Читать книгу The Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville - A. L. O. E. - Страница 2

Lucius Lepine was the son of an officer of the royal navy. The youth had been eagerly and successfully pursuing a course of education in one of the public schools of England, when the sudden death of his father had deprived him of the means of completing it, and of leaving Rugby, as he had hoped to do, at the head of the school. The widowed mother of Lucius was left to support, on very slender means, a numerous family, of which he was the first-born. The youth's ambition had been to enter one of the universities, with a desire – as yet mentioned to no one – of preparing himself for the ministry of the Church. He now saw that the desire must be suppressed, the ambition relinquished. Lepine's first earthly object must be to become, not a burden, but a stay to his mother. Lucius had for some time exerted himself unsuccessfully to discover some means of earning independence, when a situation was offered to him in the firm of Messrs. Passmore and Perkins, which conducted an ironware factory in Seville. A boyish fancy, which had induced Lucius to acquire the Spanish language that he might read Don Quixote in the original, great intelligence, and a talent for keeping accounts, made the admiral's son peculiarly qualified to fill such a situation with credit to himself and advantage to his employers. Mr. Passmore's terms were liberal: he was at least good as a paymaster, whatever he might be as a man. Lucius did not hesitate long ere accepting the offer made to him. He took the "plunge" so bravely, and apparently cheerfully, that none, save perhaps his mother, guessed with what an inward shudder of repugnance it was made.

When thus separated from his family and all the companions of his youth, Lucius, who was of a genial temperament, looked around him for friends in what was to him a land of exile. He had had no letters of introduction, and the society of Mr. Passmore, the working head of the firm, and of a few merchants and manufacturers occasionally met with at his table, by no means satisfied the yearning of the young man's heart for intercourse with congenial spirits. The only person in Seville towards whom Lucius felt drawn by a feeling of sympathy was the stately young Spaniard, De Aguilera, – who had, like himself, been induced by liberal offers to accept a situation in the firm of Messrs. Passmore and Perkins. The aristocratic bearing of Don Alcala de Aguilera, his refined manners, his lofty courtesy, gave to him an interest in the mind of Lucius – an interest made up of mingled admiration, curiosity, and pity. The Spanish clerk, compared to his English employer, appeared to Lucius like a polished Toledo blade compared to a kitchen utensil. Lucius was occasionally reminded by the mien of his companion of other qualities of the rapier besides its exquisite polish. Insult, or what he deemed such, would make the Spaniard's dark eyes flash with an expression which told that his pride was not subdued, and that his anger might be dangerous. It was perhaps well that Mr. Passmore's inability to speak Spanish with anything approaching to fluency made him generally employ Lepine as the channel of communication between himself and De Aguilera. Many a dictatorial command or coarse reproof, uttered by Passmore, came softened from the lips of the English gentleman, – words which, if repeated in the tone in which they had first been spoken, would have made the haughty Spaniard lay his hand on his stiletto.

"Inglesito!" (Englishman!) muttered a gitána (gipsy), looking after Lucius as, after courteously inquiring his way, he passed down one of the narrow winding lanes which give to a great part of Seville the character of a labyrinth. It would have needed no gipsy skill to have detected the nationality of the stranger, even had the gitána but seen him with his back turned towards her. The quick, firm step of Lepine could not be mistaken for the step of a Spaniard. But the woman had seen the face, bronzed, indeed, by the southern sun, yet of complexion naturally fair; the bright gray eye; the auburn hair, clustering at the temples, and shading the upper lip. Lucius might have been singled out as an Englishman amongst crowds of the cigar-puffing idlers who were enjoying their dolce far niente at the corner of every street. And at that hour of gorgeous sunset, under the most brilliant of skies, there was indeed in Seville a luxury in mere existence which might form some excuse for the indolence of its people. As Lucius emerged from a lane into one of the open plazas, he was strongly sensible of the charm which enwraps the queen-city of Andalusia.

Bathed in golden glory rose the Alcazar, that splendid monument of Moorish art which has been compared to a palace of fairies, with its gorgeous colouring, its profusion of ornament, its gilded arches and marble columns. At some distance, in strong relief against the sky, appeared the glorious Cathedral, a rival in beauty, but a contrast in style, being the most magnificent Gothic building to be found in all Spain. The square tower of the Saracenic Giralda – grand relic of the past when the Moors bore sway in Andalusia, but now used as belfry to the Cathedral – glowed rosy red in the beams. Lucius paused for several minutes to admire the exquisite beauty of the buildings around him, – that beauty which to a poetic mind is heightened by the charm of antiquity, the colouring of romance. The Englishman seemed to have left every care behind him in the counting-house in the Calle San Francisco, – cares can be readily thrown aside at the age of nineteen.

