The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 112

"Yes," answered the boy, "and where were they going?"

"To the sea for water."

"Is there so much water in the sea?"

"Yes indeed, and more than there is in Uncle Pedro's pond."

"The voice of the wind seems to me like the voice of the evil spirit, that comes leading fear by the hand," said Maria.

"You are always frightened, mother," remarked Rita. "I don't know when your spirit will rest. Look here, lazy-bones," she proceeded, giving a push to the boy who had reclined against her, "lean upon what you have eaten."

The child, being half asleep, lost his balance. Elvira gave a cry, and Perico, springing forward, caught him in his arms. Anna dropped her distaff, but took it up again without a word.

"If you ever lose your son," said Pedro, indignant, "you will not weep for him as I do for mine. You have that advantage over me."

"She is so quick, so hasty," said Maria, always ready to excuse and slow to blame, "that she keeps me in hot water."

"So, then, Mamma Maria," Perico hastened to say, "yon are afraid of everything--and witches?"

"No; oh! no, my son! The church forbids the belief in witches and enchanters. I fear those things which G.o.d permits to punish men, and, above all, when they are supernatural."

"Are there any such things? Have you seen any?" asked Rita.

"If there are any? And do you doubt that there are extraordinary things?"

"Not at all. One of them is the day you do not preach me a sermon. But the supernatural I don't believe in. I am like Saint Thomas."

"And you glory in it! It is a wonder you do not say also that you are like Saint Peter in that in which he failed!"

"But, madam, have you seen anything of the kind, or is it only because you can swallow everything, like a shark?"

"It is the same, to all intents, as if I had seen it."

"Aunt, what was it?" asked Elvira.

"My child," said the good old woman, turning toward her niece, "in the first place, that which happened to the Countess of Villaoran. Her ladyship herself told it to me when we were superintending her estate of Quintos. This lady had the pious custom of having a ma.s.s said for condemned criminals at the very hour they were being executed. When the infamous Villico was in those parts, committing so much iniquity, she allowed herself to say that if he should be taken, she would not send to have a ma.s.s said for him, as she had for others. And when he was executed, she kept her word.

"Not long alter, one night when she was sleeping quietly, she was awakened by a pitiful voice near the head of her bed, calling her by name. She sat up in bed terrified, but saw {664} nothing, though the lamp was burning on the table. Presently she heard the same voice, even more pitiful than at first, calling her from the yard, and before she had fairly recovered from her surprise, she heard it a third time, and from a great distance, calling her name. She cried out so loudly that those who were in the house ran to her room, and found her pale and terrified. But no one else had heard the voice.

"On the following day, hardly were the candles lighted in the churches when a ma.s.s was being offered for the poor felon, and the countess, on her knees before the altar was praying with fervor and penitence, for the clemency of G.o.d, which is not like that of men, excludes none. And now Rita, what do you think?"

"I think she dreamed it."

"Goodness, goodness! what incredulity," said Uncle Pedro. "Rita will be like that Tucero, who, the preachers say, separated from the church."

"Ave Maria! Do not say that, Pedro," exclaimed Maria, "even in exaggeration! Mercy! you may well say, what perverseness, for she talks so just to be contrary."

A noise in the direction of the door which opened into the back-yard, caused Maria's lips to close suddenly.

"What is that?" she said.

"Nothing, Mamma Maria," answered Perico, laughing; "what would it be?

The wind which goes about to-night moving everything."

"Mother," said Angela, "hold me in your lap, as father does Angel, for I am afraid."

"This is too much," exclaimed Rita, who was in bad humor. "Go along and sit on the lap of earth, and don't come back till you bring grandchildren."

"I should like to know," said Pedro, "if those who laugh at that which others fear have never felt dread."

"Perico! Perico!" cried Maria, in terror, "there is a noise in the yard."

"Mamma Maria, you are excited and frightened. Don't you hear that it is the water in the gutter?"

"I, for my part," said Pedro, in a low voice, as if to himself, "ever since there was a stain of blood in my house--"

"Pedro! Pedro! are we always to go back to that? Why will you make yourself wretched? Of what use is it to return to the past, for which there is no remedy?" said Anna.

"The truth is, Anna, what I suffer at times overwhelms me, and I must give it vent. Often at night, when I am alone in my house, it falls upon me. Anna, believe me, many a night, when all is still and sleep flies from me, I see him; yes, I see him--the grenadier my son slew. I see him just as I saw him alive, in his grey capote and fur cap, rise out of the well and come into the room where he was killed, to look for the stains of his own blood. I sec him before my eyes, tall, motionless, terrible."

At this moment the door opened, and a figure, tall, motionless, terrible, with a grey capote and a grenadier's cap stood upon the threshold.

All remained for an instant confounded and fixed in their places.

"G.o.d protect us!" exclaimed Maria. Angel clung to his father's breast, Angela to the skirts of her grandmother.

"Ventura!" murmured Elvira, as her eyes closed and her head fell upon her mother's bosom.

The woman for whom there had been no forgetfulness, had recognized him.

Pedro rose impetuously and would have fallen, the poor old man not having strength to sustain himself; but Ventura, who had thrown off his cap and capote, sprung forward and caught him in his arms. The scene which followed, a scene of confusion, of broken words, of exclamations of surprise and delight, of tears and fervent thanks to heaven, is more easily comprehended than described.

When Ventura had freed himself from the embrace of his father, who was long in undoing his arms from {665} the neck of the son whom he could hardly persuade himself he held in them, he fixed his eyes upon Elvira. She was still supported by her mother, who held to her nostrils a handkerchief wet with vinegar. But she was no longer the Elvira he had left at his departure. Pale, attenuated, changed, she appeared as if bidding farewell to life. Ventura's brilliant eyes became softened and saddened with an expression of deep feeling, and, with the frank sincerity of a countryman, he said to her:

"Have you been sick, Elvira? You do not look like yourself."

"Now she will be better," exclaimed Pedro, in whom joy had awakened some of the old festive teasing humor. "Your absence, Ventura, and not hearing from you, nothing less, has brought her to this. Why, in heaven's name, did you not send us a letter, to tell us where you were?"

"Why, our sergeant wrote at least six for me," replied Ventura, "and besides, I have been in France, I have been a prisoner. All that is long to tell--But how well you look, Rita," he said, regarding the latter, who, from the moment he entered, had not taken her eyes from the gallant youth, whom the moustache, the uniform, and the military bearing became so well. "Bless me! but you have become a fine woman!

The good care Perico takes of you--and you Perico, always digging? Are these your children? How handsome they are! G.o.d bless them! Hey! come here, I am not a Frenchman nor a bluebeard."

Ventura sat down to caress the children. Maria, coming behind him at this moment, caught his head in her hands, and covered his face with tears and kisses--Ventura in the mean while saying, "Maria, how much you have prayed for me! I suppose you have made a hundred novenas, and more than a thousand promises."

"Yes, my son, and to-morrow I shall sell my best hen, to have said in Saint Anna's chapel the thanksgiving ma.s.s I have promised."

"Aunt Anna is the one who has nothing to say," observed Ventura. "Are you not glad to see me, madam?"

"Yes my son, yes; I was minding my Elvira. G.o.d knows," she continued, observing the pallid countenance of her child, "how glad I am of your return, and what thanks I give him for it, if it is for the best."