L A G A V I O T A:

A SPANISH NOVEL.
BY
F E R N A N C A B A L L E R O.
TRANSLATED BY
J. LEANDER STARR.
NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY JOHN BRADBURN,
(SUCCESSOR TO M. DOOLADY,)
49 WALKER-STREET.
1864.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,
BY JOHN BRADBURN,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New York.

TO
THE HON. GEORGE OPDYKE,
EX-MAYOR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

Sir:

I am honored with your permission to dedicate to you this translation of the best novel in the Spanish language. This honor I can well appreciate. The urbanity of your character, and your firm integrity as a gentleman, a merchant, and while so ably filling the civic chair of this great city, have rendered you both distinguished and respected.

Glowing hopes and confident expectations were formed of your success in the performance of the arduous duties of Mayor, when, two years ago, you were inaugurated. Yesterday was a yet prouder day to yourself and to your friends, when the mantle of office fell gracefully from your shoulders, amid the applause and homage of citizens of all classes and shades of political opinion, the only strife among whom was, who should show to the courteous, impartial, and zealous retiring mayor the greatest respect.

Well may the king of Israel have exclaimed: “Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”

Your career has been marked by the most devoted patriotism, and you have stood forth at the period of the nation’s trials as an unflinching supporter of constitutional government, and throughout every loyal State in the Union will your name be revered as such.

May, sir, at some far distant day, that tribute be paid to you which honored the memory of the immortal Pitt

“Non sibi, sed pro patria vixit.”

With great respect,
I have the honor to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
J. LEANDER STARR.

17 Lafayette Place,
New York, Jan. 5th, 1864.

PREFACE,
BY THE TRANSLATOR.

GAVIOTA (sea-gull) is the sobriquet which Andalusians give to harsh-tongued, flighty women of unsympathetic mien and manners; and such was applied to the heroine of this tale by a youthful, malicious tormentor—Momo.

Fernan Caballero is, indeed, but a pseudonym: the author of this novel, passing under that name, is understood to be a lady, partly of German descent. Her father was Don Juan Nicholas Böhl de Faber, to whose erudition Spain is indebted for a collection of ancient poetry. Cecelia, the daughter of Böhl de Faber, was born at Morges, in Switzerland, in 1797, and subsequently married to a Spanish gentleman. Indeed, since the death of her first husband, she has successively contracted two other marriages, and is now a widow.

We have it on the authority of the Edinburgh Review, that the novels of this gifted authoress were “published at the expense of the Queen.” The same authority remarks, “Hence it might have been foretold, that of the various kinds of novels, the romantic and descriptive was the least repugnant to the old Spanish spirit; and that in order for a writer successfully to undertake such a novel, it would be necessary for him to have a passionate attachment to the national manners and characteristics, and a corresponding dislike to the foreign and new—such are the qualities we find united in Fernan Caballero: La Gaviota is perhaps the finest story in the volumes.” Its advent is a real literary event: the most severe critics have dissected this new work, and have unhesitatingly proclaimed the authoress to be the Spanish Walter Scott. Among the painters of manners, the best, without doubt, are the Spanish writers. We are certain to find there truth, joined to a richness and piquancy of details; and, above all, a spirited tone, which singularly heightens and sets off their recitals. They have, however, what in us is a defect, but with them a natural gift—the being a little prolix.

In translating it is easy to avoid this prolixity. This has been attended to in the present translation. I have preserved all the character of truth and originality of this novel; curtailing only such passages as seemed, in my judgment, too long and tedious for those who are not initiated into those agreeable familiarities of Spanish intimate conversation, and others, which are without attraction to those who were not born under the bright sun of Iberia. In regard to the translation, I would again quote from the review of it by the “Edinburgh Review:” “One quality which distinguishes their talk it is impossible to give any notion of in translation, and that is the enormous quantity of proverbs, in rhyme or in assonance, with which they intersperse their speech; and even when they are not actually quoting a proverb, their expressions have all the terseness of proverbial language.”

In rendering into English the ballads and other poetry, so profusely interspersed throughout this novel, I had to decide between the preservation of the original thoughts and ideas, in all their quaintness and integrity, and wrest from my translation that poetic elegance which, as English poetry, I could have wished to have clothed it in; or to abandon all the original, save the mere text, and write independent stanzas in English, as though I had composed original poetry, borrowing only the thought from the Spanish text. My habitual desire, in all my translations, being to preserve the original sense in its fullest force, I adopted the former of these two views; and thus, while the reader will find no poetic beauty, he will have before him the entire original thoughts. The translation of any foreign poetry into chaste and elegant English verse is acknowledged to be a very difficult task. At the end of this volume are four specimens, to satisfy the curious, of a strictly literal verbal translation of short poetic sprinklings towards the conclusion of the tale.

A writer remarks, on the Andalusian character: “Seeing nothing about them but a smiling fertility, the hierarchy of the Catholic Heaven are to them beneficent beings, to be approached with trust and confidence, and the familiarity with which they speak of God, the Saviour, the Virgin, and the saints, must not be mistaken for irreverence; on the contrary, it springs from the belief that they are really the favored sons of the faith, and from the vividness with which they realize the existence and beneficent watchfulness of their Divine protectors.”

And again. “There is hardly a bird, or a shrub, or an odor, about which the Andalusians have not some pious and simple legend. The white poplar was the first tree the Creator made, and therefore it is hoary, as being the oldest. San Joseph told the serpent to go on its belly, because it attempted to bite the infant Saviour in their flight into Egypt. Rosemary has its sweetest perfume and its brightest blossoms on Fridays, the day of the Passion, because the Virgin hung on a rosemary-bush the clothes of the infant Christ. Everybody loves the swallows, because they plucked out the thorns of our Saviour’s crown on the cross; while the owl, who dared to look impassively on the Crucifixion, has been sick and afflicted ever since, and can utter nothing but Cruz! Cruz! The rose of Jericho was once white, but a drop of the blood of the wounded Saviour fell on it, and it has been red ever since. Children smile in their sleep because angels visit them. When there is a buzzing noise in the ears, it is because a leaf of the tree of life has fallen.”

LA GAVIOTA.[1]

CHAPTER I.

IN November, in the year 1836, the steamer “Royal Sovereign” took her departure from the foggy coast of Falmouth, lashing the waves with her paddle-wheels, and spreading her sails, gray and wet, in the mist still grayer and more wet than they.

The interior of the hull presented the uncheerful spectacle of the commencement of a sea voyage. The passengers, crowded together, were struggling with the fatigue of sea-sickness. Women were seen in extraordinary attitudes, with hair disordered, crinolines disarranged, hats crushed; the men pale, and in bad-humor; the children neglected and crying; the servants traversing the cabin with unsteady steps, carrying to their patients tea, coffee, and other imaginary remedies; while the ship, queen and mistress of the waters, without heeding the ills she occasioned, wrestled powerfully with the waves, triumphing over resistance, and pursuing the retreating billows.

The men who had escaped the common scourge were enabled to walk the deck, either by being so constituted as to withstand the ship’s motion, or by being accustomed to travel.

Among them was the governor of an English colony, a tall, fine-looking fellow, accompanied by two of his staff officers. There were several who wore their mackintoshes, thrusting their hands into their pockets; some had flushed countenances, others blue, or very pale, and, generally, all were discontented. In fine, that beautiful vessel seemed to be converted into a palace of discontent.

Among all the passengers was distinguished a youth, who appeared to be about twenty-four years of age; gallant, noble, and of ingenuous countenance, and whose handsome and affable face gave no signs of the slightest caprice. He was tall, and of gentlemanly manners; and in his deportment there was grace, and an admirable dignity. A head of black, curly hair adorned his fair and majestic forehead; the glances of his large, black eyes were placid and penetrating by turns. His lips were shaded by a light, black mustache; his bland smile indicated talent and vivacity; and in his noble person, in his actions, and in his gestures, there were evidences of the elevated class to which he belonged, with a soul freed from the least symptom of that disdainful air which many unjustly attribute to all kinds of superiority. He travelled for pleasure, and was essentially good; nevertheless, a virtuous sentiment of anger impelled him to launch out against the vices and extravagances of society. He often affirmed that he did not feel it to be his vocation to battle with windmills, like Don Quixote. He would much more agreeably consort with those who seek the good, with the same satisfaction and purity that the artless young damsel feels in gathering violets. His physiognomy, his grace, the freedom with which he muffled himself in his Spanish cloak, his insensibility to cold and to the general disquietude around him, established decidedly that he was Spanish.

He was walking backwards and forwards, observing at a glance the assemblage which, mosaic-like, chance had thrown together on those boards which constitute a large ship, and which, in smaller dimensions, would constitute a coffin. But there is not much to be observed in men who thus presented the appearance of those who are intoxicated, or in women whose appearance resembles that of a corpse.

Notwithstanding, he was much interested in the family of an English official, whose wife had been brought on board greatly indisposed, and who was immediately carried to her berth; the same was done with the nurse, and the father followed, with the infant boy in his arms; afterwards he led in three other little creatures, of two, three, and four years of age, enjoining upon them to remain silent, and not to move from thence. The poor children, although they felt inclined to cry, remained motionless and silent, like the angels which are represented in paintings at the feet of the Virgin. Little by little the beautiful bloom of their cheeks disappeared; their large eyes opened wide, and they remained mollified and stupid; and while no movement or expression of anger announced that they suffered, such was clearly denoted by the expression of their frightened and pallid countenances. No one noticed this silent torment, this amiable and sad resignation.

The Spaniard went to summon the steward, while that official was answering a young man, who, in German, and with expressive gestures, appeared to be imploring assistance in favor of some wretched victim of sea-sickness.

As the person of this young man did not indicate either elegance or distinction, as he spoke nothing but German, the steward turned his back, saying he did not understand him.

Then the German descended to his berth in the forecastle, and returned immediately, bringing a pillow, a quilt, and a heavy overcoat. With these auxiliaries he made up a kind of bed. He laid the children in it, and covered them with great care, and stretched himself on the deck beside them. But the sea-sick man had scarcely reclined, when a violent vomiting commenced, despite his efforts, and, in an instant, pillow, quilt, and great-coat were bespattered and ruined. The Spaniard then noticed the German, in whose physiognomy he saw a smile of benevolent satisfaction, which seemed to say, “Thank God, these little ones are cared for!”

He attempted a conversation with him in English, in French, and in Spanish, and received no other answer than a silent inclination of the head, and with but little grace, repeating this phrase: “Ich verstehe nicht” (I do not understand).

When, after dinner, the Spaniard again ascended to the deck, the cold had increased. He enfolded himself in his cloak, and commenced promenading. Then he noticed the German seated on a bench, and looking at the sea; which, as if to exhibit its sparkling, displayed on the sides of the ship its pearls of foam, and their brilliant phosphoric light. This young observer was dressed very insufficiently, because his frock-coat had become worn and unserviceable, and the cold must have pierced him.

The Spaniard advanced several paces to approach him; but he hesitated, he knew not how to institute a conversation. Immediately he smiled, as if a happy thought had occurred to him, and that he was going the right way towards it, and said to the German, in Latin: “You must feel very cold.”

That voice and short phrase produced on the stranger the most lively satisfaction, and harmonized, also, with his questioner, they were in accord in the same dialect; he replied:

“The night is, indeed, somewhat severe; but I was not thinking of that.”

“Then what were you thinking of?” demanded the Spaniard.

“I was thinking of my father and mother, and of my brothers and sisters.”

“Why do you travel, then, if you so much feel the separation?”

“Ah! señor; necessity—that implacable despot.”

“Why not travel for pleasure?”

“Pleasure is for the rich, and I am poor. For my pleasure! If I avow the motive of my voyage, then truly pleasure would be very far off.”

“Where then do you go?”

“To the war. To the civil war, the most terrible of all, at Navarre.”

“To the war!” exclaimed the Spaniard, examining the kind and docile, almost humble, and very little belligerent, countenance of the German. “Then you would become a military man?”

“No, sir; that is not my vocation. Neither my affections nor my principles induce me to take up arms, if it were not to defend the holy cause of the independence of Germany, if the foreigner will become the invader. I go to the army of Navarre to procure employment as a surgeon.”

“You do not know the language?”

“No, sir; but I can learn it.”

“Nor the country?”

“Neither. I have never left my native town, except for the university.”

“But you are provided with recommendations?”

“None whatever.”

“Do you count upon any patron?”

“I know nobody in Spain.”

“What then do you rely upon?”

“My conscience, my good-will, my youth, and my confidence in God.”

This conversation rendered the Spaniard thoughtful. He gazed on that face, in which candor and docility were impressed; those blue eyes, pure as those of a girl; those smiles, sad, but at the same time confident, earnestly interested him, and moved his pity.

“Will you descend with me,” he said, after a brief pause, “and accept some hot punch to keep out the cold? In the interim let us converse.”

The German inclined his head in token of his gratitude, and following the Spaniard, they descended to the dining-room.

At the head of the table were seated the governor, with his two officers; on one side were two Frenchmen. The Spaniard and the German seated themselves at the foot of the table.

“But how,” exclaimed the first, “have you ever conceived the idea of going to this distracted country?”

The German hesitated, and then related to him faithfully his life: “I am the sixth son of a professor in a small city of Saxonia, and who had spent much in the education of his sons. Finding ourselves without occupation or employment, like so many young paupers you find in Germany, after having devoted their youth to excellent and profound studies, and who had studied their art under the best masters, our maintenance was a burden on our family; for which reason, without feeling discouraged, with all my German calmness, I took the resolution to depart for Spain, where the disgraceful and sanguinary wars of the North opened up hopes that my services there might be useful.

“Beneath the linden-trees which cast their shadows on the door of my homestead, I decided to carry out this resolution. I embraced for the last time my good father, my beloved mother, my sister Lotte, and my little brothers, who clamored to accompany me in my peregrinations. Profoundly moved, and bathed in tears, I entered on life’s highway, which others find covered with flowers. But—courage; man is born to labor, and I felt that Heaven would crown my efforts. I like the profession which I had chosen, because it is grand and noble; its object is the alleviation of our fellows, and the results are beautiful, although the drudgery seems painful.”

“And you made progress?”

Fritz Stein replied in German, inflicting an excited blow on his seat, and making a slight reverence.

A short time afterwards, the two new friends separated. One of the Frenchmen, who was placed in front of the door, saw that he was about to ascend the staircase, and offered to place on the shoulders of the German his Spanish cloak, lined with fur, to which the other showed some resistance, and the Frenchman, with a look of scorn, replaced it in his berth.

“Have you understood what they were talking about?” demanded he of his countryman.

“Truly,” rejoined the first (who was a commission merchant), “Latin is not my forte; but the red and pale youth seems to me a species of pale Werther, and I have heard there is in his history something of Charlotte. So is it with those little children described in a German novel. By good luck, instead of recurring to the pistol to console him, he prefers punch; it is less sentimental, but much more philosophical, and more German. As to the Spaniard, I believe he is a species of Don Quixote, protector of the destitute, who shares his cloak with the poor; that joined to these high allurements, his look, firm and ardent like a flame, his countenance, dull and wan like the light of the moon, form an altogether perfect Spaniard.”

“You know,” said the first, “that in my quality of painter of history, I go to Tarifa with the object of painting the siege of that city at the moment when the son of Guzman made a sign to his father to sacrifice him before surrendering the place, and this young man will serve me for a model, and I am thus sure to succeed with my tableau. I have never in my life seen nature approach so near the ideal.”

“There, then, ye gentlemen-artists! Always poets!” replied the commercial traveller. “For my part, if I am not deceived by the natural grace of this man, his lady foot well cast, the elegance of his profile, and his form, I would characterize him as a taureador (bull-fighter). Who knows? perhaps it is Montés himself, possessing the joint attractions of riches and generosity.”

“A taureador!” cried the artist; “a man of the people! You jest.”

“Not at all,” said the other; “I am very far, indeed, from jesting. You have not lived, like me, in Spain, and you do not know the aristocratic type of the nation. You will see, you will see. This is my opinion. Thanks to the progress of equality and fraternity, the insulting manners of the aristocracy disappear daily, and in a short time hence they will be found only among the men of the people.”

“Believe that this man is a taureador!” repeated the artist, with a smile so disdainful that the commercial traveller, wounded by the reply, rose and said:

“We will know very soon who he is; come with me, we will get information of him from his servant.”

The two friends mounted to the deck, where they were not long in meeting the man they searched for.

The commercial traveller, who volunteered to converse with the Spanish servant, led the conversation, and, after some trivial remarks, asked: “Your master,” he said to him, “has he retired to his chamber?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the servant, casting on the questioner a look full of penetration and malice.

“Is he rich?”

“I am not his intendant, I am only his valet-de-chambre.”

“Is he travelling on business?”

“I do not believe he has any.”

“Is he travelling for his health?”

“His health is excellent.”

“Is he travelling incognito?”

“No, sir; he travels with his name and Christian names.”

“And he is called—”

“Don Carlos de la Cerda.”

“An illustrious name, very certainly,” cried the painter.

“My name is Pedro de Guzman,” added the servant, “and I am humble servant to you both.” He then made a very humble reverence, and went away.

“Gil Blas is right,” said the Frenchman, “in Spain nothing is more common than glorious names. It is true that in Paris my boot-maker was named Martel, my tailor called himself Roland, and my laundress, Madame Bayard. In Scotland, there are more Stuarts than paving-stones.”

“We are humbugged! That insolent servant is mocking us. But, every thing considered, I have a suspicion that he is an agent of the factions, an obscure emissary of Don Carlos.”

“Certainly not,” replied the artist; “it is my Alonzo Perez de Guzman the Good—the hero of my dreams.” The other Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.

When the ship arrived at Cadiz, the Spaniard took leave of Stein. “I am obliged to remain some short time in Andalusia,” he said to him. “Pedro, my servant, will accompany you as far as Seville, and take a place for you in the diligence for Madrid. Here are some letters of recommendation for the Minister of War and the general-in-chief of the army. If it happens that you have any friendly service to ask of me, write to me at Madrid, to this address.”

Stein, stifled with emotion, could not speak. With one hand he took the letters, and with the other he pushed back the card which the Spaniard presented to him. “Your name is engraven here,” he said in placing his hand on his heart. “Oh! I will not forget it while I live; it is that of a soul the most noble, the most elevated, the most generous; it is the name of the best of men.”

“With this address,” replied Don Carlos, smiling, “your letters would never reach me. You must have another, more clear and more brief,” and he handed him his card, and departed.

Stein read: “The Duke of Almansa.”

And Pedro de Guzman, who was close by, added: “Marquis de Guadalmonte, de Val-de-Flores, and de Loca-Fiel; Comte de Santa-Clara, de Encinasala, et de Laza; Chevalier of the Golden Fleece, and Grand Cross of Charles III.; Gentleman of the Chamber of his Majesty; Grandee of Spain, of First Class; &c., &c., &c.”

CHAPTER II.

ONE morning in October, in the year 1838, a man on foot descended a little hill in the county of Niebla, and advanced towards the coast. His impatience to arrive at a little port which had been indicated to him was such that, thinking to shorten his route, he found himself in one of those vast solitudes so common in the south of Spain, real deserts, reserved to raise cattle, and in which the flocks never go beyond the limits. This man, although not more than twenty-six years of age, appeared already old. He wore a military tunic, buttoned up to the chin. On his head he wore a common cloth cap. He carried on his shoulder a large stick, at the end of which was suspended a little casket of mahogany, covered with green flannel, a package of books, fastened together with pack-thread, a handkerchief covering a little white linen, and a great cloak rolled up. This light baggage appeared to be beyond the strength of the traveller, who, from time to time, paused, supporting one hand on his oppressed chest, or passing it over his burning forehead. At times he fixed his looks on a poor dog which followed him, and which, whenever he halted, stretched himself at full length at his feet. “Poor Fidele!” said the master; “the only being who makes me believe there is yet in the world a little of affection and of gratitude. No! I will never forget the day when I saw you for the first time. Thou wast, with a poor herdsman, condemned to be shot, because he would not be a traitor. He was on his knees, he awaited his death, and it was in vain he supplicated a respite. He asked that thou shouldst be spared, and no one listened to him. The shots were fired, and thou, faithful friend of the unfortunate, thou didst fall cruelly wounded beside the inanimate corpse of thy master. I rescued thee, I cured thy wounds, and since then thou hast not abandoned me. When the wits of the regiment called me a dog-curer, you came and licked the hand that had saved you, as if you would say to me, ‘Dogs have gratitude.’ Oh! my God, I have a loving heart! It is two years since, full of life, of hope, and good-will, I arrived in this country, and offered to my brethren my will, my care, my knowledge, and my heart. I have cured many wounds; for my recompense they have made me feel sorrow the most profound, and it is my soul they have lacerated. Great God! great God! discouragement has seized me. I see myself ingloriously driven from the army, after two years of incessant labor—labor without repose. I see myself accused and pursued, for nothing but for having given my care to a man of an opposite party; to an unhappy man, who, driven like a beast, fell dying into my arms. Is it possible that the rules of war convert into a crime what morality recognizes as a virtue, and which religion proclaims to be a duty!

