The King's Own Borderers: A Military Romance - Volume 2 by James Grant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXVIII.
 OUR LADY DEL PILAR.

"The foe retires—she heads the sallying host,
 Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
 Who can so well appease a lover's fall?
 What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost?
 Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
 Foiled by a woman's hand before a battered wall."
 BYRON.

"What a singular adventure this is," thought Quentin; "and what a perplexing position for us both! It is very romantic, certainly. A deserted house, a lovely girl, and all that. 'Tis very like some incidents I have read of, and some I have imagined; but, by Jove! I wish I could see my way handsomely out of it."

The last desire resulted from the unpleasant recollection of the Padre Trevino's face and intonation of voice, when he spoke so impressively of the interest he felt in the lady committed to his care, and the sternly expressed anxiety that she should reach Portalegre "without hindrance or delay."

Was the fellow only acting a part, or could it be that the ugly ogre actually had some tender fancy for Isidora? Whether he had or not, an unfrocked friar, especially of his peculiar character, had not much chance of success with the sister or support from the brother, so Quentin dismissed the idea.

"How charming she looks!" he thought, stealing a glance at the long lashes of the now pensive eyes, the soft features half shaded by the black lace veil, and the graceful contour of her bust and shoulders, in her low-cut scarlet velvet corset. "How delightful, if, instead of being lost in this barbarous place, she were at Rohallion or Ardgour; what a lovely friend and companion for Flora!"

Poor Quentin! Alas, this was but the sophistry of the heart, and was, perhaps, its first impulse towards the donna herself, and might end by her image supplanting Flora's there.

"Such desecration, that her hand should even be touched by such a wretch as Trevino!"

He had muttered his last thought aloud, so Donna Isidora looked up and said—

"You mentioned the Padre Trevino?"

"Did I?—surely not?" replied Quentin, as the colour rushed into his face.

"Yes—what of him, senor?" she asked, fixing her soft, dark eyes on him inquiringly.

"I must have been dreaming."

"Scarcely," said she, smiling, "while the thunder makes such a noise; you were thinking aloud."

"Perhaps."

"Of what? I insist on knowing."

"I cannot help reflecting, senora, that such actions as those in which Trevino seems to exult, must damage the Spanish cause in the eyes of Europe and of humanity, and thus—excuse me——but I begin to lose faith in your countrymen, even before we test alliance with them fully."

"And what say you of the recent siege of Zaragossa?"

"Ah, Don José Palafox is a brave man, certainly; and brave too, is Augustina, the Maid of Zaragossa, who led the cannoneers in the defence of the Portillo against Lefebre."

"She had lost her lover in the siege, so apart from inspiration, her courage was no marvel."

"And you, senora—if you lost a lover?"

"I have lost several; but if I lost one whom I loved, you mean?"

"Yes—and who loved you well and truly?"

"I would face ten thousand cannon to avenge him!—Augustina did nothing that I would not dare and do!" replied Isidora, as her eyes sparkled, and she pressed her clenched hand into the soft cheek that rested on it.

"A beautiful little spitfire!" thought Quentin.

"But, senor, you must be aware that neither Palafox the Arragonese nor the girl Augustina could have achieved all they did, save for the aid of our Lady del Pilar?"

"What lady is she?" asked Quentin.

"Madre divina, listen to him! It grieves me sadly, amigo mio, to think—to think——"

"What?" asked Quentin, as she paused.

"That you are a heretic, innocently, through no fault of your own, and yet born to perdition."

"You are not very complimentary, yet I pardon you, my dear senora," replied Quentin, laughing as he kissed her hand—which we fear he did rather frequently now.

"Shall I try to teach you, and lead your heart as I would wish it?" she asked, with a gentle smile.

"If you please, senora."

"I mean, to instil a proper spirit of adoration in it?"

"If it is adoration of yourself, senora, I fear my heart is learning that fast enough already," replied Quentin, with such a caballero air that the donna laughed and coloured, but accepted the answer as a mere compliment; "then tell me," he added, "about this Lady del Pilar, who aided Don José Palafox."

"She is the guardian saint of the city of Zaragossa, and save but for her assistance, he had never withstood the arms of France so long; for it was faith in her, and her only, that inspired Palafox to make a resistance so terrible!"

"But tell me about her, Donna Isidora."

"You must learn, senor, that after the resurrection of our blessed Lord, when the twelve apostles separated and went to preach the gospel in different parts of the world, St. George set out for England, St. Anthony for Italy, and the others went elsewhere; but Santiago the elder set out for Spain, a land which, say our annals, the Saviour commended to his peculiar care.

"Before departing from Judea, he went to the humble dwelling of the blessed Virgin—the same little hut that is now at Loretto—to kiss her hand, on his knees to obtain her permission to set forth, and her blessing on his labours. After bestowing it, she adjured him to build a church unto her honour in that city of Spain where he should make the most important, or the greatest number of converts.

"So the saint set sail in a Roman galley, but was driven through the Pillars of Hercules into the Atlantic ocean, and after enduring great perils along the shores of Lusitania, he landed in the kingdom of Galicia. Proceeding through the land, he went barefooted, preaching the gospel, teaching and baptizing, but with little success, until he came to a fair city of Arragon, on the banks of the Ebro and the Guerva, in the midst of a vast and lovely plain. Surrounded by fertile fields of corn, and by groves of orange and lime trees, its stately towers were visible from afar, glittering white as snow in the sunshine; but in its marble temples false gods and goddesses were worshipped by the people.

