CHAPTER VII

THE HALT IN A CORK WOOD

Next morning betimes we left the venta of Castellar where, overnight, we had spent so many pleasant hours. The Major Don Joaquim was very curious to know the object of our mission to Seville, of which he announced himself a well-known citizen; but we declined to state the reason of our visit in uniform to that far-famed city; neither did we mention that our business lay with no less a personage than the captain-general of Los Cuatros Reinos.

In a country like Spain, where the people are so jealous of their national honour and so revengeful, we did not conceive that it would be conducive to our safety to state that we were the identical officers whose affair with the guarda costa had caused so much heartburning for some weeks past, and so much correspondence between our governor and the minister Espartero; so, somewhat piqued by our reserve, the major gave us a formal bow, and clambered into the vehicle which was to convey him to Medina. We separated, the convoy of calessos got into motion after much noise and vociferation on the part of the drivers, the stable-boys, the hostalero, and the passengers, who were all gabbling at once in full-toned Spanish as they rolled away under the escort of a party of very ill-appointed dragoons in the service of Donna Isabella la Catolica, while we rode off in the opposite direction towards Alcala de los Gazules, a small town, which lies on the Seville road, and through which we passed soon after.

"Let us push on," said I, to interrupt Jack, who had been rallying me pretty smartly about Donna Paulina, and vowing that all this affair of a trip to Seville had been foreseen and preconcerted by me for the purpose of meeting her again and continuing a flirtation which was a source of great merriment to the regiment. "Let us push on, Jack, for I feel very anxious----"

"To reach Seville, of course; but it won't run away; we shall find it in its proper place on the left bank of the Guadalquiver."

"You mistake me. I was thinking how awkward it would be for us if the Himalaya was to come round during our absence; and if on our return we should find the whole regiment embarked and steaming away for the Crimea."

"Awkward! I should think so, rather; but it is not likely they can decamp in such a hurry. After all we heard last night about the restless habits of the good people in these mountains, and their vague or peculiar ideas regarding property, together with the eccentricities of this Don Fabrique, do we not run a little risk in proceeding without an escort?"

"There is risk, certainly; but our return is not to be thought of till the duty is done."

"Of course not--what would the regiment say?"

"And what should we think of ourselves?"

"We are, I hope, a match for any six Spaniards, with our swords and revolvers, in fighting; and with these good nags under us I should think we are more than a match for them in flying. But the noon is becoming so hot that I propose we should halt under that grove of cork-trees and there take a siesta."

We halted accordingly at the base of a steep mountain chain, between the cleft peaks of which a noonday-flood of yellow light was gushing. Sterile, abrupt, and bare above us rose the ridgy rocks: the little valley at the base was teeming with verdure and fertility, but it was silent and solitary, for not a sound was heard save the murmur of a stream which bubbled from a fissure in a vine-covered cliff. It meandered between meadows of aromatic plants, and sought deep pools over which the oleander and the bay threw their branches, and the cool shady thickets of the dark wood of olive and cork-trees.

Just where we dismounted, we found a personage lounging on the grass. He was smoking a cigar, and had a long gun beside him. Without rising for a minute nearly, he scrutinised us and our horses with marked curiosity. His costume was somewhat gay, being in the highest style of the bull-ring, or that of a majo or dandified Spanish ladrone, whose free aspect and gallant air make him the admiration of the dark-eyed paisanas and the envy of their more peaceful male relatives; for the majo is the bravo of our own time.

This personage wore an ample brown cloak, which hung loosely about his shoulders, a black velvet sombrero, with a large tuft of black plush on one side thereof, and under its deep rim his coal-black hair fell in heavy locks, and his flashing eyes watched all our motions, with an indescribable expression of stealth and suspicion. A long knife and a pair of brass-butted pistols were in his gaudy sash; he wore leathern gaiters, and was playing with the blade of a navaja, or clasp-knife, about ten inches long--a deadly instrument, which the Spaniard is never without, for therewith he cuts his 'carne' and bread, or his bacallao in Lent, slices his melon in summer, and slashes the face of any person with whom he may chance to differ in opinion. Indeed, the visage of this lounger bore the very unmistakable mark of a long slash which had once laid it open from eye to chin. Beside him stood a beautiful Andalusian jennet, high of head, and bold in chest; its gaily-fringed bridle was thrown over the branch of an olive tree, and it was accoutred with a high-peaked saddle of antique form, covered by a piece of white sheepskin, which was spread also over a pair of holsters.

