It snowed in his house of meat and drink,Of all dainties that men could of think;After the sundry seasons of the year,So changed he his meat and soupere.Full many a fat patriarch had he in mew,And many a breme and many a luce in stew;Wo was his cook, but if his sauce werePoignant and sharp, and ready all his gere,His table dormant in his hall alway,Stood ready covered all the long day.Prologue to Canterbury Tales.
Threedays had gone by since the return of the party from Evora. The ladies had gotten over their fatigue, talked over their travels, and wondered at seeing nothing of L'Isle. He had merely sent to inquire after their health, instead of coming himself, as in duty bound. Lady Mabel had confidently looked for him the first day, asked about him the next, and on the third, feeling hurt at this continued neglect, concluded that she had had enough of his company of late, and it did not matter should she not see him for a month.
Meanwhile, what was L'Isle doing? He was busy reforming himself and his regiment. On his return to Elvas he had met with several little indications of relaxed discipline, and somewhat suddenly remembered that he had not come out to Portugal to ride about the country, escorting young ladies in search of botanical specimens, picturesque scenes, and fragments of antiquity. He, the most punctilious of martinets, had been sadly neglecting his duties, and had used the invalid's plea until it was worn threadbare long ago. He was dissatisfied with himself, and, of course, more dissatisfied with other people.
From the day he came back he was constantly in the midst of his regiment. He showed himself, too, at the head of the mess table at every meal, taking that, as well as other opportunities, to inculcate rigid precept and sound doctrine on military matters, and lecture his officers on the subject of discipline. Nor did he confine himself to generalities. He was exacting with his major, hard on his adjutant; he gave Captain A—— to understand that the days and nights spent in the mountains in pursuit of his game tended little to promote the King's service, and that leave would be refused in future, and he suggested to Captain B—— that the best way to ascertain the state of his company was not to send for his orderly sergeant, but to inspect it himself. He spoiled more than one party of pleasure for some of these gentlemen by finding very inopportunely something else for them to do than following the ladies of Elvas and other game of the vicinage.
Many of the officers grumbled, and voted the colonel a bore. They even talked of sending him to Coventry. But Adjutant Meynell excused him by whispering it about that the colonel had just met with a rude rebuff from a certain person at headquarters, and as the rank and sex of the offender hindered his showing his resentment in that direction, on whom could he vent his ill-humor but on those under his command? Meynell advised that they should all unite in sending a round robbin to Lady Mabel, begging her to smile upon their colonel, and put him in an amiable mood.
With the little festive skirmishes, of almost daily occurrences at headquarters, Lord Strathern loved to mingle occasionally more serious affairs, in the shape of grander feasts; and on the fourth day after Lady Mabel's return, the guests assembled in force. Among them were three ladies of Elvas, who had established a social intercourse with Lady Mabel, and a greater, though less ostensible intimacy with some gentlemen of the brigade. Dinner company is a phase of social life almost unknown in Portugal, and Lady Mabel, aware of this, was needlessly anxious to put her female guests at their ease. Her smattering of their tongue proved inadequate, and even her Spanish but poorly served the purposes of conversation. Dona Carlotta Sequiera, indeed, despising the peninsular tongues, would speak only French—but such French! She had picked up most of it along Kellerman's officers, when he held Elvas with a French garrison in 1808. This lady, like some other renegade Portuguese, at that time assiduously courted the Gaul; and she was anxious now to wipe out this blot, in the eyes of her countrymen, by making much of their British allies. Lady Mabel, tired of her efforts to converse with the other ladies, and sick of Dona Carlotta's French,
"After the school of Stratford at bow,For French of Paris was to her unknow"—
longed to see her self-appointed dragoman enter the room.
L'Isle had ridden out in the morning to a place on the borders, equi-distant between Elvas and Badajoz, the scene of a serious outrage by a party of marauders two nights before. A peasant, guilty of being richer than his neighbors, had been punished by having his house forced, his head broken, his premises sacked, and his family ill-treated. Though there had been but little blood shed, there had been much wine spilt, besides several plump goat-skins carried off with the rest of the plunder. The English in Elvas laid this achievement at the door of the irregular Spanish force at Badajoz. Tie Spanish officers were quite as sure that it was the exploit of volunteer foragers from the English cantonments. L'Isle, seeing nobody disposed to inquire into the matter, went and made an examination on the spot, which inclined him to believe that the Spanish version was the true history of this little military operation. After a hot ride he returned in time to make his bow to Lady Mabel among the latest of her guests.
Mrs. Shortridge was very glad to see him, but reproached him with his late neglect of his friends; and turned toward Lady Mabel, expecting her concurrence in this censure. But my lady said, with sublime indifference: "What matters Colonel L'Isle's absence hitherto, since he has now come in time to interpret between us and our Portuguese friends? I have exhausted my stock of Portuguese," she continued, addressing L'Isle; "and find that they do not always comprehend my Spanish. Major Warren, indeed, has been lending me his aid; but I think the interpreter the harder to be understood of the two. Is it not strange these ladies do not understand me better; for their language is but bad Spanish, and mine is surely bad enough."
"Do not say that to the Portuguese," said L'Isle. "They will be justly offended; for their tongue is rather the elder sister of the Spanish than a corruption of it."
"Pray, lend me your tongue, Colonel L'Isle," said Mrs. Shortridge. "Here Dona Carlotta Sequiera has been jabbering at me in what I now find out to be French, but I am ashamed to say, I do not know thirty words of the language."
"Better to be ignorant of it," said L'Isle with a sneer, "than learn it as Dona Carlotta did."
"I know not how she acquired it," said Mrs. Shortridge, "but I am told that here on the continent every educated person speaks French. We English are far behind them in that."
"Be proud rather than ashamed of that," said L'Isle. "Monsieur has taught all Europe his language except ourselves. Flagellation is a necessary part of schooling. As he has never been able to thrash us, we are the worst French scholars in Europe, and those he has thrashed oftenest, are the best. They should blush at their knowledge; we plume ourselves on our ignorance. Thank God you have an English tongue in your head, and never mar a better language with a Gallic phrase. There is in every country a class who are prone to denationalize themselves; at this day, they generally ape the Frenchman. Now, I can tolerate a genuine Frenchman, without having any great liking for him; but if there is any one whom I feel at liberty to despise and distrust, it is a German, Spaniard or Englishman, who is trying to Frenchify himself. Such people are much akin to the self-styled citizen of the world, who professes to have rid himself of all local and national prejudice. I have usually metno-prejudiceandno-principlewalking hand in hand together. The French," he continued, "have the impudence to call theirs the universal language; and in diplomacy and war, they have been long too much encouraged in this. My Lord Wellington here is much to blame in giving way to their pretensions on this point. Whenever I have an independent command," said L'Isle laughing, "I will not let a Frenchman capitulate but in good English, or for want of it, in some other language than his own. I have already put that in practice in a small way," said he, as he handed Mrs. Shortridge down to dinner. "I once waylaid a foraging,anglice, a plundering party, returning laden to Merida. They showed fight, but we soon tumbled them into abarranca, where we had them quite in our power. But I would not listen to a word of their French, or let them surrender, until they found a renegade Spaniard to act as interpreter. When I want anything of them, I may speak French; but when they want anything of me, they must ask it in another tongue."
