The Velvet Glove Part 6

"Why did He do this?" one wonders. And no geologist--not even a French geologist with his quick imagination and lively sense of the picturesque--can answer the question.

On first perceiving the sudden, uncouth height of Montserrat the traveler must a.s.suredly ask in his own mind, "Why?"

The mountain is of granite, where no other granite is. It belongs to no neighbouring formation. It stands alone, throwing up its rugged peaks into a cloudless sky. It is a piece from nothing near it---from nothing nearer, one must conclude, than the moon. No wonder it stirred the imagination of mediaeval men dimly groping for their G.o.d.

Ignatius de Loyola solved the question with that unbounded a.s.surance which almost always accompanies the greatest of human blunders. It is the self-confident man who compa.s.ses the finest wreck, Loyola, wounded in the defense of that strongest little city in Europe, Pampeluna--wounded, alas! and not killed--jumped to the conclusion that G.o.d had reared up Montserrat as a sign. For it was here that the Spanish soldier, who was to mould the history of half the world, dedicated himself to Heaven.

Within sight of the Mediterranean and of the Pyrenees, towering above the brown plains of Catalonia, this shrine is the greatest in Christendom that bases its greatness on nothing but tradition. Thousands of pilgrims flock here every year. Should they ask for history, they are given a legend. Do they demand a fact, they are told a miracle. On payment of a sufficient fee they are shown a small, ill-carved figure in wood. The monastery is not without its story; for the French occupied it and burnt it to the ground. For the rest, its story is that of Spain, torn hither and thither in the hopeless struggle of a Church no longer able to meet the demands of an enlightened religious comprehension, and endeavouring to hold back the inevitable advance of the human understanding.

To-day a few monks are permitted to live in the great houses teaching music and providing for the wants of the devout pilgrims. Without the monastery gate, there is a good and exceedingly prosperous restaurant where the traveler may feed. In the vast houses, is accommodation for rich and poor; a cell and clean linen, a bed and a monastic basin. The monks keep a small store, where candles may be bought and matches, and even soap, which is in small demand.

Evasio Mon arrived at Montserrat in the evening, having driven in open carriage from the small town of Monistrol in the valley below. It was the hour of the table d'hote, and the still evening air was ambient with culinary odours. Mon went at once to the office of the monastery, and there received his sheets and pillow-case, his towel, his candle, and the key of his cell in the long corridor of the house of Santa Maria de Jesu.

He knew his way about these holy houses, and exchanged a nod of recognition with the lay brother on duty in the office.

Then this traveler hurried across the courtyard and out of the great gate to join the pilgrims of the richer sort at table in the dining-room of the restaurant. There were four who looked up from their plates and bowed in the grave Spanish way when he entered the room. Then all fell to their fish again in silence; for Spain is a silent country, and only babbles in that home of fervid eloquence and fatal verbosity, the Cortes. It is always dangerous to enter into conversation with a stranger in Spain, for there is practically no subject upon which the various nationalities are unable to quarrel. A Frenchman is a Frenchman all the world over, and politics may be avoided by a graceful reference to the Patrie, for which Republican and Legitimist are alike prepared to die. But the Spaniard may be an Aragonese or a Valencian, an Andalusian or a Guipuzcoan, and patriotism is a flower of purely local growth and colour.

Thus men, meeting in public places have learnt to do so in silence; and a table d'hote is a wordless function unless the inevitable Andalusian--he who takes the place of the Gascon in France--is present with his babble and his laugh, his fine opinion of himself, and his faculty for making a sacrifice of his own dignity at that over-rated altar--the shrine of sociability.

There was no Andalusian at this small table to serve at once as a link of sympathy between the quiet men, who would fain silence him, and a means of making unsociable persons acquainted with each other. The five men were thus permitted to dine in a silence befitting their surroundings and their station in life. For they were obviously gentlemen, and obviously of a thoughtful and perhaps devout habit of mind. A keen observer who has had the cosmopolitan education, say, of an attache, is usually able to a.s.sign a nationality to each member of a mixed a.s.sembly; but there was a subtle resemblance to each other in these diners, which would have made the task a hard one. These were citizens of the world, and their likeness lay deeper than a mere accident of dress. In fact, the most remarkable thing about them was that they were all alike studiously unremarkable.

After the formal bow, Evasio Mon gave his attention to the fare set before him. Once he raised his narrow gaze, and, with a smile of recognition, acknowledged the grave and very curt nod of a man seated opposite. A second time he met the glance of another diner, a stout, puffy man, who breathed heavily while he ate. Both men alike averted their eyes at once, and both looked towards a little wizened man, doubled up in his chair, who ate sparingly, and bore on his wrinkled face and bent form, the evidence of such a weight of care as few but kings and ministers ever know.

So absorbed was he that after one glance at Evasio Mon he lapsed again into his own thoughts. The very manner in which he crumbled his bread and handled his knife and fork showed that his mind was as busy as a mill. He was oblivious to his surroundings; had forgotten his companions. His mind had more to occupy it than one brief lifetime could hope to compa.s.s. Yet he was so clearly a man in authority that a casual observer could scarcely have failed to perceive that these devout pilgrims, from Italy, from France, from far-off Poland, and Saragossa close at hand in Catalonia, had come to meet him and were subordinate to him.

