CHAPTER XVI
THE MATTRESS BEATEREnglishmen are justly proud of their birthright. The less they travel,moreover, the prouder they are, and the stronger is their conviction thatEngland leads the world in thought and art and action.
They are quite unaware, for instance, that no country in the world isbehind England (unless it be Scotland) in a small matter that affectsvery materially one-third of a human span of life, namely beds. In anytown of France, Germany or Holland, the curious need not seek long forthe mattress-maker. He is usually to be found in some open space at thecorner of a market-place or beneath an arcade near the Maine exercisinghis health-giving trade in the open air. He lives, and lives bountifully,by unmaking, picking over and re-making the mattresses of the people.Good housewives, moreover, stand near him with their knitting to see thathe does it well and puts back within the cover all the wool that he tookout. In these backward countries the domestic mattress is remade once ayear if not oftener. In our great land there is a considerable vaguenessas to the period allowed to a mattress to form itself into lumps and toaccumulate dust or germs. Moreover, there are thousands of exemplaryhousekeepers who throw up the eye of horror to their whitewashed ceilingat the thought of a foreign person's personal habits, who do not knowwhat is inside their mattress and never think of looking to see fromyear's end to year's end.
In Spain, a country rarely visited by those persons who pride themselvesupon being particular, the mattress-maker is a much more necessary factorin domestic life than is the sweep or the plumber in northern lands. Nopalace is too royal for him, no cottage is too humble to employ him.
He is, moreover, the only man allowed inside a nunnery. Which is thereason why he finds himself brought into prominence now. He is usually athin, lithe man, somewhat of the figure of those northerners who supplythe bull-ring with Banderilleros. He arrives in the early morning with asheathe knife at his waist, a packet of cigarettes in his jacket pocketand two light sticks under his arm. All he asks is a courtyard and thesunshine that Heaven gives him.
In a moment he deftly cuts the stitches of the mattress and lays bare thewool which he never touches with his fingers. The longer stick in hisright hand describes great circles in the air and descends with thewhistle of a sword upon the wool of which it picks up a small handful.Then the shorter stick comes into play, picks the wool from the longer,throws it into the air, beats it this way and that, tosses it and catchesit until every fibre is clear, when the fluffy mass is deftly cast aside.All the while, through the beating of the wool, the two sticks beatenagainst each other play a distinct air, and each mattress-maker has hisown, handed down from his forefathers, ending with a whole chromaticscale as the shorter stick swoops up the length of the longer to sweepaway the lingering wool. Thus the whole mattress is transferred from asodden heap to a high and fluffy mountain of carded wool, all baked bythe heat of the sun.
The man has a hundred attitudes, full of grace. He works with a skillwhich is a conscious pleasure; a pleasure unknown to those who have neverhad opportunity of acquiring a manual craft or appreciating the wondrouspower that God has put into human limbs. He has complete control over histwo thin sticks, can pick up with them a single strand of wool, or half amattress. He can throw aside a pin that lurks in a ball of wool, or killa fly that settles on his work, without staining the snowy mass. And allthe while, from the moment that the mattress is open till the heap iscomplete, the two sticks never cease playing their thin and woody air sothat any within hearing may know that the "colchonero" is at work.
When the mattress case is empty he pauses to wipe his brow (for he mustneeds work in the sun) and smoke a cigarette in the shade. It is thenthat he gossips.
In a Southern land such a worker as this must always have an audience,and the children hail with delight the coming of the mattress-maker. Atthe Convent School of the Sisters of the True Faith his services wererequired once a fortnight; for there were many beds; but his coming wasnone the less exciting for its frequency. He was the only man allowedinside the door. Father Muro was, it seemed, not counted as a man. And intruth a priest is often found to possess many qualities which areessentially small and feminine.
The mattress-maker of Pampeluna was a thin man with a ropy neck, and keenblack eyes that flashed hither and thither through the mist of wool anddust in which he worked. He was considered so essentially a domestic andharmless person that he was permitted to go where he listed in the houseand high-walled garden. For nuns have a profound distrust of man as amass and a confiding faith in the few individuals with whom they have todeal.