The dinner went off as large dinners usually do. The wrong parties got seated together, and suitable companions were separated by half the length of the board. Lady Mabel had Colonel Bradshawe, whom she did not want, close at hand; and her dragoman was out of hearing, which she felt to be not only inconvenient, but a grievance; for without entertaining any definite designs upon him, habit had already given her a sort of property in him, and a right to his services. But the Elvas ladies had no such ground of complaint. Each had her favorite by her side, and Dona Carlotta one on either hand.
It was a relief to Lady Mabel when the time came to lead the ladies back to her drawing-room. There she labored to entertain them until some of the gentlemen found leisure to come to her aid. She expected to see L'Isle among the first; but one after another came in without him; the Portuguese ladies were taken off her hands by their more intimate male friends, and she had leisure to wonder what could keep L'Isle down stairs so long, and to get out of humor at his sticking to the bottle, and neglecting better company for it.
Meanwhile, a great controversy was waging below. The more the disputants drank, the more strenuously they discussed the point at issue; and the more they exhausted themselves in argument, the oftener they refreshed themselves by drinking; swallowing many a glass unconsciously in the heat of the debate.
The farmer talks of seasons and his crops; the merchant of traffic and his gains; and the soldier, though less narrow in his range of topics, often dwells on the incidents and characteristics of military life. In answer to some very loose notions on the subject of discipline, L'Isle mounted his hobby, and said that he had pretty much come into the mechanical theory on military matters. "An army is a machine; the men composing it, parts of that machine; and the more their personal and individual characters are obliterated, by assimilating them to the nature of precise and definite parts of one complicated organization, the better will they serve their purpose. Now, a machine should be kept always in perfect order and readiness for instant application to the purpose of its construction. An army is a machine contrived for fighting battles; and if at any time it is not in a condition to fight to the best advantage, it is in a state of deterioration and partial disorganization. Troops, therefore, should be kept, at all times and under all circumstances, under the same rigid discipline, and in the full exercise of their functions, equally ready at all seasons for action."
Lord Strathern took up the cudgels and maintained that though an army might be called a machine, its component parts were men, who necessarily had some perception of the contingencies and emergencies incident to military life, and that great as were sacrifices they might make, and the restrictions they might bear with when there was obvious necessity for them, should the same exacting course be pursued as a system, it would only break their spirits, freeze their zeal, and disgust them with the service. "We have seen enough of your mechanical armies, drilled and regulated to perfection, as soulless mechanism. We have seen how, on the dislocation of this machine, the parts became useless and helpless, without resource in themselves. In short, it is the Prussian and Austrian system which has given half Europe to the French. No; if the bow need unbending, still more does the soldier need relaxation, to give vigor and elasticity to body and mind. A little ease and pleasure chequering his career only beget desire and the motives for new adventure and fresh exertions. How is it with our horses," exclaimed his lordship, who was a jockey of the old school. "Do we not give them a run at grass, to refresh their constitutions and renew their youth?"
But L'Isle unshaken maintained his opinion, "With such materials as make up a large part of our army, for his majesty gets the services of many a fellow who can be put to no good use at home, your lordship's relaxation system would only tend to sap its moral and physical strength, and make it a curse to the country in which it is quartered, whether at home or abroad."
It would have been well had the discussion stopped here. In the heat of debate each pushed his argument beyond his own convictions. Colonel Bradshawe sat sipping his wine, listening with mock gravity and seeming to oscillate between the opinions of the disputants, but most of the company agreed with Lord Strathern; still L'Isle found several staunch backers for his mechanical theory. But when quoting facts in support of his views, he referred to the conduct of their own men on sundry late occasions, and stated the result of the inquiries he that morning had made into the last outrage, he brought the whole company down upon him. They were all sure that the English soldiers had nothing to do with it. His lordship professed to detect, not only in the act itself, but in themodus operandi, infallible marks that fathered it on the Spaniard. The quiet, stealthy manner, the place, just on the border, yet out of Spain. "Besides," he urged, "you yourself say, that the few words the marauders were heard to utter were all Spanish."
"But the same testimony proves them to have been bad Spanish, even to the ears of a Portuguese borderer, and evidently used by foreigners for the purpose of disguise, like the dresses they wore. Who ever heard of a Spaniard breaking a man's head, when he could give him the blade of his knife? The farmer's bloody crown was a plain piece of English handicraft. Spaniards would have rummaged the house forla plata, and have snatched the earrings from the women's ears; the robbers, a more thirsty race, thought chiefly of carrying off the liquor."
The number and loud voices of those opposed to him only made L'Isle more stubborn in maintaining his views. He seemed rather to like being in a minority of one. On the other hand, Lord Strathern construed his remarks into an undisguised censure of his lax discipline. Luckily he was a truly hospitable man: nowhere, but at his own board, could he have kept his temper under control. Between the fumes of wine and smoke of cigars, the matter only became more and more cloudy. It was late when L'Isle left the table and entered the drawing-room, with a brow still ruffled by the controversy.
Striving to resume his equanimity, he took a seat by Lady Mabel. But she, by no means pleased at the long absence of her interpreter, and his late neglect in attending on her, pushed her chair back, and said something about "falling into bad habits."
"Do you think so?" said L'Isle, looking surprised, then reflecting a moment. "Why, Lady Mabel, I am not aware of having committed any excess, at least of the kind you suspect."
"Why, then, do you come from below so much heated and excited?"
"I have been engaged in a hot argument with my Lord, and others."
"Coolness would be more appropriate to argument than heat. But this was plainly an after-dinner discussion. The subject should be handled a second time, in imitation of those wise barbarians, who resolved on nothing until they had twice taken counsel, once of their cups, and then of cool sobriety the morning after."
"I feel no need of appealing to the cool reflecting morning hours."
"Of course you do not feel it now; that, too, will come with the sober morning."
L'Isle, a good deal nettled, was about to reply, when she exclaimed, "Why, you have been smoking!"
"No, I have only been smoked."
"That is just as unpleasant," she said, pushing her chair farther off. "The Portuguese snuff-taking is offensive enough, but this Spanish habit of smoking perpetually is intolerable. Wherever our officers go they pick up the small vices of the country, without abandoning any of their own. Here they add smoking to their native wine-bibbing propensities. They spoil a man utterly."
"Not utterly," said L'Isle; "there is Warren now, a capital fellow, a delightful companion, and an inveterate smoker."
"For that I cannot abide him," said Lady Mabel, out of humor with everybody.
"There is your friend, Colonel Bradshawe, who sets no little store by his wine and cigar."
"He is intolerable with them, and would be a bore without them."
"But my Lord himself smokes. Will you not tolerate him?"
"He is an old man, a general officer, and my father," said Lady Mabel. "After a life of hard service in the worst climates in the world, he may need indulgences not necessary to younger men. Besides, he is obliged to see so much of his officers. If he could choose his companions, he would lead a very different life. When we happen to be alone here," continued Lady Mabel, "he never sits long after dinner, seldom touches a cigar, and it is evidently only his position, and the habits forced upon him in a long military career, which interfere with his quiet tastes and love of domestic life."
