CHAPTER XIV.
THE WAYSIDE CROSS AND WELL.
"If in this exile dark and drear,
To which my fate has doomed me now,
I should unnoticed die—what tear,
What tear of sympathy will flow?
For I have sought an exile's woe,
And fashioned my own misery;
Who then will pity me?"
Cancionero de Amberes, 1557.
As Quentin walked on in solitude after Rowland Askerne left him, he could not help musing, as he frequently did, on the changes a short time had wrought in him and in his ideas. It would seem that from a mere day-dreaming schoolboy, whose most onerous purposes were to fill his basket with trout from the Girvan, the Doon, or the Lollards' Linn; to supply the cook with an occasional brace of ptarmigan from the oakwood shaw, or of blackcock from the Mains of Kilhenzie; from trying a pad for Flora, or culling the flowers which he knew she loved most, he had risen to be a man and a soldier, valued by his comrades, all officers of bravery and position, trusted by his superiors, and charged with a great and confidential duty—a portion of the vast game of war and politics now played by Britain for the deliverance of Spain; and yet, withal, he longed for a companion, and to hear the voice of a friend, for a sense of intense loneliness gradually stole over him as the twilight deepened, and the purple shadows grew more sombre on the hills of Portuguese Estremadura.
To Quentin it seemed that his bodily strength and bulk had increased, for drill and marching had developed every muscle to the fullest extent; thus he was stronger, more active and hardy than before.
He felt too, that the time had come when youth was no longer a libel against him; the time for doing something worthy of being mentioned in a despatch of the commander-in-chief, in the government gazette, in general orders—something gallant, manly, and dashing; and that he would turn the occasion to its best account, and achieve something glorious, "or," as romances and melo-dramas have it, "perish in the attempt."
"If I acquit myself well in this, my first duty, it shall in itself prove a revenge upon Cosmo!" thought he.
And so he trod manfully and hopefully on, dreaming of the future, knowing but little of the path he was at present to pursue, and less of the perils and pit-falls that were around it.
As the evening deepened into night with great rapidity, for there is very little twilight in those regions—the mighty shadows of the sierra fell eastward in a sombre mass across the valley through which lay the road—a mere bridle path—towards the Spanish frontier, while the ranges of peaks that faced the west were still glowing in ruddy saffron or pale purple against the blue dome of the star-studded sky.
About twelve miles from Portalegre, the road pursued by Quentin enters a narrow gorge or immense chasm or cleft which rends the mountains from their summit to their base. Down the steep wall of rock on one side, a spring trickles for some hundred feet, and at the foot, near the road-way, it is received into the quaintly carved basin of an ancient stone fountain, behind which stands a memorial cross.
A niche in the shaft of the latter contains a little wayside altar. An image of the Madonna was rudely and gaudily painted in the recess, and before it a copper lamp was always kept burning. This shrine, once reputed to be of great sanctity, had been mutilated and its lamp destroyed by the French; but it had been replaced by another, which was always supplied with wick and oil by the passing muleteers, contrabandists, guerillas, and others.
The rays of this lamp were burning feebly in the vast rocky solitude, forming a strange and picturesque feature in the deep dark dell, the silence of which was broken only by the plash of the slender thread of liquid that filtered or trickled down the granite face of the dissevered mountain.
This cross and well had been built by Alphonso I., in the year that he achieved his greatest victory over the united arms of five Moorish sovereigns. It had been deemed holy even in those days, for there he had halted and prayed when on the march with his mail-clad knights to the capture of Santarem; and an inscription, frequently renewed, invited the passer to say a prayer for the repose of his soul, and the souls of all the good and true Portuguese who drew their swords against the Moslem.
A long ray of light shed by the rising moon, shone down the cleft at the bottom of which the road lay, casting the shadows of the well and votive cross far along the narrow gorge. The thick foliage of some gigantic Portuguese laurels, which grew in the interstices of the rocks, glittered like bronze gemmed with silver sheen, and offered a resting place for the night; so Quentin, as he felt weary, crept under the branches, which formed a pleasant shelter.
The turf below was soft and dry, and to him, who had slept so often on the bare earth during his march to the frontier, it seemed a comfortable couch enough. The shaft of King Alphonso's cross on one side and the wall of rock on the other protected him from prowling wolves in the front and rear; the stems of the giant laurels formed barrier on a third side, and the fourth, which was open, he might defend with his weapons if attacked.
