CHAPTER XXXIII. THE GUERILLA’S GIFT.
Bring forth the horse!—the horse was brought;
In truth, he was a noble steed.”
Mazeppa.
A few minutes’ easy riding brought us to the spot where the roads diverged, and where it had been previously arranged that we should part company. We took leave of El Manco and the Cura; the fosterer and Frenchman turning their horses’ heads in the direction of Toledo, while the partidas took the mountain route. Consequently, the Empecinado and I were left alone, the escort passing on, with the exception of a single horseman.
“I know not wherefore, Mr. O’Halloran, but I feel more reluctance in saying the word ‘farewell’ than is my wont. The chances against our ever meeting in this world are enormous. Well, it matters not—‘tis but a too frequent occurrence in life’s history—the parting from those we esteem. Believe me, I shall ever look back on our brief acquaintance with pleasure, and wish you the best fortunes that attend a soldier—death or distinction. If I live, you will hear of the Empecinado. The tale may not be flattering; it may be of enemies destroyed, of villages laid in ashes. Men will speak of him as of a demon, and women cross themselves when they hear his name pronounced; and yet, Mr. O’Halloran, I was once such another as thyself. Mine, at thy own age, was the same ardent and disinterested courage, that at the posada risked life to save a stranger; and when the flush of blood had cooled, I would have recoiled, like thyself, from treading on a worm. And I was happy. I had a home on the sweet banks of the Huebra. I had a wife—a child. The Madonna’s features at the altar, where we plighted our bridal vows, were not lovelier than Camilla’s—the infant’s on the holy Virgin’s knees, not sweeter than my boy’s. I lost both, Mr. O’Halloran—lost them—but don’t ask how! In one brief day, Juan Diez’s nature changed, and he became what he is, cold to the misery he inflicts on others, from the fearful remembrance of what he underwent himself. But enough; sometimes recall the Einpecinado to thy recollection, and think on the inn of Villa Moro. Thou shalt have one token to bring me to thy memory—‘tis this horse. He is a titling gift; black as the rider he carried in safety through as great extremity—ay, even as that we encountered the first morning that we met.”
I thanked him warmly, but declined to accept the charger.
“Well, it would appear that in turn Juan Diez is to ask a favour and be refused,” he remarked, with an appearance of disappointment.
“Not so, Empecinado. I am too grateful for the past to incur fresh obligations. Why, look but at the value of the animal! My foster brother, as we rode together, was observing, that he doubted whether there was a more beautiful charger in Spain.”
“I question if there be; and yet I got him cheap enough. He cost me but a three hours’ ride. To be sure, the night was dark, and the road the worst on the frontier. He was the fwourite steed of one of Spain’s worst enemies; and the pistols, which you will find loaded in the holsters, were a gift from Napoleon to his minion. On the borders of Portugal I cut off a small detachment, escorting plundered property for better security to Ciudad Rodrigo. Of these spoils, Junot was the chief proprietor. I divided them among my band, but kept this charger, partly from personal regard for the French marshal, and partly as a memento of my success.”
Still I declined the Empecinado’s present.
“Well, let us change the terms. If you will not receive, you shall purchase; for I am determined to get rid of him. Are you aware that I have increased my stud this morning by eighty-three? I think I can spare one. Come, will you accept or purchase?”
I smiled; and jestingly replied that a long price was beyond the means of a young subaltern.
“But we can afford long credit,” said the Empecinado, in the same playful mood.
“Worse still, Don Juan. My father is an old soldier, and in his catalogue of military offendings, debt holds a prominent place.”
“Pause, my friend, until you hear the terms of sale. To your companion, I owe a life. His shall be the horse. Settle the price with him, and to him transfer the value. But no more of this. The roads are sometimes puzzling to a stranger, and that follower of mine”—he pointed to the mounted guerilla—“will accompany you to the first town where mules and a guide are procurable. You may trust him implicitly; in everything he will direct you; he is true as steel, and could lead you blindfolded from one end of Toledo to the other.”
He pressed my hand, sprang into the saddle of the troop-horse I had just vacated, and, with a kind adieu, cantered after his companions, who were now fully half a mile ahead, and, in a round trot, hurrying towards the highlands. A turn in the road speedily concealed him—and it was the last I ever saw of Juan. Diez.
I soon overtook my fellow-travellers. On what subjects they had previously occupied themselves I cannot guess, but my advent caused the fosterer to be rather anxious to hurry what seemed an undecided monetary transaction to its close.
“Oh! the divil a shurrich they would leave ye—the thieves!” observed Mark Antony to Lieutenant Cammaran.