L'Isle looked at Lady Mabel to see if she was in earnest. She had only said what she willingly believed on rather slight foundations. In truth, the novelty of having his daughter with him on the few occasions on which they were here left alone together, had proved of quite sufficient interest to enable Lord Strathern to dispense with other society and excitements, and led him to look back and to speak much of his short married life, and far beyond that, the days of his boyhood. L'Isle found himself convicted of contributing, with others, to mar the comfort and spoil the habits of the most abstemious and domestic old gentleman in the king's service. This was plainly a point on which it was not safe to contradict Lady Mabel, if he would keep in her good graces—so he gladly waved the discussion.
Mrs. Shortridge, under the reviving influence of her love of sight-seeing, now asked L'Isle to suggest some excursion for them, on which they might see something new. But she begged that it might be within a reasonable distance, for she had been so thoroughly shaken on the rough paths to and from Evora, that she was not yet up to another long ride.
"Cranfield has just been talking of Fort la Lippe," said L'Isle, "which overlooks us from the North. Let us make up a party to visit it to-morrow. Cranfield can entertain and instruct us by discoursing on this masterpiece of the Count de Lippe, and unveil the mysteries of the engineer's art. In the intervals, we can, from that high point, survey the country around us."
Cranfield eagerly seconded the proposal. Anything that looked like diversion was welcome to the ladies and the idlers about them, and Lady Mabel, somewhat mollified, condescended to approve of it.
Accordingly, the next morning she met, by appointment, Mrs. Shortridge and the three Portuguese ladies at the foot of the long flight of steps that lead up to the cathedral of Elvas. They were accompanied by L'Isle, Cranfield, and half a dozen gentlemen more, including the young surgeon of the —— regiment, who was always imagining that Lady Mabel had a cold, headache, or some other little ailment, that he might have the pleasure of prescribing for it. Irreverently turning their backs on the old church, without one prayer to the saints within, or those depicted on its windows of stained glass, they walked out of town down into the narrow valley lying north of the city, and crossing the brook which runs at the bottom (the Portuguese, making a river of it, have christened it the Seto), on the few stepping-stones which well supply the place of a foot-bridge, they toiled up the opposite hill, the lower part of which is covered with a grove of prickly oaks.
On reaching the gate Captain Cranfield stepped forward to the head of the party, and entered zealously on his duties ascicerone. He led them through the spacious barracks, in which the scanty garrison seemed buried in monastic seclusion; through the huge store-houses and bomb-proof kitchens and bakeries; showed them the vast tank containing water for a full garrison for a year; and what was better, a natural spring, welling out mysteriously within the circuit of the works. From the ramparts of this huge coronet that crowned the head of this eminence, he pointed out the strength of the position, the efficiency of the works, and their importance to the safety of Elvas. From this stronghold, with the works of the city and Fort St. Lucia on the other side of it, lying before them, Cranfield discoursed at length on his art, dealing largely in its technical terms: bastions, and curtains, covered ways, scarps and counter scarps, with ravelins thrown out in front of them, until Mrs. Shortridge, who listened with open-mouthed admiration, got so confused that she imagined that a ravelin was some kind of missile to be hurled at the French. Dona Carlotta and the other Portuguese ladies were not so attentive, not understanding the language of the lecturer, and feeling less interest in the defence of their country than in the attentions of the foreign officers, who were devoting themselves to their special service. But Lady Mabel, who prided herself on being a soldier's daughter, lent a willing ear to Cranfield, asked many questions, and even contrived to understand much that he had to say.
L'Isle now thought that the engineer had held the first place in Lady Mabel's attention long enough; so he broke in upon his eulogy on this inland Gibraltar, the master-piece of "o gran Conde de Lippe."
"The whole thing is certainly grand and complete in itself," said he, looking around; "and is a monument to the engineering talents of the Count de Lippe. But, after all, constructing a great fortress in Portugal is like building a ducal palace on a dairy farm; the thing may be very fine in itself, but is altogether out of place. Half a dozen such strongholds as Elvas, with its forts, would swallow up the Portuguese army, yet be but half garrisoned, and leave not a man to take the field. See the extent of the works between this and St. Lucia, that other sentinel standing guard over Elvas on the south. It would need twelve thousand men to garrison the city and the forts. I never heard that this fortress was of use to any but the French, who got it without fighting; and the possession of it helped them to obtain the convention of Cintra; but for which we would have tumbled Junot and his fellows into the Tagus. The Count de Lippe was wonderfully successful in regenerating the army, and restoring the military character of Portugal in the last century; but his countryman, Schomberg, in the century before, showed how Portugal could be better defended, and we have now in the country one who understands it better than the Duke de Schomberg himself."
There was so much truth in what L'Isle said, that Cranfield was obliged to yield up his impregnable fortress as a very fine thing in itself, but quite out of place.
"I gather from your remarks," said Lady Mabel, "that Portugal has often had a foreigner at the head of its army."
"Very often, indeed," answered L'Isle. "This same kingdom, which, in spite of its narrow territory and small population, had, through the enterprise of its rulers and the energy of the people, extended its conquests in the East and the West; which, in the sixteenth century had thirty-two foreign kingdoms and four hundred and thirty garrisoned towns tributary to it—has now so much degenerated in its institutions, that for two centuries it has never been able to defend itself, or even make a decent showing in the field, but by foreign aid and under a foreign leader. The Duke of Schomberg, Archduke Charles, the Count de Lippe the Prince of Waldeck, and other Germans, have in turn led the army, and each had to reorganize it, and revive its discipline. Now, they rely on Beresford to train them for battle, and Wellington to lead them to victory. The Count de Lippe found the military character so sunk, that officers were often seen waiting at the tables of their colonels; and the sense of individual honor was so lost, that one of his first reforms was to insist on his officers fighting when insulted, if they would not be cashiered."
"The former greatness of Portugal," said Lady Mabel, "is even more wonderful than its present decay. Yet that is lamentable, indeed, when the government, without striking a blow, could run away from the country on the approach of the invader."
"That might have been called an act of deliberate wisdom," said L'Isle, "had it not been stamped with feebleness and cowardice in the execution. Resistance was hopeless against France united with Spain, its tool, and soon to be its victim. Yielding to the storm left the invaders without apology for the plunder and atrocities the French have since perpetrated on the people. Nor was it a sudden thought. As long ago as the beginning of the last century, a Portuguese Secretary of State, seeing the defenceless condition of his country, urged that the King should remove to Brazil, and fix his court at Rio Janeiro. He points out the dependent state of his country in Europe, and asks: 'What is Portugal?' A corner of land divided into three parts; one barren, one belonging to the church, and the other part not even producing grain enough for the inhabitants. Look now at Brazil, and see what is wanting! The soil is rich, the climate delightful, the territory boundless, and the city would soon become more flourishing than Lisbon. Here he might extend his commerce, make discoveries in the interior, and take the title of Emperor of the West.' In truth, the behavior of the house of Braganza in this migration, contrasts well with the infamous conduct of the Spanish Bourbons."
They had strolled on to the foot of a tower within the fort, and Cranfield led the party to the top to survey the panorama around them. The horizon was pretty equally divided between Portugal and Spain. On the North, close at hand, rose the rugged Serra de Portalegre, famous for its chesnut forests; to the west was the fertile plain of Eastern Alemtejo, crossed by the enormous pile of the aqueduct, and backed by the heights of Serra D'Ossa; to the south and east, the valley of the Guadiana lay before them, with few marks of culture on the Spanish side; and the eye could range over the sheep pastured plains of Estremadura to the misty sides and blue tops of the sierras that shut them in on either hand.
