The Velvet Glove

by Henry Seton Merriman

  CHAPTER V

  A PILGRIMAGEEvasio Mon was a great traveler. In Eastern countries a man who makes thepilgrimage to Mecca adds thereafter to his name a title which carrieswith it not only the distinction conferred upon the dullest by the sightof other men and countries, but the bearer stands high among the elect.

  If many pilgrimages could confer a title, this gentle-mannered Spaniardwould assuredly have been thus decorated. He had made almost everypilgrimage that the Church may dictate--that wise old Church, which fillsso well its vocation in the minds of the restless and the unsatisfied. Hehad been many times to Rome. He could tell you the specific properties ofevery shrine in the Roman Catholic world. He made a sort of speciality inlatter-day miracles.

  Did this woman want a son to put a graceful finish to her family ofdaughters, he could tell her of some little-known pilgrimage in themountains which rarely failed.

  "Go," he would say. "Go there, and say your prayer. It is the right thingto do. The air of the mountains is delightful. The journey diverts themind."

  In all of which he was quite right. And it was not for him, any more thanit is for the profane reader, to inquire why latter-day miracles arenearly always performed at or near popular health resorts.

  Was another in grief, Evasio Mon would send him on a long journey to agay city, where the devout are not without worldly diversion in theevenings.

  Neither was it upon hearsay only that he prescribed. He had been to allthese places, and tested them perhaps, which would account for his serenedemeanour and that even health which he seemed to enjoy. He had traveledwithout perturbment, it would seem, for his journeys had left no wrinkleson his bland forehead, neither was the light of restlessness in his quieteyes.

  He must have seen many cities, but cities are nearly all alike, and theygrow more alike every day. Many men also must he have met, but theyseemed to have rubbed against him and left him unmarked--as sandstone mayrub against a diamond. It is upon the sandstone that the scratch remains.He was not part of all that he had seen, which may have meant that helooked not at men or cities, but right through them, to something beyond,upon which his gaze was always fixed.

  Living as he did, in a city possessing so great a shrine as that of the"Virgen del Pilar," the scene of a vision accorded to St. James whentraveling through Spain, Mon naturally interested himself in thepilgrims, who came from all parts of the world to worship in thecathedral, who may be seen at any hour kneeling in the dim light offlickering candles before the altar rails.

  Mon's apartment, indeed, in the tall house next door to the Posada de losReyes on the Paseo del Ebro was a known resort of the more cultured ofthe pilgrims, of these who came from afar; from Rome and from thefarthest limits of the Roman Church--from Warsaw to Minnesota.

  Evasio Mon had friends also among the humble and such as sheltered in thePosada de los Reyes, which itself was a typical Spanish hostelry, and oneof those houses of the road in which the traveler is lucky if he findsthe bedrooms all occupied; for then he may, without giving offense, sleepmore comfortably in the hayloft. Here, night and day, the clink of bellsand the gruff admonition of refractory mules told of travel, and theconstant come and go of strange, wild-looking men from the remotercorners of Aragon, far up by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The hugetwo-wheeled carts drawn by six, eight or ten mules, came lumberingthrough the dust at all hours of the twenty-four, bringing the produce ofthe greener lands to this oasis of the Aragonese desert. Some came fromother oases in the salt and stony plains where once an inland sea coveredall, while the others hailed from the north where the Sierras de Guararise merging into the giant Pyrenees.

  Many of these drivers made their way up the stairs of the house whereEvasio Mon lived his quiet life, and gave a letter or merely a verbalmessage, remembered faithfully through the long and dusty journey, to theman who, though no priest himself, seemed known to every priest in Spain.These letters and messages were nearly always from the curate of somedistant village, and told as often as not of a cheerful hopefulness inthe work.

  Sometimes the good men themselves would come, sitting humbly beneath thehood of the great cart, or riding a mule, far enough in front to avoidthe dust, and yet near enough for company. This was more especially inthe month of February, at the anniversary of the miraculous appearance,at which time the graven image set up in the cathedral is understood tobe more amenable to supplication than at any other. And, havingaccomplished their pilgrimage, the simple churchmen turned quitenaturally to the house that stood adjoining the cathedral. There, theywere always sure of a welcome and of an invitation to lunch or dinner,when they were treated to the very best the city could afford, and, whilekeeping strictly within the letter of the canonical law, could feasttheir hearty country appetites even in Lent.

  Mon so arranged his journeys that he should be away from Saragossa in thegreat heats of the summer and autumn, which wise precaution was renderedthe easier by the dates of the other great festivals which he usuallyattended. For it will be found that the miracles and other eventsattractive to the devout nearly always happen at that season of the yearwhich is most suitable to the environments. Thus the traditions of theMiddle Ages fixed the month of February for Saragossa when it is pleasantto be in a city, and September for Montserrat--to quote only oneinstance--at which time the cool air of the mountains is most to beappreciated.

  Evasio Mon, however, was among those who deemed it wise to avoid thegreat festival at Montserrat by making his pilgrimage earlier in thesummer, when the number of the devout was more restricted and theirquality more select. Scores of thousands of the very poorest in the landflock to the monastery in September, turning the mountain into a picnicground and the festival into a fair.

