"What a silent, unsocial wretch!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed. "He seems to prefer the company of a savage hound, and his dead game, to that of living Christians."
"He thinks a heretic no Christian, if he thinks at all," said L'Isle; and he called to the guide, to ask what this wild man was.
"He is a swine-herd."
"Indeed!" said Lady Mabel. "I took him for a bandit, or a bold hunter, at least."
"But he is the swine-herd of the great monastery of the Paulists, who own half the lands on the southern slope of Serra d'Ossa. He is a matchless hunter too, spending fewer nights under a roof than on the mountain-side, where all the game is as much his, as the swine he keeps is the property of the good fathers. They have the best bacon in all Portugal, and plenty of it, as many a poor man can tell; and they know this man's value, for he were a bold thief that pinched the ear of his smallest pig."
"As soon as I get back to Elvas," said Lady Mabel, "I will send Major Warren to make his acquaintance. The major will be charmed with him. For his ambition is to take all sorts of game, in every possible way; and though I have, or might have had, the history of all his hunts by heart, neither lynx or otter has yet figured in the scene. You remember, Colonel L'Isle, how much satisfaction he expressed when you lately hinted at the probability of our brigade finding itself in the north of Portugal early in the coming campaign. I at first thought that the soldier saw some military advantage in the movement, but found it was only the sportsman's delight at the hope of visiting Truzos Montes, and killing one of the few Caucasian goats that yet linger on the most inaccessible heights there."
"No gamester," said L'Isle, "is more a slave to the dice. That at this time a soldier should be so little 'lost in the world's debate' as to be eager, above all things, to kill a goat!"
They had now reached a point which gave them a fine view of the southern side of Serra d'Ossa, so different from the northern, being fertile, and showing many a cultivated spot upon its lower slopes, while the light, fleecy clouds, gathering before the gentle western wind, now veiled and then revealed the overhanging dark blue ridge that crowned the scene. The guide pointed out the broad possessions of the great monastery of the Paulists. At a distance, on the right, rose Evora Monte, built like a watch-tower on a lofty hill; and, to the south, the monastic towers and Gothic spires of Evora, the city of monks, raised high above the plain, could be seen from afar.
"Why," asked Mrs. Shortridge, "do these people always build their towns on hills?"
"That is a true English question," answered L'Isle. "At home, in our bleak northern climate, we naturally seek sheltered situations. These people as naturally select an airy site, above the parching heat and poisoned air of the valleys. In founding colonies in tropical countries we English, and the Dutch, have constantly blundered, acting as if still at home; and choosing low and pestilential spots, establish only hospitals and graveyards where we meant to build towns; while the Spaniards and Portuguese, from the instinct of habit, select the most salubrious situations within their reach. Moreover, high points are safer from attack, and stronger to resist an enemy; and the Christians of the peninsula were taught by seven centuries of conflict with the Moors, that the safety of a man's house is the first point, its convenience the second. Now, we islanders have long been but a half military people. Content with incuring the guilt of war abroad, we have carefully abstained from bringing it home to our own doors."
"But we never wage any but just wars," said Lady Mabel.
"We, at least," said L'Isle, "always find some plausible grounds on which to justify our wars—to ourselves."
They were now on the outskirts of the undulating plain, on which a rich soil overlying the granite rocks extends from Evora southward to the city of Beja. The signs of cultivation and population multiplied as they went on. The fields became larger and more frequent; detached farm houses were seen on either hand, and they fell in on the road with many peasants riding large and spirited asses, or driving oxen all light bays with enormous horns, and so sleek and well grown, that the commissary gazed on them with admiring eye and watering mouth, and pronounced them equally fit for the yoke or the shambles.
It was a relief to find themselves once more in a cultivated country, and Lady Mabel gazed round, admiring the prospect. "There is," she observed, "one drawback to the landscape. At home, one of the most enlivening features in our rural scenes, are the white sheep scattered on the hills, but here they are almost black."
"But the goats you see are generally white," answered L'Isle. "It is, too, the more picturesque animal, and well supplies what is wanting in the sheep."
Evora was at hand. L'Isle launched out into an erudite discourse on the aqueduct of Sertorius, which, stretching its long line of arches from the neighboring hills, was converging with their road to the city. As they entered it he was giving Lady Mabel all the pros and cons, as to whether it was really the work of that redoubtable Roman. The commissary was luxuriously anticipating the shade and rest before him, when to his surprise and regret, L'Isle led the party another way, and halted them before a small but striking building, which here crowned the aqueduct at its termination in the city.
"Look, Lady Mabel. Observe it well, Mrs. Shortridge. This castellum is a miniature embodiment of Roman taste and skill in architecture. This is no ruin calling upon the imagination to play the hazardous part of filling up the gaps made by the hand of time. We see it as the Moor, the Goth, the Roman saw it, save the loss of a few vases which adorned the depressed parapet, and the scaling plaster which here and there betrays that the builder used that cheap but immortal material, the Roman brick."
Much did Lady Mabel admire this architectural gem, scarcely tarnished by the elements in nineteen centuries, and much more would L'Isle have found to say of it, when the commissary, impatiently fanning himself with his hat, ventured to ask, "how much longer shall we stay broiling in the noon-day sun, staring at this Roman sentry-box?"
"Sentry-box!" said Mrs. Shortridge, with a puzzled air, "were the Romans a gigantic people?"
"There were giants in those days," said Lady Mabel, gravely, gazing on the castellum. But a crowd of idlers and beggars began to collect around the cavalcade, and turning, they rode off, and were soon enjoying the shelter, if not the more substantial hospitality, of theEstalagem de San Antonio.
Tell me, recluse Monastic, can it beA disadvantage to thy beams to shine?A thousand tapers may gain light from thee:Is thy light less or worse for lighting mine?If, wanting light, I stumble, shallThy darkness not be guilty of my fall?Make not thyself a prisoner, thou art free:Why dost thou turn thy palace to a jail?Thou art an eagle; and befits it theeTo live immured like a cloister'd snail?Let toys seek corners: things of costGain worth by view; hid jewels are but lost.Francis Quarles.
Inthe afternoon, the commissary going out in search of the objects of his journey, grain and bullocks for the troops, L'Isle strolled out with the ladies to survey the curiosities of Evora, and Moodie followed closely Lady Mabel's steps.
"If I am to play the part ofcicerone," said L'Isle, "I will begin by reminding you that the history of many races and eras is indissolubly connected with the Peninsula, and especially the southern part of it. Here we find the land ofTarshishof Scripture, so well known to the Phoenicians, who, in an adjacent province of Spain, built another Sidon, and founded Cadiz before Hector and Achilles fought at Troy.
"Yet they found the Celto-Iberian here before them—who after that built Evora, according to Portuguese historians, some eight or ten centuries before Christ. The Greeks, too, stretched their commerce and their colonies to this land. The Carthaginians made themselves masters of this country. The Romans turned them out, to give place in time to the Vandals; who were driven over into Africa by the Goths—whose dominion was, at the end of two centuries, overthrown by the Arabs; who, after a war of seven centuries, were expelled in turn by the descendants of their Gothic rivals. The land still shows many traces of these revolutions. In the neighborhood of this city the rude altar of the Druid still commemorates the early Celt. The majesty of the Roman temple here forms a singular contrast with the delicacy of the Arabian monuments, and the Gothic architecture with the simplicity of the modern edifices."
"A truly Ciceronian introduction to your duties ascicerone," said Lady Mabel. "But I have yet to see much that you describe so eloquently. To my eye the most striking feature of Evora at this day is its ecclesiastical aspect. It is full of churches, chapels, and monkish barracks, and seems to be held by a strong garrison of these soldiers of the Pope."
"Baal's prophets are four hundred and fifty men," said old Moodie, in loud soliloquy behind.
"I have often heard the Pope called Antichrist, but never knew him dubbed Baal before," said Lady Mabel. "Although not one of his flock, I cannot but feel a deep interest in the head of the Latin Church, now that the venerable old man is so shamefully treated; carried off and kept a prisoner in France, to be bullied, threatened, and cajoled, with a view to appropriate the papal influence to the furtherance of this Corsican's ambition."
"You had better leave all those feelings to his own flock, my lady."
"Is it possible, Moodie," Lady Mabel retorted, "that you do not know that we are on the Pope's side in this quarrel? We are bound to sympathize with him, not only in politics but in religion, against his unbelieving enemies. We must forget all minor differences, and think only of the faith we hold in common. Even you must admit that it is better to see the Almighty dimly through mists and clouds, or even though our view be obstructed by a crowd of doubtful saints, than to turn our backs on the Christian Godhead, and deny his existence like these godless French. I assure you I have become a strong friend to the Pope."
"The more is the pity," groaned Moodie. "But what is written is written."
"I know, Moodie, that you believe that we who have deserted the Kirk of Scotland, and crossed the border in search of a church, have already traveled a long way toward Rome."
"About half-way, my lady. The church of England is no abiding place, but merely an inn on that road."
"Why," exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, "is Moodie so much dissatisfied with our church? For my part it does not seem natural to me for genteel people to go any where else."
"You may find, madam," said Moodie, "a great many genteel people going some where else. Gentry is no election to grace."
Mrs. Shortridge resented the insinuation by indignant silence; but Lady Mabel, who had her own object in exasperating Moodie's sectarian zeal, now asked him: "What is the last symptom of backsliding you have seen in me?"
"It seems to me, my lady, that you are getting strangely intimate with the Romish faith and rites, for one who does not believe and practice them. It is a sinful curiosity, like that of the children of Israel, which first made them familiar with the abominations among their neighbors, then led them to practice the idolatries they had witnessed."
"But may there not be something sinful, Moodie, in denouncing the errors and corruptions of the Romanists, without having thoroughly searched them out?"
"We know the great heads of their offense—their perversion of gospel truth—their teaching for doctrine the commandments of men. There is no need to trace every error through all its dark and crooked windings. Truth is one: that God has allotted to his elect. Errors are manifold, and sown broadcast among the reprobate."
"Still it must matter much what degree and kind of error falls to our lot," Lady Mabel suggested.
"Perhaps so," Moodie answered, with doubting assent. "Yet if we are not in the one true path, it may matter little which wrong road we travel."
"Well, Moodie," said she, "however much you may narrow down your Christian faith, you shall not hedge in my Christian charity, and deprive me of all sympathy for the Pope in this his day of persecution."
"Whatever the holy father's errors may have been," said L'Isle, "we may now say of him, a prisoner in France, what was said of Clement the Seventh, when shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo, 'Papa non potest errare.'"
"That is Latin, Moodie," said Lady Mabel, "and to enlighten your ignorance it may be rendered, 'The Pope cannot err.'"
"Why that is nothing but the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility," exclaimed Moodie, indignantly; "and saying it in Latin cannot make it true." And he dropped behind the party.
Gazing on the number of religious houses and habits around them, Lady Mabel said: "Monastic life must hold forth strong allurements. The monks seem to find it easy to recruit their ranks."
"Many motives combine to draw men into the church," L'Isle answered. "Devotion may be the chief; but, in this climate and country, the love of ease, and the want of hopeful prospects in secular life, exercise great influence. Moreover, one monk, like one soldier, serves as a decoy to another. Did you ever see a recruiting sergeant, in all his glory, among a party of rustics at a village alehouse? How skillfully he displays the bright side of a soldier's life, while hiding every dark spot. The church has many a recruiting sergeant, who can put the best of ours to shame. Many a recruit, too, like our young friar, is caught very young."
They had now turned into another street, and L'Isle, stopping the party, pointed out a large building opposite to them.
"What a curious mixture of styles it presents," said Mrs. Shortridge.
"What a barbarous mutilation of a work of art," exclaimed Lady Mabel.
"This is, or rather was," said L'Isle, "the temple of Diana, built before the Christian era, perhaps while Sertorius yet lorded it in the Peninsula, and made Evora his headquarters. The architect," continued he, looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur, "was doubtless a Greek. Time, and the mutilations and additions of the Moor, have not effaced all the beauty of this structure, planned by the genius and reared by the hands of men who lived nineteen centuries ago. The rubble work and plaster wall that fills the space between those columns, so requisite in their proportions—the pinnacles which crown the structure in place of the entablature which has been destroyed, are the work of the Moors, who strove in vain to unite in harmony their own style of building with that of their Roman predecessors. Enough remains to show the chaste, beautiful and permanent character of the edifices of that classic age."
After gazing long with deep interest on this monument of the palmy days and wide-spread sway of the Roman, Lady Mabel said: "Let us see if there be not still left within the building some remains of a piece with so noble an exterior."
"Unhappily," answered L'Isle, "all is changed there. Moreover, though the sacrifices are continued, they are no longer conducted with the decorum of the heathen rites. The temple of the chaste goddess is now the public shambles of the city, defiled throughout by brutal butchers, with the blood and offals of the slaughtered herd."
"Is it possible!" Lady Mabel exclaimed. "Have these people sunk so low? Is so little taste, learning, and reverence for high art left among them, that they can find no better use for this rare memorial of the past."
"No people have proved themselves so destitute of taste, and of reverence for antiquity, as the Portuguese," replied L'Isle. "They seem to have found it a pleasure, or deemed it a duty, to erase the footprints of ancient art. Monuments of all kinds, beautiful and rare, and but lightly touched by the hand of time, have been ruthlessly destroyed here. To give you a single instance: A gentleman of the family of the Mascarenhas, who had traveled in Italy, and acquired a taste for the arts, collected from different parts about the town of Mertola, twelve ancient statues, with a view to place them on pedestals in his country-house. But he dying before completing his intention, these admirable productions of Roman art, the venerable representations of heroes and sages, were hurled into a lime kiln to make cement for the chapel of St. John. And such acts of Vandalism have been perpetrated throughout Portugal."
"The barbarians!" exclaimed Lady Mabel. "The ignorance they condemn themselves to, is scarce punishment enough for the offence."
"It is difficult to say how much they have destroyed," continued L'Isle. "But, beside the voice of history, proofs enough remain that Evora was, in the days of Sertorius, of Cæsar, and in after-times, a favorite spot with the Romans. This temple before us, mutilated as it is, and the aqueduct, though repaired in modern times, are still Roman; and no ancient monument in Italy is in better preservation than the beautiful little castellum which crowns its termination. Even where Roman buildings have been destroyed we still see around us the stones with ancient and classic inscriptions built into new walls. The plough, too, of the husbandman still at times turns up the coins of Sertorius, bearing a profile showing the wound he had received in his eye, while the reverse represents his favorite hind leaning against a tree."