In the East, nine miles off, by the straight path the vulture makes, rose Badajoz, capped by its castle, and over-looked by fort San Christoval on a high hill across the river. The fame of its sieges during this war, its stubborn defence and bloody fall within the year, drew the eyes of the ladies on it. L'Isle pulled out a field glass to aid them in inspecting it. When the Portuguese ladies got hold of it, they were as much delighted as children with a new toy, snatching it out of each other's hands, without allowing time for its deliberate use, and protesting against their Spanish neighbors being brought so near to them.
"If they are so delighted at the powers of this little thing," said L'Isle, "what would they think of the glass Lord Wellington had put up in this tower during the siege of Badajoz?"
"Were its powers so great?" Mrs. Shortridge asked.
"Wonderful, according to rumor," answered L'Isle, "But I never had time to come from the trenches to prove them. It is said to have brought Badajoz so near, that you saw how the French soldiers made their soup, and even smell the garlic they put into it. Once, when my Lord saw Philipon leaning against the parapet of the castle, sneering at the besieger's clumsy approaches, he so far forgot himself, as to call for his holsters, that he might pistol the contemptuous Frenchmen on the spot."
"Did he, indeed?" exclaimed Mrs. Shortridge; then laughing at herself for being quizzed for the moment, begged L'Isle to tell this to the Portuguese ladies, and see if they would not believe it.
Meanwhile, Lady Mabel was gazing thoughtfully over the winding valley, which running toward them from the East, turned abruptly to the South, indicating the course of the Guadiana, and on the wide plains of Estremadurabaja, or the lower, to the blue sierras that walled it round. "This, then, is Spain," said she; "the land I have read of, dreamed of, and for the last four years, thought of more even than of my own."
"And yet," said L'Isle, "you calling yourself a traveler, have been for months within sight of it, and have never set your foot on Spanish ground."
"I blush to own it. But you, my self-appointed guide, should blush, too, at never having led me thither. Come, Mrs. Shortridge: these soldiers are too slow for us; let us take horse to-morrow, and make an inroad into Spain."
"Willingly," said Mrs. Shortridge. "But let us take a strong party with us. We do not know how we might be received, should the Spaniards mistake us for Portuguese!"
"If a visit to Badajoz is your object," said Cranfield, "I offer myself as a guide. As I have been lately engaged in repairing its shattered walls, I may be useful in showing you how to get in. Knowing, too, some of the Spanish officers there, I may in a parley induce them to come to terms."
They now descended from the tower, and on leaving the fort, Lady Mabel led the party to head-quarters, to take their luncheon there, while they planned their measure for to-morrow's expedition to Badajoz.
"Where Lusitania and her sister meet,Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide?Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet,Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide?Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride?Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall?No barrier wall, no river deep and wide,No horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall,Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul.But these between, a silver streamlet glides,And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook;Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides,Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook,And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow,For proud each peasant as the noblest duke;Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low."Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Thenext morning early a numerous party issued from the eastern gate of Elvas. The descending road led them between groves of olives, whose sad colored foliage was relieved by the bright hues of the almond tree, clothed with pink blossoms, the scarlet flowering pomegranate, the dark, rich green of the orange-tree, already spangled over with small white blossoms, yet still laden with its golden fruit, and the prune trees of Elvas, favorites through the world, leafless as yet, but conspicuous by the clouds of white flowerets which covered them. The roofs of the suburban quintas showed themselves here and there above the orchards, and by the roadside theiris alatabloomed on every bank.
The air is balmy, the scene lovely, and all nature smiling with the sweet promises of Spring. Is this the goddess Flora leading down a joyous train to the fields below? It is only Lady Mabel cantering somewhat recklessly down hill. When she reached the more level ground, she so far out-rode the ladies of her party, who were mounted on mules, that, tired of loitering for them to come up, she proposed to L'Isle, who had kept by her side, to employ their leisure in ascending the bare hill on their left, to examine the old tower, that stood solitary and conspicuous on its top. From the clearness of the atmosphere it seemed nearer than it was, and the broken ground compelled them to make a circuit before they reached it. Hence they looked down upon their friends, crawling at a snail's pace along the road to Badajoz. They rode round the weather-beaten, ruinous tower. It was square, with only one small entrance, many feet above the ground, and leading into a small room amidst the thick walls.
"What could this have been built for?" Lady Mabel asked.
"It is one of those watch-towers calledatalaias," answered L'Isle. "Many of them are scattered along the heights on the border. They are memorials of an age in which one of people's chief occupations was watching against the approach of their neighbors."
"Stirring times, those," said Lady Mabel. "People could not then complain that their vigilance was lulled to sleep by too great security; but this is, perhaps, a more comfortable age."
"To us in our island home," said L'Isle. "The improvement is more doubtful here. There was a time when your forefathers and mine thus kept watch against each other; when our own border hills were crowned with similar watch-towers; but never did any country continue so long a debatable land, and need, for so many centuries, the watch-tower and the signal fire on its hills, as this peninsula during the slow process of its redemption from the crescent to the cross."
"From this point," said Lady Mabel, "Elvas and Badajoz look like two giant champions facing each other, in arms, each, for the defence of his own border, yet one does not see here any of those great natural barriers that should divide nations."
"They are wanting, not only here," said L'Isle, "but on other parts of the frontier. The great rivers, the Duoro, the Tagus and the Guadiana, and the mountain chains separating their valleys, instead of dividing the two kingdoms, run into Portugal from Spain. The division of these countries is not natural, but accidental; and in spite of some points of contrast, the Portuguese are almost as much like the Spaniards, as these last are like each other—for Spain is in truth a variety of countries, the Spaniards a variety of nations."
"At length, however," said she, "Spain and Portugal are united in one cause."
"Yet the Portuguese still hates the Spaniards," said L'Isle, "and the Spaniard contemns the Portuguese."
"And we despise both," said Lady Mabel.
"Perhaps unjustly," said he.
"Why, to look no further into their short-comings and back-slidings, to use Moodie's terms, have they not signally failed in the first duty of a nation, defending itself?"
"Remember the combination of fatalities that beset them," said L'Isle, "and the atrocious perfidy that aggravated their misfortunes. Both countries were left suddenly without rulers, distracted by a score of contendingjuntas, to resist a great nation, under a government of matchless energy, the most perfectly organized for the attainment of its object, which is not the good of its subjects, but solely the developement, to the uttermost, of its military power. They at once sunk before it, showing us how completely the vices of governments, and yet more, the sudden absence of all government, can paralyze a nation. But they have since somewhat redeemed their reputation, by many an example of heroism."
"Why did not the nation, as one man, imitate the heroes of Zaragoza and Gerona, and wage, like them, war to the knife's point against the infidel and murderous horde of invaders?" exclaimed Lady Mabel, with a flushed cheek and flashing eye, that would have become Augustina Zaragoza herself.
"Because every man is not a hero, nor in a position to play a hero's part. Spain was betrayed and surprised. The invaders came in the guise of friends, under the faith of treaties, by which the flower of the Spanish army had been marched into remote parts of Europe as allies to the French; nor was the mask thrown off until long after it was useless to wear it."
"Did the world ever before witness such complicated perfidy?"
"Perhaps not. But I trust it is about to witness its failure and punishment."
"Weand the Czar will have to administer it," said Lady Mabel, with the air of an arbitress of nations. "We cannot look for much help from our besotted allies here."