He took a draught from his canteen, which was filled with rum and water, and placing it under his head for a pillow, with his sword and loaded pistols ready by his side, he addressed himself to sleep.
The air was filled with a strange but delicious perfume, which came from those little aromatic shrubs that grow wild everywhere throughout Spain and Portugal. The intense stillness of the place, the only sounds there being the trickle of the far-falling water and the croakings of some bull-frogs among the long grass, made him wakeful for a time.
He felt neither alarm nor anxiety, but utterly lonely, and he said over a prayer that in infancy he had often repeated at Lady Rohallion's knee; then something holy and placid stole over his heart; sleep at last closed his eyes and he slumbered peacefully besides the old stone cross of our Lady of Battles.
So passed the first night of his absence from head-quarters.
When Quentin awoke next morning after a long and sound slumber, the result of youth, high health, and the toil of the past day, though he had acquired all a soldier's facility for sleeping in strange places and strange beds, or without other couch than the bare sod, he was at first somewhat confused and puzzled on perceiving the bower of leaves above him, and a minute elapsed before he could remember where he was, and how he came to be roosting under those huge Portuguese laurels.
Then the despatch rushed upon his memory; he searched his breast pocket, and found the important document was safe; his weapons were all right, and he was about to creep forth, when he suddenly perceived the figure of a man near the well, and, remembering the reiterated advices of Askerne and others, he paused to observe him.
His first idea was that the stranger must be a robber, for, to a Briton, Portuguese and Spaniards too have usually that unpleasant character in their aspect. Their sallow visages, deep dark eyes, densely black beards and moustaches, with their slouching sombrero, and large, many-folded cloak of dark brown stuff, together with a certain fixed scrutiny of expression when observing strangers, give them all the bravo look and bearing of the "sensation" ruffian or mysterious bandit of a minor melo-drama; thus, says a recent writer, "in consequence of the difficulty of outliving what has been learnt in the nursery, many of our countrymen have, with the best intentions, set down the bulk of the population of the Peninsula as one gang of robbers."
The Spaniard in question, for such he seemed to be, was a young man of powerful and athletic form; his face was sallow and colourless, and his hair and eyes were black. He was closely shaven, save a heavy moustache, which had a very ferocious twist across each cheek towards the tip of the ear. His features were very handsome, and his whole appearance was eminently striking.
He had a huge cloak—what Spaniard has not, generally to cover his rags rather than his finery—but this he had flung aside, and Quentin could perceive that he had a well-worn zamarra of sheepskin over a gaily embroidered shirt, a pair of crimson pantaloons, which seemed to have belonged to a hussar, and they ended in strong leather abarcas, which were laced with thongs from the ankle to the knee. He had a dagger and pair of pistols in his flowing yellow sash, and close by him lay one of those long, old-fashioned travelling staffs, shod with iron and loaded with lead, called by the Portuguese a cajado.
Thus, upon the whole, considering the difference of their stature and bodily strength, Quentin prudently thought that the stranger was not a personage to be intruded upon without due consideration.
Reverently removing his black sombrero, which was rather battered and rusty, and had a gilt image of our Lady del Pilar on the gay broad scarlet band thereof, the Spaniard approached the wayside shrine, and kneeling before it, crossed himself three times with great devotion, while muttering a short prayer. Then seating himself on the grassy sward behind the well, he pulled a little book from the pocket of his zamarra, and began to peruse it very leisurely while smoking a cigarito and making his frugal breakfast on a few dry raisins and a crust of hard bread, which he dipped from time to time in the cool water of the gurgling fountain.
"This cannot be a bad kind of fellow," thought Quentin, who felt somewhat ashamed of lurking from one man; so he half-cocked his pistols, placed them in his girdle, and crept forth from behind the stone cross, saying:
"Buenos dias, senor."
"Senor, good morrow," replied the Spaniard, with a hand on his dagger, while he surveyed Quentin with a quietly grim, but unmoved countenance, without rising from his recumbent posture; "are there any more of you under these bushes?"
"No—I am alone."
