the use of that miserable sophism,
which you build on that maxim. Among those sects
in our church, to which you have adverted with so
little courtesy, I believe nearly the half of them have
followed your church in shutting the gates of heaven
against all, but the staunch and devoted of that sect.
What a humiliating spectacle, to see a few beings, so
frail, so blind, so erring, as man, sitting down to scan
the purpose of the Eternal in a council, laying down a
few points of belief reduced to writing, and arrogating
to themselves to say, that every one, who does not believe
thousand pagan sects, are found to hold the same
maxim. Alas! it is but too deeply laid in the heart of
man, and each one of these pagan sects could urge the
same conclusion upon me and you, with the same force
as your church. Your syllogism would avail your
church, if you were the only church, that could make
use of it. Your church has patronized science, arts,
discoveries? Witness Galileo, compelled by the united
voice of the church, declared by its infallible organ and
head, the pope, to renounce on his knees the true system
and philosophy of the universe, the glimpses of
which had dawned upon his mind. Witness the proscribed
books, now interdicted in the region, where we
are, among which are the works of Locke and Newton,
not to mention numberless others, the most venerable
names that science records. The age of Leo X, I
grant you, was the age of painting and architecture.
But the march of events, the progress of the human
mind, and the accumulated tax, which bigotry had extorted
from ages and nations, collected at Rome, and
squandered in a period, which your own writers admit
to have been the most abandoned that your church had
seen, would have produced the paintings of Raffaelle,
and the church of St. Peters, if the religion had been
that of Pagan Rome.
“As it respects the persecuting spirit of your church,
I dare not trust my feelings for a moment to discuss it.
If our church has imitated yours in its worst features,
in the smallest degree, so much the less honor for it.
ocean. Alas! Sir, I have read a description of an auto-de-fe,
by a member of your own church. Do I not
know, that to the most revolting hypocrisy, adding the
last refinements of cruelty, when you deliver over the
wretched victim to the secular power, to be roasted
alive! you charge that power `not to hurt him, even
so much as an hair of his head.' You cannot suppose,
that I have not read the history of the wretched Albigenses
and Waldenses, inhabiting the mountains and
vallies of the Cevennes. Who of us has not heard the
manner in which you have treated the Huguenots?
Who of us has not read of the massacre of St. Bartholomew?
Our very children learn their rudiments from
a book, which presents in coarse but striking representation
the burning of the venerable Rogers, his wife and
nine children looking on the dismal spectacle. I am
willing to believe, what I hear the liberal and enlightened
laity of your church affirm, that with the advancing,
improved, and more merciful spirit of the age, your
church has remitted something of its sternness and
dogmatism. But an exclusive and arrogant spirit,
seems to have been so deeply interwoven with the texture
of your church, that you cannot lay it aside. You
transmit it from country to country, and from age to
age. I have no dread of any church, that is not in
power. But I would not wish to see the renewed experiment
of the universal power and influence of the
Catholic church, as it was in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, lest I should see the spirit of that age return
any country. In its present form, I consider it a form
of worship, only adapted to the meridian of an absolute
despotism. We see it only displaying the properties of
an exotic, in my country. For the rest, Sir, trying
your dogmas on other principles, the idea of a God, existing
in a morsel of pastry, offered in a thousand places
at the same time,—a God, created by a priest, offered up
to himself, as a daily and universal sacrifice, and expiation
of sin,—is a dogma that I will not discuss, for I respect
religion, and I have deep and fixed opinions of
my own upon the subject. Your church, you say, is
an infallible whole, made up of fallible parts, and this is an
axiom worthy of the church, that proscribed Galileo,
for broaching the true doctrine of the universe. Your
prayers to the saints, your purgatory, your bank of
merit, and other points of that class, it is unnecessary
to take into the account. We may lay them aside with
other unimportant points, upon which you have touched.
I am ready to confess, and regret, that other churches
have been corrupt, as well as yours, but in none other
can you find so many dark and scandalous records, as
in yours, at the time, when the sale of indulgenees was
authorized, and that change, which we call the Reformation,
commenced. I close, with questioning the
truth of the position, with which you began, the antiquity
of the Catholic church, as it is now constituted.
Even were it correct, it would prove nothing or too
much. Paganism is almost as old as the creation. If
mere precedence in error proved any thing, your church,
favor of Paganism. But error and falsehood do not
approximate towards truth, as they grow old. The
truth of yesterday's discovery is older than creation,
for it existed forever. But that enormous structure
of dogmas, and rites, and pretensions, and assumptions,
which was reared in the days of popes and antipopes,
when kings and emperors held the stirrup of the `one
infallible,' that had succeeded in putting down the other,
was, I believe, comparatively, of very recent date. I
have no objections to fine religious paintings in a
church. One thing in your church has my unqualified
praise. I admire the architecture of it, its dim religious
light, its massive grandeur, as better adapted
to produce religious impressions, than ours. Neither
am I displeased with some of the imposing forms of
your worship. My heart subscribes to most of your
forms of prayer. Your church appeals, in my judgement,
too much to the senses; ours too much to the
intellect. A medium ought to be adopted on this point.