"It must be confessed," said L'Isle, "that an unhappy fatality in council and in action, has beset the Portuguese and Spaniards, throughout the war. They have too often shown their patriotism by murdering their generals, underrating their enemies and slighting their friends. They have, too, attained the very acme of blundering; doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, and choosing the wrong man to do it."
"Say no more," exclaimed Lady Mabel. "If that be the verdict you find against our allies, I will not accuse you of blindness to their faults. They are unworthy of the lovely and romantic land they live in," she added, gazing on the scene before her. "What beautiful mountain is that which trenches so close upon the border, as if it would join itself to the Serra de Portalegre?"
"It is the mountain of Albuquerque, so called from a town at its foot."
"That was the title of the Spanish duke, who died lately in London," Lady Mabel remarked.
"And in one sense the most unfortunate Spaniard of our day," added L'Isle. "Of the highest rank among subjects, uniting in his person names famous in Spanish history; he was brave and patriotic, and though still young, one of the few Spanish leaders whose enterprize did not lead to disaster. But the Supreme Junta, in its jealousy would never entrust him with any but subordinate commands, subjecting him to the orders of Castanos Cuesta, and other inefficient leaders whose blunders his good conduct often covered. When, at length Andalusia was lost by the folly and cowardice of others, he only had his wits about him, and by a speedy march saved Cadiz. The rabid democrats of the city repaid him with ingratitude and insults, which drove him into exile; and, denied the privilege of falling in defence of his country, he died broken-hearted in a foreign land."
"Are these people worth fighting for?" exclaimed Lady Mabel, indignantly, reining back her horse, as if about to abandon her Spanish allies to their own folly.
"Perhaps not," said L'Isle, "if we were not also fighting for ourselves. Spain is a convenient field on which to drub the French. But it is time to follow our party."
They now left the hill and getting back into the road, galloped after their friends, but did not overtake them until they had reached the little river Cayo, which here divides Portugal from Spain. The ladies, on their mules, were grouped together in doubt and hesitation on this bank, while several of the gentlemen were riding about in the water, searching for holes in the bed of the stream, which was swollen and turbid from the late rains.
"You hesitate too long to pass the Rubicon," said Lady Mabel, "just let me tuck up the skirt of my riding dress, from the muddy waters, and I will lead you over into Spain."
She was soon on the other bank, and her companions followed her. The road now led them across a sandy plain, which, treeless and desolate, contrasted strikingly with the fertility and cultivation around Elvas.
Looking at the fortress they were approaching, L'Isle remarked: "From the times of Saguntum, Numantia, and Astapa, Spain has been noted for cities that perished utterly rather than yield in submission to their foes—Zaragoza, Gerona, and other places have in our day maintained the old national fame. But Badajoz," he added, shaking his finger at the towers before him, "is not one of them. It cannot be denied that in this struggle the Spaniards have proved themselves a nation. 'Every Spaniard remembers that his country was once great, and is familiar with the names of its heroes; speaks with enthusiasm of the Cid, of Ferdinand Cortes, and a host of others.' When the hour of trial come, 'the nation instinctively felt,' to use the language of one of their ownjuntas, that 'there is a kind of peace more fatal than the field of battle drenched with blood, and strewed with the bodies of the slain.' The patriotic fire may have flamed the higher for the holy oil of superstition poured upon it, but it was kindled by noble pride and generous shame and indignation, by the remembrance of what their fathers had been, and the thought of what their children were to be.'"
"In spite of the blunders, disasters, and treachery that have been rife in the land," said Lady Mabel, "more than one name has been added to the list of its heroes—Palafox and the Maid of Zaragoza have won immortal fame."
"And others less famous have deserved as well," said L'Isle. "Before Augustina, this second Joan of Arc, had stepped out of her sex, to display her heroism, she and others, behind the same shattered, crumbling wall, had been showing an equal heroism within their sex's sphere. Women of all ranks were zealous in the patriotic cause. They formed themselves into companies, some to assist the wounded, some to carry water, wine and food to those who defended the gates. The Countess Burita raised a corps for this service. She was young, delicate and beautiful. In the midst of the most tremendous fire of shot and shells, she was seen coolly attending to those occupations, which were now become her duty; nor through the whole of a two month's siege did the imminent danger, to which she incessantly exposed herself, produce the slightest apparent effect upon her; her step never faltered, her eye never quailed. What a partial thing is fame," he continued, "and how poor a motive to duty! The names of Palafox and Zaragoza are forever wedded. How few remember the old plebeian,Tio Jorge, who counseled and spurred on both governor and populace to their heroic defence!"
"When we remember all that the Spaniards have undergone in this war," said Lady Mabel, "we cannot but think that their atrocities in the new world have been visited on them at home."
"How far we must answer for the sins of our forefathers," said L'Isle, "is a nice question. We have some scriptural authority for asserting that responsibility; and as there is no hereafter for nations, they must be punished in this world, or not at all. I would be sorry to bear my share of the penalty of all that immaculate England has done. But I do not fear the fate of Spain for England:
'That royal throne of kings, that sceptred isle,That earth of majesty, that seat of Mars,That other Eden, demi-paradise;That fortress, built by nature for herself,Against infection, and the hand of war;That happy breed of men, that little world;That precious stone set in the silver sea,Which serves it in the office of a wall,Or as a moat defensive to a house,Against the envy of less happier lands.'
England against the world!" he exclaimed breaking off his quotation, in his enthusiasm, and laying his hand on his sword.
"You are certainly a patriot," said Lady Mabel, "if any amount of national prejudice can make patriotism. But yours is very like the cockney's, who despised all the world, beyond the sound of Bow bells. As to the fortress isle. (Let me warn you to keep it well garrisoned against surprise.) I believe there is an obscure little corner of it called Scotland, which both you and the poet have forgotten."
"I merely usedEnglandin a figure of speech," said L'Isle, "putting a part for the whole."
"I will not tolerate your figure of speech, as disparaging to old Scotland," she said. "But for us Scots—"
"Us Scots!" L'Isle exclaimed. "Why, it was but yesterday you told me how much you had angered Moodie by calling yourself an English woman."
"What of that? I would have you know that I have two sides to my natural character. I claim the right to present my Scotch or English side at will, and then you cannot see the other."
Fort San Christoval, on this side of the Guadiana, rose higher and higher before them. Gazing on Badajoz and its castle on the other side of the river, L'Isle thought of the failures before it, and of the price in blood at which it had been bought at last. "We are not always successful in our sieges—at times undertaking them rashly, without the means of carrying them on. The sabre, and bayonet, unaided, take few walled towns. They need the help of Cranfield's art, and he cannot work without his tools."
"But we always beat the French in the field," said Lady Mabel.
"Always," said L'Isle. "There has been no instance of a real British army being beaten by a French one."
"None of late years," said Lady Mabel. "To find a victory over us they have to go as far back in the last century as Fontenoy."
"That is not a fair instance," said L'Isle eagerly. "We lost that battle chiefly through the backwardness of our Dutch allies; and Marshal Saxe, who was no Frenchman, but a German, beat us chiefly by aid of the valor of the Irish regiments in the French pay."
"That alters the case," said Lady Mabel; "but were we not beaten some years before that, at Almansa, here in Spain?"