"How completely do these things carry us back to ancient times, and make even Plutarch's novels seem verities of real life," said Lady Mabel. "These same Romans, whom we read of and wonder at, have indeed left behind them, wherever they came, foot-prints indelibly stamped on the face of the country."
"They did more," said L'Isle, "wherever civilization extends, they still set their marks upon the minds of men."
"How barbarous seem the Moorish buildings, which we still see here and at Elvas," said Lady Mabel, "compared with these monuments of a yet earlier day."
"The Moors had a style of their own," said L'Isle. "Indifferent to external decoration, they reserved all their ingenuity for the interior of their edifices. Stimulated by a sensuous religion and a luxurious climate, they there lavished whatever was calculated to delight the senses, and accord with a sedentary and voluptuous life. They sought a shady privacy amidst sparkling fountains, artificial breezes, and sweet smelling plants; amidst brilliant colors and a profusion of ornaments, seen by a light sobered from the glare of a southern sun. Numberless were the luxurious palaces the Moors reared in Portugal and Spain. The Alhambra yet stands a model of their excellence in the arts; although many of its glories have departed, its walls have become desolate, and many of them fallen into ruin, though its gardens have been destroyed, and its fountains ceased to play. Charles V. commenced a palace within the enclosure of the Alhambra, in rivalry of what he found there. It stands but an arrogant intrusion, and is already in a state of dilapidation far beyond the work of the Arabs. In them the walls remain unaltered, except by injuries inflicted by the hand of man. The colors of the painting, in which there is no mixture of oil, preserve all their brightness—the beams and wood work of the ceilings show no signs of decay. The art of rendering timber and paints durable, and of making porcelain mosaics, arabesques, and other ornaments, began and ended in western Europe with the Spanish Arabs. But perhaps the most curious achievement attributed to them is, that spiders, flies, and other insects, shunned their apartments at all seasons."
"What!" exclaimed Lady Mabel, "had they attained that perfection in the art of building? Could they exercise those hordes of little demons, lay a spell upon them and turn them out of doors? Had you told me this yesterday I would have been less impressed by it. But, after last night's ordeal, I venerate the Moor. Almost I regret the expulsion of his cleanly superstition, since it has carried with it into exile so rare an art."
Mrs. Shortridge, too, seemed fully to appreciate the value of the lost art, and said, "these Moors must indeed have been a very comfortable people."
"And they crowned their comfort in this world," said L'Isle, "by inventing an equally comfortable system for the next."
"Is it not strange," said Lady Mabel, gazing on the building before them, "that the production of two races, each so skillful, should be so utterly incompatible. Classic and Saracenic art, both beautiful, united make a monster."
"Not so strange," L'Isle answered, "as the simplicity of the Mohammedan faith, amidst all that is fantastic in arts and letters—a grotesque architecture, a wondrous alchemy, the extravagant in poetry and the supernatural in fiction; or the purity of classic art, characterized by simplicity and proportion, yet drawing its inspiration from a wild and copious mythology, made up of the sportive creations of fancy."
"They were a wonderful people, these Romans, as even this obscure corner of Europe can witness," said Lady Mabel, her eyes dwelling on the beautiful colonade, and tracing out the exquisite symmetry of the shafts, and the rich foliage of the Corinthian capitals.
"Were these Romans Christians?" asked Moodie, who had hitherto looked on in silence.
"No," she answered, "they worshipped many false gods."
"Then they were just like all the Romans I have known," said he dryly, and turned his back on the temple.
"Come," said Mrs. Shortridge, "let us take Moodie's hint, and look for something else worth seeing."
As they continued their walk, L'Isle remarked, "In many a place in the peninsula we find a Roman aqueduct, a Moorish castle, and a Gothic cathedral standing close together, yet ages apart. How much of history is embraced in this? We have just been gazing upon the mouldering remains of two phases of civilization, which were at their height, one, while our forefathers were yet heathen and almost savage, the other, while they were but emerging from a rude barbarism. We should never forget that this peninsula was the high road which arts and letters traveled on their progress into Western Europe, and to our own land."
"We are much indebted to letters and the arts for the unanimity with which they came on to us; for certainly," said Lady Mabel, looking round her, "little of either appears to have loitered behind. Every object around us makes the impression of a country and a people who have seen better days; and you cannot help wondering and fearing where this downward path may end."
"The history of humanity is not always the story of progress," said L'Isle; "one nation may be like a young barbarian, his face turned toward civilization, gazing on it with dazzled but admiring eyes; another, a scowling, hoary outlaw, turning his back on human culture and social order."
"Your young barbarian," said Lady Mabel, "makes the more pleasing picture of the two."
"Are there your hoary outlaws?" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, as a party of beggars from the door of the Franciscan church hobbled toward them, and beset them for alms.
"Oh, no!" said Lady Mabel, "they are angels in disguise, tempting us to deeds of charity;" and with the devout air of a zealous daughter of the one true church, she distributed sundry small coin among them. "Come, Moodie," she exclaimed, "I know your pocket is never without a store of sixpences, thosecannylittle dogs, that often do the work of shillings. Seize the occasion of doing good works, of appropriating to yourself a meritorious charity; for charity covers a multitude of sins. Lay up some treasure in heaven without loss of time."
The beggars, on this hint, surrounded Moodie; but he, repudiating such perversion of Scripture doctrine, shook them off with little ceremony. And the beggars' instinct saw, in his hard, indignant face, no hope of alms.
"If you will give nothing, at least buy something," said Lady Mabel; "that fellow bawling at youpelus almas, is offering snuff for sale; and the love of snuff, at least, is common ground to Scot and Portuguese."
Thus urged, Moodie paid liberally for a package, and was putting it in his pocket, when Lady Mabel exclaimed, "You do not know, Moodie, what a charitable and Christian deed you have done. Every thing is done in Portugalpelo amor de Deos e pelas almas. That fellow is employed by the priests to sell snuffpelas almas, and all the profits of the trade go to release souls from purgatory."
"Purgatory!" exclaimed Moodie, "I will not be tricked into countenancing that popish abomination;" and he hurled the package back to the man, who gladly picked it up, and turned to seek a second purchaser.
As they walked on toward the church of the Franciscans, Mrs. Shortridge said, "You need not fear a scarcity of objects of charity, Lady Mabel, for poverty seems rife in Evora."
"Yet, from the number of churches and monasteries, there must be much wealth," Lady Mabel answered. "Probably, most of the property is in their possession, and we may expect to see in their shrines and altars a gorgeous display of their riches."
"You will be disappointed in that," said L'Isle. "Evora has passed too lately through the hands of the French, too systematic a people to do things by halves. Their emperor is more systematic still. On taking possession of Portugal, his first edict from Milan imposed a war-contribution on the country of one hundred million of francs, as a ransom for private property of every kind. This being somewhat more than all the money in the country, allowed a sufficiently wide margin for spoliation, without making private property a whit the safer for it; the imperial coffers absorbed this public contribution, leaving the French officers and soldiers to fill their pockets and make their fortunes as they could."
"But what was there left to fill their pockets with?" Lady Mabel asked.
"There must have been a plenty left," said Mrs. Shortridge. "One does not know the wealth of a country till you plunder it. Even some of our fellows, though they came as friends, still continue occasionally to pocket a useful thing. The officers cannot put a stop to it altogether, do what they may."