“Shurreeke!” repeated the Frenchman,—“what you mean by shurreeke?”
“Not a music,” said the fosterer, in explanation.
“Music—music!” and Lieutenant Cammaran shrugged his shoulders.
“That is—not the king’s picture in your pocket, to keep the divil out of it,” continued Mark Antony.
“The devil in my pocket, and the king to keep him out—I do not understand at all,” said the Frenchman, with a sigh.
“Oh,” cried the fosterer, in despair, “it’s all useless knocking sense into the head of a foreigner. What a loss it is the man does not speak Irish, and I’d make him comprehend me in a jiffy. I was just mentioning, that as these guerillas had cleaned him out, he would be all the better of five or six dollars till he got home, poor fellow. But why are ye riding the dark gentleman’s horse? Lord, what a figure! If I ever get hanged for horse-stealing, it will be for borrowing such another. But where’s that Mister Empecinado, as they call him?”
“Trotting as briskly to the mountains as a thick-winded French troop-horse will carry him,” I replied.
“Do you mean the one you rode?”
“I mean it;—we have made an exchange.”
“An exchange?” The fosterer gwe a whistle. “So it was jockeying you were? Well, God sees I never suspected that Mister Diez was in the line, and fancied that he used halters on two-legged animals only. Did you stand a knock?—and what did he allow ye for the old trooper?”
“Nothing.”
“‘Well, let me see if he’s all right. You offered him eighty?—and you’ll pay the money if anybody leaves you a fortune.”
“Eighty!—Pshaw! Look again, Mark.”
The fosterer made a circuit, and examined that horse which erstwhile had not borne “the weight of Antony,” but the Due d’Abrantes.
“Oh, upon my conscience, I’m fairly puzzled. He’s up to fourteen stone with fox-hounds; and, unless he’s a deceiver, he has the go in him. May be, ye promised a hundred?”
“A hundred! Why, Mark, I fancied you knew something of a horse—a hundred?”
“Stop for a minute. Mister Cammaran, would ye be so civil as to hold the bridle?” and down got the fosterer. “I’ll just slip my hands over his hocks. Clean as a whistle! What’s that, inside the off leg?—It’s a lump of clay. Feaks, I thought it looked like a splint at first. Did you examine his wind?”
“Never asked a question about it,” I observed, carelessly.
“Then ye’r done to a turn. Oh! Mister Empecinado, may the divil’s luck attend ye! Spakin people fair and asy, and only waiting to walk into them afterwards! Did ye even get an engagement?”
“Not a line;—I took the horse on chance!”
“Feaks! and ye might as well, I fancy; for I suppose if he was a regular roarer” (here be it understood the horse and not the Empecinado was meant), “all the attorneys in Connaught couldn’t find Mister Diez out, and serve him with a latitat.”
“But what is the horse worth, Mark? Never mind latitats and attorneys.”
“Worth? In Balinasloe he would fetch a hundred readily.”
“Only a hundred?”
“Well, if he took the pound-wall kindly, ye might lay on thirty more. Did he gwe you a dacent luck-penny?”
“Not a farthing,” I replied.
“Well, after all, the Spaniards are shabby divils in horse-dealing.”
“Mr. O’Toole,” I said gravely,—“without allusions to luck-pennies, pound-walls, splints or spavins,—what is this horse worth?”
Mark Antony scratched his head, an invariable remedy resorted to by an Irishman in a puzzle. “If he’s all right—feeds well—”
“Come, come—take all for granted.”
“Well,” said Mark Antony, “hee’s value for a hundred and fifty, or he’s the biggest thief on earth. But I know there’s not a wink on Mr. Diez, and he laid it on pretty heavy.”
“Which, light or heavy, you ingrate, will be yours,” and I repeated the terms of the bargain.
The fosterer was confused.
“Well, in faith, Master Hector, they’re the quarest people to deal with I ever met with. One while ye’r drinking with them fair and asy; the next jumping into a river to save ye’r life. Here, half-a-score of men are shot: there, another batch are hanged. The fellow that sleeps beside you to-night is dead as a mackarel the next morning. All—hanging and shooting—and you can nather make head nor tail of what it’s all about. That critch * they call El Manco strings up the postmaster, I suppose, because he mislays a letter; and the Curate throttles the mule-driver for no other reason than that he delivered another safely. Troth, I’m right glad that we have parted company, although grately obliged to Mr. Diez for his civility. Indeed, I think he’s the best of the batch. El Manco has the gallows in his face; and if it wouldn’t be sinful to spake ill of the clargy, that father what-do-ye-call-him in the colonel’s coat, is one of the loosest-looking parish-priests I ever came across. But, come, let us jog on; the evening appears gloomy, and the Lord only knows where we are to put up to-night. If one could get into some quiet house for a wonder—not that I expect to sleep—for sorra thing I’ll drame of for a month of Sundays, but gallowses, guerillas, dead men, and every kind of divilry besides.”