Could your church renounce its arrogant pretensions,
some of its absurd, impossible, and contradictory dogmas,
and yield something to the enlightened spirit of
the age, there is much in it that I admire. Had I lived
in the days of primitive Christianity, I should have belonged,
without doubt, to the Catholic church, as it
then was. But, as it now is, never. Gladly would I
gain the good will of the Condesa and her daughter.
But you would not induce me to prevaricate upon such
an awful subject, could you endow me, as the inducement,
My motto is, `I will hold fast my integrity, and
not let it go.' No man ever had his convictions changed
by an auto-de-fe. It might operate to make a
man profess with his lips, what his heart detested. It
might operate to concentrate hypocrisy, and produce
more seeming ardor in the new convert, than in an old
proselyte. God can destroy or new mould the mind,
but, reverently speaking, Omnipotence itself cannot
make me believe against my impressions, and contrary
to my convictions. All avowals, that have been extorted
by torture, or fear, or avarice, or ambition, could
have been only miserable prevarications. In the simple,
intellectual, and scriptural forms of my own
church, I have an entire confidence and respect. In
the regions where I was born, if any practical scale of
measurement, could be instituted, I have not a doubt,
that there is more regard to God, the sanctions of an
invisible world, and the real and stern requirements of
morality, in a single society there, than I have here
seen, in this whole region. We have been mutually
plain. I hope my frankness will be no more offensive
to you, than yours was to me. I have been bred to
respect the truth more than every thing else. You see,
Sir, what are my convictions, and whether I am not
likely to live and die clinging to that thing, which you
call heresy.”
The father was, as I have said, a courtier, accustomed
to control the expression of his feelings. But on
this occasion he could control neither his countenance
had stirred deeply his inward depravity. His face was
strongly marked with angry and vindictive feeling, assuming
the form of outraged sanctity. “Satan, avoid!”
muttered he. “I must relate to the Condesa and her
daughter, that this case is a most hopeless one. `Thou
art in the gall of bitterness, and the bonds of iniquity.'
Words and reasons on such as thee, are thrown away.”
In this temper he left me. As generally happens in
these profitable logomachies, each party, in reporting
the result, claimed all the glory of a decisive victory,
and sung a Te Deum over his foiled antagonist.
In the course of the day I received a kind and considerate
letter from the father of the Misses Benvelt,
whom I had repeatedly met at the house of the Conde.
He had impressed me from the first, as an amiable,
affectionate, and honest-hearted German. I had understood,
that he was universally beloved in Durango.
From his letter I inferred, that he too suffered from the
suspicion of being a republican, and he declared himself
ready to act and suffer for the rights of man. It
breathed a strain of kindness towards me, and something
like indignation for the treatment which, he had
understood, I had recently received in the family of
the Conde. He offered me, for the present, an asylum
in his noble house in Durango, and a most cordial invitation
to come and stay with him there, and continue
the tuition of his daughters. The letter enclosed, beside
a handsome gratuity, the amount of my bill up to
that time.
Soon after receiving this letter, I had a visit from
the father of my pupil, Dorothea, whom I had never
seen before. He was called Don José Manriquez, and
appeared to be a plain, bluff, soldier-like man, to whom
great wealth, and the custom of habitual deference had
given the habit of thinking, speaking, and acting, without
the least reserve or restraint. He paid me my bill,
and made his own commentaries upon the manner in
which I had been reported to have been treated in the
Conde's family. He took care to let me be informed,
that he too was rich, noble, a Gauchupine, and accustomed
to consult nobody's judgment, but his own. An
acquaintance of his from a neighbouring town, had recently
converted all his estate into cash, had loaded a
number of mules with bullion, and escaped to the
United States. He was anxious to act in the same
way, and avoid the chances and dangers of a revolution,
which he anticipated.
With very little circumlocution, he let me into the
flattering secret, that his daughter had taken a particular
fancy to me, so strong, in fact, that she was willing
to surrender to me, on the simple condition of becoming
her husband, her fair person, and the probable reversion
of her immense fortune. “In short,” said he,
“that matter once settled, there would be no disputes
about property. This daughter is my all; and whatever
is mine, not only in the order of time, will be hers,
but I should have nothing separate from my son-in-law,
even now.” I discovered that he had been many years
stationary, and had become indolent and timid, and in
wanted some person, in whom he could have confidence,
to go before him in the expedition. He had
fixed his eye upon me, as a suitable person in this
point of view, and to this motive, together with his
habitual custom of being swayed by the wishes of his
daughter, I owed the very extraordinary and flattering
proposition, which he now made me.