“What can I do at present? Go and repose my head, prematurely bald, and cure my lacerated heart in the shade of the linden-trees which surround my father’s house. There, at least, they will not charge me with crime for having showed pity for a dying man.”

After the pause of a few minutes, the unhappy man made an effort. “Let us go, Fidele,” said he; “move on! move on!” and the traveller and his faithful animal pursued their painful route.

But soon the man lost the right path, which he had until now followed, and which had been beaten by the steps of the shepherds. The ground was covered more and more with briers and with high and thick bushes; it was impossible to follow a straight line; he must turn aside alternately to the right and left.

The sun had finished his course, and no part of the horizon discovered the least appearance of any human habitation. There was nothing to be seen but limitless solitude; nothing but the desert tinged with green, and uniform as the ocean.

Fritz Stein, whom our reader no doubt already recognizes, perceived too late that he had placed too much confidence in his strength. With pain and difficulty his swollen and aching feet could barely sustain him. His arteries throbbed with violence, a sharp pain racked his temples, an ardent thirst devoured him, and to heighten the horror of his situation, the deafening and prolonged bellowings announced the approach of some droves of wild bulls, so dangerous in Spain.

“God has saved me from many perils,” said the poor traveller; “he will yet protect me. If not, his will be done.”

He redoubled his speed; but what was his terror, when, after having passed a little plantation of mastic-trees, he found himself face to face with a bull!

Stein remained immovable, and, to say truly, petrified.

The animal, surprised at this encounter and at so much audacity, remained also without motion; his eyes were inflamed like two burning coals. The man immediately understood that at the least movement he was lost. The bull, who was, by instinct, conscious of his strength and his courage, waited to be provoked to fight; lowering and raising his head three or four times impatiently, he began to paw the earth and to fill the air with dust, in token of his defiance. Stein preserved his immobility. The animal then stepped one pace backward, lowered his head and prepared for the attack—when he felt himself bitten in the ham. At the same time the furious barking of his brave companion informed Stein who was his rescuer. The bull, full of rage, turned to repel this unlooked-for attack; Stein profited by this movement and took to flight. The horrible situation from which he had with so great difficulty escaped, gave him new strength to fly past the green oaks and through the briers, the thickness of which sheltered him from his formidable adversary.

He had already passed a little dale, and climbed a hillock, and then he stopped nearly out of breath. He turned round to observe the place of his perilous adventure. He saw through the clearing his poor companion, which the ferocious animal tossed in the air as if diverting himself.

Stein extended his arms towards his dog, so courageous, so devoted, and, sobbing, he exclaimed:

“Poor Fidele! poor Fidele! my only friend! you well merit your name! You pay dear for the affection you have shown for your masters.”

Then, to distract his thoughts from this frightful spectacle, Stein hurried on, shedding profuse tears. He thus arrived at the summit of another hill, where was spread open to his view a magnificent landscape. The ground sloped almost insensibly to the borders of the sea, which, calmly and tranquilly, reflected the last rays of the sun, and presented the appearance of a vast field spangled with rubies and sapphires.

The white sail of a vessel, which appeared as if held stationary by the waves, seemed detached like a pearl in the midst of these splendid riches.

The line formed by the coast was marvellously uneven; the shore seemed covered with golden sands, where the sea rolled its long silver fringes.

Bordering the coast, rose rocks whose gigantic boulders seemed to pierce the azure sky. In the distance, at the left, Stein discovered the ruins of a fort—human labor which could resist nothing; and whose base was the rock—divine work which resisted every thing: at the right he perceived a cluster of houses, without being able to perceive whether it was a village, a palace, or a convent.

Nearly exhausted by his last hurried walk, and by his saddened emotions, it was towards this point he would direct his steps. He could not reach it until night had set in. What he saw was, in fact, one of those convents constructed in the times of Christian faith and enthusiasm. The monastery had been in the olden time brilliant, sumptuous, and hospitable; now it was abandoned, poor, empty, dismantled, offered for sale—as was indicated by some strips of paper pasted on its ruined walls. Nobody, however, desired to purchase it, however low was the price asked.

The wide folding-doors which formerly offered an easy access to all comers, were now closed as if they would never again be opened.

Stein’s strength abandoned him, and he fell almost without consciousness upon a stone bench: the delirium of fever attacked his brain, and he was only aroused by the crowing of a cock.

Rising suddenly, Stein with pain walked to the door, took up a stone and knocked. A loud barking replied to his summons. He made another effort, knocked again; but his strength was exhausted—he sank on the ground.

The door was opened, and two persons appeared.

One of them was a young woman, holding a light in her hand, which she directed towards the object lying at her feet.

“Jesus!” she cried, “it is not Manuel—a stranger! God aid us!”

“Help him,” replied the other, a good and simple old woman. “Brother Gabriel! brother Gabriel!” she called out in entering the court, “come quickly, there is here an unfortunate man who is dying.”

Hurried steps were heard: they were those of an old man of ordinary height, with a placid and high complexioned face. His dress consisted of pantaloons and a large vest with gray sleeves, and the remnant of an old frock-coat; he had sandals on his feet; a cap of black wool covered his shiny forehead.

“Brother Gabriel,” said the elder female, “we must succor this man.”

“He must be cared for,” replied brother Gabriel.

“For God’s sake,” cried the woman who carried the light, “where can we place here a dying man?”

“We will do the best we can, my daughter, without being uneasy about the rest. Help me.”

“Would to God,” said Dolores, “that we may have no disagreement when Manuel returns.”

“It cannot be otherwise,” replied the good old woman, “than that the son will concur in what his mother has done.”

The three conveyed Stein to the chamber of brother Gabriel. They made up for him a bed with fresh straw, and a good large mattress filled with wool. Grandma Maria took out of a large chest a pair of sheets, if not very fine, at least very white. She then added a warm woollen counterpane.

Brother Gabriel wished to give up his pillow; the Grandma opposed it, saying she had two, and that one would suffice for her. During these preparations some one knocked loud at the door, and continued to knock.

“Here is Manuel,” said the young woman. “Come with me, mother; I do not wish to be alone with him, when he learns that we have admitted a stranger.”

The mother-in-law followed the steps of her daughter.

“God be praised! Good evening, mother; good evening, wife,” said, on entering, a strong and powerfully constructed man. He seemed to be thirty-eight to forty years old, and was followed by a child of about thirteen years.

“Come, Momo![2] unlade the ass and lead him to the stable; the poor beast is tired.”

Momo carried to the kitchen, where the family was accustomed to assemble, a supply of large loaves of white bread, some very plump woodcock, and his father’s cloak.

Dolores went and closed the door and then rejoined her husband and her mother in the kitchen.

“Have you brought my ham and my starch?” she asked.

“Here there are.”

“And my flax?”

“I had almost a desire to forget it,” answered Manuel, smiling, and handing some skeins to his mother.

“Why, my son?”

“Because I recollected that villager who went to the fair, and whom all the neighbors loaded with commissions: Bring me a hat, said one; Bring me a pair of gaiters, said another; a cousin asked for a comb; an aunt wished for some chocolate; and for all these commissions no one gave him a cuarto. He had already bestrode his mule, when a pretty little child came to him and said: ‘Here are two cuartos for a flageolet, will you bring me one?’ The child presented his money, the villager stooped, took it, and replied, ‘You shall be flageoleted.’ And in fact when he returned from the fair, of all the commissions they had given him he brought only the flageolet.”

“Be it so! it is well,” said the mother: “why do I pass every day in sewing? Is it not for thee and thy children? Do you wish that I imitate the tailor who worked for nothing, and furnished the thread below the cost?”

At this moment Momo reappeared on the threshold of the kitchen; he was small and fat, high shouldered; he had, besides, the bad habit to raise them without any cause, with an air of scorn and carelessness, almost to touch his large ears which hung out like fans. His head was enormous, his hair short, lips thick. Again—he squinted horribly.

“Father,” said he, with a malicious air, “there, is a man asleep in the chamber of brother Gabriel.”

“A man in my house!” cried Manuel, throwing away his chair. “Dolores, what does this mean?”

“Manuel, it is a poor invalid. Your mother would that we receive him: it was not my opinion: she insisted, what could I do?”

“It is well; but however she may be my mother, ought she for that to lodge here the first man that comes along?”

“No—he should be left to die at the door like a dog, is it not so?”

“But, my mother,” replied Manuel, “is my house a hospital?”

“No. It is the house of a Christian; and if you had been here you would have done as I did.”

“Oh! certainly not,” continued Manuel; “I would have put him on our ass and conducted him to the village, now there are no more convents.”

“We had not our ass here, and there was no one to take charge of this unfortunate man.”

“And if he is a robber?”

“Dying men do not rob.”

“And if his illness is long, who will take care of him?”

“They have just killed a fowl to make broth,” said Momo, “I saw the feathers in the court.”

“Have you lost your mind, mother!” cried Manuel furiously.

“Enough, enough,” said his mother, in a severe tone. “You ought to blush for shame to dare to quarrel with me because I have obeyed the law of God. If your father were still living, he would not believe that his son could refuse to open his door to the unfortunate, ill, without succor, and dying.”

Manuel bowed his head: there was a moment of silence.

“It is well, my mother,” he said, at last. “Forget that I have said any thing, and act according to your own judgment. We know that women are always right.”

Dolores breathed more freely.

“How good he is!” she said joyously to her mother-in-law.

“Could you doubt it?” she replied, smiling, to her daughter, whom she tenderly loved; and in rising to go and take her place at the couch of the invalid, she added:

“I have never doubted it, I who brought him into the world.”

And in passing near to Momo, she said to him:

“I already knew that you had a bad heart; but you have never proved it as you have to-day. I complain of you: you are wicked, and the wicked carry their own chastisement.”

“Old people are only good for sermonizing,” growled Momo, in casting a side look at his grandmother.

But he had scarcely pronounced this last word, when his mother, who had heard him, approached and applied a smart blow.

“That will teach you,” she said, “to be insolent to the mother of your father; towards a woman who is twice your mother.”

Momo began to cry, and took refuge at the bottom of the court, and vented his anger in bastinadoing the poor dog who had not offended him.

CHAPTER III.

THE grandma and the brother Gabriel took the best care of the invalid; but they could not agree upon the method which should be adopted to cure him.

Maria, without having read Brown, recommended substantial soups, comforts, and tonics, because she conceived that Stein was debilitated and worn out.

Brother Gabriel, without ever having heard the name of Broussais pronounced, pleaded for refreshments and emollients, because, in his opinion, Stein had a brain fever, the blood heated and the skin hot.

Both were right, and with this double system, which blended the soups of the grandma with the lemonade of brother Gabriel, it happened that Stein recovered his life and his health the same day that the good woman killed the last fowl, and the brother divested the lemon-trees of their last fruit.

“Brother Gabriel,” said the grandma, “to which State corps do you think our invalid belongs? Is he military?”

“He must be military,” replied brother Gabriel, who, except in medical or horticultural discussions, had the habit of regarding the good woman as an oracle, and to be guided wholly by her opinion.

“If he were military,” continued the old woman, shaking her head, “he would be armed, and he is not armed. I found only a flute in his pocket. Then he is not military.”

“He cannot be military,” replied brother Gabriel.

“If he were a contrabandist?”

“It is possible he is a contrabandist,” said the good brother Gabriel.

“But no,” replied the old woman, “for to be a contrabandist, he should wear stuffs or jewelry, and he has nothing of these.”

“That is true, he cannot be a contrabandist,” affirmed brother Gabriel.

“See what are the titles of his books. Perhaps by that means we can discover what he is.”

The brother rose, took his horn spectacles, placed them on his nose, and the package of books in his hands, and approached the window which looked out on the grand court. His inspection of the books lasted a long time.

“Brother Gabriel,” asked the old woman, “have you forgotten to know how to read?”

“No—but I do not know these characters; I believe it is Hebrew.”

“Hebrew! Holy Virgin of Heaven, can he be a Jew?”

At that moment, Stein, awaking from a long lethargy, addressed him, and said in German:

“Mein Gott, wo bin ich? My God, where am I?”

The old woman sprang with one bound to the middle of the chamber; brother Gabriel let fall the books, and remained petrified after opening his eyes as large as his spectacles.

“In what language have you spoken?” she demanded.

“It must be Hebrew, like these books,” answered brother Gabriel. “Perhaps he is a Jew, as you said, good Maria.”

“God help us!” she cried. “But no, if he were a Jew, would we not have seen it on his back when we undressed him?”

“Good Maria,” replied the brother, “the holy father said that this belief which attributes to a Jew a tail at his back is nonsense, a piece of bad wit, and that the Jews laugh at it.”

“Brother Gabriel,” replied the good Mama Maria, “since this holy constitution, all is changed, all is metamorphosed. This clique, who govern to-day in place of the king, wish that nothing should remain of what formerly existed; it is for that they no longer permit the Jews to wear tails on their backs, although they always before carried them, as does the devil. If the holy father said to the contrary it is because it is obligatory, as they are obliged to say at Mass, ‘Constitutional king.’ ”

“That may be so,” said the monk.

“He is not a Jew,” pursued the old woman; “rather is he a Turk or a Moor, who has been shipwrecked on our coast.”

“A pirate of Morocco,” replied the good brother, “it may be.”

“But then he would wear a turban and yellow slippers, like the Moor I have seen thirty years ago, when I was in Cadiz. They called him the Moor Seylan. How handsome he was! But for me his beauty was nothing: he was not a Christian. After all, be he Jew or Moor let us relieve him.”

“Assist him, Jew or Christian,” repeated the brother. And they both approached the bed.

Stein had raised himself up in a sitting position, and regarded with astonishment all the objects by which he was surrounded.

“He does not understand what we say to him,” said the good Maria. “Let us try, nevertheless.”

“Let us try,” added Gabriel.

In Spain, the common people believe that the best way to make themselves understood is to speak very loud. Maria and Gabriel, with this conviction, cried out both together: “Will you have some soup?” said Maria. “Will you have some lemonade?” said the brother.

Stein, whose ideas became clearer little by little, asked in Spanish:

“Where am I? who are you?”

“He,” replied the old woman, “is brother Gabriel; I am grandma Maria, and we are both at your orders.”

“Ah!” said Stein, “from whom do you take your names? The holy archangel and the holy Virgin, guardians of the sick and consolers of the afflicted, will recompense you for your good action.”

“He speaks Spanish!” cried Maria with emotion; “and he is a Christian! and he knows the litanies!”

In her access of joy, she approached Stein, pressed him in her arms and bravely kissed his forehead.

“Decidedly, who are you?” she said, after having made him take a bowl of soup. “How, ill and dying, have you reached this depopulated village?”

“I am called Stein, and I am a surgeon. I was in the war at Navarre. I came by Estremadura to seek a port whence I could embark for Cadiz, and then regain Germany, my country. I lost myself in my route: I made a thousand detours and finished by arriving here, worn out by fatigue and ready to give up the ghost.”

“You see,” said Maria to brother Gabriel, “that his books are not in the Hebrew language, but in the language of surgeons.”

“That’s true,” repeated brother Gabriel.

“And which party do you belong to?” asked the old woman. “Don Carlos, or the other?”

“I serve in the troops of the Queen,” replied Stein.

Maria turned towards her companion, and with an expressive gesture, said in a low voice:

“He is not with the good.”

“He was not with the good,” repeated brother Gabriel, in bowing his head.

“But where am I?” again demanded Stein.

“You are,” replied the old woman, “in a convent which is no longer a convent. It is a body without a soul. There remain but the walls, the white cross, and brother Gabriel. The others have taken away all the rest. When there was nothing more to take, some gentlemen whom they call the public credit searched for a good man to guard the convent—that is to say, its carcass. They heard my son spoken of, and we came and established ourselves here, where I live with my son, the only one who would remain. When we entered into the convent, the fathers went away. Some retired to America or rejoined the missions in China; some returned to their families; some demanded their subsistence or work, or had recourse to alms. We have with us a monk, borne down by age and grief, who, seated on the steps of the white cross, weeps sometimes for the absent brethren, sometimes for the convent which they have abandoned. ‘Will not your Reverence come here,’ a child but lately attached to the services of the chapel said to him. ‘Where would you that I go?’ he replied. ‘I will never go away from these walls, where I was, poor and an orphan, received by the good fathers. I know nobody in the world, and know nothing but how to take care of the garden of the convent. Where shall I go? What shall I do? I can live only here.’ ‘Then remain with us.’ ‘Well said, mother,’ replied my son; ‘we are seven seated at the same table; we will be eight, and, as the proverb says, We will eat more, and we will eat less.’ ”

“Thanks to this act of charity,” said Gabriel, “I remain here, I take charge of the garden; but since they have sold the large pump, I do not know how to water a foot of ground; the orange and lemon trees dry up under my feet.”

“Brother Gabriel,” continued the grandma, “will not quit these walls to which he is attached like the ivy; he also says, ‘Very well, there remain but the walls. The barbarians! They have proved this maxim: Destroy the nest, the birds will never come back again.’ ”

“Notwithstanding,” hazarded Stein, “I have heard said there are too many convents in Spain.”

Maria fixed her black sparkling eyes on the German, and said to herself in an undertone:

“Were our first suspicions well founded?”

CHAPTER IV.

THE end of October had been rainy, and November sheltered herself under her thick green mantle.

Stein took a walk one day in front of the convent. A magnificent panorama presented itself to his sight: at the right, the limitless sea; at the left, solitude without end. Between them, on the horizon, was painted the black profile of the fort San Cristobal. The sea undulated softly, in raising without effort the waves gilded by the sun’s rays, like a queen who spreads out her gorgeous mantle.

Not far from thence was situated the village of Villamar, near a river as impetuous during winter, as calm and muddy during summer. The grounds around, well cultivated, presented the aspect of a chess-board, where each square revealed the thousand shades of green. Here shone the warm tints of the vine, then covered with leaves; there, the ash-colored green of the olive-tree; the emerald green of the fig-trees, which the rains of autumn had imparted growth to; further off still, the bluish-green hedges of aloes. At the mouth of the river were collected several fishermen’s boats.

Near the convent, upon a light hillock, stood a chapel; in front, a cross based on a block of masonry whitened with lime; behind this cross, a retreat of verdure: it was the cemetery. Stein went there to meditate upon the powerful magic of the works of nature, when he saw Momo leaving the farm and going towards the village. In perceiving Stein, Momo proposed to him to accompany him, and they both commenced their route. They arrived soon at the top of the hillock, near the cross and the chapel. This ascension, however short and easy, had taken away Stein’s strength, who was yet scarcely convalescent. He rested an instant; then he entered the chapel, whose walls were covered with “exvotos.” Among these exvotos there was one which singularly attracted by its strangeness. The front of the altar contracted itself towards the base in describing a curved line. Stein perceived there in the obscurity an object supported against the wall, and the form of which he could not distinguish. Fixing his earnest scrutiny on this object, he became assured it was a carbine. The size was such, and the weight must have been so great that it was incomprehensible how one single man could have the strength to place it in that position: it is but the reflection which is always inspired by the sight of the armor of the middle ages. The mouth of the carbine was so large that an orange could easily be introduced. The arm was broken, and the pieces were artistically put together by means of little cords.

“Momo,” said Stein, “what does this signify? Is it really a carbine?”

“In looking at it,” replied Momo, “it seems to me to be one.”

“But why do they place a murderous weapon in this holy and peaceful place? In truth, it is not sense to arm Christ with a pair of pistols.”

“But see, then,” replied Momo, “the carbine is not placed in the hands of our Lord; it is at his feet, as an offering. The day on which this carbine was brought here, they called this Christ, the Christ of Good Help.”

“And from what motive?” demanded Stein.

“For what motive!” said Momo in opening his eyes, “everybody knows that, and you know it not!”

“Have you forgotten that I am a stranger?” replied. Stein.

“That is true; I will tell you then: there was formerly in this country a highway robber who did not content himself with robbing, he murdered the people as if they were insects, whether from hatred, whether from fear of being denounced, or whether from caprice. One day two men of this village, two brothers, would undertake a journey. All their friends assembled to conduct them part of the way. There were abundance of good wishes that they might not encounter the bandit who gave quarter to no one, and who terrified everybody. But they, good children, commended themselves to Christ, and departed full of confidence in his protection. At the entrance of a wood of olives, they found themselves face to face with the robber, who came before them, with carbine in hand, rested his gun and aimed. In this extreme peril the two brothers fell on their knees, addressing themselves to Christ: ‘Help us, Lord!’ The bandit pulled the trigger, but whose soul was launched into another world? It was that of the robber: God caused the carbine to burst in the hands of the bandit. And you see now that, in memory of this miraculous assistance, they repaired the carbine with cords, and deposited it here, and it is the Christ who, since then, we implore help from. You knew nothing about it, Don Frederico?”

“Nothing, Momo,” he replied, in adding as if his own reflections: “If you know all that others are ignorant of, they who pretend know every thing.”

“Let us go! will you come?” said Momo after a moment’s silence. “You know I cannot wait.”

“I am fatigued,” replied Stein; “go along, I will wait for you here.”

“God protect you!” and Momo resumed his route, singing:

“God’s sweet protection be your lot,
Is the usual affiance.
Poor be ye rich! for science,
The rich can buy it not.”

Stein contemplated this little village, so tranquil, at once fishing, commercial, and laborious.

It was not like the villages of Germany, an assemblage of houses scattered without order, with their roofs of straw, and their gardens; they resembled in no way those of England, sheltered by the shades of their large trees; nor those of Flanders, which retired to the borders of the roads. It was composed of large streets, although badly made, where the houses, without separate stories, were of various heights, and covered with old tiles; windows were rare, and still more rare, glass and every species of ornament.

But the village contained a grand square, which, in spring, was green as a prairie; on this square was situated a beautiful church: the general aspect was one of charming neatness.

Fourteen crosses, of dimensions equal to that which was near to Stein, were placed equidistant from each other; the last, which was raised in the middle of the square, was opposite to the church: it was the Road of the Cross.

Momo came back, but with a companion, who was old, tall, dry, thin, and stiff as a wax taper. This man was dressed in a coat and pantaloons made of coarse gray cloth; a waistcoat enamelled in faded colors, and embellished with some repairs, real chef-d’œuvres of their kind; a red belt, such as is worn by the peasants; a slouched hat with large rim, ornamented with a cockade which had been red, and which time, the rain, and the sun had colored with the brilliant shades of a watermelon. On each shoulder was a narrow strip of lace, probably destined to secure two much-used epaulets; and then an old sword, suspended from a belt of the same age, completed this ensemble, half military and half rural. Long years had exercised great ravages upon the front part of the long and narrow skull of this being. To supply the natural ornament, he had coaxed towards the forehead the sad remnant of his head of hair, and fixing them there by means of a cord of black silk on the top of his skull, he formed a tuft as gracious as that of a Chinese coxcomb.

“Momo, who is this man?” asked Stein in a low voice.

“The commandant,” the other replied, very simply.

“The commandant of what?” anew asked Stein.

“Of the Fort de San Cristobal.”

“The Fort de San Cristobal!” cried Stein in ecstasy.

“Your servant,” said the newly arrived, saluting him with courtesy; “my name is Modesto Guerrero, and I place at your entire command my useless services.”

The compliment of usage had an application so exact to him who made it, that Stein could not resist a smile in returning his military salute.

“I know who you are,” pursued Don Modesto; “I have taken a prominent part in your contretemps and your misfortunes; I congratulate you on your re-establishment, and on your rencounter with the Alerzas, who are, by my faith, very good kind of people. My person and my house are entirely at your orders; I reside at the Plaza de la Iglesia, that is to say, Place of the Constitution, for that is the name at present. If sometime you would favor it with a visit, the inscription will indicate to you the place.”

“As if he possessed all the village!” said Momo with a sneer.

“Then there is an inscription?” again demanded Stein, who, in the busy life of a camp, had never had time to learn the language of studied compliments, and could not therefore reply to those of the courteous Spaniard.

“Yes, sir,” replied Don Modesto, “the subordinate should obey the orders of his superiors. You should comprehend that in this little village it is not easy to procure a slab of marble with letters of gold, like those you can purchase in Cadiz or Seville. We must have recourse to the schoolmaster, who writes a good hand, and who, to paint the inscription on the walls of common houses, is obliged to place himself at a certain height. The schoolmaster prepared a black color with soot and vinegar mixed, mounted the ladder, and commenced the work by tracing the letters about a foot long. Unfortunately, in wishing to make an elegant flourish, he gave such a violent shake to the ladder that it fell to the earth, carrying with it in its fall the schoolmaster with his pot of black, and all rolled together into the stream. Rosita, my hostess, who from the window had been a witness of this catastrophe, and having seen the unfortunate man come out black as coal, was frightened to that degree that she went into spasms, and continued thus for three days; and in truth I was myself not without some uneasiness. The Alcalde, notwithstanding, gave orders to the poor bruised schoolmaster to complete his work, and saw that the inscription gave only the letters CONSTI. The unfortunate man was ill at ease, but this time he would not use the ladder; he would bring a cart, and place a table on it, and secure it with strong cords. Hoisted upon this improvised scaffolding, the poor devil was so astounded that, reflecting on his accident, he had but one thought, which was, to complete his work as speedily as possible. This is the reason why the last letters, in lieu of being a foot long like the first, are not longer than your thumb; and that is not the worst of it—in his eagerness he forgot one letter at the bottom of his pot of black; and the inscription thus appears:

PLAZA DE LA CONSTItucin.

“The Alcalde was thrown into a pious fury; but the schoolmaster stoutly declared that neither for God nor for all the Saints would he recommence it, and that he preferred to mount a bull of eight years old rather than to work upon that mountebank plank. Thus has the inscription remained as it was: happily no one reads it. He is sorry that the schoolmaster had not completed it, for it would have been very handsome and done great honor to Villamar.”

Momo, who carried on his shoulder some saddlebags, well filled, and who was in a hurry, asked the commandant if he was going to Fort San Cristobal.

“I go there, and on my way I will first go to see the daughter of Pedro Santalo; she is ill.”

“Who! The Gaviota?” asked Momo; “don’t believe it: I saw her yesterday on the top of a rock, screaming like the sea-gull.”

“Gaviota!” said Stein, with surprise.

“It is,” said the commandant, “a wicked nickname, which Momo has given this young girl.”

“Because she has long legs,” replied Momo, “because she lives equally on the sea and on the earth, because she sings, cries, and leaps from rock to rock like the seagulls.”

“Your grandmother,” replied Don Modesto, “loves her much, and never calls her any thing but Marisalada (witty Maria), on account of her piquant frolics, the grace of her song and her dance, and her beautiful imitation of the singing of birds.”

“It is not that,” replied Momo. “It is because that her father is a fisherman, and brings us salt and fish.”

“And does she live near the port?” asked Stein, whose curiosity was much excited by all these details.

“Very near,” replied the commandant. “Pedro Santalo possessed a bark: having made sail for Cadiz he encountered a tempest, and was shipwrecked on our coast. All perished, crew and cargo, with the exception of Pedro and his daughter, whom he had with him; the desire to save her doubled his strength: he gained the shore, but his ruin was complete. His sadness and discouragement were so profound that he would not return to his country. With the debris of his bark he constructed a little skiff among the rocks, and commenced as a fisherman. It was he who furnished the convent with fish: the brothers in exchange gave him bread, oil, and vinegar. It is now twelve years that he has lived here in peace with all the world.”

This recital finished when they had arrived at a point where the paths divide into two roads.

“I will return soon,” said the old commandant; “in an instant I will be at your disposal, and salute your hosts.”

“Say to Gaviota,” cried Momo, “that her illness does not alarm me, bad weeds never die.”

“Has the commandant been long at Villamar?” asked Stein of Momo.

“Let me count—a hundred and one years before the birth of my father.”

“And who is this Rosita, his hostess?’

“Who? Señorita Rosa Mistica!” replied Momo, with grotesque gesture. “It is a first love: she is uglier than hunger; she has one eye which looks to the east, and the other to the west; and her face, which the small-pox has not spared, is filled with cavities, each sufficient to hold an echo. But, Don Frederico, the heavens scorch, the clouds rush as if they would pursue us—let us hasten our steps.”

CHAPTER V.

BEFORE we continue our recital, it is well, we believe, to make the acquaintance of this new personage. Don Modesto Guerrero was the son of an honorable farmer, who, like many others, was possessed of excellent parchments of nobility. During the war of independence, the French burned these parchments in burning his house, under the pretext that the children of a laborer are brigands,—that is to say, that they have committed the unpardonable crime of defending their country. The brave man could reconstruct his house; but as to the parchments, they were not of the class of phœnix. Modesto was called to the military service, and, in default of a substitute, he entered a regiment of infantry as a cadet. Sufficiently good-natured, he was not long in becoming a butt, the object of coarse jokes from his companions. These, encouraged by his forbearance, pushed their mockeries so far that Don Modesto put an end to them, as we will directly see. On a grand parade day he took his station at the end of a file. Near by was a cart. His comrades, with as much address as promptitude, passed a noose round his leg, and attached it to the wheels of the cart. The colonel gave the orders to “March!” The trumpets sounded, and all the men were in motion, with the exception of Modesto, who was brought up with his feet in the air, in the position which the sculptors give to the Zephyrs ready to fly.

The review ended. Modesto returned to quarters calm and tranquil as he had set out, and, without changing his step, he demanded satisfaction of his companions. Neither of them would assume the responsibility of the trick played. He then declared he would fight with them all, one after the other. Then he who had planned and executed the trick came forward, and they went out to fight. In the combat, Modesto’s adversary lost an eye. “If you desire to lose the other,” the vanquisher said to him, with his habitual phlegm, “I am at your service when you please.”

Without relations or patrons at court, without ambitious views, and no fondness for intrigue, Modesto continued his career at a tortoise pace, until the siege of Gaëte, in 1805, a period at which his regiment received an order to join the troops of Napoleon. Modesto distinguished himself so well by his bravery and coolness, that he merited a cross, and the praises of his chiefs. His name was blazoned at Gaëte like a meteor, to disappear immediately in eternal obscurity.

These laurels were the first and the last which he had an opportunity of gathering during his military career: severely wounded in the arm, he was obliged to quit active service, and received as compensation the post of commandant of the ruined fort of San Cristobal. It was then forty years that he had under his orders the skeleton of a fort, and a garrison of lizards of all varieties. In the commencement, our Guerrero could not content himself with this abandonment. No one year passed without his pressing a request to the government to obtain the necessary repairs; also the guns and troops which this point of defence demanded. All these requests remained unnoticed, although, according to circumstances, he did not fail to represent the possibility of an invasion, whether by the English or the American insurgents, whether by the French, or the revolutionists, or the Carlists. A similar reception was accorded to his continual solicitations to obtain part: the government took no account whatever of these two ruins—the fort, and its commander. Don Modesto was patient; he finished by submitting to his destiny. When he arrived at Villamar, he lodged with the widow of the sacristan, who, in company with her then young daughter, lived a life of devotion. It was the abode of excellent women, a little meagre, and tainted with excessive intolerance, and scolds; but good, charitable, and of exquisite neatness.

The inhabitants of the village, who had great affection for the commandant, and who, at the same time, knew how irksome his position was, did all they possibly could to render his situation less irksome. They never killed a pig without sending him a supply of lard and pudding. At harvest-times they brought him some wheat, pease, oil, and honey. The women made him presents of the fruits of their orchards; and his happy hostess had always an abundance of provisions, thanks to the generous kindness which inspired the good Modesto, who, of a nature corresponding with his name, far from feeling pride from so many favors, was accustomed to say that Providence was everywhere, but that his headquarters were at Villamar. He knew, in truth, how to show his gratitude for all these bounties by being serviceable to every one, and complaisant in the extreme. He arose with the sun, and his first duty was to assist the cura in the services of the mass. One villager charged him with a commission; another besought him to write to his son, who was a soldier; a mother confided to his care her little children, while she attended out doors to some little household affairs: he watched at the bedsides of the sick, and mingled his prayers with those of his hostesses; indeed, he sought to be useful to everybody in all that was in his power, consistent with decorum or honor. The widow of the sacristan died, leaving her daughter Rosa, now full forty-five years of age, and of an ugliness which you would travel far to see the like of. The mournful consequences of the varioloid did not contribute a little to augment this last misfortune. The evil was concentrated on one of her eyes, and chiefly on the pupil, which she could but half open; and it resulted that the pupil half effaced gave to all her physiognomy an aspect devoid of intelligence and mind, forming a singular contrast with the other eye, from which shot out flames like the fire of a brier-bush at the slightest cause of scandal; and certainly the occasions which presented themselves were frequent enough.

After the funeral, the nine days of mourning passed, the Señorita Rosita said one morning to Don Modesto: “I regret much, señor, the duty of announcing to you that we must separate.”

“We part!” cried the brave man, opening his large eyes, and placing his cup of chocolate on the table-cloth, instead of placing it on the tray. “And why, Rosita?”

Don Modesto was accustomed, during thirty years, to employ this pet name when he spoke to the daughter of his old hostess.

“It seems to me,” she replied, elevating her eyelids, “it seems to me you need not ask me why. You know it is not proper that two honest persons live together under the same roof. It gives rise to scandal.”

“And who could bring scandal against you?” replied Don Modesto; “you, the village model!”

“Are you sure there will not be something? What will you say when you learn that you yourself, despite your great age, your uniform, and your cross, and I, a poor girl who thinks only of serving God, that we afford amusement to these scandal-mongers?”

“What say you?” demanded Don Modesto, saddened.

“What you have just heard. And no one knows us but under nicknames which they apply to us, these cursed!”

“I am stunned, Rosita. I cannot believe—”

“So much the better for you if you do not believe it,” said the devout girl; “but I avow to you that these impious ones,—God pardon them!—when they see us arrive together at the church, at the early morning mass, they say, one to the other: ‘Sound the mass, here come the Mystic Rose and the Tower of David, in armor and in company, as in the litanies.’ They have thus dubbed you, because your figure is so erect, so tall, and so solid.”

Don Modesto remained, his mouth open, and his eyes fixed on the ground.

“Yes, señor,” continued the Mystic Rose; “the neighbor who told me this was scandalized, and advised me to go and complain to the cura. I replied to her it were better that I restrained myself, and suffered. Our Lord suffered more than I, without complaining.”

“Well!” said Modesto; “I will not permit that they mock me, and still less you.”

“The best will be,” continued Rosa, “to prove by our patience that we are good Christians, and by our indifference that we care little for the world’s opinion. Beyond this, if these wicked persons are punished, they will be worse, believe me, Don Modesto.”

“You are, as always, right, Rosita. I know these babblers; if you cut out their tongue, they will speak with their nose. But if, in by-gone days, any of my comrades had dared to call me Tower of David, he would have had to add, ‘Pray for us!’ How is it that you, a saint, have any fear of these slanders?”

“You know, Don Modesto, what say the vulgar, who think evil of all the world: ‘Between saint and saint there should be a strong wall.’ ”

“But between you and I there is no need of a wall. I am old, and never in all my life was I ever, except once, in love; and then it was with a very pretty young girl, whom I would have married, if I had not surprised her in a counter-flirtation with the drum-major, who—”

“Don Modesto!” cried Rosita, choked with this discourse. “Honor your name and your position, and abandon your souvenirs of love.”

“My intention was not to offend you,” replied Don Modesto, in a contrite tone. “Know that well; and I swear to you that I never had, and never will have, an evil thought.”

“Don Modesto,” replied Rosa, with impatience (she looked on him with her eye of fire, while the other eye made vain efforts in the hope of being inflamed in unison), “do you judge me so simple as to think that two persons, like you and I, having both the fear of God, could conduct ourselves like those hair-brained people who have neither shame nor horror of sin? But in the world it is not sufficient to do well. We must even not give cause for scandal, and guard on all sides even against appearances.”

“That is another thing,” replied the commandant. “What appearances can there be between us? Do you not know that they who excuse, accuse themselves?”

“I tell you,” replied the devotee, “there will not be wanting persons to blame us.”

“And what can I do without you?” demanded Don Modesto, afflicted. “Alone in the world, what can you do without me?”

“He who gives food to the little birds,” said Rosita, in a solemn tone, “will take care of those who trust in Him.”

Don Modesto, disconcerted, and knowing not what further to say, went to consult with the cura, who was at the same time his friend and Rosita’s.

The cura persuaded the good girl that her scruples were exaggerated, and her fears without reason; that the projected separation would much more give rise to ridiculous comments.

They continued then to live together, as formerly, in peace, and in the fear of God;—the commandant always good and useful; Rosa always careful, attentive, and disinterested: because, on the one hand, Don Modesto was not the man to take any recompense for his services; and, on the other, if the handle of his gala-sword had not been silver, she could well have forgotten the color of that metal.

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN Stein returned to the convent, all the family were assembled in the court. Momo and Manuel arrived at the same time, each from his direction. The last had been going his rounds of the farm in the exercise of his functions as gamekeeper; he held his gun in one hand, and in the other three partridges and two hares.

The children ran to Momo, who at once emptied his wallet, from which escaped, as from a horn of abundance, a multitude of winter fruits, which, according to Spanish custom, served to celebrate All Saints’ Eve; viz., nuts, chestnuts, and pomegranates.

“If Marisalada brings us the fish,” said the eldest of the little girls, “to-morrow we will have a famous feast.”

“To-morrow,” said Maria, “is All Saints; father Pedro will certainly not go out to fish.”

“Then,” said the little one, “it will be for the next day.”

“They no longer fish on the ‘Dia de los Difuntos.’ ”

“And why?” demanded the child.

“Because it would be to profane a day which the church consecrates to sanctified souls. The proof is, that the fishermen having once cast their lines on such a day, and delighted with the weight they were drawing in, were doomed to find only snakes instead of fish. Is it not true, brother Gabriel?”

“I did not see it, but I am sure of it,” replied the brother.

“And is it for that you make us pray so much on the ‘day of the dead?’ ” asked the little girl.

“For that same,” said the grandma; “it is a holy custom, and God is not willing that we should ever neglect it.”

“Certainly,” added Manuel, “nothing is more just than to pray to the Lord for the dead; and I remember a fellow of the Congregation of Souls who begged for them in these terms, at the door of the chapel: ‘He who places a small piece of money in this place, withdraws a soul from purgatory.’ There came along a wag who, after having deposited his piece: ‘Tell me, brother,’ asked he, ‘do you believe the soul is yet clear of purgatory?’ ‘Do you doubt it?’ replied the brother. ‘In that case,’ replied the other, ‘I take back my piece; I know this soul; she is not such a fool as to go back when she is once out.’ ”

“You may be assured, Don Frederico,” said Maria, “that with every thing, good or bad, my son finds always something appropriate to a story, a witticism, or a bon-mot.”

At this moment Don Modesto entered by the court; he was as stiff and grave as when he was presented to Stein at the end of the village. The only change was, that he carried suspended to his stick a large stock of fish covered over with cabbage leaves.

“The commandant! The commandant!” was the general cry.

“Do you come from your citadel, San Cristobal?” asked Manuel of Don Modesto, after exchanging the preliminary compliments, and an invitation to be seated on the same stone bench where Stein was seated.