"But, with some exceptions," said L'Isle, "each French general levied contributions on his own account. Some idea of the amount may be formed from the fact, that at the Convention of Cintra, Junot, who had probably not brought baggage enough into Portugal to load five mules, demanded five ships for the conveyance of his private property. Yet Soult's accumulations in Andalusia are said to exceed Junot's. Whatever may be the result of the war, many a French officer will have made his fortune here. Well did they obey the injunction—
"'See thou shake the bagsOf hoarding abbots; angels imprisonedSet thou at liberty.'
"This last, though, in a sense different from the poets; in Lisbon alone, turning thousands of nuns into the streets, that their convents might be converted into barracks. In obedience to the imperial decree, all the gold and silver of the churches, chapels, and fraternities of the city were carried off to the mint; and, in this day of sweeping confiscation, individuals did not forget themselves. Indeed, throughout the country, the French soldier proved that he had the eye of a lynx, the scent of a hound, and the litheness of a ferret after booty, trained to it by the system which makes the war support the war. But Evora has been particularly unlucky. It not only bore its full share of the first burden imposed on the country, but the year after, when the Portuguese, rising too late in armed resistance, lost a battle before the town, the French, entering with the fugitives, massacred nearly a thousand persons, many of them women and children, including some forty priests, a class they made the especial objects of their vengeance; and they plundered the town so thoroughly, that the very cracks in the walls did not escape their search. The best excuse that can be made for their plunderings is, that in the confusion of their own revolution they so completely lost the idea of property, that though they have recovered the thing, they have not yet remastered the idea of it."
A number of friars now coming out of the church attracted Mrs. Shortridge's attention. But Lady Mabel had an English woman's ear for French atrocities, and continued the conversation:
"I can understand that a needy and ignorant soldiery may perpetrate such robberies amidst scenes of violence, and under the temptations of want; but we expect better things from the men who lead them."
"That supposes these men to be of a different class, with different education and habits from the common soldier. The revolution and conscription has leveled all those distinctions. Many a youth of good birth and education is made to bear his musket in the ranks, and does not elevate his comrades to his standard, but is soon degraded to the level of their sentiments and habits. Many a French general, for instance Junot, has been raised from the ranks. Military merit or accident has elevated them to command without a corresponding elevation of sentiment or principles. It is not easy to make a gentleman in one generation: somebody says, it takes three."
"What a moderate man that somebody was!" said Lady Mabel; "I thought that the gentry of a country were like its timber, the slow growth of centuries, and that the beginning of nobility must be lost in the dark ages, unless you can find some great statesman, warrior, or freebooter of later date to start from."
"But," said L'Isle, laughing, "we find men whose pedigree fulfills your requisitions, who are not gentlemen in their own persons. The son of a gentleman is too often one only in name."
"I think," said Lady Mabel, reflecting, "I have myself met with more than one gentleman rogue."
"That is impossible," said L'Isle, "for a gentleman is a superstructure which can be built on only one foundation—an honest man."
"We had better stop defining the gentleman," said Lady Mabel, "lest between us we narrow down the class, until there are not enough left to officer a regiment, or for any other useful purpose."
"This is a fine old building," said Mrs. Shortridge, peeping into the church, "and it will be a convenient time to look at it, for it seems quite empty."
"It is not much worth seeing," said L'Isle, "but there is something beyond it which I would like to show you."
They walked into it; but Moodie at first hung back, and hesitated to enter this idolatrous temple, until, luckily remembering the prophet's permission to Naaman the Syrian to accompany his master to the house of Rimmon, he swallowed his scruples, and followed Lady Mabel.
Passing through the church, they came to an archway, over which was inscribed—
Nos os ossos que aqui estamosPelos vossos esperamos.
Passing through it, they found themselves in a huge vault, its arched ceiling supported by large square piers, which, with the walls, were covered with human skulls, set in a hard cement. By the dim light they saw on all sides thousands of ghastly human heads, grinning at them in death; the only signs of life being a few crouching devotees, prostrate before an illuminated shrine at the extremity of this Golgotha.
Both ladies paused, awe-stricken. Lady Mabel turned pale, and Mrs. Shortridge, after gazing round her for a moment, uttered a little shriek, and covered her face with her hands. To face these objects was painful enough, but to have them grinning on her, as in mockery, behind her back, was more than she could stand. So seizing old Moodie by the arm, he being beside her, she rushed out of this charnel house, and impatiently called to the others to join her in the church.
With an effort Lady Mabel stifled her contagious terror, and, advancing further into the gloomy repository, inspected it on all sides. There was little room left on the walls for more memorials of mortality. Having in silence sated her curiosity and her sense of the horrible, feeling all the while a strange reluctance to break the deathlike stillness of the place by uttering a word, she at length rejoined Mrs. Shortridge. After taking another look into this apartment of death, her eye rested on the inscription over the arch. L'Isle translated it:
Our bones, which here are restingAre expecting yours.
"God forbid that mine should find so gloomy a resting place," exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge, with a shudder.
"It is a weakness," said Lady Mabel; "yet we must shrink from this promiscuous mingling of our ashes, and are even choice in the selection of our last resting place. We hope even in death to rejoin our kindred dust in the ancestral vault, or at least to repose under some sunny spot, in the churchyard hallowed to us in life. Is not this your feeling?" she said, appealing to L'Isle.
L'Isle looked grave. "It is a natural feeling clinging to our mortal nature, and doubtless has its use. But I must not indulge it. The soldier is even less at liberty than other men to choose his own grave. The fosse of a beleaguered fortress, a shallow trench in a well-fought field, the ravine of a disputed mountain pass, the strand of some river to be crossed in the face of the enemy—all these have furnished, and will furnish graves for those who fall, and have the luck to find burial; the wolf and the vulture provide for the rest. We have a wide graveyard," he added, more cheerfully, "stretching from hence to the Pyrenees, and, perchance, beyond them. It embraces many a lovely and romantic spot, only the choice of our last resting place is not left to ourselves."
Lady Mabel shuddered at this gloomy picture, and his foreboding tone. She knew how many of her countrymen had fallen, and must fall, in this bloody war. Yet, somehow or other, she had always thought of L'Isle as one who was to live, and not to die prematurely, cut off in youth, health, the pride of manhood, his hopes, powers, aspirations, just in their bloom. She looked at him with deep, painful interest, as if to read his fortune in his face. What special safeguard protected him? The next moment her conscience pricked her, when her father's image rose before her, grown gray in service, and seamed with scars, yet no safer by all his dangers past than the last recruit, and she walked slowly forth from the Franciscan church with sadder and more solemn impressions of the reality and imminence of death than could be generated by all that vast array of grinning skulls.
It was growing late, and they turned toward theestalagem. As they strolled on, L'Isle, in the same strain of thought which had last occupied them, said: "War is essentially a greedy thing, a great and speedy consumer of what has been slowly produced in peace. We hear of veteran armies, but an army of veterans does not, perhaps never existed. We collect materials and munitions of war, expecting to expend them in military operations; but we are not aware, until we have tried it, how close a parallel there is between the fates of the inanimate and the living constituents that furnish forth an army for the field. It is not the sword chiefly that kills; the hospital swallows more than the battle-field. After a few campaigns, what has been falsely called the skeleton, but is, in truth, the soul of an army, the remnant of experienced officers and tried soldiers, only remains, and new flesh, blood, and bones must be provided for this soul, in the shape of new levies. When we see an old soldier glorying in his score of campaigns, we should call to mind the score of youths prematurely covered by the sod."