In placing inducements before me, to incline me to
his purpose, he took care to inform me, that his was not
a solitary case; that a certain Mr. Bradburn, a fine
looking young man from the States, had recently passed
through the country, and that, during a temporary
residence at Durango, he had engaged the affections
of a wealthy young Spanish lady, who took care to
have him duly apprised of the premises; that he had
accepted the offer, had married the young lady, and
was now living happily with his bride in an adjoining
province. His daughter, he remarked, was much
wealthier than the young lady in question, and had
property enough for us both. Whimsical and singular
as were his views of things in other respects, it was
clear that he had no small degree of cleverness in
dressing up his proposition in a manner to render it
tempting to a person much more eligibly settled than
I was. Had I been a mere speculator, an adventurer,
whose only object was to establish myself in the world,
imagination could hardly have pictured a more tempting
offer. No restrictions were coupled with the proposal,
such as had been in the parallel example, which he
turn Catholic, and remain in the country. The very
proposition to me was, to carry my bride and all her
wealth, to any part of the United States which I should
fix on. Apart from the vast fortune of Dorothea,
she was far from being unattractive, either in person
or manners. She could dance the fandango, and play
the guitar with the best; and under particular circumstances
of feeling, complexion, and dress, she was at
times even beautiful. Besides, her undisguised partiality,
which she had taken no pains to conceal almost from
the first of our acquaintance, was very flattering to the
feelings of a young man. She was rather haughty, it
is true, in her manners, but promised to be a person,
whom kindness would easily mould to my wishes.
The vision flashed across my mind, of returning with
my bride, dizened with lace and jewels, to my native
village. I well knew that my father's family and myself
had our rivals and our enviers there. What a
delightful thing it would be, to confound them with all
our undisputed wealth and grandeur! But, besides that
I had always had a fixed detestation of marriages merely
mercenary, I was abundantly shielded from temptation
by other feelings, of sufficient energy to exclude the
slightest inclination towards these proposals. But there
was a very unpleasant difficulty in the way of making
known my feelings to my visiter. He seemed to have
taken it for granted, when he made me the offer, that
it was one so entirely flattering, and of advantage so
unmixed, that there was no place for hesitation. I
possibly invent, while I declined his very flattering and
tempting proposals. I had the satisfaction to see, that
though very much suprised, he did not seem offended.
It occurred to him, he said, that different people saw
things in different lights, and that his daughter was of
a character, intrinsically too frank and noble to have
degraded herself by offers of the kind, although they
had been refused.
To M. de Benvelt I returned thanks for his politeness,
and as I had always had no small degree of fraternal
regard towards his amiable daughters, and had considered
him a man in feeling, intellect, and character,
every way different from the rest, I informed him,
that, for the time during which I should sojourn in Durango,
I would trespass on his hospitality.
Early in the morning of the day before that in which
I proposed to leave the family of the Conde, the dueña
brought me a written card from the Condesa, requesting
me, at any hour in the afternoon that I should
name, to meet her and her daughter in her chamber,
to which the dueña would conduct me. I sat down
to write a reply. She placed her plump and laughing
figure before me in the chair, and filled every moment
with incessant chatter about me and her dear
mistress, harping continually upon the strain, how
confidently she had hoped, that the father confessor
would have converted me; that if I could only have
gotten from the holy Virgin a heart a little more tractable,
I might have remained in spite of all, and married
told her mistress, longed to see what beautiful children
would be, where husband and wife were both so beautiful.
She let me know, in her way, that she thought
that people ought to have complexions rather brown,
in order to be good Catholics, for that the Misses
Benvelt, who were fair, like me, were none too firm in
the faith, and that she was afraid her mistress was
rather too fair to be a good Christian; that had she
been a young man, like me, she would have changed
her religion three times in a day, to gratify the wishes
of so sweet a girl as her mistress. “Now,” said she,
“you love her, I will swear it, by Our Lady of the
Pillar. I know it, by the very turn of your eye. I
have told my young lady as much. And now, in a
mere freak of wilfulness, because you will not have the
advantage of a mass for your soul, you are going to
part from each other, both of you to be brokenhearted.”
I had never expected to meet Martha again, and
had fortified my mind to this belief. I had said of the
parting, with the royal sufferer, “Surely the bitterness
of death is past.” But the thought of parting from
her, whose image was engraven on my heart, and was
so intimately associated with all my day and night
dreams, was so painful, that I embraced the prospect
of one more interview with her, as a condemned convict
receives a reprieve at the place of execution.
And yet it would be only to go over all the bitterness
of looking for the last time again on a countenance so
I sometimes thought it would be best to inform her,
that it would be unadvised for us to meet again.
