The Actress in High Life Part 10

Shepherds, however, they were, who called off their dogs, after reconnoitring the party. The _arriero_ inquired of them where water was to be found, and they pointed to a little hollow in the wood, an hundred yards off. He was leading the party that way, when L'Isle said to the ladies, "let us have a talk with these fellows."

"Certainly," said Lady Mabel, and she turned her horse's head toward them.

"Certainly not," said Mrs. Shortridge, and she reined her mule back, "I am too near them already. I will not dare to take my siesta with these fellows in the neighborhood, for fear of waking up in another place than Portugal." And she followed her melting husband, who was hastening out of the sun, in the hope of regaining his solidity in the shade at hand.

L'Isle and Lady Mabel rode close up to the shepherds. They had been resting under an oak, and the cooking utensils, some baggage, and two a.s.ses near at hand, looked as if they, too, were travelers. L'Isle addressed a tall, dark man, of middle age, who seemed to be the head of the party. As soon as these men heard their own language from the mouth of a foreigner, so fluently and correctly spoken, their faces lightened up with interest and intelligence. They gave ready answers to all inquiries, and L'Isle had to reply in turn to many a question as to himself, his companions, and the news of the war. The chief shepherd was particularly anxious to know the condition of the province of Beira, and what were the chances of a visit there from the French during the coming summer. His flock, he said, was one of those which winter on the heaths and plains of Alemtejo, and, to avoid the droughts which make them a desert in summer, are driven across the Tagus in the spring, into the _Serra Estrella_, when the snow has melted, and vegetation again covers that range of mountains.

One of his companions offered for sale two rabbits and some partridges he had shot on the moors, which L'Isle bought, like a provident traveler, who does not rely too much on the larder of the next inn.

Lady Mabel, with attentive ear, had gathered the sense of much that had been said, and L'Isle had interpreted what puzzled her. But being a woman, she was unwilling to remain a mere listener; so, elaborately framing a question in Portuguese, she addressed the head shepherd, seeking to know how far the migrations of these flocks resembled the Spanish mesta. The dark man gazed at her admiringly and attentively, repeating some of her words, but unable to make out her meaning. She bit her lip, while he, shaking his head, turned to L'Isle, and said, "what a pity so lovely a lady cannot speak Portuguese. She looks just like our 'Lady of Nazareth,' at Pederneira, only her hair is brighter, and her eyes are blue."

"What says he about my language and _Nossa Senhora de Nazareth?_" said Lady Mabel. "Tell him that I speak better Portuguese than she ever did, for all her black eyes and tawny skin."

"By no means," said L'Isle, smiling. "As you will have no opportunity to evangelize the man, it will do no good to outrage his idolatrous veneration for _Nossa Senhora de Nazareth?_ You might shake his superst.i.tion, yet not purify his faith, but merely drive him to a choice between the church and infidelity."

They now left the shepherds to join the party. "I am provoked," said Lady Mabel, "to find how little progress I have made in speaking Portuguese. But it is not surprising what a complete mastery the rudest and most illiterate people here have over their tongue."

"And how polite and sociable they are," said L'Isle. "Unlike the unmannered and almost languageless English peasant, they are unembarra.s.sed and social, fluent, and often eloquent."

"Yet these men," said she, "in habits, though not in race, are but nomadic Tartars at the western extremity of Europe."

"They differ too," said L'Isle, "from their immediate neighbors, the Spaniard, in being far more sociable and communicative. For instance, I have got much more out of my Portuguese shepherd than a certain French traveler got out of his shepherd of Castile."

"What do you allude to?" she asked.

"A French traveler, it is said, as he entered Castile, met a shepherd guiding his flock. Curious to know all the circ.u.mstances which give to the Spanish wool its inimitable qualities, he asked the shepherd an hundred questions: 'If his flock belonged to that district? What sort of food was given it? Whether he was on a journey? From whence he came? Whither he was going? When he would return?' In short, he asked every question a prying Frenchman could think of. The shepherd listened coldly to them all. Then, in the sententious style of a true Castilian, replied, '_aqui nacen_, _aqui pacen_, _aqui mueren_,' (here they breed, here they feed, here they die,) and went his way without a word more."

The party spent some time here, dining and resting under the shade of these p.r.i.c.kly oaks, the tree that yields the famous _botolas_, so largely used for food by men and swine, and on tasting which we are less surprised that in "the primal age,"

"Hunger then Made acorns tasteful; thirst each rivulet Run nectar."