"Few, then," said Lady Mabel, "can enjoy Gonsalvo of Cordova's fortune. On retiring to a monastery, he avowed that every soldier needed for repentance an interval of some years between his life and his death."
"The great captain's conscience must have pricked him," said L'Isle, "when he made that speech. An unjust war, or a war unjustly waged, lay heavy on him. A soldier knows the likelihood of his dying in his vocation. If he think it criminal, let him abandon it. Up to this day my conscience has not troubled me on that score. War, always an evil, is often a necessity; and I wonder whether, after an hundred years of peace, we would not find nations worse and more worthless than they now are."
Mrs. Shortridge now called their attention to the number of storks in the air. The sun had set, and these grave birds were seeking their roosts; every tower of church and monastery affording a domicil to some feathered family, with the full sanction of the biped denizens below.
"The social position of these long-legged gentry all over the peninsula," said L'Isle, "is one of the characteristics of the country. It is astonishing what an amount of respect, and an immunity from harm, they enjoy. I am afraid they would fare worse at the hands of the more brutal part of our English populace. They are useful, too; but are more indebted for their safety, and the respect shown them here, to the clerical gravity of their demeanor."
They had now reached their lodgings, and were soon after joined by the commissary, who came in rubbing his hands, and exclaiming: "Capital bargains to be made here! Corn plenty, and bullocks that would make a figure in Smithfield. Some farmers have not threshed last year's crop. A curious country this: one province starving, and plenty in the next. It is all owing to the want of roads. But, luckily, Elvas is not far off."
"Yet the Romans," L'Isle remarked, "had once netted over the whole Peninsula with roads."
"When they went away," said the commissary, "the first thing the people of the country did, I suppose, was to let them go to ruin in true Portuguese fashion."
Shortridge now said that he must spend some days in the neighborhood of Evora, and that the party would have to return to Elvas without him. This being agreed to, Lady Mabel suggested that they should find their way back by a different route, and, on consulting the muleteer, they found that it could be done without much lengthening their journey.
Led with delight they thus beguile the wayWhen weening to return whence they did stray,They cannot find that path, which first was showne,But wander to and fro in ways unknown,Furthest from end then, when they nearest weene,That makes them doubt their wits be not their own,So many paths, so many turning seene,That which of them to take in diverse doubt they been.Faerie Queene.
Theparty mustered early the next morning to continue their journey, and after breakfast L'Isle called for the innkeeper to pay him his bill. This worthy, acting on the natural supposition that the English had come into the country to indemnify the Portuguese for their losses at the hands of the French, at once named the round sum of sixtycrusados. On L'Isle looking surprised, he began to run over so long a list of articles furnished, and items of trouble given, that L'Isle, who was annoyed at the interruption of an agreeable conversation with Lady Mabel, was about to pay him in full to get rid of him, when Shortridge peremptorily interfered. The demand was extortionate and aroused his indignation. Perhaps he looked upon the fellow as usurping a privilege belonging peculiarly to the commissary's own brotherhood. He abused the man roundly in very bad Portuguese, and insisted that L'Isle should pay him but half the sum.
The innkeeper, a dark, sallow man, with a vindictive countenance, glared on him as if fear alone withheld him from replying with his knife. When he found his tongue, he began to answer with a bitterness that was fast changing into uncontrollable rage; but the commissary, who was a master in the art of bullying, cut him short.
"This fellow," said he, addressing L'Isle, but still speaking Portuguese, "has three fine mules in his stable. I shall need a great many beasts to carry corn to Elvas, and will apply to theJuiz de Forato embargo them among the first."
The innkeeper turned as pale as his golden skin permitted at the bare suggestion. The French had made a similar requisition on him four years ago, and when he followed his cattle to reclaim them after the required service, he got only sore bones and a broken head for his pains.
"You may do as you please in that matter," said L'Isle, throwing on the table half the sum demanded, and leaving their host to swallow his anger, and take it up, if he pleased.
The muleteer, having come in for the baggage, on finding out the nature of the controversy, now poured out a flood of vociferous eloquence on the extortioner, denouncing him as a disgrace to the nation, and no true Portuguese, but a New Christian, as might be seen in his face; and he was urgent with Shortridge to let him show him the way to the house of theJuiz de Forawithout loss of time.
L'Isle's commanding air and contemptuous indifference overawed the innkeeper quite as much as Shortridge's threats. So, sweeping the money into his pocket, he went out hastily to find a safe and secret hiding place for his mules.
"Pray," said Lady Mabel to L'Isle, while they were waiting for their horses, "what is a New Christian?"
"The explanation of the term does not tell well in the history of the country," said he. "When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain, many of them took refuge here, where John II. gave them shelter, on condition that they should quit the kingdom in a limited time. This king endeavored to keep faith with them. Nevertheless, in his and the following reign, they were subjected to unceasing persecutions, being required to become Christians, or leave the country; at the very time every obstacle was put in the way of their escape. At length their children were taken from them to be reared in the Christian faith, and numbers abjured Judaism in order to recover possession of their own offspring. But such a conversion failed not to furnish for many a generation a crowd of hapless inmates for the 'Tremendous House of the Inquisition' in every town. Even in the last century, no diversion delighted the Lisbon mob like the burning of a relapsed Jew. The usage of them of old still influences the condition of the country and the term New Christian is yet a by-word common in the mouths of people."
"We certainly see a great many Jewish faces among the Portuguese Christians," said Mrs. Shortridge.
"So the great Marquis de Pombul thought," L'Isle answered; "for when a great crowd had assembled to see him open a fountain he had erected in Lisbon, on a courtier's saying, 'See, my Lord, like Moses, you make water flow from the rock!' 'Yes,' replied the marquis, 'and here are the Jews looking at me.'"
"And our host," said Mrs. Shortridge, "is doubtless one of these New Christians."
"But has the commissary," Lady Mabel asked, "a right to make the requisition with which he threatens him?"
"Not on his own authority," said L'Isle, laughing. "But these people would well deserve that we should sweep off every mule and yoke of oxen around Evora. Last year when we were collecting materials for the siege of Badajoz, the ungrateful rascals would not send a single cart to help us."
"Why, were we not fighting their battles?" Lady Mabel exclaimed. "Would they not assist in their own defence?"
"Badajoz is not within sight of Evora, and that was enough for these short-sighted patriots."
"Has such blind selfishness a parallel?" asked Lady Mabel.
"Many," said L'Isle. "We may at times find one at home, in the wisdom of a whig ministry, which consists in taking a microscopic view of the wrong side of things just under their noses."
They now mounted their horses, and leaving thepraça, had entered on a narrow and somewhat crooked street, where they suddenly met a funeral procession, with its priests, crucifix and tapers, the dead being carried by several persons on a bier, and followed by a few peasants. The travelers drew up their horses close to the adjacent wall, to leave room for the procession. The face of the dead was uncovered as usual, and the friar's dress which clothed the body, with the rosaries and other paraphernalia displayed about his person, led Lady Mabel to say, "I see that one of the good fathers is gone to his account."
"He will now find out," said Moodie, "the worth of his beads, crucifix and holy water."