But I returned an affirmative answer to the request
of the Condesa. I had been flattered with possessing
the philosophy of patience. I now saw how unjustly
that poor virtue had been ascribed to me. My
pulse bounded with fever heat and rapidity, and I looked
at my watch every ten minutes. When at last the
dueña arrived, to conduct me to them, I was obliged to
moderate my joy, by saying, that it was probably for
one poor half-hour, and all would be past again, and I
should be just as desolate as before.
Both the mother and daughter were pale when I
entered, and the solemnity of a funeral was in their
countenances. “After all that you have done for us,”
said the Condesa, “I felt willing to indulge my daughter
in this parting interview, though I fear it had been
better for both, that it had not taken place at all. It
would be alike useless, and contrary to my feelings, to
attempt to disguise from you, who understand it all
very well, the state of things here. I still cherished
some latent hopes, only half indulged, that the father
might give us some hopes, that you might one
day conform to our church. That hope is not only
past, but the father pronounces you inveterate and
incorrigible in your opinions, and so bitter in your
feelings in regard to our worship, as to be altogether
dangerous to be allowed intercourse with the faithful.
It is true, the force of truth extorts from him the admission,
given word, or attempt to make proselytes, after you
had pledged yourself not to do so. I regret, that
you could not manage the father a little; and yet
that stern independence, that fearless regard to your
principles, even though wrong, is a trait that we well
know how to appreciate. It seems fated, that you
you must leave us, and, it is probable, for ever. I feel,
and the Conde feels, that we are on the summit of a
volcano. He well knows, that we are surrounded by
enemies on every side. How much we need some
one like you, to be always with us! I am happy to
see, in the decided manner in which you act on all
those points, where a little forbearance or concealment
might have changed the face of things here, that the
pain and the regret of parting is all on our side. Had it
been otherwise, you certainly might have indulged yourself
innocently in courses, which would have silenced your
enemies, and admitted of your staying.” I answered,
that I had least of all expected from her, intimations
that it was possible for an upright man to conceal or
keep back any thing in a position like mine. The
temptations to do this, powerful as they were, I had
overcome. “I am not conscious,” I continued, “that
I did not treat the father confessor respectfully. I had
the same right to be plain with him in regard to his
faith, as he had with me in regard to mine. I was
willing to exercise mutual forbearance. I was reluctant
as to the interview. You must be sensible, that
I have no obligations to the father. The gracious
was as little pleasing to me, as his constant distance,
I may say rudeness, has always been before. You can
never know, Madam, nor will honor allow me to reveal,
what I suffer in parting from some of the members
of this family. But even to gain their favor, were it
not like boasting, I would say to gain heaven itself, I
would neither conceal or prevaricate, on the score of
my religious principles.” “Well, daughter,” said the
Condesa, “our time is spending; if you wish, as you
said, to utter your final thanks and adieus, let us not
prolong the pain of this parting.”
“You are right, Sir,” returned Martha, “right even
in your firmness, or, as the father would call it, obstinacy.
I earnestly wished, that your convictions might
have yielded to the arguments of the father; and yet,
such are the contradictions of the heart, had you done
it, my estimation of you would have been lowered.
Our principles ought to be engraven on the heart. I
respect a well-principled perseverance, even in the
wrong. But are we sure, my mother, that the sentiments
of this man are wrong? Who hath given to one
party the power to make an unerring decision? If conduct
be a test of principles, who devotes himself so
readily? Who is it that neither considers nor spares
himself in the moment of danger? The very point,
upon which he has been so much abused, refusing to
fight Don Pedro, and which was so readily placed to
other motives, was, I doubt not, a sacrifice of feeling to
principle. Oh! if the other had something of the real
that you are present. It was in kindness that you saved
me from perishing in the waters. Would that I had
died, for my heart is insupportably heavy, at the thought
of this parting. I surely wish you all good things, and
yet I am so selfish, I could wish that you had some
share with me in this pain of parting.” As she said
this, the tears, which had been repressed by strong
effort, flowed freely, and the face of the mother was
covered.
After a moment's pause, and apparently a successful
effort at composure, she resumed. “This, then, is the
last time I see you on the earth? But, young as I
am, I have seen that it is the course of every thing
below; disappointment, vexation, misery, the bitterness
of parting; and it is death only, that brings repose.
Be it so. I will wait patiently for that grand cure. I
still flattered myself that, some how, things might
be otherwise. But it is good for me early to pull
down with my own hands my fairy palaces; and I submit.
Go, and be elsewhere, and to others, the same
excellent young man, that you have been to us. May
no other luckless girl feel as I do, at parting from you.
My future life will be consecrated to remembrance.
Why should I wish you to retain a remembrance of
me, as painful as mine of you? Go; forget me, and
be happy. But I can never forget you. I will remember
you, to devote myself for others, as you have
done for me.”