"Por mi vida, but you chose a strange hiding-place!" said the other, with a glance of distrust.
"A strange sleeping-place, you should say rather, senor—yet not a bad one," said Quentin, laughing, and willing to conciliate the stranger, who closed his book after quietly turning down a leaf to mark his place; "I crept in over night, and have slept there until now."
"Signs of a good digestion or a clear conscience."
"Of both, I hope, thank Heaven."
"I am indifferently provided with either; yet I can breakfast on this poor crust, and be thankful to God and our Blessed Lady for it."
"I can give you something better, Senor Portuguese," said Quentin, unbuttoning his havresack.
"Muchos gracias," replied the other; "but remember, senor, that I am a Castilian, and in Spain we have a belief that a bad Spaniard makes a tolerably good Portuguese."
"I beg pardon, senor, but your dress——"
"My dress!" interrupted the other, with a sardonic grin; "oh, por el vida del Satanos, the less you say about that the better. I was not wont to sport such a costume when rendering Virgil into Castilian, and Las Comedias de Calderon into Latin, in the Arzobispo College at old Salamanca."
"A student?"
"Perhaps—it was as might be," replied the other, with sudden reserve; "and you are——"
"What you see me."
Quentin gave a portion of his ration-beef and biscuit to the Spaniard, who took them with many thanks, and with an air that showed he was a man of breeding far above what his present paisano costume seemed to indicate. His hands were strong, white, and muscular, yet seemed never to have been used to work, and a valuable diamond sparkled in a ring on one of his fingers. In the course of conversation, Quentin could gather that he was remarkably well informed of the strength, number, position, and divisions of the British Army, together with the probable movements towards Castile, thus he felt the necessity of acting with the greatest reserve, and getting rid of him as soon as possible; for the most subtle, wily, and dangerous Spaniards were those in the French interest, which, at first, he feared his new friend to be.
"By my life, Senor Inglese," said the Spaniard, laughing, "with all this victual in your wallet, 'tis a miracle of our Lady's Cross that the wolves did not come snuffing about you in the night."
"You are a traveller?" observed Quentin, after a pause, during which they had been observing each other furtively.
"I hinted that I had been a student among Salamanquinos," replied the Spaniard, coldly.
"And you are now——"
"What the Fiend and the French have made me!" said he, with a lurid gleam in his fine dark eyes.
"And that is——"
"My secret, senor," said the other, bluntly, adding "muchos gracias," as Quentin smilingly proffered his canteen, the contents of which he declined to taste. "The well of our Blessed Lady will suffice for me," he said, and proceeded to twist up another cigarito. "You are very curious about me, senor; but pray what are you?"
"What my uniform declares me," said Quentin, showing the scarlet uniform, which his grey coat had concealed; "a British soldier."
"Bueno! Your hand. And whither go you?"
"On duty."
"Where—to whom?"
"That is my secret," retorted Quentin, laughing. But a dark expression began to gather in the Spaniard's face, and he looked searchingly at the young volunteer.
"Are you going to the front?" he asked.
"Yes, senor."
"Strange!"
"How so?"
"The British troops have not yet begun to cross the frontier into Spain. They are still in quarters."
"Yes."
"You are not going to the French head-quarters?"
"No."
"Still monosyllables!" said the Spaniard, impetuously. "I must be plain, I find. You are a deserter!"
"I have said that I am going on duty," replied Quentin, haughtily. "You need question me no further. I am not bound to satisfy the curiosity of every wayfarer I may meet."
"Morte de Dios!" swore the Spaniard, with a scowl in his deep eye, and a hand on his stiletto.
"I, too, have arms to repress insolence," said Quentin, grasping his sword.
On this the Spaniard laughed, and said—
"Come—don't let us quarrel. You are a brave boy, and your little breakfast came to me most opportunely. Let us enjoy the present without thinking of the future. Demonio! Neither of us may be what we seem. We more often look like spits than swords in this world!”
"Senor, excuse me; but I don't understand your proverb."
"It means simply, that all men are not what they seem. To you I appear a gitano, a mendigo—it may be, a ladrone; you appear to me a deserter; so our circumstances may change—you prove the spit, and I the sword."
"Spit again!" said Quentin, angrily, as he conceived there was some sarcasm concealed in the word.
