The Actress in High Life Part 23

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 inst.i.tutions, 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 t.i.tle 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 b.l.o.o.d.y fall within the year, drew the eyes of the ladies on it. L'Isle pulled out a field gla.s.s 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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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 gla.s.s 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 Estremadura _baja_, 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.

CHAPTER XV.

"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 n.o.blest duke; Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low."

_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_.

The next 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 the _iris alata_ bloomed on every bank.

The air is balmy, the scene lovely, and all nature smiling with the sweet promises of Spring. Is this the G.o.ddess 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 called _atalaias_," 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 contending _juntas_, 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."

"_We_ and 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."