It was probably no small task to command such men as Evasio Mon--and the other four seemed no less pliable behind their gentle smile.

When the dessert had been placed on the table and one or two had reflectively eaten a baked almond, more from habit than desire, the little wizened man looked round the table with the manner of a rather absent-minded host.

"It is eight o'clock," he said in French. "The monastery gate closes at half-past. We have no time to discuss our business at this table. Shall we go within the monastery gates? There is a seat by the wall, near the fountain, in the courtyard--"

He rose as he spoke, and it became at once apparent that this was a great man. For all stood aside as he pa.s.sed out, and one opened the door as to a prince; of which amenities he took no heed.

The monastery is built against the sheer side of the mountain, perched on a cornice, like a huge eagle's nest. The buildings have no pretense to architectural beauty, and consist of barrack-like houses built around a quadrangle. The chapel is at the farther end, and is, of course, the centre of interest. Here is kept the sacred image, which has survived so many chances and changes; which, hidden for a hundred and fifty years in a cavern on the mountainside, made itself known at last by a miraculous illumination at night, and for the further guidance of the faithful gave forth a sweet scent. It, moreover, selected this spot for its shrine by jibbing under the immediate eye of a bishop, and refusing to be carried further up the mountain.

The house of Santa Maria de Jesu has the advantage of being at the outer end of the quadrangle, and thus having no house opposite to it, faces a sheer fall of three thousand feet. A fountain splashes in the courtyard below, and a low wall forms a long seat where the devout pa.s.s the evening hours in that curt and epigrammatic conversation, which is more peaceful than the quick talk of Frenchmen, and deeper than the babble of Italy.

It was to this wall that the little wizened man led the way, and here seated himself with a gesture, inviting his companions to do the same.

Had any idle observer been interested in their movements he would have concluded that these were four travelers, probably pilgrims of the better cla.s.s, who had made acquaintance at the table d'hote.

"I have come a long way," said the little man at once, speaking in the rather rounded French of the Italian born, "and have left Rome at a time when the Church requires the help of even the humblest of her servants--I hope our good Mon has something important and really effective this time to communicate."

Mon smiled at the implied reproach.

"And I, too, have come from far--from Warsaw," said the stout man, breathing hard, as if to ill.u.s.trate the length of his journey. "Let us hope that there is something tangible this time."

He spoke with the gaiety and lightness of a Frenchman; for this was that Frenchman of the North, a Pole.

Mon lighted a cigarette, with a gay jerk of the match towards the last speaker, indicative of his recognition of a jest.

"Something," continued the Pole, "more than great promises--something more stable than a castle--in Spain. Ha, ha! You have not taken Pampeluna yet, my friend. One does not hear that Bilboa has fallen into the hands of the Carlists. Every time we meet you ask for money. You must arrange to give us something--for our money, my friend."

"I will arrange," answered Mon in his quiet, neat enunciation, "to give you a kingdom."

And he inclined his head forward to look at the Pole through the upper half of his gold-rimmed gla.s.ses.

"And not a vague republic in the region of the North Pole," said the stout man with a laugh. "Well, who lives shall see."

"You want more money--is that it?" inquired the little wizened man, who seemed to be the leader though he spoke the least--a not unusual characteristic.

"Yes," replied the Spaniard.

"Your country has cost us much this year," said the little man, blinking his colourless eyes and staring at the ground as if making a mental calculation. "You have forced Germany and France into war. You have made France withdraw her troops from Rome, and you gave Victor Emmanuel the chance he awaited. You have given all Europe--the nerves."

"And now is the moment to play on those nerves," said Mon.

"With your clumsy Don Carlos?"

"It is not the man--it is the Cause. Remember that we are an ignorant nation. It is the ignorant and the half educated who sacrifice all for a cause."

"It is a pity you cannot buy a new Don Carlos with our money," put in the Pole.

"This one will serve," was the reply. "One must look to the future. Many have been ruined by success, because it took them by surprise. In case we succeed, this one will serve. The Church does not want its kings to be capable--remember that."

"But what does Spain want?" inquired the leader.

"Spain doesn't know."

"And this Prince of ours, whom you have asked to be your king. Is not that a spoke in your wheel?" asked the man of few words.

"A loose spoke which will drop out. No one--not even Prim--thinks that he will last ten years. He may not last ten months."

"But you have to reckon with the man. This son of Victor Emmanuel is clever and capable. One can never tell what may arise in a brain that works beneath a crown."

"We have reckoned with him. He is honest. That tells his tale. No honest king can hope to reign over this country in their new Const.i.tution. It needs a Bourbon or a woman."

The quick, colourless eyes rested on Mon's face for a moment, and--who knows?--perhaps they picked up Mon's secret in pa.s.sing.

"Something dishonest, in a word," put in the Pole.

But n.o.body heeded him; for the word was with the leader.

"When last we met," he said at length, "and you received a large sum of money, you made a distinct promise; unless my memory deceives me."

He paused, and no one suggested that his memory had ever made slip or lapse in all his long career.

"You said you would not ask for money again unless you could show something tangible--a fortress taken and held, a great General bought, a Province won. Is that so?"

"Yes," answered Mon.