"Buenos dias, señor," said I; "a good morning--I fear we are disturbing you."

"Not at all, señores--the greensward, the shadow of those trees, and the waters of this stream, flowing from yonder sierra, belong to us all in common. Sit down, señores, and halter your horses, as you see I have haltered mine. You belong to the Gibraltar garrison, I presume--right--you are Inglesos."

"No, Brittanicos," said I, with a smile.

"And whither go ye?"

"To Seville."

"Ah, would I were going with you: it is a place of joy and merriment, Seville. The sun shines on it once every day of the year; yet I go there but seldom. Allow me to make you each a cigarillo."

"With pleasure."

To have declined would have been an affront as great as to refuse a proffered snuff-mull in the country of the clans. Our Spaniard produced one of those little books of soft blank paper (almost the only volumes used in Spain), and tore out three leaves; he then took tobacco from his silk pouch and made up three little cigars very neatly and adroitly; but twice during the operation I detected his stealthy eyes scanning us from under his bushy eyebrows.

My little box of patent lights excited his wonder and admiration, as he was about to exert his patience by having recourse to the antiquated flint and steel. Then Jack Slingsby produced his travelling flask; I brought forth mine, and the Spaniard had a capacious bota of wine, a drinking cup of leather, a piece of bacallao and biscuits; and we were just proceeding to lunch, when his Andalusian jennet pricked up its ears and neighed uneasily.

"Maldito!" said our companion, as a scowl came over his visage and his hand fell mechanically on the lock of his gun; "some one approaches."

"An old woman on a donkey, and nothing more," said Slingsby, carelessly; "amigo mio, you look as much alarmed as if you expected the terrible Fabrique de Urquija, or Juan Roa of Antequera."

The keen eyes of the Spaniard flashed, and he looked at Jack as if he would have pierced him through.

"I fear neither Don Fabrique nor any other man," said he gruffly; "a woman on a burro--oh--it must be poor Sister Santa Veronica, of Estrelo, a town about a league distant."

"How is she named so?" I asked.

"After the blessed Santa Veronica who wiped the pale face of our Lord, when dying upon his cross," replied the Spaniard, lowering his head; "and as she did so, on her kerchief there became impressed the most wondrous of religious miracles--the Santa Faz--the holy countenance of Jaen, where it is still preserved in our cathedral, and from which the portraits of our Saviour are all taken; hence it is that his sad and upturned face, with its crown of bloody thorns and curling heard, and the long yellow hair parted over the smooth pale brow, are so well known over all the Christian world."

As he spoke, an elderly woman, habited like a nun, in a coarse and well-patched dress of black serge, with a hood of spotless white linen folded across her brow and chin, and having its long ends drooping lappetwise down her withered cheeks, rode up to us on a donkey, which displayed--what one seldom sees in a Spanish ass--evident signs of being ill-fed and ill-groomed. The nun, who had a careworn, grave, and, though stern, not unpleasing expression of face, carried a covered basket on her arm. Our companion sprang to his feet, and, doffing his sombrero, hastened to meet her and to hold the bridle of her animal.

She was abroad, as she told us, begging alms and food for the sisters of her convent--ten ladies--all of whom were of noble rank, but the most of whose kinsmen had fallen in battle under Don Ramon de Cabrera, and thus left them friendless. They were now, by the confiscation of the ecclesiastical revenues, and the seizure of those sums which they had paid as a dowry into the convent treasury, reduced to extreme penury in their old age, and were driven from their pleasant convent in the beautiful vega of Jaen; since then they had endeavoured to perform the duties of their order, and to serve God, in a poor and half-ruined house, which belonged to a noble, charitable. and religious lady, Donna Dominga de Lucena, y Colmenar de Orieja, at Estrelo; and now would not the noble Caballeros give something to the poor ladies of Santa Theresa, however small, for the love of God and of blessed charity?

All this, which she prettily told, was addressed to us, rather than to the stranger, at whom she glanced uneasily from time to time, although he stood bare-headed, with the deepest respect, and holding her burro by the bridle.