“You might join my mother, who is so good a Christian, to pray to the saints to build again the walls of the fort, contrary to that which, by report, Joshua did at the walls of Jericho.”

“I have to ask of the Lord things more important than that,” replied the grandma.

“Certainly,” said brother Gabriel, “Maria has more important things than the reconstruction of the walls of a fort to ask of the Lord. It would be better of her to implore Him to reconstruct the convent.”

Don Modesto, on hearing these words, turned with a severe gesture towards the monk, who, at this moment, went and placed himself behind the old mother, and dissimulated so well, that he disappeared almost entirely to the eyes of the others present.

“After what I see,” continued the old commandant, “brother Gabriel does not belong to the church militant. Do you not remember that the Jews, before building their Temple, had conquered the promised land, sword in hand? Would there have been churches and priests in the Holy Land if the crosses had not conquered it, lance in hand?”

“But,” then said Stein, with the laudable intention to divert from this discussion the commandant, whose bile commenced to be stirred, “why does Maria ask for what is impossible?”

“That signifies little,” replied Manuel; “all old women act the same, except she who asked God to tell her a good number in the drawing of a lottery.”

“Was it sent her?” they asked.

“It had been well kept, if I had gained the prize. He who could do all things, where the miracle?”

“That which is certain,” declared Don Modesto, “is, that I will be very grateful to the Lord, if he will inspire the government with the happy idea of re-establishing the fort of San Cristobal.”

“To rebuild, would you say?” observed Manuel; “take care and repent at once, as it happened to a woman consecrated to the Lord, and who had a daughter so ugly, so stupid, and so awkward, that she could not find even a despairing man to espouse her. The poor woman, much embarrassed, passed all her days on her knees at prayer, asking a husband for her daughter. At last one presented himself: the joy of the mother was extreme, but of short duration. The son-in-law was so bad, he so maltreated his wife and his mother-in-law, that the latter went to the church, and there posted before the saint this inscription:

‘Saint Christopher! with hands and feet,
Whose measure could a giant’s meet!
(And with a head of bony horns),
Is’t thou among the saints I saw?
Thou—Jewish as my son-in-law.’ ”

While the conversation was going on, Morrongo, the house cat, awoke from a long sleep, bent his croup like the back of a camel, uttered a sharp mew, opened out his mustaches, and approached, little by little, towards Don Modesto, just so as to place himself behind the perfumed pocket suspended to the baton. He immediately received on his velvet paws a little stone thrown by Momo, with that singular address which children of his age so well know how to cast. The cat skipped off in a gallop, but lost no time in returning to his post of observation, and made believe to sleep. Don Modesto saw him, and lost his tranquillity of mind.

“You have not said, Señor Commandant, how Marisalada is?”

“Ill, very ill, she grows weaker every day. I am much afflicted to see her poor father, who has had so much to suffer. This morning his daughter had a high fever; her cough did not quit her for an instant.”

“What do you say, Señor Commandant?” cried Maria.

“Don Frederico, you who have made such wonderful cures, you who have extracted a stone from brother Gabriel and restored the sight of Momo, can you not do something for this poor creature?”

“With great pleasure,” replied Stein; “I will do all in my power to relieve her.”

“And God will repay you. To-morrow morning we will go and see her. To-day you are too much fatigued from your walk.”

“I am not jealous of his kind,” said Momo, grumbling. “The proudest girl—”

“That is not so,” exclaimed the old woman; “she is a little wild, a little ferocious; one can see she has been educated alone, and allowed to have her own way by a father more gentle than a dove, although a little rough in manner, like all good sailors. But Momo cannot bear Marisalada, since one day when she called him Romo (flat-nosed), as indeed he is.”

At this moment a noise was heard; it was the commandant pursuing at a quick pace the thief Morrongo, who had deceived the vigilance of his master and ran off with the stock fish.

“My commandant,” cried out Manuel to him, laughing, “the sardine which the cat carries will not come to the dish except late or never, but I have here a partridge in exchange.”

Don Modesto seized the partridge, thanked him, took leave of the company, and went away, inveighing against cats.

During all this scene, Dolores had given the breast to her nursing infant; she tried to hush him to sleep, cradling him in her arms and singing to him:

“There high on Calvary, in their fresh retreats,
Woods of olives, wood of perfume meets;
A nightingale—four larks—whose breath,
Would warble forth a Saviour’s death.”

For those who suppress the circulation of poetry of the people, as the child crushes with its hand the feeblest butterfly, it would be difficult to say why larks and nightingales warble the death of Christ; why the swallow plucked out the thorns of his crown; why the rosemary is an object of veneration, in the belief that the Virgin dried the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus on a bush of this plant? Why, or rather how do they know that the willow is a tree of bad augury, since Judas hung himself on a branch of this tree? Why does no misfortune ever happen in a house if it has been perfumed with rosemary during Christmas eve? Why in the flower which is called the passion-flower are found all the instruments of the passion of Christ? In truth, there are no answers to these questions. The people do not possess them, nor demand them. These beliefs have accumulated like the vague sounds of distant music, without research into their origin, without analyzing their authenticity.

“But, Don Frederico,” said Maria, while Stein was occupied with reflections on the proceedings, “you have not told us how you find our village.”

“I have seen nothing,” replied Stein, “save only the chapel of our Lord of Good-Help.”

“Miraculous chapel, Don Frederico. Hold,” pursued the old woman, after some instants of silence, “the only motive why I am not as much pleased here as in the village is, that I cannot follow out my devotions. Yes, Manuel, thy father, who had not been a soldier, thought like me. My poor husband!—he is in heaven—my poor husband was brother of Rosaire of the dawn; Rosaire who went out after midnight to pray for souls. Fatigued with a long day’s work he slept profoundly; and precisely at midnight a brother rang a bell, came to the door, and chanted:

‘Here is then the faithful bell!
It is not she the warnings tell;
Of thy parents ’tis the voice!
The cross’s foot then make thy choice;
Raise thee, my son, so full of zeal,
And prayerful in the chapel kneel.
On thy knees in the holy place,
For parents supplicate God’s grace.’

When thy father heard this chant, he felt no longer fatigue nor need of sleep. In the twinkling of an eye he got up and followed the other brother. It seems to me I yet hear him singing in the distance:

‘The Virgin raised the Sovereign crown,
And meekly laid the sceptre down;
Presenting them to Christ was seen,
Exclaiming—I no more am Queen.
If not held back thy wrath from o’er the human race,
Then is thy crown divine with too just rigor placed.’

Jesus answered her:

‘My mother!
Without thy grace so pure, and thy sweet hallowed prayer,
The thunderbolt had hurled the sinner to despair.’ ”

The children, who love so much to imitate what they see as at all great or remarkable, undertook to sing in a beautiful tone the couplets of the aurora:

“Hark! how the trumpet’s shrill-blast clarion sounds!
The voice of the Angel through Heaven resounds:
Jerusalem! within thy walls,
An infant’s foot triumphant falls;
What was the people’s homage in that hour?
What grand equipments decked the kingly bower?
The all-powerful whom Heaven had sent,
Rode on an ass which men had lent.”

“Don Frederico,” said Maria, after a moment’s silence, “in the world which God has made, is it true that there have been men without faith?”

Stein was mute.

“Can you not cure the blindness of their intelligence, as you have cured the eyes of Momo?” replied, with sadness, the good old woman, who remained altogether pensive.

CHAPTER VII.

THE following day Maria set off for the house of the invalid, in company with Stein and Momo, foot-equerry to his grandmother, who travelled mounted on the philosophic Golondrina. The animal, always good, gentle, and docile, trotted on the road, the head lowered, ears depressed, without making a single rough movement, except when he encountered a thistle in proximity with his nostrils.

When they were arrived, Stein was astonished to find, in the middle of this arid country, of a nature so dry and so sterile, a village so leafy and so coquettish.

The sea had formed, between two great rocks, a little circular creek, and surrounded by a coast of the finest sand, which appeared like a plateau of crystal placed on a table of gold. Several rocks showed themselves timidly, as if they wished to repose themselves, and be seated on the tranquil shore. At one of them was made fast a fisherman’s bark; balancing herself at the will of the waves, she seemed as impatient as a horse reined in.

On one side of the rocks was elevated the fort of San Cristobal, crowned by the peaks of wild figs, like the head of an old Druid adorned with green oak-leaves.

The fisherman had constructed his cabin with the wrecked remains of his vessel, which the sea had thrown on the coast; he had based all against the rocks, which formed, in some sort, three stories of the habitation. The roof was horizontal, and covered with aquatica, the first layer of which, rotted by the rains, had given growth to a great quantity of herbs and of flowers; so that in the autumn, when the dryness disappeared with the heat of summer, the cabin appeared covered as with a delicious garden.

When the persons just arrived entered the cabin, they found the fisherman sad and cast down, seated near the fire, opposite to his daughter; who, her hair in disorder, and falling down on both sides of her pale face, bent up and shivering, her emaciated limbs enveloped in a rag of brown flannel. She seemed to be not more than thirteen years of age. The invalid turned, with an expression of but little kindliness, her large, black, and sullen eyes upon the persons who entered, and instantly sank down anew in the corner of the chimney.

“Pedro,” said Maria, “you forget your friends, but they do not forget you. Will you tell me why the good God has given you a mouth? Could you not have let me known of the illness of the little girl? If you had let me known of it sooner, I had sooner come with this gentleman, who is such a doctor as is seldom seen, and who in no time will cure your daughter.”

Pedro Santalo rose brusquely, and advanced to Stein; he would speak to him, but he was so overcome with emotion that he could not articulate a single word, and he covered his face with his hands. He was a man already advanced in life, his aspect sufficiently rude, and his form colossal. His countenance, bronzed by the sun, was crowned by a gray head of hair, thick and uncombed; his breast, red as that of an Ohio Indian, was also covered with hair.

“Come, Pedro!” said Maria, from whose eyes the tears began to flow at the sight of the poor father’s despair; “a man like you, big as a church, a man they believe ready to devour infants uncooked, to be discouraged thus without reason! Come! I see here nothing but what appears solid.”

“Good mother Maria,” replied the fisherman, in a feeble voice, “I count, with this one, five children in their tombs.”

“My God! and why thus lose courage? Remember the saint whose name you bear, and who threw himself into the sea when he had lost the faith which sustained him. I tell you that, with the grace of God, Don Frederico will cure the child in as little time as you could call on Jesus.”

Pedro sadly shook his head.

“How obstinate are these Catalans!” said Maria, with a little anger; and passing before the fisherman, she approached the invalid: “Come, Marisalada, come; rise up, daughter, that this gentleman may examine you.”

Marisalada did not stir.

“Come, my daughter,” repeated the good woman; “you will see that he will cure you as by enchantment.” At these words, she took the girl by the arm, and wished to raise her up.

“I have no desire,” said the invalid, rudely disengaging herself from the hand which held her.

“The daughter is as sweet as the father; ‘he who inherits steals not,’ ” murmured Momo, who appeared at the door.

“It is her illness that renders her impatient,” added the father, to exculpate his child.

Marisalada had an access of coughing. The fisherman wrung his hands with grief.

“A fresh cold,” said Maria; “come, come, it is not a very extraordinary thing. But then he will consent to what this child does; the cold she takes, running, with naked feet and legs, on the rocks and on the ice.”

“She would do it,” replied Pedro.

“And why not give her healthy food—good soups, milk, eggs? But no, she eats only fish.”

“She does not wish them,” replied the father, with dejection.

“She dies from negligence,” suggested Momo, who, with arms crossed, was posted against the door-post.

“Will you put your tongue in your pocket!” said his grandma to him. She returned towards Stein:

“Don Frederico, try and examine our invalid, as she will not move, for she will let herself die rather than make a movement.”

Stein commenced by asking of the father some details of the illness of his daughter. He then approached the young girl who was drowsy, he remarked that the lungs were too compressed in their right cavity, and were irritated by the oppression. The case was grave, the invalid was feeble, from want of proper food; the cough was hard and dry, the fever constant; the consumption indeed would not allow it to pause.

“Has she always had a taste for singing?” demanded the old woman during the examination.

“She would sing crucified, like the bald mice,” said Momo, turning away his head, that the wind would carry his hard speech, and that his grandma could not hear him.

“The first thing to do,” said Stein, “is to forbid this girl to expose herself to the rigors of the season.”

“Do you hear, my child?” said the father with anxiety.

“She must,” continued Stein, “wear shoes and dress warm.”

“If she will not?” cried the fisherman, rising suddenly, and opening a box of cedar, from whence he took numerous objects of toilet.

“Nothing is wanting: all that I have and all that I can amass are hers. Maria! my daughter! you will put on this clothing! Do this for the love of heaven!—Mariquita, you see it is what the doctor orders.”

Marisalada, who was aroused by the noise made by her father, cast an irritated look on Stein, and said to him in a sharp voice:

“Who governs me?”

“And say that they do not give this government to me, by means of a good branch of wild olive!” murmured Momo.

“She must have,” continued Stein, “good nourishment, and substantial soups.”

Maria made an expressive gesture of approbation at the same time.

“She should be nourished with milk diet, and chickens, and fresh eggs.”

“Did I not tell you so!” interrupted the old woman, exchanging a look with Pedro: “Don Frederico is the best doctor in the world.”

“Take care that she does not sing,” remarked Stein.

“Am I never to listen to her again?” cried poor Pedro with grief.

“See, then, what a misfortune!” replied Maria. “Let her be cured, and then she can sing night and day, like the ticking of a watch. But I think it will be best to have her taken to me, for there is no one to nurse her, nor any one who knows like me how to make good soup for her.”

“I can prove that,” said Stein, smiling, “and I assure you one might set before a king a soup prepared by my good nurse.”

Maria never felt more happy.

“Thus, Pedro, it is useless talking of it; I will take her home.”

“Remain without her! no, no, it is impossible.”

“Pedro, Pedro, it is not thus we should love our children,” replied Maria. “To love them is to do above all that which will benefit them.”

“So let it be!” replied the fisherman, rising with resolution; “I place her in your hands, I confide her to this doctor’s care, and commend her to the divine goodness.”

With difficulty could he pronounce these last words, which flowed rapidly, as if he feared to recall his determination; and he went to harness his ass.

“Don Frederico,” asked Maria, when they were alone with the invalid, who remained drowsy, “is it not true, that, with God’s help, we will cure her?”

“I hope so,” replied Stein; “I cannot tell you how much this poor father interests me.”

Maria made a package of the linen which the fisherman had taken out of the box, and Pedro came back leading the ass by the bridle. They placed the invalid on the saddle: the young girl, enfeebled by the fever, opposed no resistance. Before Maria had mounted Golondrina, who appeared quite content to return in company with Urca (name given to a great sea-fish, and which was that of Pedro’s ass), the fisherman took Maria aside, and said to her, in trying to slip some pieces of gold in her hand:

“This is all I could save from my shipwreck, take it, and give it to the doctor, for all I have is for him who can give me back my daughter.”

“Keep your gold,” replied Maria, “and know, in the first place, it is God who has conducted the doctor hither; in the second place—it is I.”

Maria pronounced these last words with a light tinge of vanity.

They commenced their journey.

“Do not stop, grandma,” said Momo, who walked behind; “however large may be the convent, it must be filled with people. Eh! what? the cabin was not good enough for the Princess Gaviota?”

“Momo,” replied the grandma, “mind your own affairs.”

“But what do you see in her? And what touches you in this wild Gaviota, to take her thus under your care?”

“Momo, a proverb says, ‘Who is thy sister? thy nearest neighbor;’ another adds, ‘Wipe the nose of thy neighbor’s child, and take her to thee.’ And here is the moral: ‘Treat thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”

“There is yet another proverb,” added Momo, “which says, ‘He is mad who occupies himself about others.’ But it is of no use. You were obstinate about raising the palm to San Juan de Dios.”

“You will not be the angel to aid me,” said Maria with sadness.

Dolores received the invalid with open arms, as approving the resolution of her mother-in-law.

Pedro Santalo, who had accompanied his daughter, called the charitable nurse before he returned, and, putting the pieces of gold in her hand, said—

“This is to defray the expenses, and that she may want for nothing. As to your care, God will recompense you.”

The good old woman hesitated an instant, took the gold, and said—

“It is well, she shall want for nothing. Depart without uneasiness, Pedro, your daughter is in good hands.”

The poor father went away hurriedly, and did not stop till he reached the coast. Then he returned to the side of the convent, and wept with bitterness.

Maria said to Momo: “Bestir yourself. Go to the village, and bring me a ham from Serrano’s, who will please send me a good one, when he knows it is for a poor sick girl. Bring me at the same time a pound of sugar and a quart of almonds.”

“Just so, always sent about! Throw away every thing you possess,” cried Momo. “Think you they will give me all this on credit, and for my handsome face?”

“Here is to pay for them,” replied the grandma, and she placed in his hand a piece of gold of four duros (about 4 dollars).

“Gold!” cried Momo, stupefied: for the first time in his life he saw this metal in the form of money. “From what demons have you snatched this?”

“What is it to you?” replied Maria; “don’t worry yourself.”

“It needs no more than this,” replied Momo, “that I serve as domestic to this magpie, this accursed Gaviota! I will not go.”

“Go, boy, at once, and nimbly too.”

“Ha! Well—no, I will not go; I will not annoy myself,” repeated Momo.

“José,” said Maria, on seeing the shepherd go out, “do you go to the village?”

“Yes, Señora; what orders have you for me?”

The good woman gave him the commission, and added—

“This Momo has a bad heart, and will not go. And I have not the strength to complain to his father, who would make him march quickly, and caress him in a manner to break his bones.”

“Yes, yes, do every thing to take care of this crow who will tear out your eyes,” said Momo. “You will receive payment in the trouble she will give you; if it is not so now, it will be in time.”

CHAPTER VIII.

A MONTH after the scenes we have described, Marisalada was more sensible, and did not show the least desire to return to her father’s. Stein was completely re-established; his good-natured character, his modest inclinations, his natural sympathies, attached him every day more to the peaceful habits of the simple and generous persons among whom he dwelt. He felt relieved from his former discouragements, and his mind was invigorated; he was cordially resigned to his present existence, and to the men with whom he associated.

One afternoon, Stein, leaning against an angle of the convent which faced the sea, admired the grand spectacle which the opening of the winter season presented to his view. Above his head floated a triple bed of sombre clouds, forced along by the impetuous wind. Those lower down, black and heavy, seemed like the cupola of an ancient cathedral in ruins, threatening at each instant to sink down. When reduced to water, they fell to the ground. There was visible the second bed, less sombre and lighter, defying the wind which chased them, and separating at intervals sought other clouds, more coquettish and more vaporous, which they hurried into space, as if they feared to soil their white robes by coming in contact with their companions.

“Are you a sponge, Don Frederico, so to like to receive all the water which falls from heaven?” demanded José, the shepherd, of Stein. “Let us enter, the roofs are made expressly for such nights as these. My sheep would give much to shelter themselves under some tiles.”

Stein and the shepherd entered, and found the family assembled around the hearth.

At the left of the chimney, Dolores, seated on a low chair, held her infant, who, turning his back to his mother, supported himself on the arm which encircled him, like the balustrade of a balcony; he moved about incessantly his little legs and his small bare arms, laughing, and uttering joyous cries addressed to his brother Anis. This brother, gravely seated opposite the fire, on the edge of an empty earthen pan, remained stiff and motionless, fearing that, losing his equilibrium, he would be tossed into the said earthen pan, an accident which his mother had predicted.

Maria was sewing at the right side of the chimney; her grand-daughters had for seats dry aloe-leaves, excellent seats, light, solid, and sure. Nearly under the drapery of the chimney-piece slept the hairy Palomo, and a cat, the grave Morrongo, tolerated from necessity, but remaining, by common consent, at a respectful distance from each other.

In the middle of this group there was a little low table, on which burned a lamp of four jets; close to the table the brother Gabriel was seated, making baskets of the palm-tree; Momo was engaged in repairing the harness of the good “Swallow” (the ass); and Manuel, cutting up tobacco. On the fire was conspicuous a stew-pan full of Malaga potatoes, white wine, honey, cinnamon, and cloves. The humble family waited with impatience till the perfumed stew should be sufficiently cooked.

