III.
Sword and Cassock.
"The helmet and the cap make houses strong"--Spanish Proverb
Don Manual Alvarez stayed for several days at Nuera, as the half-ruinedcastle in the Sierra Morena was styled. Grievous, during this period,were the sufferings of Dolores, and unceasing her efforts to providesuitable accommodation, not merely for the stately and fastidious guesthimself, but also for the troop of retainers he saw fit to bring withhim, comprising three or four personal attendants, and half a score ofmen-at-arms--the last perhaps really necessary for a journey throughthat wild district. Don Manuel scarcely enjoyed the situation more thandid his entertainers but he esteemed it his duty to pay an occasionalvisit to the estate of his orphan nephews, to see that it was properlytaken care of. Perhaps the only member of the party quite at his easewas the worthy Fray Sebastian, a good-natured, self-indulgent friar,with a better education and more refined tastes than the average of hisorder; fond of eating and drinking, fond of gossip, fond of a littlesuperficial literature, and not fond of troubling himself aboutanything. He was comforted by the improved fare Don Manuel's visitintroduced; and was, moreover, soon relieved from his very naturalapprehensions that the guardian of his pupils might express discontentat the slowness of their progress. He speedily discovered that DonManuel did not care to have his nephews made good scholars: he onlycared to have them ready, in two or three years, to go to the Universityof Complutum, or to that of Salamanca, where they might remain untilthey were satisfactorily provided for--one in the Army, the other in theChurch.
As for Juan and Carlos, they felt, with the sure instinct of children,in this respect something like that of animals, that their uncle hadlittle love for them. Juan dreaded, more than under the circumstanceshe need have done, too careful inquiries into his progress; and Carlos,while he stood in great outward awe of his uncle, all the time contrivedto despise him in his heart, because he neither knew Latin, nor couldrepeat any of the ballads of the Cid.
On the third day of his visit, after dinner, which was at noon, DonManuel solemnly seated himself in the great carved armchair that stoodon the estrada at one end of the hall, and summoned his nephews to hisside. He was a tall, wiry-looking man, with a narrow forehead, thinlips, and a pointed beard. His dress was of the finest mulberry-colouredcloth, turned back with velvet; everything about him was rich, handsome,and in good keeping, but without extravagance. His manner wasdignified, perhaps a little pompous, like that of a man bent upon makingthe most of himself, as he had unquestionably made the most of hisfortune.
He first addressed Juan, whom he gravely reminded that his father's_imprudence_ had left him nothing save that poor ruin of a castle, and afew barren acres of rocky ground, at which the boy's eyes flashed, andhe shrugged his shoulders and bit his lip. Don Manuel then proceeded, atsome length, to extol the noble profession of arms as the road to fameand fortune. This kind of language proved much more acceptable to hisnephew, and looking up, he said promptly, "Yes, senor my uncle, I willgladly be a soldier, as all my fathers were."
"Well spoken. And when thou art old enough, I promise to use myinfluence to obtain for thee a good appointment in His ImperialMajesty's army. I trust thou wilt honour thine ancient name."
"You may trust me," said Juan, in slow, earnest tones. Then raising hishead, he went on more rapidly: "Beside his own name, Juan, my fathergave me that of Rodrigo, borne by the Cid Ruy Diaz, the Campeador,meaning no doubt to show--"
"Peace, boy!" Don Manuel interrupted, cutting short the only words thathis nephew had ever spoken really from his heart in his presence, withas much unconsciousness as a countryman might set his foot on aglow-worm. "Thou wert never named Rodrigo after thy Cid and his idleromances. Thy father called thee so after some madcap friend of his own,of whom the less spoken the better."
"My father's friend must have been good and noble, like himself," saidJuan proudly, almost defiantly.
"Young man," returned Don Manuel severely, and lifting his eyebrows asif in surprise at his audacity, "learn that a humbler tone and morecourteous manners would become thee in the presence of thy superiors."Then turning haughtily away from him, he addressed himself to Carlos:"As for thee, nephew Carlos, I hear with pleasure of thy progress inlearning. Fray Sebastian reports of thee that thou hast a good readywit and a retentive memory. Moreover, if I mistake not, sword cuts areless in thy way than in thy brother's. The service of Holy MotherChurch will fit thee like a glove; and let me tell thee, boy, for thouart old enough to understand me, 'tis a right good service. Churchmeneat well and drink well--churchmen sleep soft--churchmen spend theirdays fingering the gold other folk toil and bleed for. For those whohave fair interest in high places, and shuffle their own cards deftly,there be good fat benefices, comfortable canonries, and perhaps--whoknows?--a rich bishopric at the end of all; with a matter of tenthousand hard ducats, at the least, coming in every year to save orspend, or lend, if you like it better."