The girls were allowed to watch the colchonero at his work, moreespecially the elder girls such as Juanita de Mogente and her friendMilagros of the red-gold hair. Juanita watched him so closely one springafternoon that the keen black eyes kept returning to her face at eachround of the long whistling stick. The other girls grew tired of thesight and moved away to another part of the garden where the sun waswarmer and the violets already in bloom; but Juanita lingered.
She did not know that this was one of Marcos' friends--that in the summerthis colchonero took the road with his packet of cigarettes and twosticks and wandered from village to village in the mountains beating themattresses of the people and seeing the wondrous works of God as theseare only seen by such as live all day and sleep all night beneath theopen sky.
Quite suddenly the polished sticks ceased playing loudly and droppedtheir tone to pianissimo, so that if Juanita were to speak she could beheard.
"Hombre," she said, "do you know Marcos de Sarrion?"
"I know the chapel of Our Lady of the Shadows," he answered, glancing ather through a mist of wool.
"Will you give him a letter?"
"Fold it small and throw it in the wool," he said, and immediately thesticks beat loudly again.
Juanita's hand was already in her pocket seeking her purse.
"No, no," he said; "I am too much caballero to take money from a lady."
She walked away, dropping as she passed the uncarded heap, a folded paperwhich was lost amid the fluff. The sticks flew this way and that, and thetwisted note shot up into the air with a bunch of wool which fell acrossthe two sticks and was presently cast aside upon the carded heap. Andpeeping eyes from the barred windows of the convent school saw nothing.
Marcos and his father had returned to Saragossa. They were people ofinfluence in that city, and Saragossa, strange to say, had a desire tomaintain law and order within its walls. It was unlike Barcelona, whichis at all times republican and frankly turbulent. Its other neighbour,Pampeluna, remains to this day clerical and mysterious. It is the city ofthe lost causes; Carlism and the Church. The Sarrions were not lookedupon with a kindly eye within the walls of the Northern fortress and itis much too small a town for any to pass unobserved in its streets.
There was work to do in Saragossa. In Pampeluna there were onlysuspicions to arouse. Juanita was in Sor Teresa's care and could scarcelycome to harm, holding in her hand as she did a strong card to be playedon emergency.
All Spain seemed to be pausing breathlessly. The murder of Prim hadshaken the land like an earthquake. The king had already made enemies. Hehad no enthusiasm. His new subjects would have preferred a few mistakesto this cautious pause. They were a people vaguely craving for libertybefore they had cast off the habit of servitude.
No Latin race will ever evolve a great republic; for it must be ruled.But Spain was already talking of democracy and the new king had scarcelyseated himself on the throne.
"We can do nothing," said Sarrion, "but try to keep order in our ownsmall corner of this bear-garden."
So he remained at Saragossa and threw open his great house there, whileMarcos passed to and fro into Navarre up the Valley of the Wolf to TorreGarda.
Where Evasio Mon might be, no man knew. Paris had fallen. The Commune wasrife. France was wallowing in the deepest degradation. And in Bayonne theCarlist plotters schemed without let or hindrance.
"So long as he is away we need n
ot be uneasy about Juanita," said Marcos."He cannot return to Saragossa without my hearing of it."
And one evening a casual teamster from the North, whose great two-wheeledcart, as high as a house and as long as a locomotive, stood in the dustyroad outside the Posada de los Reyes, dropped in, cigarette in mouth, tothe Palacio Sarrion. In Spain, a messenger delivers neither message norletter to a servant. A survival of mediaeval habits permits the humblestto seek the presence of the great at any time of day.
The Sarrions had just finished dinner and still sat in the vastdining-room, the walls of which glittered with arms and loomed darklywith great portraits of the Spanish school of painting.
The teamster was not abashed. It was a time of war, and war is a greatleveler of social scales. He had brought his load through a disturbedcountry. He was a Guipuzcoan--as good as any man.
"It was about the Senor Mon," he said. "You wished to hear of him. Hereturned to Pampeluna two days ago."
The teamster thanked their Excellencies, but he could not accept theirhospitality because he had ordered his supper at his hotel. It was onlyat the Posada de los Reyes in all Saragossa that one procured the realcuisine of Guipuzcoa. Yes, he would take a glass of wine.
And he took it with a fine wave of the arm, signifying that he drank tothe health of his host.
