Peggy O'Neal

by Alfred Henry Lewis

“Who is your armorer?” I asked of Noah when Rivera was gone.

This boy I had come across before. He had drawn himself upon my attention by the panther grace and strength told of in his motions. Large, long of limb, and heavy, there was yet a brisk lightness with him to hold one like a spell.

“His name,” responded Noah, “is Rivera—Michael Rivera—and his blood flows a fantastic, almost a formidable mixture. His mother was a maid of my mother; an Irish lass she was, and came out of Tipperary. The father, on the far other hand, was a Spanish Jew; by trade a bull-fighter, the foremost toreador of Seville, where, when my family was visiting in Spain, the impressionable Tipperary maiden lost her heart to him as he flourished bloodily about the arena. They were married by the padre, for Rivera senior, while pure Jew, was none the less pure Catholic; under Spanish law he could have had no place among the bull-fighters else, since in Spain it is not permitted to be cruel unless one first be Christian. My protege, who goes for the swords, is the fruit of that union; now, his parents being dead, and because he was born among my people, he abides with me. He has a drowsy, honest soul—though hot enough when moved—and he loves me. He would accept death for me like a dog.”

“And what is his part with you?” asked Kendall. The tale of Rivera interested us.

“No part,” responded Noah, “more than to go where I go, and come where I come; to fetch and to carry and to do my word. He is well taught of books; but owns ideas not at all, for he has no width nor current of conjecture. Yet you are not to believe him a fool. He is silent, but blithe to obey, and true as blade to hilt. I keep him for he would have otherwise no support. If I turned him on the world, he could not make a dollar—nor guard it if he should. In that fiscal particular, the Jew in him has balked and broken down.” Noah laughed lightly. “The faithful Rivera,” he went on, “has, however, certain advantages. There is a compensation, an equilibrium, in nature. Rivera, slow of brain, possesses the muscle-power of a Hercules; moreover, in those twin arts of boxing and wrestling, it's to be doubted if his over-lord exists. Some day, in some moment of brutality—being now and again overtaken of such—I shall have Rivera to England to beat Bendigo and Ward. The prize-ring is his one opening for eminence. And I—as does the immortal Byron, who has more pride of fisticuffs than verse—applaud the ring.”

While Noah talked, I was yielding him my meed of tacit admiration. Here was a man, a creature of quills and ink, too, within minutes of meeting, edge to edge, with one keen of his weapon, and a declared adept among sword fighters. And clearly, the business was no more upon his spirit than if the day bore no grim promise, but only smiles. It was more than courage, it was the absolute absence of fear; he leaned back with his sherry, and the little story of his young Spanish Irish-Jew, as though hate were not at that same moment of time whetting a rapier with hope against his life. His foreclaim of being cold and steady was not a boast which wanted feet to stand upon.

Rivera came back, bearing the swords wrapped from casual eye in the folds of a cloak. I drew one—a plain rapier or Spanish sword—and of as superb temper as any to come from its birth-forge of Toledo.

“They are brothers, those swords,” said Noah; “there is none better. I had them from the hands of that Bey who branded us as heathen, and so fretted the friend of Henry Clay. And since, in a pastime such as we go about, a fullest confidence in one's weapon is important, you will prefer these for me if the choice be given you.” This was spoken to me.

Rivera knelt down, and taking off his patron's shoes, replaced them with light fencing slippers, whereof the soles crackled with a fresh coat of resin. Then came loose overshoes, meant to protect the others on the road to Gads-by's from intervening mud. Having done this, and saying not a word whether of question or remark, the boy stood back as waiting the next command. I was ever reckoned a judge of anything on two legs or four, as became the best quartermaster the General ever had, and I've yet to glimpse so perfect—so splendidly, so accurately perfect—an example of the physical man as showed in this youth, with his brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin, and round thick neck like the carved column of some sculptor.

It was time to be off for Gadsby's, no mighty journey, being just across the street. As we were about departing, Noah called to Rivera, who exhibited no more distrust of a finale than was present with the other, and observed: “I shall be hungry on my return. Have a fowl and a flask of wine set out for me in my own rooms.”