The Grandee Part 30

By the little light that penetrated, it could be seen that the faces of both men were excessively red, so red that it seemed wonderful that blood did not burst from their bloodshot eyes. The baron had arrived at the apotheosis of fiery and fearful ugliness. The crimson scar across his cheek stood out so sharp and black with corrugations, that it was fearful to see it. His fierce, waxed moustache was more white than black. He was dressed in black sheep skin, and he had a red flat cap on his head, of which the great ta.s.sel fell sometimes over his ears and sometimes over his nose, according to the movement of the ogre-like body. They were silent for some time. Fray Diego occasionally raised his hand to the bottle of gin, filled his friend's gla.s.s, then his own, which he gravely drank at one draught. The baron was not so quick; he took his gla.s.s, raised it to the level of his eyes, and made a series of faces at it, which were sometimes horrible to witness. Then he touched it with the edge of his lips, made faces again, touched it again, and finally, after many attempts and vacillations, decided to swallow it. It was in this grave, quiet way that the two old soldiers spent nearly every evening of the year. The town knew it, and it was a subject of bets with the jocose inhabitants which of the two would die first from apoplexy. Fray Diego had served in the ranks of the Pretender. Then he became a friar and went to the Philippines, and finally he left the monastic rule, and lived in Lancia as an independent priest. They had not known each other during the war, but when they came to Lancia they became united with indissoluble ties of friendship by their ideas being the same, by the recollection of the glorious battles in which they had taken part--and by the gin.

"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" exclaimed Fray Diego after a long silence, in which they both appeared to be asleep. At the same time he gave a great thump to the table which made all the gla.s.ses and bottles ring.

The baron took hardly any notice. He went on winking at the gla.s.s he had before him, and after swallowing the contents very leisurely, and licking his lips three or four times, he said:

"Gently, gently, Fray Diego! You don't know what the Popes are."

"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" repeated the cleric, giving a still louder thump upon the table.

"Take care, Fray Diego! The Popes have always been very ambitious."

"Senor baron!" exclaimed the priest in a voice so emphatic as to be comic; "you have a soul as ugly as your face!"

The baron was unmoved at the insult, and after a time he said, with perfect tranquillity:

"Don't be a fool. What has my face to do with the matter? I am catholic, apostolic, Roman; but if to-morrow the king our senor" (here he raised his hand to his cap) "were to send me with a detachment to Rome, I would go like the Constable of Bourbon, sack it, and take the Pope."

"And I say that if his Holiness sent me to put a bayonet through the stomach of that constable, you may be sure I would put two."

"No."

"How no?" roared the chaplain, getting in a rage.

"Because the constable died three centuries ago."

"I am glad of it, for he has then been burning three centuries in h.e.l.l."

"All this is very well, _Pater_, but the king is always to the fore, and others have only to be silent and obey."

"The Pope is never silent, senor baron."

"Then he must be gagged."

"I should like to see it done! Presumption! presumption! a hundred times presumption! Who would dare to do it if Fray Diego de Areces were near?"

cried the cleric convulsed with rage, and jumping up, whilst his eyes blazed with fury.

"Sit down, _Pater_, and calm yourself, and take another gla.s.s, for Fray Diego de Areces is only a common vessel."

The chaplain instantly calmed down, delicately poured out the liquor into the two gla.s.ses, and swallowed his own share with pleasure, after which his head fell on his breast, his eyelids dropped, and he was asleep. The baron, radiant with delight, looked at him sharply with cunning eyes, then, profiling by his companion's temporary obliviousness, he took another gla.s.s, saying, "The nones."

It was a peculiar feature of those delightful sessions that the gin changed the character of both. The irascible, impetuous temper of the baron was softened in a remarkable way whilst the beneficial effects of alcohol lasted. He was cheerful, communicative, conciliatory, n.o.body's remarks upset him, nothing seemed worth getting angry about. Fray Diego, on the contrary, who, in his normal condition, was always a jovial, jocose priest, turned into a very devil for disputing and nagging, and he betrayed a combative disposition that n.o.body would have suspected under his round, placid face and pious calling.

He roused himself at the end of a few minutes, looked at the baron fixedly for some moments with strange ferocity, and said stammeringly:

"Will the senor baron kindly explain to me what he means by a common vessel?"

"Come, I've done with that. Are we to go on about that? What does it signify to you what the one or the other means?"

"Because I choose to know; we must understand one another."

"We have understood each other. You have two pints of gin inside you and I another two, or perhaps more," he added, with several winks.

"It is not so, senor baron, it is not so! We must understand each other once for all, stupid!"

"Here there are no barons and no priests," exclaimed the n.o.ble in an excess of good humour, jumping up from his seat. "Here we are only Uncle Francisco--that is I, and Uncle Diego, that is you--are we not? Your hand upon it."

Advancing with his hand extended he staggered, but kept his feet.

"Give me your hand, my brave fellow!"

The cleric was pacified, and they shook hands.

"Now an embrace for the legitimate King of Spain."

"Don't speak to me of embraces," cried the priest, again getting angry.

"I recollect Vergarra's embrace, fool!"

"Don't bother yourself, my friend, for we shall pay him out.

"Ay, ay, ay! mutila Chaplen gorria."

And he began to sing the Carlist hymn in a hoa.r.s.e voice, but soon interrupting himself, he said:

"Well, Uncle Diego, sing! Give over tears now!"

His friend was in fact shedding great tears as he recalled the treachery of Vergarra.

"Cheer up, soldier! A drink to the extermination of the negroes would not come amiss."

Fray Diego admitted by a movement of his head that he would willingly be a party to this consolatory toast, but he did not move from his seat.

They quaffed another gla.s.s, and the effect upon the emotional soul of the baron was so marvellous, that immediately he began dancing an English breakdown on the table, which did not stop Fray Diego's copious flow of tears.

"Hum! I don't care for this foreign dance," he observed at last with a final jump. "I prefer the _danza prima_.[K] Come here, Uncle Diego."

Whereupon he took the priest by force by both hands, dragged him from his chair, and made some turns with him, intoning one of the long monotonous songs of the country. Fray Diego felt rejuvenated as he was reminded of the spring-time of his life in the country, when his uncle, the Cure of Areces, thrashed him well for getting out of the window by night to pay court to the girls of the neighbouring villages.

"Listen, Diego," said the baron stopping suddenly. "Don't you think before we go on we had better drink a gla.s.s to the souls of our betters?"

The priest willingly a.s.sented, but the gla.s.ses and the empty bottles were rolling on the ground. The baron opened a cupboard and drew from thence fresh elements of spiritual life. This funereal gla.s.s inspired him with the happy idea of covering the chaplain's head with his own flat cap and adorning his own with the other's shovel-hat which was lying upon a chair. So clad they went on dancing, making a very remarkable pair. But the baron slipped and fell.

"Help me up, Uncle Diego."

The priest took him by his outstretched hands and pulled him up. But the weight of the n.o.ble was too much for him, and they both rolled on the ground together.

"Rise, Uncle Diego!"

"Up, Uncle Francisco!"

They both rolled over with barbarous shouts of laughter. At last the baron regained his footing. The cleric soon followed his example. But his soul, which had been momentarily illumined by the recollections of his youth, suddenly reverted to blood and extermination. He turned fiercely on his friend: