The Cabin Part 14

And the boy who made the little b.a.l.l.s agreed with everything, overjoyed to get off without a caning. But another big boy who sat beside him on the bench and who must have been nourishing some old grudge, seeing him standing, gave him a treacherous pinch.

"Oh, oh, master!" cried the boy. "'_'Orse-face_' pinched me!"

What was not Don Joaquin's indignation? What most excited his anger was the fondness the boys had for calling each other by their father's nicknames and even for inventing new ones.

"Who is '_'Orse_-Face'? Senor de Peris, you probably mean. What mode of address is that, great heavens! One would think you were in a drinking-house! If at least you had said _Horse_-Face! Wear yourself out teaching such idiots! Brutes!"

And raising his cane, he began to distribute resounding blows to each; to the one for the pinch and to the other for the "impropriety of language," as Don Joaquin expressed it, without stopping his whacks. And his blows were so blind that the other boys on the benches shrank together, each one hiding his head on his neighbour's shoulder; and one little fellow, the younger son of Batiste, frightened by the noise of the cane, had a movement of the bowels.

This appeased the master, made him recover his lost majesty, while the well-thrashed audience picked their noses.

"Dona Pepa," he said to his wife, "take Senor de Borrull away, for he is ill, and clean him after school."

And the old woman, who had a certain consideration for the three sons of Batiste, because they paid her husband every Sat.u.r.day, seized the hand of _Senor de Borrull_, who left the school walking unsteadily on his weak little legs, still weeping with fear, and showing somewhat more than his shirttail through the rear-opening of his trousers.

These incidents concluded, the lesson-chanting was continued, and the grove trembled with displeasure, its monotonous whisper filtering through the foliage.

Sometimes a melancholy sound of bells was heard and the whole school was filled with joy. It was the flock of old Tomba approaching; all knew that when the old man arrived with his flock, there were always a couple of hours of freedom.

If the shepherd was talkative, the master was no whit behind him; both launched out on an interminable conversation, while the pupils left the benches and came close to listen, or slipping quietly away, went to play with the sheep who were grazing on the gra.s.s of the nearby slopes.

Don Joaquin liked the old man. He had seen the world, showed him the respect of speaking to him in Castilian, had a knowledge of medicinal herbs, and yet did not take from him his own customers; in short, he was the only person in the _huerta_ worthy of enjoying friendly relations with him.

His appearance was always attended by the same circ.u.mstances. First the sheep arrived at the school-door, stuck their heads in, sniffed curiously and withdrew with a certain contempt, convinced that there was no food here other than intellectual, and that of small value; afterwards old Tomba appeared walking along confidently in this well-known region, holding his shepherd's crook, the only aid of his failing sight, in front of him.

He would sit down on the brick bench next to the master's door, and there the master and the shepherd would talk, silently admired by Dona Josefa and the bigger boys of the school, who would approach slowly and form a group around them.

Old Tomba, who would even talk with his sheep along the roads, spoke slowly at first like a man who fears to reveal his limitations, but the chat of the master would give him courage and soon he would plunge into the vast sea of his eternal stories. He would lament over the bad state of Spain, over what those who came from Valencia said in the _huerta_, over bad governments in general which are to blame for bad harvests, and he always would end by repeating the same thing:

"Those times, Don Joaquin, those times of mine were different. You did not know them, but your own were better than these. It's getting worse and worse. Just think what all these youngsters will see when they are men!"

This was always the introduction of his story.

"If you had only seen the followers of the Fliar!" (The shepherd could never say friar.) "_They_ were true Spaniards; now there are only boasters in Copa's tavern. I was eighteen years old; I had a helmet with a copper eagle which I took from a dead man, and a gun bigger than myself. And the Fliar!... What a man! They talk now of General So-and-So. Lies, all lies! Where Father Nevot was, there was no one else! You should have seen him with his ca.s.sock tucked up, on his nag, with his curved sabre and pistols! How we galloped! Sometimes here, sometimes in Alicante-province, then near Albacete: they were always at our heels; but we made mince-meat of every Frenchman we caught. It seems to me I can see them still: _musiu_ ... mercy! and I, slash, slash, and a clean bayonet-thrust!"

And the wrinkled old man grew bolder and rose; his dim eyes shone like dull embers and he brandished his shepherd's staff as though he were still piercing the enemy with his bayonet. Then came the advice; behind the kind old fellow there arose a man all fierceness, with a hard, relentless heart, the product of a war to the death. His fierce instincts appeared, instincts which had, as it were, become petrified in his youth, and thus made impervious to the flight of time. He addressed the boys in Valencian, sharing with them the fruit of his experience.

They must believe what he told them, for he had seen much. In life, patience to take revenge upon the enemy; to wait for the ball, and when it comes, to hit it hard. And as he gave these counsels, he winked his eyes, which in the hollows of the deep sockets seemed like dying stars on the point of flickering out. He related with senile malice a past of struggles in the _huerta_, a past of ambuscades and stratagems, and of complete contempt for the life of one's fellow-beings.

The master, fearing the moral effect of this on his pupils, would divert the course of the conversation, speaking of France, which was old Tomba's greatest memory.

It was an hour-long topic. He knew that country as well as though he had been born there. When Valencia surrendered to Marshal Suchet, he had been taken prisoner with several thousand more to a great city--Toulouse. And he intermingled in the conversation the horribly mutilated French words which he still remembered after so many years.