  Mon never knew when the spirit would move him to make this pleasantjourney, but his preparations for it must have been made in advance, andhis departure by an early train the day after meeting his old friend theCount de Sarrion was probably sudden to every one except himself.

  He left the train at Lerida, going on foot from the station to the town,but he did not seek an hotel. He had a friend, it appeared, whose housewas open to him, in the Spanish way, who lived near the church in thelong, narrow street which forms nearly the whole town of Lerida. InNavarre and Aragon the train service is not quite up to modernrequirements. There is usually one passenger train in either directionduring the day, though between the larger cities this service has of lateyears been doubled. It was afternoon, and the hour of the siesta, whenEvasio Mon walked through the narrow streets of this ancient city.

  Although the sun was hot, and all nature lay gasping beneath it, thestreets were unusually busy, and in the shades of the arcades at thecorner of the market-place, at the corner of the bridge, and by the bankof the river, where the low wall is rubbed smooth by the trousers of theindolent, men stood in groups and talked in a low voice. It is not toomuch to state that the only serene face in the streets was that of EvasioMon, who went on his way with the absorbed smile which is usually takenin England to indicate the Christian virtues, and is associated as oftenas not with Dissent.

  The men of Lerida--a simpler, more agricultural race than theNavarrese--were disturbed; and, indeed, these were stirring times inSpain. These men knew what might come at any moment, for they had beenborn in stirring times and their fathers before them. Stirring times hadreigned in this country for a hundred years. Ferdinand VII--the beloved,the dupe of Napoleon the Great, the god of all Spain from Irun to SanRoque, and one of the thorough-paced scoundrels whom God has permitted tosit on a throne--had bequeathed to his country a legacy of strife, whichwas now bearing fruit.

  For not only Aragon, but all Spain was at this time in the mostunfortunate position in which a nation or a man--and, above all, awoman--can find herself--she did not know what she wanted.

  On one side was Catalonia, republican, fiery, democratic, andindependent; on the other, Navarre, more priest-ridden than Rome herself,with every man a Carlist and every woman that which her confessor toldher to b
e. In the south, Andalusia only asked to be left alone to go herown sunny, indifferent way to the limbo of the great nations. Which wayshould Aragon turn? In truth, the men of Aragon knew not themselves.

  Stirring times indeed; for the news had just penetrated to far remoteLerida that the two greatest nations of Europe were at each other'sthroats. It was a long cry from Ems to Lerida, and the talkers on theshady side of the market-place knew little of what was passing on thebanks of the Rhine.

  Stirring times, too, were nearer at hand across the Mediterranean. Forthings were approaching a deadlock on the Tiber, and that river, too,must, it seemed, flow with blood before the year ran out. For thegreatest catastrophe that the Church has had to face was preparing in thenew and temporary capital of Italy; and all men knew that the word mustsoon go forth from Florence telling the monarch of the Vatican that hemust relinquish Rome or fight for it.

  Spain, in her awkward search for a king hither and thither over Europe,had thrown France and Germany into war. And Evasio Mon probably knew ofthe historic scene at Ems as soon as any man in the Peninsula; forhistory will undoubtedly show, when a generation or so has passed away,that the latter stages of Napoleon's declaration of war were hurried onby priestly intrigue. It will be remembered that Bismarck was thedeadliest and cleverest foe that Jesuitism has had.

  Mon knew what the talkers in the market-place were saying to each other.He probably knew what they were afraid to say to each other. For Spainwas still seeking a king--might yet set other nations by the ears. TheRepublic had been tried and had miserably failed. There was yet a DonCarlos, a direct descendant of the brother whom Ferdinand the belovedcheated out of his throne. There was a Don Carlos. Why not Don Carlos,since we seek a king? the men in the Phrygian caps were saying to eachother. And that was what Mon wanted them to say.

  After dark he came out into the streets again, cloaked to the lipsagainst the evening air. He went to the large cafe by the river, andthere seemed to meet many acquaintances.

  The next morning he continued his journey, by road now, and on horseback.He sat a horse well, but not with that comfort which is begotten of alove of the animal. For him the horse was essentially a means oftransport, and all other animals were looked at in a like utilitarianspirit.

  In every village he found a friend. As often as not he was the first tobring the news of war to a people who have scarcely known peace thesehundred years. The teller of news cannot help telling with his tidingshis own view of them; and Evasio Mon made it known that in his opinionall who had a grievance could want no better opportunity of airing it.

  Thus he traveled slowly through the country towards Montserrat; andwherever his slight, black-clad form and serene face had passed, thespirit of unrest was left behind. In remote Aragonese villages, as inbusy Catalan towns where the artisan (that disturber of ancient peace)was already beginning to add his voice to things of Spain, Evasio Monalways found a hearing.

  Needless to say he found in every village Venta, in every Posada of thetowns, that which is easy to find in this babbling world--a talker.

  And Evasio Mon was a notable listener.