Mrs. Shortridge had contrived to s.n.a.t.c.h a short siesta, in spite of her fears. Their horses were led up, ready for them to mount and proceed on their journey, when Lady Mabel, plucking a twig from a branch overhead, observed on it several specimens of the _kermes_. She could not resist this opportunity of displaying her sc.r.a.ps of scientific lore, and detained the party while she delivered a discourse on the _coccus arborum_, "which," she said, "infests this tree; the _quercus cocci_. This furnishes what the ignorant-learned long called grains of kermes, looking like dried currants, which they mistook for the fruit of a tree, while it is, in truth, the dried body of an insect. It affords a vermilion dye, not so brilliant, but far more durable than the cochineal of Mexico. There are in the Netherlands," she continued, "rich tapestries dyed with kermes, known to be three hundred years old, which still retain their pristine brilliancy of color. Only think, Mrs. Shortridge, of having carpets, shawls and cloaks of such unfading hues!"

"They would be of no use to me," yawned Mrs. Shortridge, "I would be even more tired of myself than of my cloak, before the end of three hundred years."

"Why," exclaimed L'Isle, "this indestructible dye must be the very stuff with which the old lady of Babylon dyed her petticoat; for it has not faded in the least since she first put it on, as we may see in this country, where she wears it openly, without even a decent piece of lawn over it, to suppress the brightness of its hues."

"As our lives are not so lasting as the dye Lady Mabel talks of," said the commissary, "let us make the most of them by taking horse at once, and hastening on, for we must pa.s.s through Villa Vicosa, and sleep several miles beyond it to-night."

Returning to the road, they presently reached a cultivated valley, and pa.s.sed through a hamlet, scarcely seen before it was entered, so completely were the low stone walls of the houses hidden by the olive, orange, almond, and other fruit-trees surrounding them. The only inhabitants visible were two or three squalid children, playing in the road, and a woman lounging at her door, eyeing the party with mingled curiosity and suspicion, while a stout yearling calf pushed unceremoniously past her into the house, thus a.s.serting his right as a member of the family.

L'Isle paused before the little church, just beyond the village, and pointed out to Lady Mabel a curious cross, the first of the kind she had met with, though common enough in the peninsula. It was composed of human skulls, on a pedestal of thigh bones, the whole let into the wall, and secured by a rough kind of stucco.

"Certainly these people have curious ways of exciting devotional fervor, and keeping death in memory," said Lady Mabel.

"One might suppose them to have remarked the grave-digger, who deals habitually with the moldering remains of humanity, to be the most G.o.d-fearing of men," said L'Isle; "so they seek to afford to every one the devotional incentives peculiar to the grave-digger. Yet their symbols serve rather to familiarize us with material death in this world, than to remind us of a spiritual life in the world to come. They often teach no better lesson than 'Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die.'"

"I have been told," said Lady Mabel, "that in spite of these pious devices, the people have lost much of their devotional ardor and fullness of faith."

"Not the rustic population," said L'Isle; "the church still retains full sway over them."

"I cannot say," observed Lady Mabel, as they turned to proceed on their way, "that the Romish system is very attractive to me. But, viewing it as a sensuous worship, if ever I become a convert, it will be through the influence of its music." And dropping the reins on her horse's neck, she, with clasped hands and upturned eyes, began to chant:

"O Sanctissima! O Purissima!

Ora, Ora, pro n.o.bis," etc.

Music at once so sweet and orthodox from a heretic mouth, attracted the muleteer's attention, and turning, he sat sideways in his saddle to listen. This exciting old Moodie's suspicion, he pushed his horse close up to Lady Mabel's, and as soon as she paused, said: "My lady, what is that you are singing?"

"A hymn to the Virgin."

"A hymn to the Virgin!" he repeated, horror-struck.

"Yes; it is in Latin, you know. Have you never been to any of the churches in Elvas, to 'a.s.sist' at the service and enjoy the music?"

"G.o.d forbid that I should countenance any of their idolatrous rites."

"Their music, however, is excellent, and has a grandeur suited to the worship of G.o.d. You lose much in not hearing it, and may, at least, let me amuse myself by singing a Popish hymn."

"You may amuse yourself by turning Papist in time. What begins in jest often ends in earnest; and yours, my lady, will not be the first soul that has been caught by such gear as the sweet sounds and glittering shows of idolatry."