"That instance is still more unfair," exclaimed L'Isle. "Our Peninsular allies ran away, while we fought their battle. Still, though the enemy were two to our one, the result might have been different. But the French had an English general, the Duke of Berwick, to win the battle for them, and we had a French commander, DeRuvigny, whom Dutch William had made Earl of Galway, to lose it for us."
"Then, after all," exclaimed Lady Mabel, "the Englishman won the field."
"Yes, to our cost," said L'Isle, bitterly. "What made it more provoking was, that we had at that very time the man to mate him;" and, standing up on his stirrups, he raised his clenched hand above his head, exclaiming: "O, for one hour of Peterborough to grapple with his countryman and redeem the day!"
"What is the matter with Colonel L'Isle?" asked Mrs. Shortridge, who was riding close behind with Cranfield.
"He is only leaping back to the beginning of the last century," answered Lady Mabel, "to reverse the issue of the battle of Almansa."
"Why, has not the colonel fighting enough before him," said Cranfield, laughing, "that he must go back so far for more?"
"Let us be content with what we have," said L'Isle joining in the laugh. "It is useless to dwell on old disasters but by way of shunning new ones. It has been our constant luck to go into battle shoulder to shoulder with allies who, except when in our pay, seldom stand by us to the end of the day."
The river was now at hand. Turning to the right before reaching San Christoval, they entered thetete du pont, and soon found themselves on a noble granite bridge of many arches. The voices of many singers drew their eyes to the banks of the river, where they saw all the washerwomen of the city, collected in pursuit of their calling, and lightening their labors with song, the burden of which, "Guadiana, Guadiana," fell often on the ear, while the sun-beams bleached the linen spread out on the banks of the stream, and tanned the faces of the industrious choir chanting its praise.
"This, then, is the Guadiana!" said Lady Mabel, peeping over the parapet. "I feel bound to admire its broad face, but miss the swift current and pellucid waters of the poetasters, to whose bounties the river god owes much of his fame."
"While you and our party loiter here, searching out the beauties of the Guadiana," said L'Isle, "I will ride on and secure our peaceful reception at the gate. A Spanish sentinel is often asleep, and apt to prove his vigilance by firing on whoever wakes him up."
Presently following L'Isle, who luckily found the sentinel awake, they reached the southern end of the bridge, and passing between two beautiful round towers of white marble, now tinted straw-color with age, they entered the northern gate of the city, and soon sought hospitality at thePosada de los Caballeros.
Putting up their horses here, they left the servants to see that a dinner was got ready; this meal, at a Spanish inn, depending less on what you find there than on what you bring with you. Three Spanish officers were lounging at the posada, one of whom immediately claimed Cranfield's acquaintance, and introduced his companions. Cranfield did not seem delighted to meet with him, nevertheless he presented them to the whole party with studied politeness. Captain Don Alonzo Melendez, with a handsome person, a swaggering air, and a costume more foppish than military, looked more like amajoof Seville than a soldier and a gentleman. His companions had much the advantage of him there, but he beat them hollow in assurance. Learning that curiosity alone had brought them to Badajoz, he at once took the post of guide. Finding that Lady Mabel knew enough of Spanish to make a good listener, he placed himself by her side. Cranfield escorted her on the other, and thus they walked forth. L'Isle, thrust into the background, accompanied Mrs. Shortridge and the rest of the party.
As they drew near the works, many marks of injury and devastation on the adjacent houses, brought the late siege prominently to their minds. Don Alonzo Melendez at once began to discourse grandiloquently on the subject. His narrative was so copious and inaccurate, that Cranfield soon lost all patience, and found it hard to keep from interrupting and contradicting him. Lady Mabel, detecting this, encouraged the Spaniard to the uttermost by displaying rapt attention, and full faith in his glowing narrative.
"I never before heard," said she to Cranfield, "so graphic an account of the siege and storming of Badajoz."
"If our friend here talks about it much longer," said Cranfield, in English, "he will forget that we had any thing to do with it. The siege was, however, in one sense, the work of the Spaniards. If the traitor Imaz had not sold it to Soult for a mule load of gold, we would not have had to buy it back at the cost of so many thousands of lives. Nor were any of them Spanish lives," he added bitterly; "though some were Portuguese—for the only Spaniards at the siege were the renegades who aided Philippon and his Frenchman to keep us out."
"Every Spaniard is not traitor or coward," said L'Isle from behind. "If the brave Governor Menacho had not been killed in defending the place, his successor Imaz could not have sold it a few days after to the French."
As they strolled along the ramparts, Don Alonso, with a strange forgetfulness of events within the year, lauded the impregnable strength of the works, as if Badajoz were still a virgin fortress. Cranfield, by way of rebuking him, pointed out to Lady Mabel the restorations he had made of the breached walls. She replied that "the patchwork character of his repairs were but too evident, as he had invariably omitted to use materials of the same color with the original works."
As they rambled through the city, Don Alonso failed not to point out the superior size and style of the buildings over those of Elvas, and Lady Mabel remarked that "in cleanliness, too, it far surpassed its neighbor." Leading them to the cathedral, their guide compelled them to inspect minutely this heavy and cumberous building, while he eulogized it in terms that might have been suitable to St. Peter's, at Rome. "I am sorry," said he, "you cannot see it in all its splendor; but the gorgeous furniture of the altar and the rich ornaments of the shrines are not now exhibited."
"Why not?" asked Lady Mabel.
"In these troubled, sacrilegious times, the clergy think it best not to display the wealth of the church."
"They would find it difficult to display any thing but tinsel," said Cranfield. "It is two years since the golden crucifix, the silver candlestick, and the saintly jewelry, mounted on horseback and traveled into France."
"But the saints," said L'Isle, "knowing that the air of France would not agree with them, wisely staid behind."
As they were coming out of the cathedral, Mrs. Shortridge asked L'Isle the meaning of the words on a tablet near them: "Oy se sacca animas."
"They give us notice," said L'Isle, "that to-day souls are released from Purgatory. But surely the notice is incomplete, not specifying whose souls they are. Their friends may go on spending money in masses for them after they are in Paradise."
"That would be throwing away their cash," said Mrs. Shortridge. "I have known good folks in London exercise their charity by releasing small debtors from prison. But their bounty bears little fruit, compared with that of the Papist, who, by opening his purse, rescues sinful souls from purgatory. But our works, as our faith, fall far short of theirs."
"And the Spaniards are foremost among the faithful," said L'Isle. "They are greedy of belief, even beyond what the church commands. Thus the mysterious origin of the Holy Virgin, which once convulsed the Spanish church, is here no longer a disputed point. It is the first article of their creed, as proved by their commonest term of salutation. On entering a Spaniard's house, you must begin with the words, 'Ave Maria Purissima,' to which will be answered, 'Sin pecado concebida.' Smithfield fires could not burn this dogma out of them, and they would become schismatics if the rest of Popedom were not treading on their heels. Yet to me this doctrine seems to sap the great Christian truth, that Christ is 'God made man,' for it pushes his human origin one generation further back. Did Scripture tell the name of the mother of the blessed Virgin, the next age might discover that she too was 'sin pecado concebida.'"
"Since I have been in this land," said Mrs. Shortridge, "I have seen scarcely a street, or even a house, which is without an image or picture of the blessed Virgin, and the images are often crowned with flowers."