The eye was not the only sense that drank in delight. The air was fragrant with the perfume from orange-trees, and musical with the peal of bells from the summit of the Giralda, blending softly with the nearer sound of a Spanish song, sung in rich tones to the accompaniment of a guitar.

"What a glorious city is this Seville!" said Lucius to himself as he went on his way. "There is not an object on which the eye rests in which an artist would not find a subject for a sketch. What a picture might be made of yonder donnas, with their mantillas and graceful lace veils, as, accompanied by their duenna, they ascend the steps of that magnificent church! No women are lovelier than those of Seville, – long may they keep their graceful costume! How picturesque is yon group of gipsies by the fountain – the man in his striped mantle of many hues leaning over the back of his ass, as he talks to the dark-eyed girl with scarlet blossoms wreathed in her raven-black hair! The very beggars wear their rags with grace! And what thoughts of the past crowd upon the mind in this old city of the Moors! Yes, what thoughts of the past!" repeated Lucius to himself, while a sterner expression marked his features; for he had now reached a spot associated with memories of the Inquisition, which had held its headquarters at Seville. Again Lucius paused, but it was not now to admire, and it was before the mind's eye that a picture of thrilling interest arose.

"Do I indeed stand on the very spot where, a few centuries ago, thousands of martyrs yielded their bodies to the flames, their souls to their God?"3 mused Lepine. "Was it here that – clad in their yellow san-benitos,4 and surrounded by curious crowds to whom their pangs were a pastime, and fanatical priests to whom their torments were a triumph – men and tender women endured the most painful of deaths! Yes; this pure balmy air was once polluted with the smoke from human sacrifices – this sunshine darkened with the clouds rising from stakes to which living victims were bound! What deeds of heroism – what unblenching courage – what unshaken faith displayed in the hour of nature's agony, have made this spot holy ground! Here – a spectacle to angels and to men – martyrs showed what the sons of Spain could dare and her daughters endure! Are the idle, self-indulgent inhabitants of Seville in the nineteenth century descendants or representatives of heroes who counted not their lives dear to them, but who, having embraced evangelical truth, grasped it firmly even unto death? Or can it be that martyrs have suffered in vain – that the light which they kindled is quenched for ever in Spain? Is the cry, 'How long, Lord, how long?' never to meet an answer as regards this benighted though beautiful land? I cannot believe it;" and Lucius resumed his rapid walk. "The seed sown amidst tears and blood must spring up one day, and ripen to a harvest of light! Happy – thrice happy – the reapers! Spaniards will show themselves worthy of their martyrs, and no longer appear to the world as a degenerate race, indifferent to their highest interests, or cold in the holiest cause. But what right have I to upbraid them either with indifference or coldness? Here am I, proud of the name of Englishman, thankful for having been brought up in the clearness of gospel light. I have been for a year in Seville, and I have never so much as shown to a Spaniard the New Testament in his own language, which I carry now on my person. Nay, the only man in this country for whom I have a feeling of friendship – the man whom I meet almost every day of my life – he knows nothing of the faith which I hold, save that he probably deems me a heretic, simply because I was reared in England. Of Alcala's inner life, his views, his hopes, I, his friend, am as ignorant as if we had never met till to-day! I cannot tell – I have never inquired – whether De Aguilera be a bigoted son of that Church which is drunken with the blood of the saints, or whether, like many of his countrymen, he has adopted sceptical views, the pendulum swinging from superstition into infidelity – from believing that which is false, into denying that which is true.

"And the Spaniard may now be on the eve of meeting a violent death – of having the martyr's agonies without the martyr's crown! I have been made uneasy by the bare rumour of the danger to which his person may be exposed. How little have I thought of the perils which surround the soul of one brought up under the dark shadow of Romish error! I must see De Aguilera, and speak to my friend as I have not ventured to speak before. God help me to break through a reserve which I have often suspected to be cowardly, but which I now feel to be criminal!"