"But," said Lady Mabel, coolly, with a provoking insensibility to her danger, "there are, not only in Latin, but in Spanish and Portuguese, many of these hymns to the Holy Virgin--for, doubtless, she was a holy virgin--exquisitely happy, both in words and music. A devout nation has poured its heart into them."

"They are all idolatrous, every one of them. There is not a word of authority for the worship of her in Scripture, and the texts of G.o.d's book are our only safe guide."

Lady Mabel, while fanning a fire that never went out, was gazing around on the landscape. Suddenly she said: "You are a great stickler, Moodie, for the words of Scripture, yet these idolatrous people often stick to it more closely than you do."

"I will trouble you, my lady, to name an instance," Moodie answered, in a defiant tone.

"Do you see those men in that field, with three yoke of oxen going round and round on one spot?"

"I see them. But what of them?"

"While you and other heretic Scots are racking your brains to devise how to thresh corn by machines, these pious people, in simple obedience to the injunction, 'Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the corn,' are treading out their corn with unmuzzled oxen. What think you of that, Mr. Stick-to-the-text?"

"I think, my lady," he answered, doggedly, "that you had better read your Bible to profit by it; not to puzzle an old man less learned than yourself. But all things are ordered." Yet he loitered behind the party, to gaze with mingled curiosity and pity at these people, at once so benighted in theology and farming, the two points on which he felt himself strongest.

They had not ridden much further, when they drew near to the ruinous walls of a considerable town, situated in a fertile and delightful region, and retaining amidst its dilapidation many marks of grandeur. Entering through a ruinous gateway, they paused in the grand _praca_. "This," said L'Isle, "is Ville Vicosa, 'the delightful city.'

What a pity we have but time to take a hasty glance at this ducal seat of the house of Braganza. Two sides of the _praca_, as you see, are occupied by the cla.s.sic and imposing front of the palace in which the dukes of Braganza lived during the sixty years of the Spanish usurpation, before the heroism of the nation restored the royal line to the throne."

"Even in its declining fortunes," said Lady Mabel, "Villa Vicosa has not forgotten its connection with Portuguese royalty and nationality. Was it not the first place in Alentejo to resist the French robbers, who were lording it over them?"

"Yes. But it was neither loyalty nor patriotism that spurred them on. You must not look to the royal palace before you, nor even to that ancient and n.o.ble church, founded by the ill.u.s.trious Constable, Alvarez Pereira, which you see yonder, aspiring to heaven, nor to the a.s.sociations immediately connected with them, for the impulse which at length stirred up these people to resist the oppressor. You must rather seek it in that chapel, devoted to '_Nossa senhora dos Remedios_,' and containing her miraculous image. They had submitted to robbery, insult, and outrage without stint. They had seen Portuguese soldiers seized on by regiments, and marched off to serve under French eagles. They had heard Junot's insolent order to their priests, commanding them to preach submission. They had witnessed the utter degradation of their country. They had just seen the plate of the churches, and the plunder of individuals, collected throughout the neighboring _comarcas_, escorted through the town, and, though groaning in spirit, they stood by with folded arms. But when the G.o.dless French soldiers went so far as to offer insults and indignities to _Nossa Senhora dos Remedios_ on her own holy day, on which she yearly displays her miraculous powers, it was more than Portuguese nature could bear. They broke out into open resistance, at first successful--but which here and elsewhere led to woful slaughter of the patriotic but half-armed mob."

"Heretic as you are," said Lady Mabel, "you must admit, that as 'Our Lady of the Pillar' proved a tower of strength to the Saragossans in their first siege, so here, either the patron saints of the Portuguese, or their faith in them, has often done them yeoman's service."

"And often brought disaster upon them," L'Isle replied. "For instance, St. Antony is the patron saint of Portugal. I am not going to deny that he may have done them good service at times. But when the archduke, Charles of Austria, commanded the army, about 1700, the soldiers became exceedingly unruly, and demanded a native general. The king sent them St. Antony, in the shape of a wooden image. He was received with all the honors due to his rank. By royal decree a regular commission was made out, appointing him generalissimo of all the forces of Portugal, and he continued long in command; but, though an excellent saint, Antony proved a very bad general, and repeatedly brought the kingdom to the brink of ruin. They have lately been compelled to displace him. Now that Beresford does their fighting, St.

Antony has full leisure to devote himself to intercession on their behalf, and, between the two, with some help from us, they are getting on pretty well."