“Come on! Come on!” cried Maria, when she saw her guest and the shepherd enter. “What are you doing outside in weather like this? ’Tis said a hurricane has come to destroy the world. Don Frederico, here, here! come near the fire. Do you know that the invalid has supped like a princess, and that at present she sleeps like a queen! Her cure progresses well—is it not so, Don Frederico?”

“Her recovery surpasses my hopes.”

“My soups!” added Maria with pride.

“And the ass’s milk,” said brother Gabriel quietly.

“There is no doubt,” replied Stein, “and she ought to continue to take it.”

“I oppose it not,” said Maria, “because ass’s milk is like the turnip—if it does no good it does no harm.”

“Ah! how pleasant it is here!” said Stein, caressing the children. “If one could only live in the enjoyment of the present, without thought of the future!”

“Yes, yes, Don Frederico,” joyfully cried Manuel, “ ‘Media vida es la candela; pan y vino, la otra media.’ ” (Half of life is the candle; bread and wine are the other half)

“And what necessity have you to dream of the future?” asked Maria. “Will the morrow make us the more love to-day? Let us occupy ourselves with to-day, so as not to render painful the day to come.”

“Man is a traveller,” replied Stein, “he must follow his route.”

“Certainly,” replied Maria, “man is a traveller; but if he arrives in a quarter where he finds himself well off, he would say, ‘We are well here, put up our tents.’ ”

“If you wish us to lose our evening by talking of travelling,” said Dolores, “we will believe that we have offended you, or that you are not pleased here.”

“Who speaks of travelling in the middle of December?” demanded Manuel. “Goodness of heaven! Do you not see what disasters there are every day on the sea? hear the singing of the wind! Will you embark in this weather, as you were embarked in the war of Navarre, for, as then, you would come out mortified and ruined.”

“Besides,” added Maria, “the invalid is not yet entirely cured.”

“Ah! there,” said Dolores, besieged by the children, “if you will not call off these creatures, the potatoes will not be cooked until the last judgment.”

The grandmother rolled the spinning-wheel to the corner, and called the little infants to her.

“We will not go,” they replied with one voice, “if you will not tell us a story.”

“Come, I will tell you one,” said the good old woman.

The children approached. Anis took up his position on the empty earthen pot; and the grandma commenced a story to amuse the little children.

She had hardly finished the relation of this story, when a great noise was heard.

The dog rose up, pointed his ears, and put himself on the defensive. The cat bristled her hair, and prepared to fly. But the succeeding laugh very soon was frightful: it was Anis, who fell asleep during the recital of his grandmother. It happened that the prophecy of his mother was fulfilled as to his falling into the earthen pan, where all his little person disappeared, except his legs which stuck out like plants of a new species. His mother, rendered impatient, seized with one hand the collar of his vest, raised him out of this depth, and, despite his resistance, held him suspended in the air for some time—in the style represented in those card dancing-jacks, which move arms and legs when you pull the thread which holds them.

As his mother scolded him, and everybody laughed at him, Anis, who had a brave spirit, a thing natural in an infant, burst out into a groan which had nothing of timidity in it.

“Don’t weep, Anis,” said Paca, “and I will give you two chestnuts that I have in my pocket.”

“True?” demanded Anis.

Paca took out the two chestnuts, and gave them to him. Instead of tears, they saw promptly shine with joy the two rows of white teeth of the young boy.

“Brother Gabriel,” said Maria, “did you not speak to me of a pain in your eyes? Why do you work this evening?”

“I said truly,” answered brother Gabriel; “but Don Frederico gave me a remedy which cured me.”

“Don Frederico must know many remedies, but he does not know that one which never misses its effect,” said the shepherd.

“If you know it, have the extreme kindness to inform me of it,” replied Stein.

“I am unable to tell you,” replied the shepherd. “I know that it exists, and that is all.”

“Who knows it then?” demanded Stein.

“The swallows,” said José.

“The swallows?”

“Yes, sir. It is an herb which is called pito-real, which nobody sees or knows except the swallows: when their little ones lose their sight they rub their eyes with the pito-real, and cure them. This herb has also the virtue to cut iron—every thing it touches.”

“What absurdities this José swallows without chewing, like a real shark!” interrupted Manuel laughing. “Don Frederico, do you comprehend what he said and believes as an article of faith? He believes and says that snakes never die.”

“No, they never die,” replied the shepherd. “When they see death coming they escape from their skin, and run away. With age they become serpents; little by little they are covered with scales and wings: they become dragons, and return to the desert. But you, Manuel, you do not wish to believe any thing. Do you deny also that the lizard is the enemy of the woman, and the friend of man? If you do not believe it, ask then of Miguel.”

“He knows it?”

“Without doubt, by experience.”

“Whence did he learn it?” demanded Stein.

“He was sleeping in the field,” replied José. “A snake glided near him. A lizard, which was in the furrow, saw it coming, and presented himself to defend Miguel. The lizard, which was of large form, fought with the snake. But Miguel not awaking, the lizard pressed his tail against the nose of the sleeper, and ran off as if his paws were on fire. The lizard is a good little beast, who has good desires; he never sleeps in the sun without descending the wall to kiss the earth.”

When the conversation commenced on the subject of swallows, Paca said to Anis, who was seated among his sisters, with his legs crossed like a Grand Turk in miniature, “Anis, do you know what the swallows say?”

“I? No. They have never spoken to me.”

“Attend then: they say (the little girl imitated the chirping of swallows, and began to sing with volubility),

‘To eat and to drink!
And to loan when you may;
But ’tis madness to think
This loan to repay.
Flee, flee, pretty swallow, the season demands,
Fly swift on the wing, and reach other lands.’ ”

“Is it for that they are sold?”

“For that,” affirmed his sister.

During this time, Dolores, carrying her infant in one hand, with the other spread the table, served the potatoes, and distributed to each one his part. The children ate from her plate, and Stein remarked that she did not even touch the dish she had prepared with so much care.

“You do not eat, Dolores?” he said to her.

“Do you not know the saying,” she replied laughing, “ ‘He who has children at his side will never die of indigestion,’ Don Frederico? What they eat nourishes me.”

Momo, who found himself beside this group, drew away his plate, so that his brothers would not have the temptation to ask him for its contents. His father, who remarked it, said to him—

“Don’t be avaricious; it is a shameful vice: be not avaricious; avarice is an abject vice. Know that one day an avaricious man fell into the river. A peasant who saw it, ran to pull him out; he stretched out his arm, and cried to him, ‘Give me your hand!’ What had he to give? A miser—give! Before giving him any thing he allowed himself to be swept down by the current. By chance he floated near to a fisherman; ‘Take my hand!’ he said to him. As it was a question of taking, our man was willing, and he escaped danger.”

“It is not such wit you should relate to your son, Manuel,” said Maria. “You ought to set before him, for example, the bad rich man, who would give to the unfortunate neither a morsel of bread, nor a glass of water. ‘God grant,’ answered the beggar to him, ‘that all that you touch changes to this silver which you so hold to.’ The wish of the beggar was realized. All that the miser had in his house was changed into metals as hard as his heart. Tormented by hunger and thirst, he went into the country, and having perceived a fountain of pure water, clear as crystal, he approached with longing to taste it; but the moment his lips touched it, the water was turned to silver. He would take an orange, and the orange was changed to gold. He thus died in a frenzy of rage and fury, cursing what he had desired.”

Manuel, the strongest-minded man in the assembly, bowed down his head.

“Manuel,” his mother said to him, “you imagine that we ought not to believe but what is a fundamental article, and that credulity is common only to the imbecile. You are mistaken: men of good sense are credulous.”

“But, my mother, between belief and doubt there is a medium.”

“And why,” replied the good old woman, “laugh at faith, which is the first of all virtues? How will it appear to you, if I say to you: ‘I have given birth to you, I have educated you, I have guided your earliest steps—I have fulfilled my obligations!’ Is the love of a mother nothing but an obligation! What say you?”

“I would reply that you are not a good mother.”

“Well, my son, apply that to what we were speaking of: he who does not believe except from obligation, and only for that, cannot cease to believe without being a renegade, a bad Christian; as I would be a bad mother, if I loved you only from obligation.”

“Brother Gabriel,” interrupted Dolores, “why will you not taste my potatoes?”

“It is a fast day,” replied brother Gabriel.

“Nonsense! There is no longer convent, nor rules, nor fasts,” cavalierly said Manuel, to induce the poor old man to participate in the general repast. “Besides, you have accomplished sixty years: put away these scruples, and you will not be damned for having eaten our potatoes.”

“Pardon me,” replied brother Gabriel, “but I ought to fast as formerly, inasmuch as the Father Prior has not given me a dispensation.”

“Well done, brother Gabriel!” added Maria; “Manuel shall not be the demon tempter with his rebellious spirit, to incite you to gormandize.”

Upon this, the good old woman rose up, and locked up in a closet the plate which Dolores had served to the monk—

“I will keep it here for you until to-morrow morning, brother Gabriel.”

Supper finished, the men, whose habit was always to keep their hats on in the house, uncovered, and Maria said grace.

CHAPTER IX.

MARISALADA was already convalescent, as if nature had desired to recompense the excellent treatment of Stein, and the charitable care of the good Maria. She was decently dressed; and her hair, well combed and gathered behind her neck, bore evidence of the attention which Dolores had shown in putting her coiffure in order.

One day when Stein was reading in his chamber, whose window overlooked the grand court where the children amused themselves in company with Marisalada, he heard her imitate the songs of various birds with such rare perfection, that he closed his book to admire this really extraordinary talent.

Soon after commenced one of those recitations so common in Spain, and which consist of playing and singing at the same time. Marisalada took the part of the mother; Pepe that of a young cavalier who came to demand of her the hand of her daughter; the mother refused him; the young man would take possession of her by force of his love; and all this dialogue, composed of couplets, was sung with exquisite melody.

The book fell from the hands of Stein, who, like all good Germans, passionately loved music.

Never had so beautiful a voice struck his ear. It was a metal pure and ringing like crystal, smooth and flexible as silk. Stein hardly dared to breathe, so much did he fear to lose a single note.

“You are there, all ears,” said Maria, who entered the chamber unknown to Stein. “Have I not warned you that she is a canary set free?”

And upon this she descended to the court and asked Marisalada to sing her a song.

She refused, with her accustomed tartness.

At this moment Momo entered, singularly dressed and driving before him the ass laden with charcoal. He had his hands and face bedaubed and black as ink.

“El Rey Melchor! El Rey Melchor!” cried Marisalada on seeing him. “El Rey Melchor! El Rey Melchor!” repeated the children.

“If I had nothing else to do,” replied Momo furiously, “but to sing like you, great mountebank, I would not be daubed from head to foot. Fortunately, Don Frederico has forbidden you to sing, and you will not stun my ears.”

Marisalada, as a response, struck out in a song in her loudest tones. The Andalusian people have at their command an infinite quantity of songs. There are the boleros, now joyous, now sad; the ole, the fandango, the cano, so pretty and so difficult to execute; and many others, among which is distinguished the romance. The tone of the romance is monotonous, and we dare not affirm that this song, receiving the honors of written notation, could satisfy the dilettante and the melodrama. But its charm, or, if you will, its enchanting grace, consists in the modulations of the voice in singing, as it were to cast out certain notes, to blend them, to balance them, so to say, very softly, in raising or lowering the tone, in swelling it or allowing it to die. It is thus that the romance, composed of a number of notes strongly bound, presents the great difficulties of expression, and the purity of execution.

The song belongs so essentially to the peasantry, that the common class of the people alone, and very few among them, attain perfection. Those who sing well appear to sing by intuition. When towards evening, in the country, one hears at a distance a fine voice singing the romance with a melancholy full of originality, he feels an extraordinary emotion, which can only be compared to that produced in Germany by the sounds of the postilion’s cornet, so deliciously repeated by the echoes in the magnificent forests, and on the splendid lakes. The words of the romance refer generally to some history of the Moors, or recount either pious legends or the sad exploits of brigands. That ancient and celebrated romance which we have received from our fathers like a melodious tradition, has been more lasting as to some of its notes than all the grandeur of Spain achieved by her cannon, and sustained by the mines of Peru. There are still many other popular songs, very pretty, very expressive, of which the music is specially adapted to words. Witness that which was sung by Marisalada, and which we transcribe here in all its simplicity.

“A cursed cavalier
Loved a noble dame;
Who to his love gave ear,
Echoing his flame.

“Her manor, happy once,
Silent entered he;
And in her lord’s absence,
Found security.

“And now the wrapt embrace
Seemed from danger free;
When knelled the master’s voice,
‘Open quick to me.’

“He gayly cried, ‘Sweet dove!
Let me thee embrace;
Fever is it, or love,
Palors now thy face?’

“ ‘Scold me thou would’st again,
Fear then pales me thus;
The key? Let me explain?
Thy treasure key is lost.’

“ ‘Gold is preferred to steel,
Then still be calm, my dear;
But say why, if you will,
Is this proud courser here?’

“ ‘Yours is yon race horse, lord,
Presented by papa;
Who asks, with knightly word,
Your presence shortly there.’

“ ‘Your father is most kind,
Such noble gift to make;
This pistol, too, I find!
Is there not some mistake?’

“ ‘’Tis yours, please comprehend,
From him: he bade me say,
He hopes you will attend
My sister’s wedding day.’

“ ‘Contemptuous of law,
Thus in my wedded bed;
Who is the wretch to dare,
My fatal ire to goad?’

“ ‘My youngest sister ’tis,
Whom father to me sent;
To share with me my bliss,
And see how sweet life went.’

“But suddenly the truth,
Flashed on the husband’s mind;
‘Father! take back thy Ruth,
I but a traitress find!

“ ‘No longer is she mine,
Betwixt us is a gulf;
But vain ’tis to repine,
Be man! avenge thyself.’

“The wife paid for her wrong,
At the sharp poignard’s point;
And the false knight was hung,
The only death he’d grant.”

Marisalada had scarcely finished singing this ballad, when Stein, who had an excellent ear for music, took his flute and repeated, note by note, the song he had just heard. At this the young girl nearly fainted with astonishment; she looked around on all sides to discover whence came this echo so pure and faithful.

“It was not an echo,” cried the little girls, “it was Don Frederico, who whistled in a reed pierced with holes.”

Marisalada then quietly entered the chamber of Stein, and began to listen with the greatest attention, her body bent forward, a smile on her lips, and her soul in her eyes.

Within this instant the rude ferocity of the fisherman’s daughter was changed, and her regard for Stein induced a certain confidence and docility which caused the greatest surprise to all the family.

Maria advised Stein to profit by the ascendency he obtained day by day over the mind of Marisalada, to engage her to be instructed and employ her time in learning the law of God, and to try and become a good Christian; a woman of sense and reason; a good manager.

The grandmother added, that to obtain the end proposed, to bend the entire character of Marisalada, and to make her abandon her bad habits, the best thing would be to pray the Señora Rosita, the mistress of the school, to be so good as to take charge of her, because she was a very honest woman, fearing God, and very expert in all her handy-work.

Stein much approved of this idea, and obtained the consent of Marisalada. He promised, in return, to go and see her every day, and play airs on the flute to divert her.

The disposition of the young girl awakened in her an extraordinary taste for the study of music, and the first impulse was given her by the ability of Stein.

When Momo found that Marisalada had put herself under the tuition of Rosa Mistica, to learn there to sew, to sweep, to cook, and above all, as he said, to have judgment; when he knew that it was the doctor who had decided this, he declared he believed what Don Frederico had recounted respecting his country, where there were certain men whom all the mice followed when they heard a whistle.

Since the death of her mother, Señorita Rosa had established a school for little girls. School is the name which they give in villages; but the school in cities bears a more pompous title, and it is called an academy. The little village children attend school from the morning until midday; all the information is composed of Christian doctrine and of sewing. In cities they learn to read, to write, to embroider, and to sketch. It is true that these schools cannot create the wells of science, nor become the nurseries of artists, or produce models of an education equal to that of a mujer emancipada; but in return they produce ordinarily good workers and excellent mothers of families, which is still better.

The invalid perfectly cured. Stein urged upon her father that he would confide his daughter for some time, to the honest woman who would replace the mother she had been deprived of, and who would instruct her in the duties of her sex.

When it was proposed to the Señorita Rosa to admit to her house the indomitable daughter of the fisherman, her first reply was decidedly negative, as she was accustomed to make, in such circumstances, to persons of her character.

Notwithstanding, she finished by consenting, when she was made to understand the good effects expected to result from this work of charity. It is impossible to recount all that the unfortunate schoolmistress suffered during the time she had Marisalada in charge. On one side were mockeries and rebellion; on the other, sermons without profit, and exhortations without result. Two causes exhausted the patience of Rosa; with her patience was not an inborn virtue, but laboriously acquired.

Marisalada had succeeded in organizing a kind of conspiracy in the little battalion commanded by Rosa. This conspiracy burst forth one fine morning, timid and undecided at first, then audacious and walking with a lofty head. Thus was the event:

“The rose mallow does not please me,” suddenly said Marisalada.

“Silence!” cried the mistress, whose severe discipline forbade conversation during school-hours.

Silence was re-established.

Five minutes after a voice, sharp and insolent, was heard:

“The moon-roses do not please me.”

“No one asked your opinion,” said the Señorita Rosa, believing that this declaration had been provoked by Marisalada.

Five minutes after, another conspirator said, on picking up her thimble which had fallen—

“I do not like white roses.”

“What does it signify?” cried Rosa, whose black eye shone like a beacon. “You mock me!”

“Moss roses do not please me,” said one of the smallest girls, hastily hiding under the table.

“Nor the passion roses, me.”

“Nor the roses of Jericho, me.”

“Nor the yellow roses, me.”

The strong and clear voice of Marisalada drowned all other voices—

“I cannot bear dry roses,” cried she.

“I cannot bear dry roses,” repeated all the scholars in chorus.

Rosa Mistica, who at the commencement was only astonished, rose up on seeing so much insolence, ran to the kitchen, and returned armed with a broom.

At sight of this all the conspirators fled like a flock of birds. Rosa remained alone, let fall her broom and crossed her arms.

“Patience, Lord!” she exclaimed, after having done every thing possible to subdue her emotion. “I will support a sobriquet with resignation, as thou, Lord, supported thy cross; but I yet lack that crown of thorns. Thy will be done!”

Perhaps she might have decided to pardon Marisalada this escapade, but the adventure which soon after followed obliged her to send her away.

The son of the barber, Ramon Perez, a great amateur of the guitar, came every night to touch the chords of his guitar and sing amorous couplets under the strongly fastened windows of the devotee.

“Don Modesto,” said she to him one day, “when you hear this bird of night, Ramon, whose voice wounds your hearing, do me the kindness to go out and order him to carry his music elsewhere.”

“But, Rosita,” replied Don Modesto, “would you that I get on bad terms with this eccentric fellow, when his father (may God repay him!) has shaved me for nothing since my arrival in Villamar? And, see how it is. I like to listen to it, because none can deny that he draws from his voice and instrument modulations of excellent taste.”

“I congratulate you,” said Rosa. “It is possible that your ears are proof against a bomb-shell. If it pleases you, it is not convenient to me that he comes and sings under the windows of an honest woman. It produces neither honor nor profit.”

The physiognomy of Don Modesto expressed a mute answer divided into three parts. In the first place—astonishment, which seemed to say, What! Ramon make love to my hostess! In the second place—doubt; as if he had said, Is it possible? Lastly—the certainty embodied in these phrases: The thing is sure; Ramon is audacious.

After this reflection, Rosa continued:

“You might cool yourself in passing from the heat of your bed to the fresh sea air; you had better remain quiet, and it is I who will say to this magpie, Do you wish to divert yourself? then buy yourself a doll.”

Precisely at midnight was heard the sounds of a guitar, and a voice which sang—

“The black of thy black hair I love,
Believe me, much more fully,
Than ivory whiteness e’er can prove,
Or the majestic lily.”

“What folly!” cried Rosa Mistica, springing out of her bed. “See how he continues this annoyance which he sings so profitlessly.”

The voice continued:

“To thy prayers, to the church so superb,
All resplendent thou seemest in vain;
Tread thou gracefully then the light herb,
For the herb will be green soon again.”