“And is this the way,” I asked, “to send me away
happy? Is this the way, Dona Martha, to fortify me for
this parting? I had been thankful, if you had sent me
away with reproaches. I might have recalled reproaches
or indifference in aid of efforts to forget, when away.
I intended that nothing should have wrung from me
confessions, which may be harmless, as things are
now, but are utterly unavailing. Why should I reveal
feelings, against which I have honourably struggled,
but with so little effect? It has been matter of sport
with me in the case of others, the agonizing sensations
which I have so long experienced, and I expiate my
offence by enduring, in all its bitterness, the malady
which I have often scoffed at as an unreal evil, the origin
of ennui, or of pampered weakness. There is but one
motive, for which I would wish to live. You shall hear
of me again. Your father has reminded me, once and
again, of my condition, and of my obscurity. You shall
hear that I have gained glory, not, perhaps, in the way
in which you would have chosen that I should gain it.
But I will gain glory in the way of my principles, and
your hearts, in the end, shall be compelled to approve
the course I take. My pole-star shall be your image.
My talisman shall be the word, Martha. That word
shall excite me to daring. That word shall give me patience
for toil. Heaven avert the omen, that you should be
again in danger. But it may be, that you may hear from
me again, and in the time of your greatest need.”
But I ought not to tire you with these details, which
after-circumstances have consecrated to delightful remembrance,
less interested. The silky-milky adventures of this
sort ultimately led, as you will hear, to important results;
and however they may seem to you in the
relation, were no joke to us at that time. However
that may be, it grew to be a scene, before it was over.
I saw plainly enough, that the high-born and high-spirited
young lady was completely subdued, and manifested
her feelings without control. We parted a great many
times, and had a great many last words and adieus, and
protestations and tears, and avowals of hatred of Don
Pedro, and declarations of unalterable love, and assurances
that I should be taken at my word, that they
should hear from me again. The mother dissolved the
meeting by making an effort, and leading her daughter
away.
It would be difficult for me to recall the remembrance,
still more difficult for me to describe the desolation of
heart, which I felt, when I had retired to my own solitary
apartment. I looked at the books which we used
to read together, and the door through which she used
to enter for her recitations, and the apartment, and the
whole earth, and all the future assumed to me a funereal
gloom. The gloom and distress of my countenance
were transferred to the honest and affectionate Bryan,
who begged that he might accompany me wherever
I went. I placed before him all the comforts which he
was leaving, shelter, security, a bed, daily fare, and
membership in a respectable family. I pointed out the
uncertainty and precariousness of my own prospects.
“Besides,” said he, “have not I promised the jewel,
her own sweet self, and sworn by St. Patrick and my
mother, that I will never leave you? And do you think,
she didn't ask me to repeat to him the name of Martha
sometimes. May be, your Honor, as I know the ways
of the family, I can slip a little bit of a letter backwards
or forwards, as occasion may serve. But as to drive
me away from your Honor, I have sworn an oath upon
my soul against it.”
It appeared, that my departure made a great sensation
in and about the house, for every servant came up
to say A Dios, and to ask something by way of souvenir,
as is the custom among them. Among the rest, came
the dueña, apparently staggering under the weight of a
trunk, covered with shagreen. I assisted her to take it
from her head, and when she had set it down, even
her joyous face was sad She crossed her arms over
her breast, and exclaimed, “What a terrible affair this
love makes! More's the pity, that two people so made
for each other, should be separated. I will swear to
Our Lady of the Pillar, that if I had any voice in the
business, you two should not be parted. See, I have
brought you something from the young lady and her
mother. I know not what it is, but they say they will
consider it unkind in you not to accept it. Surely you
will not hurt them by sending it back. My poor young
mistress, she has done nothing but weep ever since she
heard that you were to go. And when Don Pedro
speaks to her, what a look she gives him! She has
thing. Some folks are over wilful; but I see, that if
they insist upon her marrying Don Pedro, they will
only kill her, after all.”
I found the trunk to contain an assortment of the
finest articles of a traveller's apparel, complete changes
of dress of the richest texture and workmanship, neatly
marked, and arranged for immediate use. At the bottom
was a small cabinet, exquisitely wrought, and inlaid
with pearl. From its prodigious weight, I could calculate
its contents. It was filled with gold coins; a
repeating gold watch, brilliantly set with diamond
ornaments; and, what I valued far more than all the
rest, a letter which I knew, from the firm and neat
Italian hand, to be from Doña Martha. I give it in
English, just as it was written, and perhaps no unfavorable
sample of her progress in the language.
States.
