CHAPTER III.

When the two youths arrived, they found Elvira and Rita leaning each against a side of the doorway, wrapped in their mantles of yellow cloth, bordered with black velvet ribbon, such as were worn then by the women of the country in place of the large shawls which they use nowadays. They covered the lower part of the face, allowing only the forehead and eyes to be seen. Having wished them good evening, Perico said to his sister:

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"Elvira, I warn you that this bird wants to fly; fasten the cage well . . . He is beside himself to go and fight these _gabachos_ [Footnote 86] who are trying to pass through here like Pedro through his house."

[Footnote 86: _Gabachos_, a term of contempt for Frenchmen.]

"For they say," added Ventura, "that they are approaching Seville; and must we stand looking on with our arms crossed, without so much as saying this mouth is my own?"

"Ah goodness!" exclaimed Elvira, "I hope in God that this may not happen! Do not even speak of it! O my protectress Saint Anna! I offer thee what I prize so much, my hair, which I will tie up in a tress with an azure ribbon and hang upon thy altar, if thou wilt save us from this."

"And I," said Rita, "will offer the Saint two pots of pinks to adorn her chapel, if it falls out so that you take yourselves off in haste and do not come back soon."

"Don't say that, even in jest," exclaimed Elvira, distressed.

"Never mind, let her say it; the Saint is sure to prefer the beautiful tress of your hair to her pinks," observed Ventura.

At this moment the good widow, Maria, approached. She was older than her sister-in-law, and although hardly sixty years old, was so small and thin that she appeared much older.

"Children," she cried, "the night is falling, what are you doing out here, freezing yourselves?"

"How freezing ourselves?" answered Ventura, unbuttoning his collar, "I'm too warm, the cold is in your bones, Aunt Maria."

"Do not play with your health, my son, nor trust in your youth, for Death does not look at the record of baptism. This north wind cuts like a knife, and you are more likely to get a consumption by waiting here than an inheritance from the Indies."

So saying she passed into the house, all following her, except Ventura, who went to discharge his commissions.

They found Anna seated before the brasier, the point of reunion round which families gather m winter. The great copper frying-pan shone like gold upon its low wooden bench. The floor of the spacious room was covered with mattings of straw and hemp, around it were arranged rude wooden chairs, high-backed and low-seated, a low pine table upon which burned a large metal lamp, and a leathern arm-chair, like those seen in the barbers' shops of the region, completed the simple furniture of the room. In the alcove were seen a very high bed, over which was spread a white counterpane with well starched ruffles; a very large cedar chest, with supports underneath to preserve it from the dampness of the floor; a small table of the same wood, upon which, in its case of mahogany and glass, was a beautiful image of "Our Lady of Sorrows," some pious offerings, and the "Mystic Garland; or, Lives of the Saints," by Father Baltasar Bosch Centellas.

As soon as they were all reunited, including Pedro, the neighbor and friend of Anna, the latter began to recite the rosary. When the prayers were finished Anna took up her distaff to spin, Elvira applied herself to her knitting, and Pedro, who occupied the great chair, employed himself in the preparation of a cigarette; Perico in roasting chestnuts and acorns, which, when they were done, he gave to Rita, who ate them.

"Did you ever!" said Perico, "how the rain holds off! The earth has turned to stone and the sky to brass. Last year at this time it had rained so much that the ground could not be seen for the grass that covered it."

"It is true," said Uncle Pedro, "and now the flocks are perishing with hunger, notwithstanding that last year their table was so well spread."

"It appears to me," added Elvira, in her sweet voice, "that it is going to rain soon. The river wore its black frown to-day, and the old people say that these frowns are sleeping tempests, which, when the winds awaken them, drench the world.'"

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"Of course it is going to rain," said Rita; "I saw to-night the star of the waters which the storm brings for a lantern."

"It is a-going to rain," confirmed Maria, aroused from her dose by the abrupt and clear voice of her daughter; "my rheumatic pains announce it to me. Indeed, wind and rain are the fruits of the season, and they are needed. But I am sorry for the poor herdsmen who pass such nights in the inn of the stars."

"Don't trouble yourself about them, Maria," said the jovial Uncle Pedro, who had always a saying, a proverb, a story, or a something, to bring in support of whatever he asserted. "In this world habit is everything, and that which seems disagreeable to one, another finds quite to his liking; custom makes all level as the sea, and gilds all like the sun. There was once a shepherd that got married to a girl as lovely as a rose, and as chance would have it, on the very night of the wedding there arose such a tempest as if all the imps from beneath had been abroad with thunder and lightning, hurricane and flood. It was too much for the shepherd; he abandoned his bride and rushed to the window exclaiming as he dashed it open, 'O blessed night I why am I not out to enjoy thee!'"

"The bride might well be jealous of such a rival," said Rita, bursting into a loud laugh.

