Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish Part 18

CHAPTER III.

In 1853, Gaspar and Michael, who had grown up together like two brothers, had arrived at the age of manhood; and they were as honest and industrious as the father who had guided them. Catherine was a beautiful girl, as modest and as diligent as the mother at whose side she had grown up.

Michael, who had a n.o.ble and affectionate, and consequently a grateful heart, loved the family who had adopted him with ardent affection; but especially did he love Catherine, for whom he felt all the affection of a brother, joined to all the tenderness of a lover toward her whom he desired to make the companion of his life.

Many days of tranquil happiness were enjoyed by these united and worthy people; but as happiness, like the blue of the sky, cannot be lasting, for the earth, to yield its fruits, requires the rain, and man, to estimate at their true value this life and the next, has need of tears, a time came in which many were shed in this house, to prove to its inmates that G.o.d bestows this blessing, almost preferably, on the poor and the righteous.

The draft was proclaimed and both sons were enrolled for the drawing.

Those who know how pa.s.sionate is the affection which the mothers of the people have for their children can understand Maria's inconsolable grief.

She believed that she loved both sons equally; she feared for both with the same anguish; with the same fervor she prayed to G.o.d and to the Virgin that both might escape the draft; but when they returned from the drawing and she learned that the soldier's lot had fallen on her own son, the cry which this intelligence drew from her mother's heart--"Child of my soul, I knew that it must fall upon you!"--showed that a mother's love can be equalled by no other.

Michael saw Maria's grief with a breaking heart, a grief which not all his own efforts nor those of her husband could diminish or soothe.

On the following day John Joseph took his son to the barrack, but what was the astonishment of both when the commandant told Gaspar that he was free and that he might return home.

"Free!" cried Gaspar in amazement. "And why?"

"Because you have a subst.i.tute," answered the officer.

"'I!" said Gaspar, with ever-increasing astonishment; "why, that can't be so!"

"Why do you say it can't be so? If the subst.i.tute is already accepted and enrolled it is so."

"But who is he?" asked Gaspar, amazed.

"That young man, there," answered the officer, pointing to the man whom his parents, in their beneficence, had brought up as a son.

"Michael, what have you done?" exclaimed Gaspar, strongly moved.

"What my mother charged me on her death-bed to do," answered Michael; "I have paid a debt.'

"You owed me nothing," answered Gaspar; "but I now owe you a debt; and G.o.d grant me the opportunity to pay it, brother; if the occasion presents itself, you may be sure I will not let it pa.s.s; that I will not."

CHAPTER IV.

Two years after the events just recorded, a still greater sorrow befell this worthy family, so united and so affectionate, as the families of the peasantry usually are. Michael drew the lot in a second conscription, as Gaspar had done before; and as he was thus obliged to serve on his own account, the son of his adopted parents, whom he could not now serve as a subst.i.tute, was once more called to the ranks. Four years more pa.s.sed; and just when they were expecting Michael home, his time of service having expired, and while Catherine was preparing her wedding garments, a cry, uttered by the Queen of Spain, resounded through the country, electrifying the people and producing a universal outburst of patriotic enthusiasm-- Long live Spain! Death to the Moor who has insulted her! This cry was re-echoed throughout the length and breadth of he Peninsula, accompanied by the clash of the warrior's sword and the c.h.i.n.k of the rich man's gold, offered on the altar of the country's honor; it was repeated by the people, who gave their blood; by the sacred episcopate, who blessed the cause of the country and of Christianity, and whose words powerfully influenced not only timid and pious consciences, but all by their wisdom, prudence, and judgment. The Sisters of Charity offered their devoted services; the nuns made lint and sacred scapulars of the Virgin; the ladies also made lint and bandages which they moistened with their tears; and even schoolboys, fired with enthusiasm, asked to be allowed to go to the popular war against the Moors.

[Note: This a.s.sertion might be proved by many examples; but it will suffice to transcribe here a letter written by a nephew of mine, the son of Marquis C----.

"SENOR GOVERNOR: Although I am only a boy of eight I am moved to say to you that I would like to die for the country, and that, being fond of military things, I wish you would permit me to go fight the Moors.-- Written by P---- P----."

It is to be observed that this boy is docile, and gentle and modest in disposition, rather than daring or arrogant.--Note of the Author]

Michael, who shared in the general enthusiasm for the war, on receiving his discharge, enlisted again, refusing to accept the premium for re-enlisting, for such time as the war in Africa should last.

John Joseph, who in winter followed the occupation of a muleteer, brought home this news on his return from one of his trips, in which he had seen his sons, who were both serving in the King's regiment, in Africa. Maria, on hearing it, burst into tears.