What a country! There men went about with white plush hats, coloured coats with collars reaching up to the back of their heads, high boots like riding-boots; and the women with skirts like flute-sheaths, so narrow that they showed all they encased; and so he went on talking of the costumes and customs of the time of the Empire, imagining that it all still continued and that France of today was as it was at the beginning of the century.

And while he related in detail all his recollections, the master and his wife listened attentively, and some of the boys, profiting by the unexpected recess, slipped away from the school-house, attracted by the sheep, who fled from them as from the devil in person. For they pulled their tails and grabbed them by the legs, forcing them to walk on their fore-feet, and they sent them rolling down the slopes or tried to mount on their dirty fleece; the poor creatures protested with gentle bleatings in vain, for the shepherd did not hear them, absorbed as he was in telling with great relish of the agony of the last Frenchman who had died.

"And how many fell?" the master would ask at the end of the story.

"A matter of a hundred and twenty or thirty. I don't remember exactly."

And the husband and wife would exchange a smile. Since the last time the total had risen by twenty. As the years pa.s.sed, his deeds of prowess and the number of victims increased.

The lamentations of the flock would attract the master's attention.

"Gentlemen," he would call out to the rash youths as he reached for his rattan, "come here, all of you. Do you imagine you can spend the day enjoying yourself? This is the place for work."

And to demonstrate this by example, he would brandish his cane so that it was a delight to see it driving back all the flock of playful youngsters into the sheep-fold of knowledge with blows.

"With your leave, Uncle Tomba: we've been talking over two hours. I must go on with the lesson."

And while the shepherd, courteously dismissed, guided his sheep toward the mill to repeat his stories there, there began once again in the school the chant of the multiplication-table which was Don Joaquin's great symbol of learning.

At sunset, the boys sang their last song, thanking the Lord "because He had helped them with His light," and each one took up again his dinner-bag. As the distances in the _huerta_ were not small, the youngsters would leave their homes in the morning with provisions enough to pa.s.s the whole day in school; and the enemies of Don Joaquin even said that one of his favourite punishments was to take away their rations in order thus to supplement the deficiencies of Dona Pepa's cooking.

Fridays, when school was out, the pupils invariably heard the same oration.

"Gentlemen: tomorrow is Sat.u.r.day: remind your mothers and tell them that the one who does not bring his two coppers won't be let into the school.

I tell you this particularly, Mr. de ... So and So, and you, Mr. de ...

So and So" (and he would enumerate about a dozen names). "For three weeks now you have not brought the sum agreed upon, and if this goes on, it will prove that instruction is impossible, and learning impotent to combat the innate barbarity of these rustic regions. I contribute everything: my erudition, my books" (and he would glance at the three primer-charts, which his wife picked up carefully to put them away in the old bureau), "and you contribute nothing. Well, what I said, I said: Any one who comes tomorrow empty-handed will not pa.s.s that threshold. Notify your mothers."

The boys would form in couples, holding each other's hands (the same as in the schools of Valencia; what do you suppose?), and depart, after kissing the h.o.r.n.y hand of Don Joaquin and repeating glibly as they pa.s.sed near him:

"Good-bye, until tomorrow, by G.o.d's grace."

The master would accompany them to the little mill-square which was as a star for roads and paths; and there the formation was broken up into small groups and dispersed over different sections of the plain.

"Take care, my masters, I've got an eye on you," cried Don Joaquin as a last warning. "Look out when you steal fruit, throw stones or jump over ca.n.a.ls. I have a little bird who tells me everything and if tomorrow I hear anything bad, my rattan will play the very deuce with you."

And standing in the little square, he followed with his gaze the largest group which was departing up the Alboraya road.

These paid the best. Among them walked the three sons of Batiste, for whom many a time the road had been turned into a way of suffering.

Hand in hand the three tried to follow the other boys, who because they lived in the farm-house next to old Batiste, felt the same hatred as their fathers for him and for his family and never lost an opportunity to torment them.

The two elder ones knew how to defend themselves, and with a scratch more or less even came out victorious at times.

But the smallest, Pascualet, a fat-stomached little chap who was only five years old and whom his mother adored for his sweetness and gentleness, and hoped to make a chaplain, broke into tears the moment he saw his brothers involved in deadly conflict with their fellow-pupils.

Many a time the two elder boys would reach home covered with sweat and dust as though they had been wallowing in the road, with their trousers torn and their shirts unfastened. These were the signs of combat; the little fellow told it all with tears. And the mother had to minister to one or another of the larger boys, which she did by pressing a penny-piece on the b.u.mp raised by some treacherous stone.

Teresa was much upset on hearing of the attacks to which her son were subjected. But she was a rough, courageous woman who had been born in the country, and when she heard that her boys had defended themselves well and given a good thrashing to the enemy, she would again regain her calm.

Good heaven! let them take care of Pascualet first of all. And the oldest brother, indignant, would promise a thrashing to all the lousy crew when he met them on the roads.

Hostilities began every afternoon, as soon as Don Joaquin lost sight of them.

The enemies, sons or nephews of those in the tavern who threatened to put an end to Batiste, began to walk more slowly, lessening the distance between themselves and the three brothers.

The words of the master, however, and the threat of the accursed bird who saw and told everything, would still be ringing in their ears; some laughed but on the wrong side of their mouths. That old fellow knew such a lot!