“Sir,—This being the first letter which I have written
to my instructer in English, you will not expect much
correctness. My heart is too heavy, to allow me to
think of that. My mother and I have thought it not a
wrong thing, to send you, as a traveller, dear to us
both, and parting from us, the little matters contained
in this trunk. They may be of use to you. To us,
considering the dangers of the times, and our condition,
even if Providence had not given us abundance, they
could be of none. Some part of each of the articles
mine. The cypher on the back of the watch is my
mother's hair and mine united. She has always been
your friend, and for her sake, if not for mine, you will
value it. When you look at the hours, assure yourself
that, however swiftly and pleasantly yours may pass,
mine will be anxious, heavy, and, as your poet says,
`Slow as the stealing progress of the year.'
The rest was dug from those mountains near us, which
you have so much, and so often admired, and may remind
you, when you are far away, that they still lift
their heads in unalterable grandeur, and repose above
our mansion, and remind me of the thunder-storm that
came over their blue summits, in the progress of which
storm, I admitted, for the first time, that I loved. It
would be all dross to me. But in the selfish and cruel
world, through which you have to make your way, they
may be of use to you. You will not, surely, refuse
these trifling matters from a simple and confiding young
lady, whose life you have twice saved, and who would
be glad of some little memorial in return. You need
have no scruples, for my father not only approved, but
suggested the offering. With all that you have done
for me, I remember but few words of distinguished
kindness that you have said. I could wish I could remember
more. You will not be so cruelly proud, as
to determine to have all the obligation on your side.
I know not, but you may remember me as forward or
foolish in my affection. I have driven away that bitter
have to humble myself in that way.
The only token of remembrance which I was capable
of returning, I made up into a package. It was composed
of neat stereotype editions, in duodecimo, of our first
poets, the same which I brought with me from New
England. On the package, was the following letter.
“Doña Martha,
“I have none of that cruel pride, which would incline
me to refuse what has been so kindly sent me. The
articles derive a value from the feeling with which they
were sent, superior even to their intrinsic utility and
beauty. I am possessor of too little, to make you any
adequate return. You have loved our poets, and I
have aided you to understand them. When you look
into these volumes, besides opening to you their magnificent
and delightful creations, they may remind you,
that before I knew you, they were all my treasure, the
only thing I cared for. Much as you are used to homage,
and much as you even merit, even you can receive
but all. You say, that I have said to you `but
few words of distinguished kindness.' Surely you
know, dear Martha, that strong and deep emotions are
apt to be silent. Those brilliant eyes look too deeply
into the heart, not to have seen what was at the bottom
of mine. If I have not given utterance to my feelings
i is because words were too poor to do it, or because
timidity, or respect, or honor, or all of them united
your expressions of gratitude for my poor services, all
the considerate kindness of your generous nature,
might be uttered to me without hazarding self-respect
or dignity. They were always viewed by me as
the condescensions of a mind, intrinsically as elevated,
as your rank and condition. What in me would have
been arrogance, or violation of confidence, in you was but
the expression of benevolence, that wished to satisfy me
with myself. I shall look on the watch, without needing
the bright tress on its back, to remind me of the
lovely head from which it was shorn. I am sure, too,
that I shall be sufficiently aware of the heaviness of the
hours, without watching the progress of the secondhand.
But it shall impress one useful lesson. I will
ask, How would Martha wish me to employ the hours?
Time, in this view, will become a consecrated thing.
You will beneficent from your own nature, and you
will be beneficent in exalting my aims, and causing me
to be so. The continual, tender, and mournful remembrance
of you, will be to me, as an invisible and guardian
spirit, ever present to render me such as I should
be.”
I sent the letter and package, made my little arrangements
for the morrow's journey, threw myself on
my couch, and would gladly have quieted the tumultuous
tide of my feelings, and the feverish throbbings of
my heart, in repose, as deep as that of the honest Bryan,
who snored on a mattress at my side, in tones, that
would not have discredited a bassoon. But the pensive
and how readily on her “downy pinions, she flies from
wo.” I made a painful effort to detach my mind from
present objects. I applied a remedy, which I had seldom
found to fail. I took up a dull book, and began
to read. I repeated the pater noster, again and again.
But my ear still caught the heavy palpitations of my
own heart. I arose and dressed myself, determined to
spend the night in wakefulness, since sleep fled from
me. The madness, if not the inspiration of the muse,
came over me. The following copy of verses, which
had at least the advantage of being beautifully transcribed,
were the fruit of my vigils, and were left with
the dueña for her mistress. Many a young lady in
love, I dare say, has admired poorer verses.
'T is in vain, that the stoic has taught,
That to triumph o'er passion is wise;
Could we learn how to fetter the thought,
We might come even love to despise.
But alas! I have studied in vain,
And I find, though I find it too late,
That to yield for a moment the rein,
Is to yield ourselves up to our fate.
I was blithe, as the shepherd in May;
But the smile on my cheek is no more.
With the cheerful I strive to look gay,
But I feel that the season is o'er.
