CHAPTER XVIII.
TURNED AWAY.
In an apartment of a dwelling far less spacious and picturesque in appearance than the home of the Aguileras, but much better furnished with modern comforts, sits Donna Maria de Rivas. She is engaged in serious and interesting conversation with a priest, who, as Father Bonifacio, is already known to the reader.
"I can hardly yet believe it, father!" exclaimed the lady, vibrating her large black fan as she spoke. "Don Alcala de Aguilera, one of so ancient and honourable a house, to be arrested, and on so pitiful a charge! If the caballero had been tempted by need to rob the mail (he is so desperately poor), or in a fit of passion had stabbed an enemy to the heart, it would have been quite a different thing,—one could have understood such acts; but to get himself locked up for holding a meeting for reading the Bible, such a piece of folly cannot be accounted for,—such madness exceeds all belief!"
"It is a madness, my daughter, I grieve to say it, that is by no means confined to this unhappy apostate," observed the priest. "The disease is infectious, the corruption is spreading. Unless strong and sharp measures are speedily taken, this cancer of heresy will eat deep into the very heart of society even in Seville."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Donna Maria. "I have heard, indeed, of Matamoros, and other misguided fanatics, who have happily been arrested by justice in their most wicked course; but surely the number of these wretches is few, and their example is little likely to be followed by those who see the punishment which it brings."
"Daughter, you little know the strength of this fanaticism, or the subtilty with which the poison of heresy is diffused throughout the length and breadth of our Catholic Spain!" exclaimed the ecclesiastic, warming with his subject. "So long as the vile English heretics hold Gibraltar,—would that its rock would fall and crush them!—so long will there be an open door through which all that is evil can enter our land! Secret agents of I know not how many societies distribute blasphemous tracts against the worship of the blessed Virgin, Purgatory, Intercession of Saints, and the reverence due by all the world to our holy Father the Pope!"
Donna Maria crossed herself in pious horror; and Bonifacio, with increasing vehemence, went on with his oration.
"Colporteurs hawk Bibles in the by-roads and lanes of Andalusia; copies are smuggled into rural parishes; English travellers instil the venom of their heretical doctrines even into the minds of unsuspecting curés! The wild mountaineers of the Sierra Nevada and Morena are, in their rude huts, poring over portions of the prohibited Book, and drinking in heresy from every line in its pages!"[20]