"I am surprised," said Lady Mabel, "at so unpretending a funeral, in the case of a member of the great order of St. Francis."
L'Isle asked a question of a Portuguese standing near, and then said, "The cowl does not make the monk, nor must you infer from his dress that this man was a friar. He lived all his life a peasant in a neighboring village."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Lady Mabel.
"Almost every one," said L'Isle, as they turned to ride on their way, "here and throughout the Peninsula, is buried in a religious habit—the men in the uniform of friars, the women dressed like pilgrims, and the girls like nuns. They are loaded with a freight of rosaries,agni dei, and other saintly jewelry, fastened to the neck, hands and feet, and stuffed into the clothes. Convents have often a warehouse appropriated to this posthumous wardrobe, in the sale of which they drive a profitable trade. It was a most natural mistake made by a stranger, who, after being a few weeks at Madrid, and seeing so many Franciscans interred, expressed his astonishment at the prodigious number of them in the city, and asked if their order was not entirely carried off by this violent epidemic."
"I suppose," said Lady Mabel, "the custom originated in the propensity so strong in us all, to live sinners and die saints."
"Exactly so," L'Isle answered; "it is a fraudulent custom, old as the fifth century, and common in popish countries. It is nothing less than an attempt to cheat St. Peter, who, you know, keeps the keys of heaven, by knocking at the gate in the disguise of a monk or a friar."
"I have too much faith in St. Peter's vigilance and penetration," said Mrs. Shortridge, "to think he has ever been so taken in."
They presently got out of the city; but, to Moodie's displeasure, by a gate opposite to that by which they had entered it. He was still more annoyed, when, on coming to a place where the road branched into two, the commissary took a brief though kindly leave of his wife and friends, and, followed by his man, galloped off to the right, on a professional chase after grain and bullocks.
L'Isle was surprised to find himself regretting the loss of their fellow-traveler. He had found him, always remembering that he was a commissary, a very good fellow; for we can find some good in every man, if we take the trouble to look for it; and Shortridge was one who, after taking care of himself, was quite willing to take care of other people.
But L'Isle's regret was nothing to Moodie's, whose habits of life led him to appreciate the nature and importance of the commissary's official duties. He valued him as a practical, responsible man of business, with no foolish fancies about him. He admired the summary way in which he had disposed of the extortionate inn-keeper, and now looked after him almost in despair; for he did not think the party left behind by any means fit to take care of themselves or each other. L'Isle he did not understand and mistrusted, doubting whether he were merely idly rambling about the country, or harbored some covert design, the object of which was Lady Mabel, of course.
"My Lady," said he, riding up beside her, and speaking in an under tone, "this is not the road we traveled coming from Elvas. Where are you going to now?"
Remarking his dissatisfied air, and the look of suspicion he cast on L'Isle, she answered, with provoking coolness, "Oh, we are merely rambling about; any road is the right one, if it but leads to a new place."
"But now the commissary has left us, do you not mean to go back to Elvas?"
"In returning we will make a detour."
"And what is a detour?" asked Moodie, with a puzzled air.
"It means going back the longest way. We have plenty of leisure, for the campaign will not open directly."
"I would like to know what you, my Lady, have to do with the opening of the campaign?"
"A great deal, and so have you; for, as soon as it does open, you and I must march back to Scotland."
"I wish it were to-morrow," said Moodie.
"It will not be to-morrow, or to-morrow's morrow," Lady Mabel answered. "Meanwhile, we will see all that is to be seen, and learn all that is to be known. Even you, by crowding and packing more closely your old notions, may find room for some new ones."
"I am too old to learn," said Moodie, sullenly.
"Too wise, you mean," she said, breaking off from him. "Come, Mrs. Shortridge, let me tear you from this barren spot, to which grief has rooted you on parting from the commissary;" and, seizing that lady's mule by the rein, Lady Mabel led her, as if helpless from sorrow, after the guide, who had taken the left-hand road.
"Somewhere hereabouts," L'Isle remarked, as they rode on, "lies what is called the field of Sertorius. I know not why it is so named; but it figures largely in the tradition, and yet more in the superstitions, of the country. 'There exists in Portugal a strange superstition concerning King Sebastian, whose reappearance is as confidently expected by many of the Portuguese, as the coming of the Messiah by the Jews. The rise and progress of this belief forms a curious part of their history. It began in hope, when the return of that prince, after his hapless expedition to Morocco, and the fatal battle ofAlcaçar Quiber, was not only possible, but might have been considered likely; it was fostered by the policy of the Braganzan party after all reasonable hope had ceased; and length of time only served to ripen it into a confirmed and rooted superstition, which even the intolerance of the Inquisition spared, for the sake of the loyal and patriotic feelings in which it had its birth. The holy office never interfered farther with the sect, than to prohibit the publication of its numerous prophecies, which were suffered to circulate in private. For many years the persons who held this strange opinion had been content to enjoy their dream in private, shrinking from observation and ridicule; but as the belief had begun in a time of deep calamity, so now, when a heavier evil had overwhelmed the kingdom, it spread beyond all former example. Their prophecies were triumphantly brought to light, for only in the promises which were there held out could the Portuguese find consolation; and proselytes increased so rapidly, that half Lisbon became Sebastianists. The delusion was not confined to the lower orders; it reached the educated classes; and men who had been graduated in theology became professors of a faith which announced that Portugal was soon to be the head of the Fifth and Universal Monarchy; Sebastian was speedily to come from the Secret Island; the Queen would resign the sceptre into his hands; he would give Bonaparte battle near Evora, on the field of Sertorius, slay the tyrant, and become monarch of the world."
"And this superstition now prevails?" Lady Mabel asked.
"So widely, that at least every other man you meet is a Sebastianist."
As they rode on they found the country dotted over withquintasand country-houses, here calledmontes, from being generally seated on hills. Around each homestead the meagre and tame-hued olive was mingled with the deep rich green of the orange-tree, which here produces its fruit in the greatest perfection of flavor, at least, if not of size, and a vineyard occasionally occupied the slope of the hill. The lower grounds were covered with extensive cornfields, bearing here a thriving growth of wheat, there a young crop of maize, which furnishes these people with more than half their food.
"The Portuguese," said L'Isle, "like their Spanish neighbors, are often charged with indolence; but here and elsewhere, under favorable circumstances, they show no want of industry. The husbandman of this part of Alemtejo has grown rich in spite of the greatest obstacle to thrift, which the church has raised up in devoting more than half the year to holy days. Good lands are apt to make good farmers, and labor and skill well repaid, leads to the outlay of more labor and greater skill."
"We see around us a people," said Lady Mabel, "reveling in the Scripture blessings of corn, wine, and oil. I think there must be no little resemblance between Portugal and Palestine."
"The Jews think so too," answered L'Isle. "The delights of Portugal can make a Jew forget Jerusalem. They clung, and still cling to it, as another promised land. Moreover, if their fathers of old longed after the leeks and onions of Egypt, their sons may satisfy that longing here."
"And stuff themselves with garlic to boot, like Portuguese sausage," said Mrs. Shortridge. "The quantity of these things in it leaves little room for the pork."