“God assist us!” murmured Rosa, in putting on her third petticoat: “he mixes up the Church with his profane couplets, and those who hear him will say that he sings thus to insult me. This beardless barber! does he believe he can mock me? It required only that.”

Rosa entered into the saloon, and caught a view of Marisalada, who, leaning against the shutter, listened to the singer with all the attention she was capable of. Then she made the sign of the cross, exclaiming—

“And she is not yet thirteen years old! There are no more children.”

Taking her scholar by the arm, she drew her away from the window, and placed herself there at the moment when Ramon powerfully touched his guitar, and strained his throat to entone the following couplet:

“My loved one to the window came,
Now all around here is obscure;
But thy bright eyes will soon illume,
For love will be the Cynosure.”[3]

Then the music of the guitar continued the air with more vehemence and ardor than ever.

“It is I who will lighten thee with a torch of hell!” cried Rosa Mistica, in a sharp and angry voice. “Libertine! Profaner! Everlasting and insupportable singer!”

Ramon Perez, recovered from his first surprise, set off to run lighter than a buck, and without casting a single look behind.

This was the decisive coup. Marisalada was sent back to her room, in spite of the timid efforts at reconciliation tendered in her favor by Don Modesto.

“Señor,” replied Rosita to her guest, “charges are charges, and while this shameless girl is under my responsibility, I must render account of her actions to God and to men; each one has enough of his own sins, without charging himself or herself, in addition, with those of others. You view it otherwise, she is a creature who will never follow the good path. When she is pointed to the right, she turns always to the left.”

CHAPTER X.

STEIN had inhabited his peaceful retreat during three years. He had adopted the customs of the country in which he had found himself; he lived, day after day, or, in other terms, according to the counsels of his good hostess Maria, who said that the morrow should not so disquiet us as to lose the present day, and that we should occupy us with but one thing, viz., that to-day should not make us lose to-morrow.

During those three years, the young doctor had been in correspondence with his family. His parents had died while he was with the army of Navarre; his sister Charlotte was married to a farmer in easy circumstances, who had made of his wife’s two brothers cultivators—not much instructed, but handy and assiduous at their work. Stein, therefore, believed himself free and sole arbiter of his fate.

He devoted himself to the education of the young invalid, who owed her life to him, and although he cultivated a soil ungrateful and sterile, he succeeded, by patience, to ingraft on her mind the elements of a preliminary education. But what surpassed his expectations was the development of the musical faculties, really extraordinary, with which nature had endowed the fisherman’s daughter. Her voice was incomparable, and Stein, who was a good musician, could easily and surely direct her, as one trains the branches of the vine, which are at once flexible and vigorous, strong and elastic.

But the master had a heart soft and tender, and a craving for confidence which turned to blindness. He was devoted to his scholar, stimulated by the exalted love of the fisherman for his daughter, and by the admiration of the good Maria for Marisalada. Stein and his scholar possessed a certain powerful communicative sympathy, which could exercise its influence upon a soul frank and open, candid and good-humored as that of the young German. He then persuaded Pedro Santalo that his daughter was an angel, and Maria, that she was a prodigy. Stein was one of those men who could assist at a masked ball without convincing himself that under these absurd masks, under these caricatures of painted cardboard, there were other physiognomies and other faces—the work of nature, in one word. And if impassioned affection blinded Santalo, if extreme goodness of soul blinded Maria, both succeeded in putting a bandage over the eyes of the good doctor.

But that which bewitched, above all, our hero, was the pure, sweet, expressive, and eloquent voice of his scholar.

“It must be,” he said to himself, “that she who expresses in a manner so admirable, sentiments the most sublime, must be gifted with a soul full of elevation and tenderness.”

Like as the grain of corn, in the fruitful soil, germinates and takes root before the stem sprouts above the ground, so this love, so calm and true, took root in the heart of Stein: love which he felt without having yet defined it.

Marisalada, on her part, was equally attached to Stein, not because she was grateful to him for his attentions, but that she appreciated his excellent qualities, and because she comprehended his great superiority of soul and intelligence: nor yet even because she obeyed an attractive charm which imparted love to the person who inspired it; but because that the musician, the master who had initiated her in the art, felt, himself, all these sentiments of gratitude and admiration. The isolation in which she lived tended to put far away any other object that could excite her preference.

Don Modesto was not of an age to figure in this tournament of love. Momo was not only disqualified by his extreme ugliness, but he preserved all his hatred for Marisalada, never ceasing to call her Gaviota, and she had for him the greatest contempt. Certainly gallants were not wanting in the village; to commence with the barber, who was obstinate in his sighs after Marisalada; but no one would oppose Stein.

This tranquil state of things had continued three springs and three winters, which had glided by like three days and three nights, when that came to pass which we will now relate.

An intrigue (who could have predicted it?) dawned on the peaceful village of Villamar.

The promoter and the chief (who would have thought it?) was the good Maria. The confidant (who will not be astonished?) was Don Modesto!

Although it was an indiscretion, or, the better to express it, a baseness to watch, listening to the conspirators hidden behind that orange-tree, whose trunk is still solid, while the flowers are withering and the leaves falling—image of the resignation which rests in the heart when joy is fled, when hopes are vanished; listening to a conversation, which, in reconcilable secrecy, held the two accomplices, while brother Gabriel, who is a thousand miles off and all near to the speakers, was busy in binding up the lettuces to make them white and tender.

“It is not an idea that I have, Don Modesto,” said the instigatress, “it is a reality. Not to see it, is to have no eyes. Don Frederico loves Marisalada, who regards the doctor no more than a bundle of straw.”

“Good Maria, who thinks of love?” replied Don Modesto, who, all his life, calm and tranquil, had not seemed to realize the eternal, classic, and invariable axiom of the inseparable alliance of Mars and Cupid. “Who thinks of love?” repeated Don Modesto, in the same tone as if he had said—

“Who thinks of shearing a tambourine?”

“The young people, Don Modesto, the young people; and if it were not so, the world would come to an end. But the case is thus: we must give a spur to these young folks; they get on too slowly. For two years our man has loved his nightingale, as he calls her; that is evident in his looks, and as for me, I see it clearly. You who are a considerable personage, and whom Don Frederico loves so much, you ought to brisk up a little this affair, giving him good advice for their good and ours.”

“Dispense with me, Maria,” replied Don Modesto. “Ramon Perez is an obstacle; we are friends, and I would not counteract his projects. He shaves me for my good appearances, and to thwart his interests, Maria, would be, on my part, a bad action. He sees with much pain that Marisalada does not love him, and he has become so thin and yellow that he is frightful. The other day he said that if he cannot marry Marisalada he will break his guitar, and that, no longer able to become a monk, he will become a rebel. You see, good Maria, that in every way I will compromise myself if I mix in this affair.”

“Señor,” said Maria, “do you take for cash in hand what lovers sing? Ramon Perez, the poor little thing! is not capable of killing a sparrow, and you believe he will attack Christians? But take this into consideration: if Don Frederico marries he will remain with us always. What a happy chance will it not be for everybody? I assure you that when he talks of leaving us I feel all over goose-flesh. And the young girl, what a magnificent position for her! For you must know that Don Frederico gains a great deal of money. When he attended the son of the alcalde, Don Perfecto, he gave him a hundred reals, which shone like a hundred stars. What a beautiful couple they will make, my commandant!”

“I do not say nay, Maria,” replied Don Modesto; “but do not force me to play a part in this affair, and leave me to preserve a strict neutrality. I have not two faces, I have only that one over which the barber passes his razor—it is my only one.”

At this moment Marisalada entered the garden. She was certainly no longer the young girl we had known, dishevelled and badly clothed. She came every morning to the convent, coiffured with great care, and neatly dressed. Neither affection for those who inhabited it, nor the gratitude she owed, attracted her to this place. It was but the desire to hear music, and to receive her lessons from Stein. Beyond this, ennui drove her from her cabin, where she had for society only her father who did not much divert her.

“And Don Frederico?” she said on entering.

“He has not yet returned from visiting his patients,” answered Maria. “To-day he has a dozen children to vaccinate. What an extraordinary thing, Don Modesto! He draws the pus, as you call it, from the teat of a cow: the cows have a counter-poison to oppose the small-pox! and it must be so, since Don Frederico has said it.”

“Nothing is more true,” continued Don Modesto, “than that it was a Swiss who discovered it. When I was at Gaëte I have seen the Swiss who constituted the Pope’s guard, but neither of them could tell me who was the author of the discovery.”

“If I were his Holiness,” pursued Maria, “I would reward the inventor by a plenary indulgence. Seat yourself, my dear, I am dying with desire to see you.”

“No! I am going.”

“Where do you wish to go?—no one loves you better than we do here.”

“What am I to do when people love me? What can I do since Don Frederico is not here?”

“What is that? You only come here then for Don Frederico, little ingrate?”

“Why not? why should I come? to find myself with Momo?”

“Then you love Don Frederico much?” hazarded the good old woman.

“I love him; and if it were not for him I would never put foot inside these doors, for fear of encountering that demon Momo, whose tongue resembles the sting of a wasp.”

“And Ramon Perez?” mischievously demanded Maria, as if she would convince Don Modesto that his protégé might give up his hopes.

Marisalada burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

“If this Raton (he-mouse) Perez—Momo had given the young barber this sobriquet—happens to fall into the porridge-pot, I will not be the ant who will sing or weep over him: less still will I be she who will listen to his singing; for his singing attacks my nervous system, as Don Frederico expresses it, which he assures me is now more stretched than the strings of a guitar. You shall see how this Raton Perez sings.”

Marisalada rapidly took a leaf of aloe, which lay on the ground among those which served brother Gabriel as screens to protect, in their first growth, the tomato plants against the attacks of the north wind. She placed this leaf between her arms in the manner of a guitar, and began to imitate with a grotesque air the gestures of Ramon Perez, with a talent most perfect for imitation; then she sang this couplet with strong trills:

“Young meagre Minstrel without gladness,
What have you there? why this distress, why these deep sighs?
Is it the cause of this dire sadness,
That on too high a castle you have cast your eyes?”

“Yes,” said Modesto, who remembered the serenades at the door of Rosita, “this Ramon has always had grand pretensions.”

The events could not persuade Modesto that these serenades were not designed for Rosita. From thence but one idea entered the head of this man; it was, that if she fell into a love snare, he himself could not extricate her. The calibre of his intelligence was so straitened, and so invariably fixed, that as soon as an idea penetrated his brain it became set, and remained there for life.

“I go,” said Marisalada, throwing the leaf of aloe in such way that it fell with force against brother Gabriel, who, on his knees, and with his back turned, attached his hundred and twenty-fifth knot.

“Jesus!” cried out brother Gabriel, turning around frightened. Then, without uttering another word, he again set to work to tie up his lettuces.

“What aiming!” said Marisalada, laughing. “Don Modesto, take me for artilleryman when you obtain cannon for your fort.”

“Such things are not gracious; they are in bad taste, which, you must know, please me in no way,” replied Maria a little coldly. “Say to me what you like, but as to brother Gabriel, trouble not his peace, it is the only good left to him.”

“Do not get angry,” replied the Gaviota, “you well know that brother Gabriel is not made of glass.” Then, said she, making a courteous reverence, “My commandant, say to Rosa Mistica that she transfer her school to your fort, when it has some 24-pounders, that she may be well defended against the snares of the demon. I must go, because Don Frederico does not come; I am disposed to believe that he is vaccinating all the village, including Rosa Mistica, the schoolmaster, and the alcalde.”

But the good old woman, who was accustomed to the rather free manners of Marisalada,—which, however, did not wound,—called the young girl and told her to sit down near her.

Don Modesto, warned by this that Maria was about to open her batteries,—faithful to the neutrality he had promised,—took leave of the old woman, made a turn to the right and beat a retreat, not, however, without having received from the monk a couple of lettuces and a bunch of turnips.

“My daughter,” said Maria, when they were alone, “what will you not be if Don Frederico marries you? You will be with this man, who is a St. Louis de Gonzague, who knows every thing, who is a good musician, and who gains plenty of money; you will be the doctor’s wife, the happiest of women. You will be dressed like a dove, nurtured like a duchess; and you could then, above all, help your poor father, who is growing old; and it pains our hearts that he is obliged to be on the sea despite rain and wind, so that his child may want for nothing. Thus would Don Frederico remain among us, like an angel of the good God, consoling and taking care of all who suffer.”

Marisalada listened attentively to the old woman, affecting great distraction. When Maria had ceased to speak, the young girl was silent for an instant, and then, with an air of indifference, said—

“I do not wish to marry.”

“Listen then!” exclaimed the good woman. “It is, perchance, you wish to be a nun?”

“Not at all,” replied the Gaviota.

“What then?” demanded Maria, really angry. “You do not wish to be either flesh or fish! One thing only I know—woman belongs to God or to man; if not, she does not accomplish her mission, either towards God or towards society.”

“What would you, Maria?” replied Marisalada; “I feel that neither marriage nor the convent is my vocation.”

“Then, little girl,” replied the old woman, “thy vocation is that of the mule. Nothing pleases me which is out of the regular order; above all, in that which we other women regard.

“She who does not do what we all do, I would flee from, if I were a man, as one flees from an infuriated bull. In a word—my hand on my heart—you act wrong. But you are yet but a child,” she added, with her habitual goodness, “there is much for you yet to learn. Time is a great teacher.”

Marisalada arose and departed.

“Yes,” thought she, covering her head with her handkerchief, “he loves me, I have known it for a long time—but—I love him as old Maria loves brother Gabriel, as the aged love. He would receive a shower under my window without fearing to take cold. Now—if he marries me, he will render my life happy I am sure; he will let me do as I like: he will give me music whenever I ask him, and purchase for me every thing I may desire. If I were his wife, I would have a neckerchief of crape, like Quela, the daughter of old Juan Lopez; and a mantle, blonde of Almagro, like that of the Alcaldesa.

“They would both die with rage; but it seems to me that Don Frederico, agitated as he is when he listens to my singing, thinks as much of marrying me as Don Modesto thinks of taking for his wife his dear Rosa—chief of all the devils.”

During the whole of this beautiful mental dialogue, Marisalada had not one thought, not one recollection of her father, whose well-being and whose solace had been the chief motives adduced by Maria.

CHAPTER XI.

CONVINCED that she could neither be aided nor supported by the influential man who would not join her in these matrimonial projects, Maria determined to act by herself, with the certainty of overcoming the objections of the Gaviota, and those which Stein would oppose. Nothing stopped her, neither the boldness of Marisalada, nor the stolidity of Stein, because love is persevering as a sister of charity, and intrepid as a hero; and love was the grand spring of all this good old woman did. It was thus she said to Stein, and to the point:

“Do you know, Don Frederico, several days ago Marisalada was here, and she explained to us very clearly, and with a grace altogether natural, that she came here only on your account?”

“How do you find this frankness? I say that, if it be true, it was an ingratitude that my pretty nightingale was not capable of; she was no doubt jesting.”

“Don Frederico, the old are more experienced than the young, and the first impulses are the best. Does it cause you much grief to learn that you are beloved?”

“No—certainly. We are agreed upon this axiom which you repeat so often: ‘Love does not speak enough.’ But, good Maria, make of love constancy: I would sooner give than receive.”

“They do not talk thus to me,” cried the brave woman, with impatience.

“It is still true, my dear and good mother,” answered Stein, taking and pressing the hands of old Maria, “we have a running account of affection, we two, but the balance is against me. God grant that I may some day be able to furnish the proof of my attachment and my gratitude!”

“It is very easy, Don Frederico, and I am about to demand it.”

“At once, my good Maria; and what is this proof? say quickly.”

“Remain with us; and to that end get married, Don Frederico. You inspire us with continual uneasiness in this living in the idea of your departure, and you would then realize the proverb, ‘Which is your country? That of my wife.’ ”

Stein smiled.

“Whom shall I marry? with whom, my good mother, with whom shall it be? With your linnet?”

Maria replied: “With her, who is in your heart an eternal spring. She is so beautiful and so graceful: she is so moulded to your habits that she could not live without you! And what would you do without her? You love each other like two turtles—this is seen in your eyes.”

“I am too old for her, Maria,” replied Stein, sighing and blushing in a manner to prove that, as to him at least, the old woman had spoken truly; “I am too old,” he repeated, “for a girl of sixteen years. My heart is an invalid, to whom I desire to accord a sweet and tranquil existence; I would not expose it to new wounds.”

“Old!” exclaimed Maria, “what nonsense! you have scarcely attained to thirty years. Come—you reason like the leg of a table, Don Frederico.”

“What could I desire more,” replied Stein, “than to taste with an innocent young girl the sweet and holy felicity of domestic life, which is the only true, the only perfect, the only real, because it is that which God has taught us. But, good Maria, she cannot love me.”

“That is too strong; she has a very delicate taste, by my faith, she who would be ashamed of you! Say not to the contrary; you have the air of joking. Yes, the wife that you love will be the happiest in the whole world.”

“Do you believe so, Maria?”

“I believe it as I believe my salvation; and she who, in such a case, does not esteem herself happy, should be crucified alive.”

The following day, when Marisalada came, she met, on entering the court, face to face with Momo, who was seated on a stone of the mill, breakfasting on bread and sardines.

“You here already, Gaviota!” this was the sweet salutation Momo gave her; “if this continues, we will find you one day in our soup. You have then nothing to do at home?”

“I abandon all,” replied Marisalada, “to come and contemplate your face, which enchants me, and thine ears, which excite the envy of Golondrina, thine ass.”

In so saying she took hold of Momo’s ears, and pulled them.

The young girl had the chance at the first roar which Momo made with all the strength of his big lungs, for a mouthful of bread and sardines had stuck in his throat, and occasioned such a fit of coughing, that the Gaviota, light as a fawn, escaped the talons of the vulture.

“Good-day, my linnet,” said Stein, who, on hearing Marisalada, entered the court.

“She is beautiful, this linnet!” growled Momo, in his fit of coughing; “she is the most hoarse magpie which has sung this summer.”

“Come, Maria,” continued Stein, “come write, and read the verses I translated yesterday.”

“I do not remember them,” replied the young girl. “Were they not of that country where grow the oranges? These trees do not grow here; or they have withered: brother Gabriel’s tears are not sufficient to nourish their vitality. Let the verses go, Don Frederico, and play me the nocturn of Weber which these are the words of: ‘Listen, listen, my beloved! the chant of the nightingale is heard; on each branch flourishes a flower; before the nightingale ceases to sing, before the flowers wither, sing, sing, my best beloved.’ ”

“What ugly words,” murmured Momo, “this Gaviota remembers, and which are to her like bon-bons to a clove of garlic.”

“After that you have read, I will play thee the serenade of Carl Weber,” replied Stein, who by this single recompense could compel Marisalada to learn that which he would instruct her in. The young girl took, with an irritated gesture, the paper which Stein presented to her, and read it fluently, although with a bad grace.

“Mariquita,” said Stein, when the young girl had finished reading, “you who do not know the world, you cannot appreciate what grand and profound truth, what philosophy there is in these verses. Do you remember that I explained to you what philosophy is?”

“I recollect,” replied the Gaviota, “it is the science of happiness. But in that, señor, there are neither rules nor science which can constitute it: each one is happy after his own manner. Don Modesto places his happiness in possessing cannons in the fort as ruined as himself; brother Gabriel, to see return to the convent the holy Prior and the bells; the good Maria, that you do not quit her; my father, to take a corbina; and Momo, to do all the evil he can.”

Stein laughed, and placing affectionately his hand on Mariquita’s shoulder, “And you,” said he to her, “in what do you make happiness to consist?”

Mariquita hesitated an instant before finding a reply, raised her large black eyes, and looked at Stein; then her eyelids fell, and her glance rested on Momo; the young girl smiled to herself at the appearance of those ears which were redder than tomatoes.

“And you, Don Frederico,” she at last replied, “in what would you make it to consist? To return to your country?”

“No,” sighed Stein.

“In what then?” repeated Marisalada.

“I will tell thee, my linnet; but beforehand tell me in what thou makest thine to consist.”

“To always hear you play the flute,” she replied with sincerity.