"Evasio Mon will not leave us long idle," said Sarrion, when the man hadgone, and he had hardly spoken when the servant ushered in a secondvisitor, a man also of the road, who handed to Marcos a crumpled anddirty envelope. He had nothing to say about it, so bowed and withdrew. Hewas a man of the newer stamp, for he was a railway worker, having thatwhich is considered a better manner. He knew his place, and thatknowledge had affected his manhood.
The letter he gave to Marcos bore no address. It was sealed, however, inred wax, which had the impress of Nature's seal, a man's thumb--uniqueand not to be counterfeited.
From the envelope Marcos took a twisted paper, not innocent of cardedwool.
"We are going back to Saragossa," Juanita wrote. "I have refused to gointo religion, but they say it is too late; that I cannot draw back now.Is this true?"
Marcos passed the note across to his father.
"I wish this was Barcelona," he said, with a sudden gleam in his graveeyes.
"Why?"
"Because then we could pull the school down about their ears and takeJuanita away."
Sarrion smiled.
"Or get shot mysteriously from a window while attempting it," he said."No, we fight with finer weapons than that. Mon has got his dispensationfrom Rome ... a few hours too late."
He handed back the note, and they sat in silence for a long time in thehuge, dimly-lighted room. Success in life rests upon one small gift--thesecret of the entry into another man's mind to discover what is passingthere. The greatest general the world has known owed his success, by hisown admission, to his power of guessing correctly what the enemy would donext. Many can guess, but few guess right.
"She has not dated her letter," said Sarrion, at length.
"No, but it was written on Thursday. That is the day that the colchonerogoes to the Calle de la Dormitaleria."
He drew a strand of wool from the envelope and showed it to Sarrion.
"And the day that Mon returned to Pampeluna. He will be prompt to act. Healways has been. That is what makes him different from other men. Promptand restless."
Sarrion glanced across the table, as he spoke, at the face of his son,who was also a prompt man, but withal restful, as if possessing a reserveupon which to draw in emergency. For the restless and the uneasy arethose who have all their forces in the field.
"Do not sit up for me," said Marcos, rising. He stood and thoughtfullyemptied his glass. "I shall change my clothes," he said, "and go out.There will be plenty of Navarrese at the Posada de los Reyes. The nightdiligencias will be in before daylight. If there is any news ofimportance I will wake you when I come in."
It was a dark night, and the wind roared down the bed of the Ebro. Forthe spring was at hand with its wild march "solano" and hard, blue skies.There was no moon. But Marcos had good eyes, and those whom he soughtwere men who, after a long siesta, traveled or worked during half thenight.
The dust was astir on the Paseo del Ebro, where it lies four inches deepon the broad space in front of the Posada de los Reyes where the cartsstand. There were carts here now with dim, old-fashioned lanterns, andlong teams of mules waiting patiently to be relieved of their massivecollars.
The first man he met told him that Evasio Mon must have arrived inSaragossa at sunset, for he had passed him on the road, going at a goodpace on horseback.
From another he heard the rumour that the Carlists had torn up the linebetween Pampeluna and Castejon.
"Go to the station," this informant added. "They will tell you there,because you are a rich man. To me they will tell nothing."
At the station he learnt that this rumour was true; and one who was inthe telegraph service gave him to understand that the Carlists had driventhe outpost back from the mouth of the Valley of the Wolf, which was nowcut off.
"He thinks I am at Torre Garda," reflected Marcos, as he returned to thecity, fighting the wind on the bridge.
Chance favoured him, for a man with tired horses stopped his carriage toinquire if that were the Count Marcos de Sarrion. He had brought Juanitato Saragossa in his carriage, not with Sor Teresa, but with the MotherSuperior of the school and two other pupils. He had been dismissed at thePlaza de la Constitucion, and the ladies had taken another carriage. Hehad not heard the address given to the driver.
By daylight Marcos returned to the Palacio Sarrion without havingdiscovered the driver of the second carriage or the whereabouts ofJuanita in Saragossa. But he had learnt that a carriage had been orderedby telegraph from a station on the Pampeluna line to be at Alagon at fouro'clock in the morning. He learnt also that telegraphic communicationbetween Pampeluna and Saragossa was interrupted.
The Carlists again.
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