The circumstance of the sisterhood being befriended by the mother of Donna Paulina would have sufficed to interest us, if the wrong done them by the present Government of Spain had failed to do so. Our purses were at once produced, and we respectfully raised our caps on presenting the poor nun with a few pillared dollars, which no doubt she little expected from two heretical Brittanicos.

They had been robbed of everything, she continued--at least, all save their cases of reliques and the bones of Santa Theresa, which they had borne on their shoulders in sad procession from Jaen to Estrelo; and, moreover, they had lost the wonderful portrait of their patroness, which had been seized and sold by those hijos de Luiz Philipe, the men of the new administration; but it was no fault of the present Queen of Spain, for poor Isabella la Catolica had wept her eyes out in the cause of the poor monks and nuns. The señores had, no doubt, heard of the wonderful portrait of the blessed Theresa?

In great sorrow we professed our ignorance thereof.

"Madre Mia! It was said to be an Alonzo Cano, and had narrowly escaped the clutches of the Marshals Soult and Massena, when they swept away the golden moidores of the Portuguese and the divine Murillos of the Spaniards. It belonged to the chapel in which the saint was baptized, and was quite as veritable and wonderful as the holy countenance of Jaen, and was usually placed over the great altar; but one day when the chapel was undergoing repair, it was placed at the porch, where it was seen by a certain ruined gamester--a savage and desperate fellow, worse than Juan Roa or Don Fabrique, as he came past that way. In a fit of mad despair, having just lost everything, he struck his dagger into the bosom of the picture, from which there immediately gushed out a torrent of blood in the sight of the terrified people; while a faint cry was heard in the air, as of one in pain afar off."

"And the gamester?"

"Went raving mad and died, chained like a wild beast in the Gaza de Locos of Jaen."

To our gift, our companion added a doubloon, a present so valuable that it excited our surprise and kindled the fear of the poor nun, who accepted it with reluctance, and, with abundance of genuflections and thanks, whipped up her burro, which trotted away.

"Shall I not have the honour of escorting you to Estrelo, reverend señora?" cried our friend, hurrying after her.

"Muchos gratias--no, no! a thousand thanks, señor," she replied, hurriedly; "no one will molest a poor sister of Santa Theresa."

Her ill-concealed repugnance to receive his alms evidently impressed the Spaniard, who seated himself in silence, and smoked with a sullen expression, as if somewhat depressed by the whole affair; but Jack Slingsby, who hated silence more than anything in the world, began to make some casual inquiries as to whether or not the famous Urquija had been heard of hereabout, and where he was generally to be found.

"Found," reiterated the Spaniard, with a frown of surprise; "he is often found by those who least like such a discovery."

"So it seems," replied Jack, "and by the accounts we heard of him at the--how do you name it?--the venta last night, he seems to be ripe fruit for the gallows."

"Indeed," said the Spaniard, quietly making up another cigarillo, "you are very loud, Señor Viajador, (traveller), in condemning this poor son of Andalusia, this Don Fabrique; but you do so simply because you know nothing about him; being, like most Englishmen, totally ignorant of every country except your own portion of Britain, and, believing that whatever is not English must be radically, physically, and morally wrong, you have come among us predisposed to ridicule and to condemn."

"The deuce!" said Jack, with an air of pique; "I beg to assure you, my fine fellow, that I could tell you a story of a posada----"

"Enough, señor," replied the other, waving his hand with great dignity of manner, while a savage gleam shot over his stealthy eyes; "but allow me to inform you that a bandit--I do not mean a pitiful picaro who steals purses and pocket-handkerchiefs on the prado, or a swindling raterillo who cheats at cards, but an armed robber (and here his hand struck the butt of his escopeta)--is a modern Spanish hero, and the pretty paisana and the bluff muleteer sing of his exploits in the same breath with those of Rodrigo de Bivar, the Cid Campeador, Hernando de Cordova, and the chiefs of the war of Independence, when we saw the fields of Vimiero, of Talavera and Rorica; lend a new lustre to the names of Mina, of Murillo, and of Wellington!"

"Very likely; but this Don Fabrique commits such devilish atrocities, and all that sort of thing," urged Jack, closing with his incessant phrase.

"Do you know why poor Fabrique took his gun and stiletto, and went to the mountains?"

"Shall I tell you?"

"If you please."