At this moment Maria came from the kitchen with the good intention to terminate the affair; but she occasioned that which happens to a great many: excess of zeal spoiled all.

“Do you not see, Don Frederico, how pretty Marisalada is, and what a beautifully formed woman?”

“Yes, yes,” continued Stein to Maria, “she is handsome, and her eyes are the type of Arabian eyes so celebrated.”

“They say of the hedgehogs, each looks at a thorn,” growled Momo.

“And this mouth so pretty, which sings like a seraphim,” pursued the old woman, caressing the chin of her protégé.

“See there, a mouth like a basket, which knows how to speak wrong and contrary.”

“And thy mouth,” said the Gaviota to Momo, with a fury which this time she could not control, “and thy horrible mouth, which cannot extend from one ear to the other because that thy face is so large it is fatigued when half way over.”

Momo, for his only reply, sang in three different tones—

“Gaviota! Gaviota! Gaviota!”

“Romo! Romo! Romo!” sang Marisalada in her magnificent voice.

“Is it possible,” said Stein to his linnet, “that you notice what Momo says expressly to enrage you. These witticisms are stupid and gross, but without wickedness.”

“It must seem to you, Don Frederico, that this must be very stupid,” replied the Gaviota; “and to inform you that I have no desire to support this lout harder than a stone, I go.”

Upon this, the Gaviota went away; Stein followed her.

“You are a profligate,” said Maria to her grandson; “you have more spleen in your heart than good blood in your veins. You owe respect to women, villain gosling! there is not in the village one more wicked or more detested than thou.”

“You are in your turn tainted,” replied Momo, “with the beauty of this sea-magpie, who have put my ears in the condition you see! All others, according to your ideas, are gross people. This agua mala (polypus) bewitches you. See then a gaviota (sea-gull) which reads and writes! Has any one ever seen that? She does not employ herself all day but to grumble as water hisses on the fire; she does not cook for her father, who is obliged to prepare his own meals; she does not take care of his linen, and it is on you falls the work. You nourish a serpent.”

Stein having rejoined Marisalada, said to her—

“Of what avails it, Mariquita, that I have endeavored to tone down your spirit, if you have not learned at least to acquire the little superiority necessary to place yourself above these miseries, which are in themselves so trifling and unimportant?”

“Listen, Don Frederico,” replied Marisalada: “I comprehend that this superiority ought to serve to place me above others, but not below them.”

“God help me, Mariquita! is it thus you change things? Superiority teaches us not to be proud of our qualities, and not to revolt against injustices opposed to us. But,” added he smiling, “these are the faults of your youth, and of the vivacity of your southern blood. You will know all that when you have gray hairs, as I have. Have you remarked, Mariquita, that I have gray hairs?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“See then, I am very young, but sufferings have made my head like that of an aged man. My heart has remained pure, Mariquita, and I offer you the flowers of spring, if you do not believe you will be alarmed at the symbols of winter which circle my forehead.”

“It is true,” replied the Gaviota, who could not restrain the natural ejaculation, “that a lover with gray hairs would not please me.”

“I have thought it would be thus,” said Stein with sadness. “My heart is loyal, and the good Maria, when she assured me that my happiness was still possible, instilled in my heart some hope, but which is as the flowers of the air without roots, and as the breath of the breeze.”

Mariquita, who saw that she had wounded, with her accustomed rudeness, a soul too delicate to insist, and a man so modest as to persuade himself that this sole objection annulled the other advantages, immediately said—

“If a lover with gray hairs pleases me not, a husband with such hair would not frighten me.”

Stein was taken by surprise at this brusque remark of Mariquita, and above all at the decision and impassibility with which she had enunciated it. Soon he smiled at Marisalada, and said to her—

“And then you will marry me, beautiful child of nature?”

“Why not?”

“Mariquita, she who accepts a man for a husband, and unites herself to him to pass her life, or, the better to express it, to make of two existences one only, as in a torch two lights blended make but one flame, such a person, I say, accords to this man a greater favor than she who accepts him for a lover.”

“And of what use,” replied the young girl with a mixture of innocence and indifference, “of what use are the guitarists, who sing badly and play badly, if not to frighten away the cats?”

They had arrived at the beach, and Stein begged Mariquita to sit beside him on a rock. On the part of both there was a long silence. Stein was profoundly agitated. The young girl with stoical indifference had taken a stick, and traced figures on the sand.

“How nature speaks in the heart of a man!” at last exclaimed Stein. “What sympathy reigns in all that God has created! A pure life is like a serene day; a life of unloosed passions resembles a tempestuous day. See those sombre clouds which slowly approach to interpose between the earth and the sun, they are such as should interpose between a heart and an illicit love, and let fall on the heart their cold but pure emanations. Happy the land on which they fall not! But our felicity will be unalterable like the sky in May, because you will always love me. Is it not so, Mariquita?”

This girl, whose rude and untutored soul comprehended neither the poetry nor the elevated sentiments of Stein, did not care to answer; but as she could not withdraw herself from this obligation, she wrote upon the sand the word siempre (always) with the stick which distracted her idleness.

Stein, whose emotion increased, mistook ennui for modesty.

“Look,” pursued he, “look at the sea! Listen to the murmur of the waves, murmurs so full of charms and of terrors! ’Tis said they confine grave secrets in an unknown language. The waves, Mariquita, are those dangerous and perfidious sirens, personified by the flowery and fantastic imagination of the Greeks; creatures of a rare beauty, but without hearts, as seductive as terrible, and whose sweet voices attract men to their perdition. But thy sweet voice, Mariquita, seduces not to deceive; you attract like the siren, you will not be perfidious like her. Is it not true, Mariquita, you will never be ungrateful?”

Nunca (never), wrote Mariquita on the sand. And the rising waves amused themselves in effacing the word the young girl had written, as if they would parody the waves of time, which flowing on efface in the heart what is sworn to endure thereon forever.

“Why does not thy voice reply to me, Mariquita?”

“What would you, Don Frederico? I cannot say to a man that I love him. I am unfeeling and unnatural, Maria says, who, however, does not the less love me. I am, like my father, economical in words.”

“If you were like him, I could desire nothing more, because the good Pedro—I say my father, Mariquita—has a heart the most loving that has ever beaten in the breast of a man; such hearts belong to angels, and to a few chosen men!”

“My father a superior man!” thought Mariquita, repressing with difficulty a mocking laugh. “So be it! so much the better, if he has the air of one.”

“Mariquita,” said Stein in approaching her, “let us offer to God our pure and holy love; let us promise Him to render ourselves acceptable by our fidelity, and by the discharge of those duties which will be imposed on us when this love shall have been consecrated at the divine altar. Now let me embrace you as my wife and companion.”

“No!” cried Mariquita, drawing back suddenly, and knitting her eyebrows. “No person shall touch me.”

“It is well, my pretty fugitive,” answered Stein with sweetness, “I respect all your delicacy, and submit myself to your will. Is it not appropriate to say, with one of our ancient and sublime poets, that the greatest of all felicities is, to ‘obey in loving?’ ”

CHAPTER XII.

THE gratitude which the fisherman felt for him who had saved Marisalada, was complete when he saw him so attached to his daughter: an impassioned friendship which could only be compared to the admiration excited in him by the brilliant qualities of Stein.

From thence they were devoted to each other: the brusque mariner and the man of science sympathized, because men of kindred natures and gifted with good sentiments feel, when they come in contact, such an attraction, that, scorning the distance which separates their positions, they meet as brothers.

It thus happened when Stein offered himself as the old man’s son-in-law: the good father could not articulate a word, so much was he overcome with the joy which filled his heart. He besought Stein only, when taking his hand, to come and live in his cabin. Stein cordially assented. The fisherman appeared then to recover all his strength and all the agility of his youth, to employ them in ameliorating and embellishing his habitation. He cleared away the little garret to make there his personal lodging, leaving the first story for his children; he whitened and ornamented the walls; he levelled the ground, and covered it with a precious mat of palms, which he weaved for that purpose; he engaged Maria to make up for him a trousseau for the bride in character with the simplicity of his dwelling.

Great was the news caused by the rumored approaching marriage of Stein, to all those who knew and loved him. Old Maria was so joyous that she passed three nights without sleep. She predicted that when Don Frederico permanently established himself in the country none of the inhabitants would die except from old age. Brother Gabriel manifested so much contentment and such pleasure in seeing Maria so sprightly, that he entered into the feelings of his protectress, and ventured to say a witty thing, the first and the last in all his life; he said in a loud voice, “that the cura had forgotten the De profundis.”

This remark became of some consequence, inasmuch as Maria, for fifteen days, was earnest in reporting, after the usual compliments, the famous forgetfulness of the De profundis, which remark she considered as the glory and honor of her protégé. He himself was so embarrassed with the success attendant upon his innocent wit, that he vowed never again to succumb to a similar temptation.

Don Modesto was of opinion that the Gaviota had gained the first prize in the lottery, and the people of the village the second: “Because,” said he, “I would never have been maimed if I had met at Gaëte a surgeon as skilful as Stein.”

Dolores added, that if the fisherman had twice given life to his daughter, the will of God had twice given her happiness, in conferring on her such a father and such a husband.

Manuel observed, that there was in Heaven a cake reserved for husbands who never repented of their marriage, and which, up to this moment, no one had yet put his teeth into.

His wife said, it was because husbands never entered there!

As to Momo, he concluded that since the Gaviota had found a husband, the Plague need not lose hope of finding one also.

Rosa Mistica took the affair differently. Mariquita had, by a recent act, increased her list of evil deeds; some devotees were assembled to sing, in honor of the Virgin, couplets accompanied by a wretched harpsicord, played by an old blind man. Rosita presided at this ceremony. Not being able to ignore the aptitude of Marisalada, she silenced her ancient resentments, and thought, by the mediation of Don Modesto, to induce the fisherman’s daughter to take part in the pious concert.

Don Modesto took his cane, and set out on his campaign. Marisalada replied to the old commandant a dry “No,” without prologue or epilogue.

This monosyllable frightened Modesto more than a discharge of artillery; the negotiator knew not what to do. Don Modesto was one of those men who are sufficiently good-hearted to desire the good of their friends, but who want strength to achieve it, and imagination to find the means of obtaining it.

“Pedro,” said he to the fisherman, after this peremptory refusal, “do you know I tremble in all my limbs? What will Rosita say? What will all the village say? Can you not then influence her?”

“If she will not, what can I do?” replied the fisherman.

And the poor Don Modesto resigned himself to report this ungracious message, which would not only offend, but scandalize the mysticism of his hostess.

“I would prefer a thousand times,” said he, in returning to Villamar, “to present myself before all the batteries of Gaëte, than before Rosita with a no on my lips. In what a state she will be!”

And Don Modesto was right; for it was in vain that he essayed to ornament her answer by an exordium which merely insinuated, to comment by vague hints, to embellish by verbose paraphrases: he did not less keenly offend Rosita, who cried out in a loud tone—

“They who would not employ in the service of God the gifts they have received of Him, merit perdition.”

Also, when she learned the project of marriage, she sighed, and raised her eyes to Heaven:

“Poor Don Frederico!” she said.

Momo, according to his bad habits, took pleasure in conveying the news of this marriage to Ramon Perez.

“Really!” cried the barber, in consternation.

“You are sad; I am much more sad in seeing that there are people who ought to be beaten for the absurdity of their tastes. See a little! To be smitten of this saucebox! but Don Frederico proves the proverb, ‘Late married, badly married.’ ”

“I am not sad,” replied Ramon Perez, “because Marisalada is loved by Don Frederico, but because she loves this stranger who has hair of hemp and fishes’ eyes. Why does not the ingrate recollect this sentence, ‘Who marries late becomes either a dupe or a deceiver.’ ”

“It will not be he who will be the first to deceive. For as to Don Frederico, he is a brave man, nothing can be said to the contrary; but this vixen has bewitched him with her singing, which lasts from the rising to the setting sun. I have already said to him: Don Frederico, listen to the proverb, ‘Take a house with a hearth: take a wife who knows how to spin.’ He has not attended to either: it is a misfortune. As to thee, Ramon Perez, they have simply made a great mistake.”

“That is easily seen,” replied the barber, giving so hasty a turn to the key of his guitar that the treble-string broke: “he whom we would drive from our house must be a stranger. But you ought to know, Momo, that I care for very little. The year will finish one day, and if the king is dead, long live the king!”

Then he commenced to strike his guitar with rage, singing with bombastic voice:

“Cold creature! what of thy contempts,
My heart, no longer irate, is now cured;
Stains which no mulberry exempts,
By the mulberry green are no longer endured.
* * * *
“Love is fled! three pirouettes, and then—
Crack! and my happy days return;
I have gold to please young girls I ween,
To purchase other loves I’ll learn.”

CHAPTER XIII.

THE marriage of Stein and the Gaviota was celebrated in the church of Villamar. The fisherman, instead of a red flannel shirt, wore a white shirt, irreproachably starched, and a vest of dark blue cloth. In this gala costume he was so embarrassed that he could hardly move.

Don Modesto, one of the witnesses, presented himself in all the éclat of his old uniform, rendered threadbare by constant brushing, and become too large by reason of his having grown so thin. The nankeen pantaloons which Rosita had washed for the thousandth time, had shrunken so as to descend only half way down his legs. His epaulets had become copper-colored. The cocked hat, which had survived eight lustres, and had not altered its pride, occupied dignifiedly its elevated position. But in the mean time there sparkled on the honorable breast of the poor soldier the cross of honor, valiantly gained on the field of battle, as shines a pure diamond in a fine setting. The women, according to custom, assisted, all dressed in black during the ceremony, but they changed their toilets for the fête.

Marisalada was all in white. The dresses which Maria and Dolores had received as presents from Stein on the occasion, were made of wove cotton smuggled into Gibraltar. The design was called scarfs of iris, because of the assemblage of colors the most opposite and the least harmonizing. One would believe the manufacturer wished to mock his Andalusian customers. In fine, everybody thought them handsome, except Momo, who would not put himself out on this occasion, and dressed himself to look as eccentric as possible.

“This is well for you, bad droll fellow. ‘The ape, though dressed in silk, is nothing but an ape.’ ”

“You cut a figure! You, who to be the wife of the doctor have ceased to be the Gaviota, and dress yourself in new clothes to render yourself handsomer! Oh! yes—white becomes you so well! Put a red cap on your head, and you will resemble a phosphoric match.”

Then he began to sing in a false voice—

“Oh! oh!
Like a crow—
You are pretty, girl, all in white,
Coquettish, like hunger, you siren;
Like wax with clear color at night.
And in bulk like a thread of iron.”

Marisalada immediately replied—

“Thy mouth, ugly ape,
Like a basket in shape,
Therein linen to lie;
This you cannot deny.
And thy teeth can tell,
They’ve no parallel!
And thine ear-rings, I know.
But three pendants can show.”

After this compliment she turned her back on him.

Momo, who was never behindhand when he meditated insolence and sallies, replied bravely—

“Go—go; when they give thee the benediction, it will be the first time thou hast received it during thine whole life, and I predict that it will be the last.”

The marriage was held in the village, at the house of Maria, the cabin of the fisherman being too small to contain all the assembly. Stein, who, in the exercise of his profession, had saved some money, although in most cases he gave his services gratuitously, desired to do the thing in grand style, and not to restrict the invitations. He had abundance of wine, lemonade, biscuits, and cakes, and three guitars. The guests sang, danced, screamed, without omitting wit and pleasantry, joyous and gay.

Maria came and went, served the refreshments, played the part of godmother of the wedding, and never ceased to repeat, “I am as content as if I were the bride;” to which brother Gabriel invariably added, “I am as content as if I were the husband.”

“Mother,” said Manuel to Maria, on seeing her pass near him, “the color of this dress is very gay for a widow.”

“Hold your tongue,” replied the mother. “Every thing ought to be gay on a day like this. Besides, ‘we must not look a gift horse in the mouth.’ Brother Gabriel, come along, take this glass of lemonade and this cake, and drink to the health of the newly married couple, before returning to the convent.”

“I drink to the health of the new-married couple before I return to the convent,” said brother Gabriel.

The good monk emptied his glass, and escaped before any one, except Maria, remarked his absence.

The reunion became animated by degrees.

“Bomba!” cried the sacristan, a little humpbacked man, crooked and lame, “Bomba!” (This is the exclamation which announces ordinarily in Spain at a dinner or at fête, a little excited, that a guest is about to propose a toast.)

Every one was silent at this signal.

“I drink,” said the sacristan, “to the health of the bride and groom, and to this honorable company, and to the repose of all Christian souls!”

“Bravo! let us drink! and long live La Mancha! who gives us wine in lieu of water.”

“In your turn, Ramon Perez, sing a couplet, and do not keep your voice for a better occasion.”

Ramon sang—

“A happy future—all good wishes
To the pretty wife!
And to her husband I’ve no species
Of envy or of strife.”

“Bravo! well sung!” cried all the assembly. “Now the fandango and the ball!”

After the prelude to this eminently national dance, a man and a woman rose simultaneously, and placed themselves face to face. Their graceful movements accomplished, so to speak, an elegant balancing of bodies, to the sound of their gay castinets.

In an instant the two dancers yielded their places to two others, who placed themselves in front, while the first couple retired. This divertisement, according to the usages of the country, was often repeated.

The guitarist had again his song—

“To him who weds a beauteous bride,
And to the holy temple hied:
She has sworn, and now stands with wedded heart:
She enters free—in irons must depart.”

“Bomba!” soon cried one of the most expert in matters of toasts. “I drink to this excellent doctor, whom God sent to our country that we might attain a greater age than Methuselah! But I add one condition, that in case of longevity to me, he will not prolong either the life of my wife, or my purgatory.”

This toast provoked an explosion of applause.

“What do you say to all this?” demanded all the guests at the wedding of Manuel.

“What do I say? That I say nothing.”

“Badly answered! Get along—wake up, and propose a toast.”

Manuel took a glass of lemonade, and said—

“I drink to the newly married, to our friends, to our commandant, and to the resurrection of Fort St. Cristobal!”

“Long live the commandant!” cried all present. “And you, Manuel, who know how to compose couplets, sing something.”

Manuel sang the following couplet:

“Of these allurements men take care,
Hymen’s intoxication sweet:
’Tis done! and ’till old age, beware,
The fright will ne’er thy bosom quit.”

After some other couplets had been sung, the greatest orator of the assembly said to Manuel:

“These people only sing trifles without head or tail. You who know how to say good things, above all when the wine gets a little in your head, make a stanza of ten lines in honor of the newly married, and take this glass of wine to loosen your tongue.”

Manuel took the glass of wine, and commenced:

“Bomba!
Viva!
Sweet vanquisher of secret pains,
Physician gay of blackest dreams,
I’ve seen thee born between green leaves,
And, pressed, thy bosom madly heaves:
Give to my voice the needful force,
To the bride and groom I’d raise my voice!
Here’s Hymen! let’s our glasses drain,
To bride and groom, again, again.”

“It is your turn, Ramon the devil. Has the liquor obstructed your throat? You are more insipid than a salad of tomatoes.”

Ramon took his guitar and sang:

“She to the church and sacrifices bold,
Herself surrenders, and I am consoled;
My lips with kisses delicately hushed,
Press the green grass which her small feet have pressed.”

This couplet having been followed by another of little value, Maria approached Stein and said to him:

“Don Frederico, the wine commences to tell on our guests. It is midnight, and the poor children are alone in the house with Momo and brother Gabriel. I fear Manuel raises his elbow too often. Pedro is asleep in the corner, and I think it will not be bad to sound the retreat. Our asses are harnessed, will you that we take ‘French leave?’ ” An instant after, the three women, mounted on their asses, were on their way to the convent. The men accompanied them on foot, while Ramon, in a fit of jealousy and of chagrin, on seeing the married couple depart, struck his guitar with an insolent air and bellowed rather than sang:

“Thou the calabash hast given me;
Or rather, I my congé see;
Great good this congé does meeting,
The tomatoes I have eaten!
In thy family, at which I dine,
Admitted once, revenged I am.”