"Ten thousand ducats!" said Carlos, who had been gazing in his uncle'sface, his large blue eyes full of half-incredulous, half-uncomprehendingwonder.
"Ay, my son, that is about the least. The Archbishop of Seville hassixty thousand every year, and more."
"Ten thousand ducats!" Carlos repeated again in a kind of awe-struckwhisper. "That would buy a ship."
"Yes," said Don Manuel, highly pleased with what he considered anindication of precocious intelligence in money matters. "And anexcellent thought that is of thine, my son. A good ship chartered forthe Indies, and properly freighted, would bring thee back thy ducats_well perfumed_.[#] For a ship is sailing while you are sleeping. Asthe saying is, Let the idle man buy a ship or marry a wife. I perceivethou art a youth of much ingenuity. What thinkest thou, then, of theChurch?"
[#] With good interest.
Carlos was still too much the child to say anything in answer except,"If it please you, senor my uncle, I should like it well."
And thus, with rather more than less consideration of their tastes andcapacities than was usual at the time, the future of Juan and CarlosAlvarez was decided.
When the brothers were alone together, Juan said, "Dolores must havebeen praying Our Lady for us, Carlos. An appointment in the army is thevery thing for me. I shall perform some great feat of arms, likeAlphonso Vives, for instance, who took the Duke of Saxony prisoner; Ishall win fame and promotion, and then come back and ask my uncle forthe hand of his ward, Dona Beatriz."
"Ah, and I--if I enter the Church, I can never marry," said Carlosrather ruefully, and with a vague perception that his brother was tohave some good thing from which he must be shut out for ever.
"Of course not; but you will not care."
"Never a whit," said the boy of twelve, very confidently. "I shall everhave thee, Juan. And all the gold my uncle says churchmen win soeasily, I will save to buy our ship."
"I will also save, so that one day we may sail together. I will be thecaptain, and thou shall be the mass-priest, Carlos."
"But I marvel if it be true that churchmen grow rich so fast. The curain the village must be very poor, for Diego told me he took old Pedro'scloak because he could not pay the dues for his wife's burial."
"More shame for him, the greedy vulture. Carlos, you and I have eachhalf a ducat; let us buy it back."
"With all my heart. It will be worth something to see the old man'sface."
"The cura is covetous rather than poor," said Juan. "But poor or no, noone dreams of _your_ being a beggarly cura like that. It is only vulgarfellows of whom they make parish priests in the country. You will getsome fine preferment, my uncle says. And he ought to know, for he hasfeathered his own nest well."
"Why is he rich when we are poor, Juan? Where does he get all hismoney?"
"The saints know best. He has places under Government. Something aboutthe taxes, I think, that he buys and sells again."
"In truth, he's not one to measure
oil without getting some on hisfingers. How different from him our father must have been."
"Yes," said Juan. "_His_ riches, won by his own sword and battle-axe,and his good right hand, will be worth having. Ay, and even worthseeing; will they not?"
So these children dreamed of the future--that future of which nothingwas certain, except its unlikeness to their dreams. No thing wascertain; but what was only too probable? That the brave, free-heartedboy, who had never willingly injured any one, and who was ready to sharehis last coin with the poor man, would be hardened and brutalized into asoldier of fortune, like those who massacred tribes of trusting,unoffending Indians, or burned Flemish cities to the ground, amidstatrocities that even now make hearts quail and ears tingle. And yetworse, that the fair child beside him, whose life still shone with thatchild-like innocence which is truly the dew of youth, as bright and asfleeting, would be turned over, soul and spirit, to a system of trainingtoo surely calculated to obliterate the sense of truth, to deprave themoral taste, to make natural and healthful joys impossible, and unlawfuland degrading ones fearfully easy and attainable; to teach the strongnature the love of power, the mean the love of money, and all alikefalsehood, cowardice, and cruelty.
The Spanish Brothers: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century Page 3