The clock struck nine, they recited the "animas," and soon afterward separated.

When the mother and her children were left alone Elvira spread a clean cloth upon the table and placed upon it a dish of salad. Anna and her daughter began to sup, but Perico remained seated with his head inclined over the brasier, absently stirring with the shovel the few coals which still glowed among the ashes.

"Are you not going to eat your supper, Perico?" said his sister, extending toward him the fine white bread which she herself had kneaded.

"I am not hungry," he answered, without lifting his head.

"Are you sick, my son?" asked Anna.

"No, mother," he replied.

The supper was finished in silence, and when Elvira had gone out, carrying the plates, Perico abruptly said to his mother:

"Mother, I am going to Utrera tomorrow to enlist with the loyal Spanish who are preparing to defend the country."

Anna was thunderstruck. Accustomed to the docile obedience of her son, who had never failed to keep his word, she said to him:

"To the war? That is to say that you are going to abandon us. But it cannot be! You must not do it! You ought not to leave your mother and sister, and I will not give my consent."

"Mother," said the young man, exasperated, "it is seen that you always have something to oppose to my desires; you have subjected my will, and now you wish to fetter my arm; but mother," he proceeded, growing excited, and impelled by the two greatest motives which can rule a man--patriotism in all its purity, and love in all its ardor, "mother, I am twenty-two years old, and I have besides strength enough and will enough, to break away if you force me to it."

Anna, as much astonished as terrified, clapped her cold and trembling hands in agony, exclaiming:

"What! is there no alternative between a marriage which will make you wretched and the war which will cost you your life?"

"None, mother," said Perico, drawn out of his natural character, and hardened by the dread that he should yield in the contest now fairly entered upon. "Either I remain to marry, or I go to fulfil the duty of every young Spaniard."

"Marry, then," said the mother in a grave voice. "Between two misfortunes I choose the least bitter; but remember, Perico, what your mother tells you to-day; Rita is vain and light {504} an indifferent Christian, and an ungrateful daughter. A bad daughter makes a bad wife--your blood and hers will repel each other. You will remember what your mother now says, but it will be too late."

Saying these words, the noble woman rose and went into her room to hide from her son the tears that choked her voice.

Perico, who regarded his mother with as much tenderness as veneration, made a movement as if to retain her. He would have spoken, but his timidity and the excitement of his mind confused his faculties. He found no words, and after a moment of indecision rose suddenly, passed his hand across his damp forehead, and went out.

During this time Rita, who waited in vain at the grating of her window for Perico, was impatient and uneasy.

"I won't put up with this!" she said at last, spitefully, closing the wooden shutter. "You may come now, but upon my life, you shall wait longer than I have." At this instant a stone rolled against the foot of the wall, This was the signal agreed upon between her and Perico to announce his arrival.

"Now you may roll all the stones of Dos-Hermanas and I shall not open the shutter," said Rita to herself. "Perhaps you think you have me at your will and pleasure, like your old donkey, but this will never do, my son."

Another stone came rolling, and bounded back from the wall with more violence than Perico was accustomed to use.

"Ho!" said Rita, "he appears to be in a hurry; it is well to let him know that waiting has not the flavor of caramels; I'm only sorry it doesn't rain pitchforks." But, after a moment of reflection, she added, "If we quarrel, the one to bathe in rose water will be my hypocrite of an aunt; afterward Uncle Pedro's daughter, Saint Marcela, that the old fox keeps shut up in the convent, like a sardine in pickle, will be brought out to dance, so that she may trap his godson Perico on the first opportunity. But they shall not see themselves in that glass, for to frustrate their plans--"

And suddenly opening the window, she finished the sentence:

"I am here." Addressing herself to Perico, she continued with asperity, "Look here, are you determined to throw down the wall? Why did you wake me? When I am kept waiting I fall asleep, and when I am asleep I do not thank anyone for disturbing me; so go back by the way you came, or by another, it's all the same to me." And she made a motion as if to shut the blind.

"Rita, Rita!" exclaimed Perico, "I have spoken to my mother."

"You!" said Rita, opening again the half-shut blind. "You don't say it! Why, this is another miracle like that of Balaam's ass! and what answer did this '_mater_' not '_amabilis_' give you?"

"She says, yes, that I may marry," answered Perico delightedly.

"Says yes!" mocked Rita. "Saint Quilindon help me! How often a key can turn! But it belongs to the wise to change their minds. Go along with you! To-morrow I will come over and condole with her. Perico, what if, following the good example of your mother, as mine exhorts me to, I also should change my mind and now say no?"

"Rita, Rita!" cried Perico, beside himself with joy, "you are going to be my wife."

"That remains to be seen," she responded; "the idea is not like a silver dollar, which, the oftener you turn it, the prettier it looks."

With these and other absurdities Rita blotted entirely from the mind of Perico, the solemn impression his mother's words had left there.

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