"They were right in saying last year, when the saddle-shaped comet appeared, that it came to foretell a war with the Moors!" she exclaimed disconsolately.

"The comet had no resemblance to a saddle," answered her husband, with martial ardor; "you know very well that what they said was that it was the same star that had guided the kings who went to Bethlehem to declare that Christ was the true Messiah; very well, our people will go to the Moorish country now to tell them that Spanish Christians are tired of putting up with the atrocities and the insults of the accursed Moors."

"But a great many people will be killed in this war, John Joseph, and that is heartbreaking to think of; yes heartbreaking, although you with your warlike notions say it is not."

"Oh, yes, you would like this war to be like a war between women; a war to the knife, but without any one killed; well, war with those who use a beard, and especially if they wear the King's uniform and have the flag of Spain, under which they are fighting, to defend, is another matter; with them, the question is to conquer or die."

"For that very reason," replied Maria disconsolately, "couldn't he have come back and stayed quietly at home, after he had fulfilled his duty?"

"Yes, like you, at the spinning-wheel; but you must know that no new sailing vessel ever yet wanted to be a pontoon. Don't you know that?"

Maria and Catherine kept on crying.

"If you had even told me that you were going to see them," said the former, "I would have given you some scapulars to take them."

"They have them already, they have them already, and blessed by the bishop of Malaga. I told you before, wife, that this war is a holy war, which will rejoice St. Ferdinand in heaven. But you are in a crying humor, it seems," he added impatiently, seeing that his wife and daughter were still shedding tears. "Why, what would you have? That they should remain here like women, instead of going to throttle those accursed Moors who don't believe in Christ, who deny His Holy Mother, and who call the Spaniards 'hens' and 'Christian dogs'? But let them wait a bit, and I'll warrant they won't want a second taste of the broth those hens will make them!

They never catch a Spaniard, even in time of peace, that they don't quarter or impale him; you see that makes every Spaniard's blood boil! I don't know how I can contain myself that I don't go too, for I tell you that the soles of my feet are itching to go, and the day you least expect it, I'll take my gun and my blanket and join the camp."

"John Joseph! In the Virgin's name! Isn't it enough to have your sons there? Would you leave us entirely alone?"

"It wouldn't be for long."

"Hush, hush! G.o.d only knows how long it might be, for those people are in their own country, defending their homes, and you know that they are ferocious, savage, fearless, and valiant."

"That they are, but as far as being fearless and valiant is concerned, we Spaniards are more so."

"And G.o.d knows what hunger and privation they are going to suffer!"

"Don't imagine it, but even if it should be so, give the Spanish soldier plenty of water to drink and he has all he needs. Why, the joy of that regiment as they went on board was plain to be seen! And to think that I couldn't have gone with them!"

"John Joseph, in the Virgin's name, don't indulge in those boyish explosions; remember, you are sixty-five years old."

"To-day I am twenty, wife, I am twenty; do you hear?"

"Your fiery spirit deceives you; and I won't hear you talk about going to the war, when you have two sons in it already."

"And if I had more sons they should be in it, too. Do you think that I should be behind the father of the first soldier killed at the taking of the Serrallo, who when he heard of his son's death called another son, took him to the alcalde of his village, and said: 'My son has been killed in the war in Africa; here is another to take his place'?"

"From what you say, I shouldn't wonder if you had urged Michael to go to the war?"

"Michael didn't need any urging, Michael has done well, and so I told him.

'Go without fear,' I cried to him, as I came away, 'the weather-vane in your village points for Spain; and don't lose heart, if there should be some reverse, for reverses there must be in war, unless it be by a miracle of G.o.d; but many there won't be; and the devil will have little chance to get at the weather-vane of the peak of the Alpujarras, for the one who has charge of it now is an archangel, your patron saint, Michael, and the patron saint of Spain, and he won't neglect his business, and he knows how to keep the devil at a respectful distance!"

CHAPTER V.

Not long afterward, John Joseph went with his mule for a load of pears to Ronda. He found that from there he could go without much difficulty to the Christian camp in Africa. "Why, then," he said to himself, "I can sell my pears there as well as in Jerez or Malaga; there I will go, then; in that way I shall see my boys and the fighting that is going on, which will be something worth seeing." And so he went.

Catherine and Maria were far from suspecting anything of this when, six or eight days later, John Joseph returned home. After he had taken the mule to the stable and put away his things with much deliberation, he sat down and said to his wife and daughter:

"The boys send many remembrances, and hope that when you receive them you will be enjoying as good health as they are enjoying at present."