"She is the goddess of these southern nations," L'Isle answered; "and styled the Mother of God. Moreover, every pious Spaniard regards the Virgin in the light of his friend, his confidante, his mistress, whose whole attention is directed to himself, and who is perpetually watching over his happiness. With the name of Mary ever on his lips he follows his business, his pleasures, and his sins. It is in the name, too, of Mary," L'Isle continued, with an arch smile, "that the ladies write billetdoux, send their portraits, and entertain their gallants."
"Stop," said Mrs. Shortridge; "you are libeling our sex, and your love of satire makes you as bitter against Popery as old Moodie himself."
"It is, at least, no scandal to say that, under her patronage, small sins are easily absolved here, on the performance of certain duties of atonement."
"What are the duties of atonement?"
"Ave Marias, fasts, and alms. The alms go to the begging friars, or else to buy masses for the souls in purgatory."
Walking up the sloping street that leads to the castle, they found this Moorish edifice in a shattered condition, a few towers only standing whole amidst the ruins. From one of these, looking northward across the river which ran three hundred feet below them, they saw the strong fort of San Christoval towering above them, while they, in turn, overlooked the city, and beyond its walls, the plain to the south, not long since covered with vineyards, and olive groves, and the picturesque villas of the richer citizens of Badajoz—now its bare surface was furrowed with trenches, ridged with field works, and spotted with ruins. The devastating blast of war had left it the picture of desolation.
Lady Mabel, turning to ask L'Isle a question, saw him gazing gloomily down into the deep but dry fosse below them.
"What fixes your attention on that spot," she asked.
"Do you see where the earth shows, by its color differing from the adjacent soil, that it has been turned up not long since? Thousands of Britons, Portuguese, and French are buried there. They met but to contend, yet now lie peaceably together. I have more than one friend among them."
Mrs. Shortridge put her hand before her eyes, and Lady Mabel turned pale as she gazed earnestly below. "Come," she said, at length, "we have seen enough of bloody Badajoz. There are some feelings that may well kill the idle curiosity that led us hither."
Descending into the town, they walked into the great square, their party attracting much attention from several groups of citizens and of soldiers of the garrison. Captain Don Alonso Melendez stopped them here to point out various objects of interest, being evidently anxious to display himself as the patron and intimate of these distinguished strangers. He brought forward and presented to them two or three more of his brother officers whom he here met.
While he was thus engaged with others of the party, Lady Mabel found leisure to remark to Cranfield: "Short as is the distance from Elvas to Badajoz, I fancy I can perceive, without listening to the language around me, that I am among a new people."
"You may well be struck with the language," said Cranfield, "while listening to our patronizing friend here. But you must not take his discourse for a fair sample of Spanish style or facts."
"Of course not," said Lady Mabel. "Eloquence and intelligence like his are rare everywhere."
"I trust they are," said Cranfield, with a sneer. "But there is already an obvious difference observable here in the people, which becomes more marked as you proceed toward Castile. The Spaniard is taller and yet leaner than the Portuguese. He has a more expressive countenance, a striking sedateness of carriage, and a settled gravity of manner, especially when silent, which makes him seem wiser than he is. With much elegance of form, his meagre person shows that he is the denizen of a dry climate, which, every Spaniard will tell you, gives a peculiar compactness of structure to all its products: the wheat of Spain makes more bread, its beef and mutton are more nourishing, its wines have more body, and the men more enduring vigor than those of other countries. Certain it is that Spanish troops have often proved great marchers; yet of all nations they have the slenderest legs, and indeed they never use their own when they can substitute those of horse, mule, orburro."
"The heat of the climate discourages exercise on foot," said Lady Mabel.
"Or labor of any kind," said Cranfield. "The universal cloak sufficiently proves that they are not a working people."
"And imperfectly conceals that they are a ragged one," said she. "Had I old Moodie at my elbow, he would remind me that 'drowsiness shall clothe a man in rags.'"
Observing Cranfield gazing round the square with much interest, she said: "You must be quite familiar with this place."
"I shall never forget the occasion on which I saw it first," he answered. "I was one of two engineers attached on the assault to General Walker's brigade. While Picton was scaling the castle walls, and crowds of our brave fellows were dying in the breaches, we succeeded in forcing our way into the place over the bastion of San Vincente. Hard work we had of it, and the fight did not end there; for the enemy stubbornly disputed bastion after bastion on our flank, and our commander fell on the ramparts covered with so many wounds that his living seemed a miracle. The detachment I was with pushed forward into the town. The streets were empty, but brilliantly illuminated, and no person was to be seen; yet a low buzz and whisper was heard around; lattices were now and then opened, and from time to time shots were fired from underneath the doors by the Spaniards—"
"The French, you mean," said Lady Mabel.
"No; the Spaniards," persisted Cranfield. "And perhaps our talking friend there was one of them."
"Don Alonso is an Andalusian and a patriot," said Lady Mabel; "and I will not have him so traduced."
"Be it so," replied Cranfield. "It is lucky for your patriot that he was not here. However, the troops, with bugles sounding, advanced up yonder street into this square, and we captured several mules going with ammunition to the trenches. But the square was empty and silent as the streets, and the houses as bright with lamps; a terrible enchantment seemed to be in operation; for we saw nothing but light, and heard nothing but the low whispers around us, while the tumult at the breach was like the crashing thunder. There, though the place was already carried on two sides, by Picton's column and ours, the murderous conflict still raged; we still heard the shots, and shouts, and infernal uproar, while hundreds and hundreds fell and died after fierce assault and desperate resistance were alike vain. We pushed on that way to take the garrison in reserve, but our weak battalion was repulsed by their reserve, and some time elapsed before the French found out that Badajoz had changed hands."
"But it was ours!" exclaimed Lady Mabel, "though too dearly bought."
"The carnage was dreadful," said Cranfield; "and when the full extent of that night's havoc became known to Lord Wellington, the firmness of his nature gave way for a moment, and the pride of conquest yielded to a passionate burst of grief at the loss of his gallant soldiers.—Then came thevoe victis," continued Cranfield. "We do not like to dwell on the wild and desperate wickedness which Badajoz witnessed on becoming ours. By the by, just where we stand stood the gallows."
"The gallows!" Lady Mabel exclaimed, stepping back from the polluted spot. "You could not hang the French. Did you hang the Spaniards who had fired on you."
"No; but Lord Wellington was compelled to hang some of his own heroes for making too free with what was theirs by right of conquest."
The young surgeon, who had been listening to Cranfield, now thought it time to lay some of his coloring on this picture of the siege, storming and sack of this unhappy city. He told some curious and thrilling incidents, but his profession getting the mastery of him, he soon got to the hospital, and, amidst ghastly wounds, horrid disfigurations, and dismembered limbs, began to bandage, slash, and saw, until Lady Mabel sickened at the tale. "Pray stop there; you make me shudder at your hospital scenes, which, in their endless variety of suffering are too like the Popish pictures of souls in Purgatory. I prefer going to dine at the posada, to stopping here to sup full of horrors."
They now returned to the posada and had their Spanish friends to dine with them—Lady Mabel seating Don Alonso beside her, and losing not a word of his grandiloquence. After the meal the party dispersed—most of them taking a siesta in order to get rid of two or three hot hours of the afternoon before they set out on their way back to Elvas. Their Spanish friends however, returned and persuaded them to postpone their ride until they had taken an evening promenade on the bridge, the favorite resort of the ladies of Badajoz and their cavaliers during the hot weather. Here they enjoy an extended prospect, and the cooling breezes that attend the current of a great river.