“What a beautiful night!” said Stein to his wife, raising his eyes towards heaven. “See the starry firmament! See the evening star shining in its magnificence like the brightness of my happiness! My heart has now no want unsupplied, and I have nothing to regret.”

“And I who amused myself so much,” replied Marisalada, impatiently, “I do not see why we have left the fête so soon.”

“Good Maria,” said Pedro Santalo, “now we can die in peace.”

“Yes,” replied the old woman, “but we can as well live in joy; that would be much better.”

“How is it that you do not know how to restrain yourself when you have the glass in your hand?” said Dolores to her husband. “From the moment you slacken sail, there is not a cable that could bring you up.”

“Caramba!” replied Manuel: “I am here, what would you more? Still, one word more—I live on the brim and I return to the fête.”

The cries of the drinkers being continually heard, Dolores held her tongue, fearing that Manuel would put his threats into execution.

“José,” said Manuel to his brother-in-law, who had also been to the wedding, “is the moon full?”

“Certainly,” replied the shepherd. “Can you not see with your eyes? Do you not know what it is?”

“It should be a tear,” said Manuel, laughing.

“It is not a tear; it is a man.”

“A man!” exclaimed Dolores, altogether convinced by what her brother had said. “And what is this man?”

“I do not know—but I know his name.”

“And how is he called?”

“He is called Venus,” replied José.

Manuel began to laugh: he had drank more than usual, and, as they said, he was gay.

“Don Frederico,” said Manuel to the new-made husband, “shall I give you a piece of advice, in my quality of being older than you in this grand Confederacy?”

“Hold your tongue, for God’s sake, Manuel!” said Dolores.

“Will you leave me in peace? Listen, Don Frederico; to begin—with a wife and a dog, the bread in one hand, and a stick in the other.”

“Manuel!” repeated Dolores.

“Will you leave me tranquil? or I return to the wedding.”

Dolores thought it prudent to hold her peace.

“Don Frederico,” pursued Manuel, “wives or slaves, women are the most powerful enemies.”

“Do me the favor to hold your tongue, Manuel,” interrupted his mother.

“This is odd,” grumbled Manuel; “we were told we were assisting at an entertainment.”

“Do you not know, Manuel,” remarked the shepherd, “that these witticisms of thine are not to the taste of Don Frederico?”

“Señor,” said Manuel, in taking leave of the married pair, who proceeded towards the cabin, “when you repent of what you have done we will be united again, and we will together sing the same complaint.”

And he continued his route towards the convent. In the silence of night he was heard singing, in his clear and sonorous voice—

“Alas, poor wife and cherished horse!
Who the same hour died:
I sorely weep, but for which loss?
My poor horse shall decide.”

“Go to bed, Manuel, and nimbly,” his mother said to him, when they arrived at home.

“My wife takes care of that,” he replied; “is it not true, brunette?”

“What I wish is, that you were already asleep,” replied Dolores.

“Liar! how can you thus speak in opposition to your heart?”

“Do you not know how to hold your peace?” said his brother-in-law to him, laughing.

“Listen, José,” continued Manuel, “have you found in the thickets of the fields, or in the grottoes, any thing which could close the mouth of a woman? If you have found it, there will not be wanting people who will pay you for the information in solid gold. As to me, I have never met with it in this world, and I have learned nothing of it in the life of God.”

Thereupon he began to sing—

“The sun’s sublimest heat,
’Tis easier to put out,
Than e’er with fear to worry,
A woman in her fury.
Try the caress, be gay;
She with a stick will play:
A traitress she will be,
For good or bad, we’ll see.”

CHAPTER XIV.

THREE years had passed. Stein, who could sojourn among these few men who required so little, believed himself happy. He loved his wife with tenderness, and was attached more every day to his father-in-law; and as to the excellent family, those who had rescued him, a dying man, his affection for them had never wavered. His uniform and rural life was in harmony with the modesty of his tastes, and with the tranquillity of his honest soul. And, besides, the monotony wanted not for attractions: an existence always uniformly calm resembles the man who peacefully sleeps without dreaming, or those melodies composed of a few words, but which charm us with so much sweetness. Perhaps there is nothing which leaves more agreeable souvenirs than this monotony of existence—this successive enchainment of days which have nothing to distinguish one from that which precedes, or from that which follows it.

What must have been the surprise to the inhabitants of the cabin when, one morning, Momo rushed in out of breath, calling to Stein to go to the convent without losing a single instant.

“Has any one of the family fallen ill?” asked Stein alarmed.

“No,” answered Momo, “it is a lord, whom they address as ‘your excellency,’ who has been hunting the wild boar and roebuck in the hillock with his friends; in leaping the ravine the horse missed, and both fell. The horse is slashed, the cavalier has broken as many bones as he has in his body, and they have conveyed him to the convent on a litter. The monastery was transformed into a real Babylon. They believed it was the day of judgment. People went and came like a crowd among which a wolf had forced his way. The only one who retained his tranquillity was he who had caused the excitement, and who at a glance it was seen was a man of the grand world, a real young man. There they were all in confusion, without knowing what to do. My grandma had told them that there was here a surgeon like whom there were few seen: they would not believe her; but as to obtain one from Cadiz would occupy two days, and three more to obtain one from Seville, his excellency said he would have the one recommended by my grandma. It is for this I am come here. Now I will give you my opinion. If I were in your place, at present, when they have despised you, I would not go to the convent if they dragged me there with two horses.”

“I am not capable,” replied Stein, “of forgetting my duties as a Christian, nor those of a surgeon. I should have a heart of bronze to see one of my kind suffer without alleviating his sufferings when I have the power to do it. Beyond this, they cannot have confidence in me, as I am unknown to them; it is not therefore an offence, it would not even be one if they knew me.”

Stein and Momo arrived promptly at the convent. Maria, who awaited the doctor with impatience, conducted him to the wounded man, who had been placed in the cell of the prior, where they had made up for him the best bed possible. Maria and Stein passed through the crowd of sportsmen and servants, by whom the invalid was surrounded. He was a tall young man; on his pale but tranquil face fell a profusion of black hair. So soon as Stein looked at him he uttered a cry, and rushed towards him; but, fearing to touch him, he suddenly stopped, and crossing his trembling hands he cried out—

“My God! the duke!”

“You know me?” demanded the stranger, for the person Stein had recognized was the Duke d’Almanza. “You know me?” repeated the duke, raising his head, and casting his large black eyes on Stein, without power to recall to his mind who it was that had addressed him.

“He does not recollect me,” murmured Stein, while the large tears trembled in his eyes; “that is not strange: generous souls forget the good they confer, preserving eternally the favors they receive.”

“Wretched beginning,” said one of the assistants; “a surgeon who weeps!”

“What sad chance!” added another.

“Doctor,” said the duke to Stein, “I place myself in your hands, I confide myself to God, to you, and to my lucky star. I am ready, do not lose time.”

At these words Stein raised his head; his countenance remained calm, and by a silent gesture, but imperative and firm, he banished the spectators to a distance. Then he felt the duke with an accustomed and experienced hand. He displayed so much assurance and dexterity that every one kept silent. No sound was heard in the cell but the agitated breathing of the patient.

“Duke,” said Stein, after having completed his examination of the sprained ankle and the broken leg, “without doubt it is here the weight of the horse has fallen. Still, I believe I shall succeed in effecting a complete cure.”

“Will I become a cripple for life?” asked the duke.

“In my opinion, I can assure you, no.”

“Prove it so, and I will say that you are the best surgeon in the world.”

Stein, without stirring, sent for Manuel, whose strength and punctuality he knew. With his assistance he commenced operations which were more painful than can be imagined; but Stein seemed to take no notice of the pain the invalid felt, and whom he made almost to lose consciousness.

In about half an hour the duke reposed, suffering, but relieved.

In lieu of marks of contempt and fear, Stein received from the duke’s friends congratulations and the most lively expressions of esteem and admiration; the good doctor, restored to his natural modesty and timidity, replied politely to all.

But do you know who “took a bath of roses?” it was Maria.

“Did I not tell you so?” she incessantly repeated to all the sportsmen, “did I not tell you so?”

The duke’s friends, entirely tranquillized, went to attend the prayers about to be offered up. The invalid had demanded to be left alone, under the care of his excellent doctor, his old friend as he called him, and sent away nearly all his servants.

In this way the duke and his doctor could renew their acquaintance at their ease. The first was one of those men of a character, elevated, and but little material, with whom neither habit the attachment injured his physical well-being; one of those privileged beings who knew how to come down to the level of circumstances, not by a start or caprice, but constantly, by an energetic nature, and by a firm will, an impenetrable breastplate of iron, which may be symbolized in these words—“What matters it?” His was one of those hearts which beat under the armor of the fifteenth century, and the traces of which cannot now be met with except in Spain.

Stein related his campaigns, his misadventures, his arrival at the convent, his love, and his marriage.

The duke listened with much interest; and the recital gave him a great desire to know Marisalada, the fisherman, and the cabin which Stein preferred to a palace. Thus, on the occasion of his first going out, he directed his walk, accompanied by his doctor, to the sea-coast. Spring had commenced, and the freshness of the breeze, the pure breath of the immense element, lent its charm to their pilgrimage. The fort of St. Cristobal appeared to be ornamented with a green crown, in honor of the noble personage in regard to whom it is presented for the first time. The flowers which covered the roof of the cabin, real garden of Semiramis, crowded against each other, were agitated by the zephyrs, and resembled timid young girls who have love whispered in their ears. The sea, beautiful and calm, wafted its waves just to the feet of the duke, as if they would bid him welcome. The lark careering through space sent forth his sweet and faint notes, until he was lost to sight. The duke, a little fatigued, seated himself on a piece of rock: he was poetic, and he silently enjoyed the magnificent spectacle. Suddenly was heard a voice, simple and melancholy. The duke, surprised, looked at Stein. The doctor sighed. The voice continued to be heard.

“Stein,” said the duke to him, “are these sirens on the waves or angels in the air?”

Stein, as his response, took his flute, and repeated the same melancholy strain. Then the duke saw approaching, half running, half leaping, a young woman, who stopped suddenly on perceiving him.

“This is my wife,” said Stein, “my Mariquita.”

“Who possesses,” said the duke with enthusiasm, “the most wonderful voice in the world. Señora, I have visited all the theatres of Europe, but never have enchanting accents excited me to this point of admiration.”

If the brown and lustrous skin of Marisalada could change to another color, the blush of pride and pleasure would have shown in her cheeks, when she heard these exalted praises from the lips of so eminent a person, and so competent a judge.

“You two,” continued the duke, “have all that you could require to make your way in the world; and you would remain hidden in obscurity, and forgotten! This must not be. Will you not let society share in your brilliant qualities? I repeat, this cannot be, this must not be.”

“We are so happy here, duke,” replied Stein, “that if I make the least change in my situation I would believe myself an ingrate towards my destiny.”

“Stein,” exclaimed the duke, “where is that firm and calm courage which I admired in you when we were on the voyage together on board the ‘Royal Sovereign?’ What have you done with your love of science, the desire to consecrate yourself to suffering humanity? Have you allowed yourself to be enervated by your happiness? Can it be true that felicity renders a man selfish?”

Stein drooped his head.

“Señora,” continued the duke, “at your age, and with these happy gifts of nature, can you decide to remain forever attached to this rock, and to these ruins?”

Mariquita, whose heart beat under the influence of an ardent joy and a tempting hope, replied with, however, an apparent coldness—

“What will I gain by it?”

“And your father,” her husband asked of her; “do you believe he will give his consent?”

“He is a fisherman,” replied the Gaviota, feigning not to understand the true sense of the question.

The duke then entered into a long explanation of all the advantages which might arise for her distinction and a fortune.

Mariquita listened with avidity, while the duke contemplated with rapture the play of this countenance, alternately cold and full of enthusiasm, alternately impassible and energetic.

When the duke retired, Mariquita pinched the ear of Stein, and said to him eagerly—

“We will go! we will go! and whatever happens, I feel called to go. Crowns are promised me, and will I remain deaf to all that? No! no!”

Stein sorrowfully followed the duke.

CHAPTER XV.

WHEN they entered the convent, old Maria demanded of the noble convalescent, who always received his nurse with much kindness, how he had found her dear Marisalada.

“Is she not a beautiful creature?” she said.

“Certainly,” replied the duke. “Her eyes, as a poet says, are such as an eagle only can look at.”

“And her grace?” pursued the old woman; “and her voice?”

“Her voice! it is too beautiful to be lost in this solitude. You have nightingales enough, and goldfinches. Husband and wife must go with me.”

The thunder had fallen at the feet of Maria; and all the other words he spoke were as nothing.

“And do they wish it?” she cried in affright.

“They must wish it,” replied the duke, leaving the room.

Maria remained some moments confused and in a state of consternation. Then she went to find brother Gabriel.

“They are going,” she said to him, her eyes filled with tears, “they are going!”

“Thank God!” replied the brother. “They have enough deteriorated the marble pavement of the Prior’s cell. What will his reverence say when he comes back?”

“You have not understood me. Those who are going are Don Frederico and his wife.”

“They are going away! It’s impossible,” said the brother.

“Is it true?” asked Maria of Stein, who came in.

“She wishes it,” he replied dejectedly.

“That is what her father has always said,” continued Maria; “and with this response he would have let her die, if it had not been for us. Ah! Don Frederico, you are so well here! You would be like that Spaniard who being well would be better.”

“I hope for nothing better; I believe in nothing better in the world, my good Maria.”

“One day you will repent it. And poor Pedro! My God! why has this earthquake fallen on us?”

Don Modesto entered. For some time his visits had been very rare, not but the duke would have received him most amiably, nor but that his lordship would have exercised on him the same irresistible attraction which was felt by all who approached him, but Modesto was the slave of ceremony, and he imposed upon himself the rule not to present himself before the duke, general, and ex-minister of war, but in grand and rigorous ceremony.

Rosa Mistica had told him that his grand uniform could not stand active service, and this was the cause of the suspension of his visits. When Maria learned that the duke contemplated to depart in two days, Don Modesto retired immediately. He had formed a project, and he required time to realize it.

When Marisalada announced to her father the resolution she had taken to follow the advice of the duke, the grief which attacked the poor old Pedro would have softened a heart of stone.

He listened silently to the magnificent plans of his child, without either condemning or approving them; to her promises to revisit him in his cabin, he neither made request nor refusal. He regarded his child as a bird regards her offspring, when they try to quit the nest which they may never again enter. In one word, this excellent father wept in secret.

Next day the servants, horses, and mules which the duke had ordered for his departure arrived.

The cries, the good wishes, and the preparations for travel resounded throughout the convent.

Morrongo climbed upon the top of the roof and slept in the sun, and cast a look of contempt upon the tumult raised below him.

Palomo barked, growled, and protested so energetically against the strange invasion, that Manuel ordered Momo to fasten him up.

“There is no doubt,” said Momo, “but my grandma, who is a charlatan the most skilful to be found under the canopy of heaven, has no lover now to attract invalids to this house.”

The day of departure arrived. The duke was ready in his room. Stein and the Gaviota had arrived, followed by the poor fisherman, whose looks were on the ground, and his body bent double under the weight of his grief. This grief had made him old more than his years, more than ocean’s tempests; he let himself fall on the steps of the marble cross.

As to Modesto, he was there also; consternation was painted in his face. The infinitely small lock of hair on his head fell flabby and soft on one side; profound sighs escaped him.

“What ails you, my commandant?” asked Maria of him.

“Good Maria,” he replied, “to-day is the 15th of June, the day of my holy patron, a day sad and memorable in the past of my life. O San Modesto! is it possible that you treat me thus, even on the day which the church celebrates?”

“But what new thing has happened?” asked Maria, with impatience.

“See!” said the veteran, raising his arms and displaying a large rent, across which was seen the white lining of his uniform, like a row of teeth behind a laughing mocker.

Don Modesto was identified with his uniform; in losing it, there would have vanished the last hope of his profession.

“What a misfortune!” Maria sadly sighed.

“Rosita is laid up with a cold,” continued Don Modesto.

A servant entered.

“His excellency prays the commandant to have the goodness to go to him.”

Don Modesto rose proudly, took in his hand a letter carefully folded and sealed, pressed as near as possible the arm nearest his unfortunate rent, and presented himself to the duke, and saluted him respectfully in the strict military position.

“I wish your excellency,” he said, “a pleasant journey; and I hope that you will find the duchess and all your family in good health. I take, also, the liberty to pray your excellency to deliver into the hands of the minister of war this report, relative to the fort which I have the honor to command. Your excellency can be convinced by personal observation, of the urgency for repairs to re-establish the fort San Cristobal, now above all, when there is the question of a war with the Emperor of Morocco.”

“My dear Don Modesto,” the duke replied to him, “I cannot risk the promise of success to your report, but I advise you to plant a cross upon the battlement of your fort, as upon a sepulchre. In any case, I promise to recommend you, so that you will be paid the arrears for your services.”

This agreeable promise was not sufficiently powerful to efface the sad impression made on his heart by the sentence of death which the duke had pronounced against the citadel.

“Meantime,” said the duke, “I pray you to accept this as the souvenir of a friend.”

And, so saying, he pointed with his finger to a chair which was near to him. What was the surprise of this brave man when he saw exposed on that chair a complete uniform, new and bright, with two epaulets worthy to adorn the greatest captain of the age! Don Modesto, it was very natural, remained confused, astonished, dazzled at the sight of so much splendor and magnificence.

“I hope, commandant,” said the duke, “that you will live to such an age that this uniform may last you at least as long as its predecessor.”

“Ah! excellent señor,” replied Don Modesto, recovering by degrees the use of speech, “it is far too much for me.”

“Not at all,” replied the duke; “how many people are there who wear more splendid uniforms than this, who do not merit it as you do! I know, also, that you have a friend, an excellent hostess, to whom you would not be sorry to convey a souvenir. Do me the pleasure to convey this bijou to her.”

It was a chaplet of filigree, in gold and coral.

Then, without giving Don Modesto time to recover from his astonishment, the duke joined the family, which he had called together, to express to them his gratitude, and to leave them some gifts.

This noble lord did not confer his gifts with that disdainful generosity, and therefore wounding, which is so often met with among the rich; he conferred them knowing how to address those on whom fortune had not lavished her favors; he studied the needs and the tastes of each one. Thus all the inhabitants of the convent received what was the most necessary and the most agreeable to them. Manuel had a clock and a good watch; Momo a complete suit of clothes, a belt of yellow silk, and a fowling-piece; the women and children stuffs for their toilet and playthings; Anis, a kite of such vast dimensions that she disappeared behind this plaything as a rat would disappear behind the shield of Achilles. To the grandma Maria, the indefatigable nurse, the skilful maker of substantial soups, the duke gave a regular pension. As to poor brother Gabriel, he had nothing. He made so little noise in the world, and was so much hidden from the eyes of the duke, that he had never been seen by him. The grandma cut, at the suggestion of everybody, some ells from a piece of cloth the duke had given her; she added two cotton handkerchiefs, and went to find her protégé.

“Here, brother Gabriel,” she said to him, “here is a little present the duke makes you; I will take care to make the shirt.”

The poor brother remained as confused as the commandant. Gabriel was more than modest, he was humble.

All being ready to depart, the duke entered the court.

“Adieu, Momo,” said Marisalada. “Honor to Villamar! If I have ever seen you, I have forgotten you.”

“Adieu, Gaviota,” replied Momo, “if everybody weeps your departure as my mother’s son weeps, they will ring the bells to the whole bevy.”

Old Pedro remained seated on the steps of the cross. Maria was near him, and wept burning tears.

“Do not believe,” said the Gaviota, “that I depart for China, and that we will never come back again, when I tell you that I will come back! See—one would think you were assisting at the death of Bohemians! Have you taken a vow to spoil my pleasure in going to the city?”

“Mother,” said Manuel, much affected in witnessing the grief of the good Maria, “if you weep so much now, what will you do when I die?”

“I will not weep, son of my heart,” replied the mother, smiling in spite of her grief; “I shall not live to weep for thy death.”

The horses arrived. Stein cast himself into Maria’s arms.

“Do not forget us, Don Frederico,” said the old woman, sobbing: “return!”

“If I return not,” replied Stein, “it will be because I am dead.”