* Anglice—“cripple.”
Before Mark Antony had done speaking, the partida rode up, pointed to the dark appearance of the sky, and intimated that we had three leagues to ride before we should reach our intended quarters. We took the hint accordingly’, and spurred forward in the hope of reaching our halting place before the rain came on.
We were disappointed. On the verge of the horizon, distant lightning began to scintillate like northern-lights; and, hardly audible, now and again the growl of a coming storm fell upon the ear. Momentarily the flashes became more vivid, the thunder became more distinct, large drops fell, and the guide declared that the tempest must burst immediately, and the first shelter we could reach would be a happy deliverance. There was a venta immediately beside us. It was remote, ill-kept, and bore but an indifferent reputation. If we could put up with bad fare and other inconveniences, there we would find shelter. If, however, we would risk a drenching for more comfort, we must abide the storm, and push on. We held a brief consultation. Suddenly the sky appeared to open; a flash of blue lightning issued from the riven cloud—we felt its heat distinctly; a peal of thunder, such as I had never heard before, succeeded; and with one voice we cried out for the neighbouring venta. The guerilla turned instantly sharp off into a narrow and neglected road, diverging on the left from the main route. We followed on the spur, and just as the rain began to fall we galloped into the yard of an inn, which had been once an establishment of considerable extent.
Unpromising as it might appear, that evening it was eagerly desired. A furlong off we saw half-a-dozen horsemen spurring down the hill, and evidently bound for the same destination. As precedency belongs to the first comers, we were determined to secure that best point in law—possession; and while the guerilla and Mark Antony led the horses to the stable, the French voltigeur and I entered the house, occupied the best corners of a bad kitchen, and made immediate inquiries into the actual state of the larder and wine bins. Alas! neither question was replied to satisfactorily. All was answered in the past. On Tuesday, there had been a side of goat—three travelling merchants pronounced it excellent; on Wednesday, the same trwellers finished a pig—the best the landlord had killed since St. Stephen’s; on Thursday, there had been partridges; (Friday, being a meagre day, was omitted in the account;) on Saturday, pigeons and a podrida. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, every thing was also excellent, and so varied that the host could not correctly enumerate the delicacies under which the table groaned. But, unluckily, to-day, and by a most calamitous fatality, nothing was to be had, good, bad or indifferent!
Before this miserable report had been concluded, a bustle in the yard announced the arrival of the wayfarers whom we had observed pricking down the hill; and while we were still listening to some wretched expedients which the landlord was proposing as an apology for a supper, two of the new comers made their entrée. They approached the fire, after having laid their wet riding cloaks aside; and the difference between the external appearances of the twain was so very ridiculous, that, by mutual impulse, Cammaran and I interchanged a smile.
One seemed an hildalgo of the Quixotic school—a thin, tall, shabby half-starved looking gentleman. His gait was stiff and lofty; and at first, the unhappy man seemed to labour under a delusion that we would resign a corner in his favour. Speedily that error of opinion was removed; and he ascertained, that upon us the imprint of his dignity was lost. He therefore contented himself with taking a place before the fire, demanding, in lordly tones, attendance, and more fuel,—“but none did come, though he did call for them.”
The other was a round, stumpy, well-fed, happy-looking little man, now touching close upon the grand climacteric. The world had evidently gone well with him, to judge by what, in Ireland, they would term “a cozey-character” of countenance. He poked the fire, but complained not; talked of the wild evening, and blessed the saints he was under shelter; hoped, rather than expected, that we might obtain a supper; concluding with a Christian-like expression of resignation, that really would have done honour to a Turk. New appeals were in the interim made to the landlord. The hidalgo swaggered; well, as the fancy say, it was “no go.” The voltigeur stormed—the answer invariably was, “I don’t understand ye.” The little man was responded to by a shrug; and all we could learn from him of the posada was, that the past had been a land of Goshen—the future bade fair to exceed it—but that the present was a dreary blank, which might be beneficially employed for the soul’s health in the shape of mortification. As for me, I should have objected, in Falstaff’s vein, to fast “upon compulsion,” when the door opened, and in came our partida escort, the fosterer, and three of the most ferocious-looking scoundrels I ever laid an eye upon, “armed to the teeth.”