They found here many of the first people of Badajoz and many of the Spanish officers and their fair friends. Leaning against the parapet of the bridge, Lady Mabel forgot the idlers walking by, while she gazed on the scenery around, or watched the gliding stream below, and listened to L'Isle speaking of the Guadiana; of its mysterious disappearance near its source, its course betrayed only by the rich pastures overlying the subterranean streams, of its return to daylight in the lakes called its eyes:Ojos de la Guadiana; and following it to Portugal, to theSalto de Lobo, so called because a wolf might leap across the deep but narrow chasm between the overhanging rocks, he named the noted places on its banks, and quoted many a ballad of which it was the theme. Presently, finding themselves almost alone they followed their companions, to the bridge head, and joined the large company assembled in this outwork. The Spanish officers had provided music for their entertainment, and oranges and confectionary were handed about. Of the latter, the Spanish and Portuguese ladies, according to national habit, eat a great quantity. After a pause the musicians struck up a lively seguidilla, the gentlemen secured partners, Lady Mabel declining a dozen applications, and with difficulty ridding herself of Don Alonso, who could not understand how a lady who delighted so much in his conversation could refuse to dance with him.
The level space within this outwork was now crowded with couples, the Portuguese ladies entering fully into the spirit of the hour. Mrs. Shortridge and Lady Mabel stood aside, with L'Isle, and had the pleasure of witnessing a genuineimpromptuSpanish ball in the open air. They were at once struck with the sudden gayety and activity of a people habitually so grave and inert. But as one dance followed another, the vivacity of the party increased. Many of the officers and some of their fair friends were from Andalusia, where music and the castinets are never heard in vain. Presently the tune was changed, and the excited dancers slid over into the fandango and volero, danced out to the life in so demonstrative, voluptuous and seducing a style, that Mrs. Shortridge declared such exhibitions abominable, and that they should be prohibited by law; while Lady Mabel shrinkingly looked on in bewildered astonishment. She had herself danced many a time, though not as often as she wished; but such dancing she had never dreamed of before.
At this moment the sun set, and the bells of the churches and convents across the water gave the signal for repeating the evening prayer to the Virgin. In an instant the gay crowd was arrested as if by magic. The music ceased; the dancers stood still; the women veiled their faces with their fans; the men took off their hats; and all breathed out or seemed to breathe a prayer to the protecting power who had brought them to the close of another day—all but the English officers, who, mingled with the devout dancers, stood looking like profane fools caught without a prayer for the occasion. After a short solemn pause, the men put on their hats, the women uncovered their faces, the music again struck up, and the throng glided off into gayety and revelry as before.
"I would not have lost this for any thing," Lady Mabel exclaimed; "It is so sudden and extraordinary a transition from the wild abandonment of revelry to absorbing devotion and back again to the revels. Without seeing it, I could not have imagined it. I have before witnessed and, at times, been impressed with this solemn call to the evening prayer, misdirected though it be. But here the effect is utterly ridiculous, to say the least."
"This may give you an insight into the Spanish character on more than one point," said L'Isle. "As to their love of dancing, and of the fandango in particular, it is said, though I do not vouch for it, that the Church of Rome, scandalized that a country so renowned for the purity of its faith, had not long ago proscribed so profane a dance, resolved to pronounce the solemn condemnation of it. A consistory assembled; the prosecution of the fandango was begun according to rule, and a sentence was about to be thundered against it. But there was a wise Spanish prelate present who knew his countrymen, and dreaded a schism, should they be driven to choose between the fandango and the faith. He stepped forward and objected to the criminal's being condemned without being heard.
"The observation had weight with the assembly. He was allowed to produce before them amajoand amajaof Seville, who, to the sound of voluptuous music, displayed all the seductive graces of the dance. The severity of the judges was not proof against the exhibition. Their austere countenances began to relax; they rose from their seats; their legs and arms soon found their former suppleness; the consistory-hall was changed into a dancing-room, and the fandango acquitted."
Both ladies laughed heartily at this story, and L'Isle went on to say; "In spite of the exhibition before us, these people, in their serious hours, retain all the gravity and ceremonious stateliness in language and manner of their forefathers, in the time of Charles the Fifth and his glooming son, when the Spaniard was the admiration and dread of Europe.
"I have been told," said Lady Mabel, "that you may, at this day, find many a Spaniard who might sit for the portrait of Alva himself."
"Yes," answered L'Isle, "It has been well said that the Spaniard of the sixteenth century has vanished, but his mask remains."
Twilight was now failing them, and the party from Elvas hastened back to the posada. The horses had been brought out, and some of the ladies were already mounted, when Don Alonso Melendez came hastily up, having followed them to take a ceremonious leave. His parting words with his new friends, and especially his compliments to Lady Mabel, who did not allow herself to remain in his debt, delayed them some time. As they rode off, he waved his hat, and called out: "Con todo el mondo guerra, y paz con Inglaterra!"
"We taught them that proverb long ago," said Cranfield, "by taking their galleons laden with plate from the New World."
"The Spaniard has a treasury of wisdom locked up in his proverbs," said L'Isle. "What a pity it is he will not take some of it out to meet the current demands on him."
They soon again crossed the bridge, and entered thetete du point—but the dancers had vanished; their music was hushed; nor was its place supplied by the song of the morning. The chorus of "Guadiana—Guadiana," no longer arose from its banks. All was still, dark and desolate before them.
Meanwhile, Lord Strathern, though not given to over caution, was seized, as night drew on, with a sudden nervousness, atMa Belle's taking a night ride across the borders of two such unsettled countries, infested with patriotic guerilleros, who sometimes mistook friends for foes. He entertained—in fact, cultivated—an unfavorable opinion of his neighbors, the Spanish garrison of Badajoz. He laid at their door every outrage perpetrated in the country around.—The party from Elvas would afford a rich booty in purses, watches, and jewelry; and he thought it quite possible that after some of their allies had entertained them in Badajoz, with ostentatious hospitality, others might waylay, rob and murder them before, or soon after they crossed the frontier. So, he hastily ordered Major Conway to send out a patrol of dragoons to meet them; and the Major sent off Lieut. Goring in a hurry on this service.
Now, Goring had passed the day chafing with indignation at hearing of the pleasant party, which he had not been asked to join; and his anger was not soothed by being despatched to meet it, at a late hour, when all the pleasure was over. Galloping on in this mood, with a dozen and more dragoons, behind him, he came to the Cayo, and after taking a look at the dark current, was about to cross, when he heard the sound of horses' feet, and the clattering of tongues drawing near on the other side. In the spirit of mischief, he followed the impulse of the moment. He ordered his men to form on the edge of the water, fronting the ford, to unbuckle their cloaks, and throw them over their helmets, and not to move or speak a word. The men took the joke instantly. The crescent moon, already distanced by the sun, was sinking below the horizon; the bank of the river threw its shade over them, and they stood below, a dark, undistinguishable mass.
Presently the party came straggling up, Dona Carlotta and her cavalier leading them, and feeling their way down to the water.
"This cannot be the ford," said he; "the bank looks too steep on the other side."
"What is that black object across the water?" asked Cranfield, from behind. "Can the river have risen and the bank caved in?"