"It is a fable. Listen while I read to you what, I suppose, you never heard before."
And, opening his book, which proved to be the little pocket edition of the quaint old literary fables of Don Tomaso de Yriarte, he rapidly read over the story of the "Spit and Espada."
"Once upon a time there was a rapier of Toledo; a better was never seen in the Alcazar, or tempered in the waters of the Tagus. After having been in many battles, and belonging to many brave cavaliers, by one of the vicissitudes of fortune which lay the greatest low, it came at length to lie forgotten in the corner of a scurvy posada.
"There, desirous in vain to breathe a vein and flash once more in battle, it lay long unnoticed and covered with rust, till, by command of her master, a greasy kitchen-wench stuck it through a large capon, and thus forced that which had been a rapier of high renown, arming the hands of the noble and valiant, to degenerate into a mere spit!
"About this time, it likewise chanced that a clownish paisano, by the sport of fortune became a hidalgo at court, and as he must needs have a sword, he repaired to the booth of an espadero, who no sooner saw the kind of customer he had to deal with, than he knew that anything having a hilt and scabbard would do, and so desired him to call next day.
"Against the time of his coming he furbished up an old spit that lay in his kitchen, and sold it to our courtier as Tisona, the very same blade with which the Cid Rodrigo of Bivar made the Arabian Khalifs skip at Cordova, and the Moorish dogs at Jaen. Hence we see that the innkeeper was a very great fool, and the espadero a very great rogue."
"And what am I to understand by all this?" asked Quentin, who with some impatience had permitted the Spaniard to read thus far.
"Simply, senor, that though by the vicissitudes of fortune, I seem a spit at present, I may prove in the end to be a good Toledo blade; for we should never judge solely by appearances;" and pointing to a hole in his sheepskin zamarra, he laughed and added, "Farewell—I go towards the mountains."
"And I towards Spain: I have but two wishes—to reach Herreruela, and to avoid the French in Valencia."
"Truly, they are well and wisely avoided," said the Spaniard through his clenched teeth, while his face became distorted and convulsed by concentrated hate and passion. "Save myself and another, my whole family have perished under their hands. Not even our aged mother was spared, for she died like my helpless old father by their bayonets, on the night that Junot entered Salamanca; and well would it have been if some of the young had suffered the same fate first. I had three sisters, senor—three lovelier girls, or three more loving, good, and gentle, God's blessed sun never shone on. Two suffered such wrongs on that night of horrors at Salamanca, that they could not or would not survive them; the youngest, Isidora, happily escaped by being in the convent of Santa Engracia, at Portalegre."
Impressed by the undoubted earnestness of the Spaniard, Quentin said—
"I am bound to the frontier, bearer of a secret despatch."
"To whom?"
"Honour ties my tongue for the present, senor."
"Enough, then; continue to pursue this road for some miles, you will find a branch to the left where it runs parallel with the river Figuero, and leads to Castello de Vide. Proceed straight on and you will come to Marvao; six miles further on is Valencia de Alcantara, garrisoned by the French; cross the river Sever, and a league or so further brings you to Herreruela. Ere long I, too, shall be there, so we may meet again; but remember that the whole country swarms with the accursed French, and that your red coat will ensure your captivity or death."
"I shall be wary."
"Be so, or, Santos! I would not give a claco for your life! Do you see yonder hill?" asked the Spaniard, pointing to a lofty peak—the highest of the mountain range.
"Yes—a vapour hovers near it."
"I am going there to see what news the eagles have for the loyal Portuguese."
"The eagles!"
"Exactly—but I forget that you are a stranger and don't understand me," replied the other, laughing.
"Adios, senor," said Quentin, preparing to start.
"Adios, senor soldado—adios, vaya!"
The Spaniard pocketed his book of fables, threw his mantle over his left shoulder, grasped his cajado, and waving his hat, proceeded to ascend with great activity a steep zigzag path up the mountain side, while Quentin Kennedy pursued his solitary way, which opened into a level district covered with green orange, lemon, and olive groves; and though the warnings of his late acquaintance did not fail to impress him with anxiety, he felt hopeful that he would achieve in safety and with honour the duty assigned him—escaping the perils that might be set him, and the deadly snare into which Cosmo hoped he might fall.