“Why, how now,” exclaimed one of them,—“nothing like supper yet?”’
“Don’t be in any hurry.” said the little man; “Senhor!—there was one here, I think last Tuesday, and very excellent—roast pig, a podrida, and some partridges; and should you happen to pass this way within a fortnight, you’ll come in for a leg of a very promising porker, provided they can only catch him in the beech-wood.”
The strangers began to storm; the host appeared, reluctantly underwent a searching examination; and nothing transpired, but that there had been, and would be, entertainment. A most unsatisfactory discussion ensued. The hectoring of the ill-looking gentlemen, who had just joined us, had no effect; and as they say in England, that there is a certain “Duke Humphrey,” who keeps a most inhospitable table, I began to fancy that he had another establishment in the peninsula, and that for our sins, we had unluckily stumbled on the house; but, glory to the Empecinado! I was again beholden to him for a supper.
Taking the host aside, the partida commenced a whispering conversation. What was the subject none could guess, but momentarily the argument waxed warmer. The guerilla gesticulated—the landlord drew up his shoulders to his ears. At last the horseman’s countenance assumed a look of ferocity that threatened ruin to the venta and all appertaining to the same; and plunging his hand into his bosom, he suddenly produced—not a knife, as the host apprehended, to judge from the rapidity of his retreat—but a paper, of small dimensions, whose writing appeared to possess a cabalistic influence.
“Read!” cried the partida, furiously. “And if thou wouldst not have this old building reduced to ashes, and afterwards swing at thy own sign-post before eight and forty hours pass, lead these gentlemen to a fitting chamber, and prepare their supper incontinently. Dost thou hesitate, fellow?—be it so—I will faithfully acquaint the Empecinado how willingly his orders were obeyed.”
“By every saint in the calendar!” exclaimed the unhappy innkeeper, “you wrong me, sir. A dog sent hither by that most respected gentleman, would be more welcome than another man’s horse. I fly to obey your orders. Oh! that we had but killed the pig this morning! But the will of Heaven be done!”
The effect of Juan Diez’ name upon the host was scarcely more potent than it appeared upon the guests generally. The hidalgo lost a moiety of his self-importance, the handy-looking little man became uncomfortable, the audacity of the spados vanished, and every look in the company was turned deferentially towards me, the Frenchman, and the fosterer.
That this honest innkeeper had not held promise only to the ear, was forthwith evidenced. Culinary operations commenced, and the whole venta was immediately in an uproar. After despatching a sorry meal of black bread and goat’s-milk cheese, washed down with a glass or two of aqua ardiente, the ill-visaged trwellers pleaded business, and took their departure, although the rain fell fast, and the next house of call was more than two leagues distant. Presently the host appeared, and, with a profound bow, announced that the chamber for our reception was in readiness. We rose and left the kitchen, and were conducted into a half-ruined sort of hall, to which, however, a tolerable wood fire and spread table gave a comfortable air. A leathern bottle was on the table, to which we immediately applied; and, with an assurance that all haste consistent with superior cookery should be employed in the preparation of an excellent supper, the host left us to ourselves.
“Not bad wine, by Saint Anthony!” exclaimed Lieutenant Cammaran.
“You have had some experience of Juan Diez as an enemy,” I replied; “now what think you of him as a friend?”
“Think of him?” said the voltigeur: “why, that I would rather travel Spain with his letter of introduction in my pocket, than even with an autograph of the Emperor’s. He is a most estimable gentleman, were it not for that infernal fancy he has of using hemp and gunpowder so liberally. No matter: as my neck’s safe, here’s your health, Empecinado!”
“But,” observed the fosterer, “did you remark the effect the first whisper of his name had upon the thieves who set out upon their travels for the evening? They’re regular highwaymen, for a hundred,—up to everything, from stripping a priest of his vestment, to stealing a pinafore from a child. By the Lord! I thought they would have choaked themselves struggling with cheese that would have soled a shoe. But here’s the old fellow of the inn,—I hope to tell us something about supper.”
The host announced the welcome tidings that in a few minutes our repast should be paraded: and further added, that he was commissioned to inquire whether we would permit the two gentlemen who had remained in the kitchen, to join our company—and the host was ready, even upon oath, to guarantee their respectability. The lineage of the hidalgo was so ancient, that all traces of it were lost; and of the doctor, Fame spake loudly, as a personage who could do anything but raise the dead. To this double application I returned a gracious reply; and in five minutes a powerful odour of garlic and onions was felt in the direction of the kitchen, and the innkeeper re-entered with a huge turreen. heralding to our presence the descendant of Don Quixote, and his friend the short stout gentleman.