The travelers occasionally fell in with peasants singly, or in parties on the road; and L'Isle, prompted by the ladies, let few of them pass without exchanging some words, which were easily drawn out; for English uniforms, and ladies so evidently foreigners, excited much curiosity, especially in the women. Struck with the air of comfort common among these people, and the marks of fertility and cultivation in the country around them, Lady Mabel hoped that Moodie had at last met with something to please him; so she asked the opinion of that high authority on the rural prospect and the farming around them. But he at once condemned it as unskillful, wasteful, and slovenly; in short, just what was to be looked for in this benighted land.
"What a pity it is, Moodie, you cannot speak Portuguese," said Lady Mabel; "you might seize many a chance of giving these benighted people a valuable hint, particularly how to ferment their wine, and press their olives."
"I am sure," replied Moodie, "I could make as sour wine and rancid oil as the best of them, and they make no other."
"You are a fault-seeking traveler," said Lady Mabel; "and so will find nothing to please you, while I enjoy all around me, and see nothing to find fault with, except the abominable custom of the women riding astride on theirburras, which I am glad to see is not universal."
"Nay, my lady, the country pleases me well enough. The pasturage is poor and parched, yet the oxen are fine in spite of their monstrous horns; and I see corn land that might yield good oats or barley in Scotland. The land is well enough; it is the people I find fault with."
"Moodie's verdict on Portugal," said L'Isle, "can be summed up in four little words: 'Bona terra, mala gens.'"
"What pleasure," continued Moodie, not heeding the interruption, "can a Christian man find in traveling in a land where the people grovel in ignorance and a besotted superstition, which manifests that God has given them over to a reprobate heart. I cannot speak their language; I can only look on their wanderings in the dark, and think of the wrath to come."
"And so here is a missionary lost!" Mrs. Shortridge exclaimed.
"But, according to Moodie's favorite dogma," said L'Isle, "were he gifted with the purest and most eloquent Portuguese, or had he the gift of St. Francis Xavier, who, when thrown among any strange people, was soon found exhorting them in their own tongue, he could be to this people only a prophet of evil. You say that they are given over to a state of reprobation. Do you, like a great English philosopher, believe in election and reprobation by nature?"
"Not exactly; nor do I know any thing of your English philosopher; but since I have been among these people, I have seen much to lead my thoughts that way. And we have example for it. Had not God his chosen people of old? And the seven nations of Canaan, were they not swept off as utterly reprobate from the face of the earth?"
"And now," suggested L'Isle, wishing to know the old man's views, "election is for the Scotch nation, and reprobation for the Portuguese?"
"I do not say that all Scotchmen, even in the Kirk, are of the elect."
"No," interposed Lady Mabel. "You misconstrue Moodie. He holds a particular election within the Kirk, and a national reprobation outside of it."
"I am afraid, my lady, it is not given to you to understand that high doctrine. It is ordered that the blessing, and the comprehension of it, go hand in hand."
"I must despair then, for I certainly do not comprehend it. In truth, the tenor of your discourse calls up in my mind the involuntary doubt, did this people first desert God, or God them? But I trample it down as a snare laid by the evil one."
"We are in a land where the evil one bears full sway," said Moodie.
"Yet you have voluntarily put yourself in purgatory by coming to travel in it," said Lady Mabel. "But you have your consolation, and may give thankful utterance to the words of our Scotch poet:
'I bless and praise thy matchless might,Whan thousands thou hast left in night,That I am here afore thy sight,For gifts an' grace,A burning and a shining light,To a' this place.'"
"I do not know that psalmist, if in truth he be a maker of spiritual songs," said Moodie, with a doubtful air.
"He did dabble a little in psalmody," said Lady Mabel; "but I doubt whether his attempts would satisfy you. How like you this sample:
'Orthodox, orthodox, who believe in John Knox,Let me sound an alarm to your conscience;There's a heretic blast has been blown in the Wast,That what is not sense must be nonsense.Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons, load your spiritual guns,Ammunition you never can need;Your hearts are the stuff, will be powder enough,And your skulls are store-houses o' lead.'"
"'Tis that profane, lewd fellow, Burns," exclaimed Moodie, angrily. "He did worse than hide his ten talents in a napkin. I wonder, my lady, you defile your mouth with his scurrilous words."
"I have done with him," said Lady Mabel, laughing. "He was a profane, lewd fellow, far better at pointing out other men's errors than amending his own."
Moodie now fell back among the servants; and L'Isle remarked, "your old squire, Lady Mabel, holds an austere belief. I never met a man so confident of his own salvation and of the damnation of others."
"He reminds me," Mrs. Shortridge said, "of a dissenting neighbor of ours, when we lived in London, who was always saying, 'I am called, but my wife is not,' much to the poor woman's disquiet in this world, if not to the hazard of her happiness in the next."
"The old man puzzles me sadly at times," said Lady Mabel; "and he has at hand many a text to sustain his dogmas."
"It is a pity," said L'Isle, "that he will not bear in mind those that bid us 'Judge not that ye be not judged;' 'Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall; 'Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required;' and many others of the same tenor."
"Pray go on," said Lady Mabel, "and provide me with a refutation of Moodie's theology of destiny: not that I hope to silence him, for controversy is to him the breath of life."
Now L'Isle had acquired many things laboriously, but he had gotten his training in divinity somewhat incidentally, and hesitated, as well he might, to undertake the task imposed. But spurred on by the deference she showed to his opinions, he eagerly sought to satisfy, yet not mislead her. "Moodie is the type of a class," he said, "who are the most wilful men in the world, yet are even inculcating that man has no will of his own, but is the play thing of fate. Fatalism, indeed, is no modern invention, being as old as humanity itself, perhaps, older. We find it as strongly inculcated by the Greek tragic poet, as by the modern Calvinist. But the peculiar colors in which we see it dressed, are derived from the revolt of men's minds against the Romish doctrine as to good works. Among these, penance, fasting, alms, pilgrimages, bounty to the church and its servants, come first. This leads to the keeping of a debt and credit account with heaven; and to the saints is attributed the power of buying up a stock of works of supererogation, by which they acquire a mediatory power in themselves. Human reason has been likened to a drunken clown, who if you help him up on one side of his horse, falls over on the other. To deter men from the presumptuous sin of attributing merit to their actions, the reformers, and also individuals and even orders in the church, have labored to prove that man acts only in obedience to preordained decree, and can of himself do nothing good; yet their logic charges him freely with theguiltof sinning by necessity. I cannot for the life of me distinguish between fatalism and predestination. Either binds us with the same chain of necessity, in thought, word and deed, from the cradle to the grave. To escape this charge, fanaticism can only add a few links to the chain of necessitating cause, and tell you it is necessity no longer. Now, our most perfect conception of sin is found in a will which sets itself in opposition to God's will. This is the characteristic of the father of evil and his fallen hosts. Our highest idea of virtue is found in the creature's conforming his will to that of his Maker; this is the trait of the angels who were steadfast in their faith. How can you here couple fatality and will? If ours be a state of probation, it is only by a certain freedom of action, an originating power of causation in ourselves, that we can conceive of our being put to proof. Possibly, in fallen man, that freedom is limited to the power of rejecting or yielding to the influences of grace. Yet within that narrow range it may be still a perfect freedom. God said, 'let us make man in our image and after our likeness,' and this likeness between the 'cause of causes' and his creature, may well consist in man's being endowed with a spark from the Creator's nature, gifted with an originating will, and made a source of causes in himself. To say that this may not be, were to limit the power of God."