"Enchanted by the sight of a city so fair, the saint rested on his staff and asked of a wayfarer how it was named; and he was told that it was Cæsarea Augusta; so entering, he began to preach in the public thoroughfares, and ere long made eight disciples, who gave all they possessed to the poor, and followed him.

"Full of joy with his success he retired, one evening, to a little grove on the banks of the Ebro, with his eight new friends, and there, after long and holy converse, they fell asleep under the orange trees; but between the night and morning they were awakened by hearing a choir, possessed of a harmony that was divine, singing 'Ave Maria gratia plena, Dominus tecum;' yet they saw not from whence the sound proceeded.

"Louder swelled this mysterious harmony, and louder still, until they seemed to be in the midst of it.

"Listening in wonder and awe they fell on their knees, and lo, senor! a marvellous silver light, brighter than that of day, filled all the orange grove, and amid a choir of angels, whose golden hair floated over their shoulders, whose wings and robes were white as the new fallen snow, and whose faces bloomed with the purity and radiance of heaven, there, on the summit of a white marble pillar, stood the blessed Madonna, with her fair brow crowned by thirteen stars, and her robe all of a dazzling brightness. With a divine smile on her face, she listened to the choir, who went through the whole of her matin service.

"When it was ended, when the voices of the angels were hushed, their eyes cast down, and their hands meekly folded on their bosoms,

"'Santiago,' said she, 'here on this spot raise them the church of which I told thee, and build it round this pillar, which I have brought hither by the hands of angels; here shall it abide until the end of the world, and all the powers of hell shall not prevail against it!'

"The saint and his eight disciples, who were all on their knees in reverence and awe, bowed low at this command; when they looked up, the Virgin had disappeared with all her shining choir, and nothing remained but the miraculous pillar of polished marble, standing cold, white, and solitary, amid the moonlight, by the bank of the Ebro.

"So around that column he built the famous church of Our Lady del Pilar, which has been the scene of a thousand miracles; about it, ere long, grew the vast Christian city now named Zaragossa, which, as my father the professor always assured me, is but a corruption of the original name, Cæsarea-Augusta.

"Santiago rests from his holy labours in Compostella, where he was martyred by the barbarous Galicians, and where his bones were discovered in after years by a miraculous star that burned over his grave. When danger threatens Spain, the clashing of arms and of armour is heard within his tomb, for he is her tutelary guardian, and so greatly do we venerate him, that of the canons of his cathedral seven, at least, must be cardinal priests: and there, at Compostella, he appeared in a vision to the king, Don Ramiro, before his famous battle with the Moors, and promised him victory for withholding the annual tribute of a hundred Christian girls.

"Time passed over Zaragossa, and even the infidel Moors respected the holy pillar, for it was found uninjured when the city was re-captured from them by Don Alphonso of Arragon.

"And so last year, when the French had pushed their batteries along the right bank of the Guerva, and had beaten down the rampart; and when, at their head, General Ribeaupierre had cut a passage through the ranks of Palafox into the wide and stately Coso: when Lefebre assailed the Portillo, and was repulsed with the loss of two thousand men, but returned with renewed fury, when a carnage ensued that must have ended in the fall of Zaragossa and the capture of Don José, then it was, senor, that the young girl Augustina, inspired by vengeance for her lover's fall, appeared among the soldiers, calling on Our Lady del Pilar to aid her chosen city.

"Then springing over dead and dying, she snatched a lighted match from her dead lover's hand and discharged a twenty-six pounder loaded with grapeshot full at the advancing foe, and animated the citizens to continue that awful struggle by which Zaragossa was saved, though the flower of Arragon perished. Foot to foot and breast to breast they fought, contesting every street and house, from floor to floor, till the French retired. Augustina received a noble pension, and now wears on her sleeve a shield of honour with the city's name."

By the time this story was ended, darkness had almost set in; the rain was still rushing down in a ceaseless flood, and the vivid lightning, with its green and ghastly glare, lit up from time to time the gloomy chambers of the silent villa.

Remembering that he had seen a lamp in one of the rooms, Quentin was about to go in search of it, when the sound of a heavy door closing with a bang that echoed through all the mansion, made him pause, and as he was Scotsman enough to have certain undefined but superstitious notions, he turned to his companion, who on hearing this unexpected noise, had started from her seat with her eyes dilated and her lips parted.

"You heard that, senora?" said he.

"It is the private door of the chapel—the door through which we passed," she replied.

"What has caused it to open and shut?"

"The wind, probably."

"It can be nothing else, senora, though in truth I was thinking of those two effigies that for seven hundred years have stood, with their stony eyes uplifted and their mailed hands clasped in prayer."

"What of them?" she asked, with surprise.

"What if they got off their pedestals and took a promenade through the villa on this stormy night?"

"Ah, senor, don't talk of such things!" said Donna Isidora, as she shrunk close to him and laid her hand on his arm.

END OF VOL. II.