I have heard the fond lover complain,
And have scoff'd at his doubts and his fears;
But, methinks, could I meet him again,
We should mingle our sighs and our tears.
On a moment I ne'er can forget;
But alas! I have treasur'd too well
The fond look that o'er-cancell'd the debt.
And again I would rush to the strife,
Could I hope for another so sweet;
Again I would offer my life,
Could I pour that life forth at her feet.
Let me fly from the charm of her eye,
Too long it has lur'd me to stay;
Shall I linger, a victim to die,
When 't is Honor that beckons away?
Forbid it, my manhood and pride!
Forbid it, my love and despair!
All the rest I might learn to deride;
But her scorn I never could bear.
May the saints she is wont to implore,
For her sorrows still furnish the cure;
May the Virgin she kneels to adore,
Sweetly smile on a being so pure!
And perhaps she may think, with a sigh,
When this heart from its throbbings shall cease,
That I knew how to love and to die,
To find the sole refuge for peace.
A cart had been ordered by the Conde, to carry my
little baggage to Durango. I had arranged with Bryan
to have my own horse, and that which I had won from
the young savage, saddled, and my portmanteau ready,
before the stars should have disappeared from the sky
in the morning. I had taken a civil congé of the Conde
the preceding night. I hoped to be off in the morning,
without being seen by any of the family. The cool
and invigorating air of the early morning, counsels decision
and firmness of heart. It is the time for a lover
of the red-bird, and the nightingale-sparrow uttered
notes in accordance with my feelings, and breathed the
melting strains of tenderness and love. We were not
as early as we hoped to be, and as I descended amidst
the dews, under the shade of those noble sycamores,
where I had so often seen the light figure of Martha in
her morning promenades, the birds were already
twittering on every branch. I looked up to the open
windows of my peaceful apartment, and sighed my
adieu. We rode slowly and silently down the lawn,
and the ruddy streak of advancing morning was
broadening towards the zenith. I was just beginning
to congratulate myself, that we were likely to clear the
vicinity, without any of those last words and parting
recognitions, that in such cases are to me exquisitely
painful. Another pang was still in reserve for me.
Just on the margin of the stream at the ford, and precisely
at the point where I had rescued them both from
the water, I saw the Condesa leaning on her daughter's
arm. I was obliged to pass them, and of course could not
do it without a salutation. I gave my horse to Bryan,
and went to meet them. Martha was dressed with more
richness and brilliance than I had ever seen her affect
before. A blaze of diamonds in her head-dress, only
served to render the contrast of unwonted paleness and
anxiety spread over her countenance more striking. The
general spirit of her eye, amounting, as I have remarked,
almost to haughtiness, had given place to languor,
almost resembling disease. The usual salutations on
seemed to have slept the preceding night, no more than
myself. The Condesa regretted, that any circumstances
should have rendered it expedient that we
should take so early a start; “but,” she said, “Bryan
had told us, that you intended to be off by the light of
the stars. Martha took a severe cold, when you rescued
us from the water here, and has been ill from
that time. Having been restless through the past night,
she thought the cool air of the morning might refresh
her, and our morning walk naturally brought us to this
place, so associated with the remembrance of you; and
we are here to witness your final departure from us.”
I observed, in reply, that my eagerness to be off so
early, could not be construed to arise from any wish to
leave friends so dear, and that she must put it to the
right motive, a desire to avoid the pain of another parting.
“It is wrong, now,” interrupted Martha, “that two
good persons, who feel towards each other as you do,
should occupy this sad moment, and in this place too,
with mere words of cold ceremony, that mean nothing.
I wish to detain you, Sir, but one moment, with a simple
question. Affirm, or deny, and I will believe all
you say, as though it came straight from Heaven. I
blush to admit, that I listen to the idle prattle of servants.
But it is circulated in our family, that, in resentment
to my father, or from other motives, you are going
to reside in Durango, and are to marry either Dorothea
or the elder Miss Benvelt. I have already sufficiently
the credit of being love-lorn and woe-begone. I am
a degree, as to hope it may not be so. Just say is it so,
or not, and I will not detain you another moment?”
“Certainly, I have no such thought,” answered I. “I
should have supposed, that Doña Martha would have
done more justice to the efforts, which she must have
seen me making to suppress my feelings, than to suppose
me capable of such a rapid transition, as either of
these suppositions must take for granted. I have thought
of staying a couple of days in Durango, in the house,
and at the invitation of M. de Benvelt, in order, if possible,
to obtain a little more tranquillity, and to arrange my
plans for the future. The thought has not occurred to
me, of marrying either of the parties, even if their own
consent were first obtained. “See now,” said she;
“that slanderer, Don Pedro affirmed that you were
offered the hand and fortune of Dorothea; that you
had, as a mere fortune-hunter, accepted it; that no
young man from your country would ever suffer such
an opportunity to make a fortune, escape him. Besides,
it was confidently reported by all the domestics. I
thank you. You have removed a weight from my
mind.” As she said these words, I remarked, that her
voice became faint, and that her lips and her cheek
were blanched to the whiteness of her muslin robe.