"Most assuredly," said Lady Mabel, who was on this point easily convinced. "I shall now be ready armed for Moodie, when next he broaches his dogma of predestination. But will he listen, much less understand?"
"If his dogma be a truth," continued L'Isle, encouraged by her approbation, "to know it, or any other revealed truth, can avail us nothing; for our knowledge, itself a predestined fact, cannot influence our preordained condition here or hereafter. On the other hand, if the doctrine be misunderstood or false, it is most dangerous; there being but a short step between believing it and applying it, presumptuously, in our own favor, and adversely to our neighbor. We are ever more successful in deceiving ourselves than others; and to indulge in the belief that we are the chosen of God, may be only less dangerous than a conviction of our utter reprobation."
"For my part," said Lady Mabel, "I can appeal yet more confidently to my feelings than my reason, for a refutation of the doctrine Moodie has so often urged upon me. I feel within me a capacity to be as wicked as I please, if fear and reverence did not withhold me."
"And I, as your duenna," said Mrs. Shortridge, "prohibit any such frank admission of propensity to evil in a young lady under my charge."
"Why, will you not let me make a Christian confession of the sinfulness of my nature? It were indeed heresy to claim an equal capacity for good. There I acknowledge the need of aid from above."
"And that aid is not compulsion," said L'Isle, "as every page of Scripture testifies. There is something strangely illogical in the reasoning of those who, starting from the point, that what has been decreed by God is as good as done, and the future as fixed as the past, thence exhort us to plead, because the decree has gone forth; to run in the race, because the victor has been chosen, and the prize adjudged; to strive, because the battle has been fought; and to repent and be saved, because our final destiny was decided before time was. Surely, if this life have any bearing on another, we are running a race, the issue of which is undecided until death; and ours is a real struggle, not merely the acting out of a foregone conclusion, not the dramatic representation of a past event. What would you think of a modern Greek praying zealously that Mohamed II. should nothave takenConstantinople? Or of a Roman of to-day besieging heaven with prayers that Rome should nothave beentaken by the Goths, or sacked by the army of the Constable Bourbon? Yet what is commonly called Calvinist is nothing less than this; praying against past events, or the decrees of fate. Is the papist so absurd in offering his masses for the dead?"
The ladies were still complimenting L'Isle on his refutation of Moodie's tenets, so obnoxious to their own convictions, when they met a peasant trudging along,cujadoin hand, with the small end of which he occasionally enlivened the motions of an ass toiling under a heavy sack of grain. The muleteer stopped him to enquire where they might find water for their animals in this thirsty land. The peasant pointed back to a thicket near the road, and said: "I would have watered my own beast there, but for the would have watered my own beast there, but for the company I would have fallen among." He then went on his way, and they rode to the spot pointed out, where among the oleander and buckthorn bushes they found a puddle rather than a spring, so well had it been lately stirred up. A gang of eight or nine vagrants, who had been munching their crusts andsardinhasin the shade, now sprung up, and placing themselves between the travelers and the water, vociferously demanded alms. To rid themselves of this motley troop, L'Isle and Mrs. Shortridge threw each of them a small coin. They were not so easily satisfied, but thrusting themselves among the horses, continued to rival each other in whining petitions and adjurations of their favorite saints. Lady Mabel, who had emptied her purse of small coin the evening before, now entreated Moodie to let this second opportunity of alms-giving, so manifestly sent for his benefit, soften his stony heart. But he shook his head grimly, saying: "If they are strong enough to travel, they are strong enough to work; and work they shall, or starve, before they touch a penny of mine!"
L'Isle's short tempered groom, availing himself of the impatience of a thirsty horse, now turned his about, at once spurring and reining him in, which made him lash out his heels at the intruders near him. The other steeds seemed to catch this infectious restiveness, and the beggars were driven to a safer distance. Their horses now could drink in peace of the water stirred up and muddied by their mendicant friends, whom they presently left behind them, without further heeding their continued and vociferous appeals. One stout ragged fellow put himself in their way, and displayed to their eyes a flaming picture, painted on a board, depicting the torments of the souls in purgatory. But the travelers were in a hurry, and unmoved at the sight, left the souls in unmitigated tortures there.
"What we have just seen," said L'Isle to the ladies, "may convince you that beggars are a formidable class in this country. They ramble about, and infest every place, not entreating charity, but demanding it. They often assemble at night in hordes, at the best country house they can find, and taking up their abode in one of the out-buildings, call for whatever they want, like travelers at an inn; and here they claim the right of tarrying three days, if they like it. When a gang of these sturdy fellows meets a traveler on the highway, he must offer them money; and it sometimes happens that the amount of the offering is not left to his own discretion. St. Anthony assails him on one side, St. Francis on the other. Having satisfied their clamor in behalf of these favorite saints, he is next attacked for the honor of the Virgin; and thus they rob him, for the love of God."
"I wonder," Mrs. Shortridge said, "the nation tolerates such a nuisance."
"There are laws for its abatement," answered L'Isle. "John III. and Sebastian both warred against the beggars. A law of the sixteenth century ordains that the lame should learn the trade of a tailor or shoemaker, the maimed serve for subsistence any who will employ them, and the blind, for food and raiment, give themselves to the labors of the forge, by blowing the bellows. But we see how the law is enforced. These men behind us are neither lame, halt, nor blind, but truly represent the sturdy vagrants with whom Queen Bess's statute dealt so roughly. With what result? It is but the ancestor of a long line of laws which load our statute-books, and have built up our poor-law system, merely substituting for one evil another which burdens the country like an incubus, and, vulture-like, is eating out its entrails."
"We have no such national institution for the breeding of beggars in Scotland," said Moodie, from behind.
"Is it because Scotland is too poor to maintain paupers?" inquired Mrs. Shortridge.
"It is because it is not natural for a Scotchman to be a beggar," replied Moodie, with patriotic pride.
"We cannot carry the system much further in England," said L'Isle; "the resources of the country, and the sturdy character of the people, are breaking down under it."
"Could our British population be brought down to as low a condition as these people?" Lady Mabel asked.
"Assuredly not," said Mrs. Shortridge.
"Have you ever been in Ireland?" asked L'Isle.
No, neither of the ladies had been there.
"Or in an English poor-house?"
That, too, wasterra incognita, especially to Lady Mabel.
"Either of them might assist you in finding an answer to a very difficult question. Still, like Moodie, I have great faith in race, and in the fitness of climates to races. There is something enervating to a northern race in these subtropical climates. While the powers of enjoyment remain unimpaired, or are even stimulated, the energy of action is rapidly sapped. We know that the Gothic conquerors of this peninsula lost, in a few generations, their energy and enterprise. A war of seven centuries revived and sustained that of their descendants; but, after that stimulant was withdrawn, on the expulsion of the Moors, they gradually sunk to what we see them now. Some persons attribute the character and condition of these peninsular nations to the vices of government, others to the corruption of the church. I doubt the question's admitting of so simple a solution as either, or both of these. We may be putting effect for cause, and cause for effect. An inferior people may deteriorate government, and corrupt the church. The disciples of the apostles received Christianity in its purity. Whence originated the rapid degeneracy of the early Church? We see some portions of the human race betraying stronger downward tendencies than others. But the 'why' is too complex a question to admit of a simple solution. The Portuguese of this province especially are an inferior people. They are probably a degenerate people; and one cause of that degeneracy may be an intermixture of dissimilar races."