"Listen. There was an abogado, a lawyer of Jaen, named Jacop el Escribano, who married the aunt of Fabrique--an aunt who had been a mother to him after his own died, or rather was murdered by the Chapelgorri's. She tended him, reared him, loved and educated him at Alcala, and he was to be her heir, for she was rich, and had mines of quicksilver and cinnabar on the confines of Murcia; and her heir he had every right to be, for other kindred she had none. Well, this good aunt fell sick; those who were more than usually acute, or more than usually evil-minded, said that the abogado had poisoned her mentally and bodily. At all events he wrote out her will, which bequeathed all her property to himself, whom failing, to a certain Gil Jacop, his son by a former marriage, and to poor Fabrique, the son of her dead brother, not a peseta, not a pistareen! This limb of Satan and the law, succeeding in all his ends and objects, poisoned her ears against the poor student of Alcala. Well, the aunt died. Full of sorrow Fabrique hastened to his home to find the door of it shut in his face, and the malicious abogado in possession of everything, even to his aunt's snuff-box and armed chair. Our poor student rushed to the Alcalde, who heard him with a smile of incredulity--why? because he was the cousin of the abogado, and he, too, shut his door in the face of Fabrique. Bursting with indignation he sought the corregidor, to pour out anew the story of his wrongs; but, ay de mi! the corregidor, a Commander of the Knights of Calatrava, was to dine that day with the abogado, who had invited half the city to feast, and weekly gave a magnificent tertulia in the house of the dead woman.

"Fabrique lost all patience and, swore a dreadful vow of vengeance, so the wise, just, and most illustrious corregidor expelled him from the city, and by the alguazils he was driven forth by the Audujar gate. His last money was in his pocket; so he bought a dagger and musket, and shaking the dust off his feet at the puerta de Audujar, he gathered together a band of gallant spirits who had followed Juan Roa, and betook himself to the mountains, leaving the abogado in possession of his aunt's house and her mines upon the Murcian frontier."

"And did he enjoy them long?" I asked.

The Spaniard smiled grimly, and took a long quaff of the bota.

"You wish to know, señor?'

"Exceedingly."

"Listen. A week after these events our abogado disappeared from Jaen, and no man knew whence he had gone, and few cared. A month after, a poor wretch, half crazed and in rags, emaciated, pale and hollow-cheeked by hunger, illness, agony, and wandering, and whose vision had been destroyed by the simple application of a red-hot ramrod, was found near a village of the Sierra de Ronda. It was Jacop el Escribano--whose scribbling was at an end, and whose eyes were closed on the world for ever."

"And his son, Gil Jacop?"

"Was found shot one fine morning at the corner of that road, just where you see a rough wooden cross, erected by the curate in memory of the affair, and to beg a prayer of every passer-by for the dead man's sinful soul. The corregidor has thrice been robbed of all he possessed--his rents, fees, and the revenue of his commanderie; and the alcalde has quite as often been beaten to the very verge of death. Evil-disposed people lay those things to the charge of Don Fabrique; but I say nothing, having no opinion on the subject."

"Then you are afraid of him?" said Jack, laughing.

"Afraid--ha, ha!" said the Spaniard, taking up his long gun; "no--not so much as you were afraid of Juan Roa and Martin Secco, on that night in the 'Posada del Cavallo' at Malaga.

"How know you of that affair?" asked Jack, starting to his feet.

"Did I not hear it told at full length last night in the venta at Castellar?"

"Were you there?" I inquired, with surprise.

"You saw a goatherd present--an old fellow with a sheep-skin dress, a long beard, a crook, and bota."

"Yes."

"'T was I. Last night I was a goatherd, because it suited my purpose to appear so, and to laugh at the terror of those miserable soap-boilers on hearing the whistle of bullets in the Sierra; to-day I am Fabrique de Urquija, the friend of poor Juan Roa; and had you been less kind to that poor nun than you were, it was my intention to have shot and robbed you both, which I could easily have done, despite your swords and revolvers, your English impudence and cool assurance. Vaya usted con Dios, and may you have a pleasant ride to Seville; but attend more to the rules of common politeness when next you speak of Urquija beyond the security of your own lines at Gibraltar. I am not a bad fellow, señores, at times, though more apt to take the advice of a curer of fish than a curer of souls in Lent."

With these words he leaped on his horse, and slinging his long gun by his right leg, galloped into the cork wood, and disappeared.