She leaned on her mother's arm, and I involuntarily
advanced towards her. She put her hand to her head,
as if for recollection, and feebly added, “I had a word
more to say to you, but, mother, I must sit.” I saw that
she was fainting, and I received her unconscious in my
crown of my hat with its limpid and cold water, and
poured it on her face. My first efforts to recover her
produced only spasms, and not restoration. The
shrieks of her mother soon summoned a host of the
Conde's people, and among them himself and Don
Pedro, to the spot. The daughter had begun to recover,
and was sitting on the sward, smelling to the volatile
salts, which her mother was holding to her, and I
was rubbing her temples.
The Conde approached me, and with a voice of furious
sternness, bade me be gone, while he ordered the
servants to convey his daughter to the house. “This
is too much, Sir,” said he, turning to me. “You are
determined to make a scene of every thing. My weak
wife, and weaker daughter, may have consented to
this interview, after you had taken a formal leave of us
all. But you are watching your chances to kill my
daughter, forsooth, because you have saved her life.
You seem to wish, that your triumph over her understanding
may become conspicuous to every member of
my establishment. Go, Sir, and know, that by this
deportment, you have relieved me from the load of
obligation, and cancelled the debt. We learn, that you
have an appointment with M. de Benvelt. Know, Sir,
that he is proscribed as a traitor. A traitor he has
been all along. For we learn, that he has long since
transferred his property to Great Britain, and thus he
has avoided confiscation. He escaped yesterday, to
join the rebels in their den of treason on Mixtpal mountain.
If he should be overtaken, he dies an honorable,
prevent your arrest, and had you left me without
this last interview with my wife and daughter, I might
still have retained confidence in you. But it is too
evident, that you seek these opportunities. He who can
be treacherous in one instance, can in another. I am
now perfectly aware, that I have been the dupe of your
artifices too long.”
“And I, too,” cried Don Pedro, “have my grievances,
and I would cancel all my obligations to you on
the spot. But it is more humane, to allow you to fly.
The Conde allows you twenty days, within which to
escape from the provincias internas. If you are afterwards
found in them, you will be considered as any
other traitor and rebel, and be treated accordingly.”
“Go,” added the Conde, catching the rage of the
furious young man. “Your associates from the Commanches
have joined the rebels. A horde of assassins
from your country are pouring in upon the frontiers.
It is fitting that you should be among them. Treason
is the sport of the people from the States. You ought
to be among them. But warn them, Sir, that they will
have a reekoning with me and Colonel Arredondo.
I will promulgate the law for rebels and traitors at the
point of the spear. I will read them lectures upon their
newfangled patriotism in letters of blood.” I waited
until he had come to a stop, in perfect coolness. The
foolish transports of these two men, who seemed willing
to avenge in me the crimes of the insurgents, restored
to me perfect self-possession. Said I, “Gentlemen, it
is the business of soldiers to fight, and not to fret, and
superior to you both. I explained to you one
meeting with the Doña Martha, when I fished you out
of the water. I saw her yesterday, in consequence of
a special invitation from the Condesa. I have the
card yet. Here it is, Sir. Madam will inform you,
that I started very early this morning, in order to
preclude, if possible, any chance of meeting any member
of your family. The meeting was accidental, unexpected,
undesired. Your daughter fainted. I aided
her, and should do it again in the same case. I have
thought of the cause of the Patriots before. The only
impression that has hindered me from studying their
motives, and if I found them pure, from joining them,
has been, that I was unwilling to be in arms against
the government of Doña Martha's father. Your outrages
have severed that tie. I am a patriot from principle.
If there be such a rising as you describe, and
headed by honest men, I will join it. Should I ever
meet with you in hostile array, my hand would only be
raised to defend you. But for you, Don Pedro, nothing
would please me more, than to meet you face to face
in the high places of the field, and where no compunctious
visitings would hold back my arm. I hope we
shall meet again. A Dios, to you both.” I mounted,
and Bryan moved to do the same. “Stop, there,”
cried the Conde. “Go back, sir. You belong to me.
There is no reason why I should send another traitor
to the rebels. Dismount, and go back to the house.
And you, Sir,” added he, turning to me, “would be
arrested, and in the mines, without a passport. There
to the frontier, and for twenty days, and no more.
Within that time you can join the rebels at Mixtpal,
or leave the country, as you please. There is your
other horse, Sir; the time is precious, and I wish you
a good day.”
| CHAPTER V. Francis Berrian, or, The Mexican patriot | |