How sad must be the life of married people whose heads become white, whose limbs become weak, and in whose ears the name of father or mother does not sound! Feel compassion for those spouses who around their hearths see none to whom they can give the title of child; for old people feel the need of children as much as children do of parents; old age requires a staff on which to lean; for death is doubly painful when all goes with ourselves to the churchyard, when no eyes remain to water the flowers placed on our tombs.
Such were the thoughts which passed through the mind of Ximena during that night. She knew that Rodrigo would think in the same way; she knew that the news she was about to impart to her beloved husband would be the sweetest he could listen to; she knew that an additional bond, as firm, as indissoluble, as holy as those which already united them, would soon draw them even more closely together, and her heart leaped with joy, and tears of happiness flowed from her eyes, and she blessed God who had thus increased her felicity, when the being whom she felt in her breast reminded her that Rodrigo, when clasping her in his arms, would embrace two dear ones at the same time.
She, however, was not the only one who had her eyes fixed on that road: those of Teresa and Diego, and also those of Mayor, Lambra, and Gil, were looking in the same direction; besides these, all the inhabitants of Burgos were anxiously expecting the arrival of the victorious leader. Happy are the absent who know that they are expected at the domestic hearth with such great love, impatience, and anxiety!
At last, a dark moving mass was perceived on the white road, which disappeared towards the distant horizon. Numerous cries of joy resounded at the same time from the windows of the house of the lords of Vivar, and shortly afterwards Rodrigo and his escort dismounted at its door. To describe the joy, the caresses, the tears, the embraces, with which his family welcomed the victorious cavalier would be as difficult as to express with words all the joys, enchantments, mutual pleasures, and sweet confidences which the unwritten and undescribable history of domestic life contains.
Rodrigo Diaz, who on the field of battle mowed down Moslem heads as the reaper cuts down the harvest in his fields; who, at the assault of a fortress, rushed against its walls, trampling dead bodies under foot, and covered with blood; the terrible warrior whose name alone filled the ferocious Islamites with terror; that man of iron, who seemed born only to live in combats—that man, we repeat, was at the domestic hearth the personification of mildness, of love, and of simplicity. If he could be seen clasping his parents and his wife to his heart, with tears of happiness in his eyes; if he could be seen, as excited as a child, blessing God and Ximena, when he learned that she bore the first-fruit of their love within her breast; if he could be seen conversing with his servants with the same kindness as if they were his equals; and, finally, caressing Gil, the Moorish child, whom he had taken under his protection, and amusing him with the same playfulness and boyishness as he had displayed at the period when he sported with Ximena at the Castle of Vivar, and imprinted a kiss for the first time on the lips of the innocent little girl; if all this could have been seen, he would have been admired more under the domestic roof than on the fields of battle.
Three days after the return of the Cid to Burgos, on a calm and beautiful morning, like another which he remembered with joy, for it had been the happiest of his life, that on which he had first called Ximena by the sweet name of wife, a great multitude crowded round the gates of the church of Santa Gadea, and many ladies and cavaliers entered it.
On that morning the order of knighthood was to be conferred on Guillen by the hand of the Cid Campeador, and the noble Ximena was to buckle on the golden spur.
The brave youth had kept vigil over his arms, during the preceding night, before the altar, and was awaiting with impatience the solemn ceremony, when he would receive the sword-stroke on his shoulder, when the golden spur would be buckled on, and when he would be girt with his knightly sword.
And the time at last arrived.
The church was decorated with the Moslem standards, which, from time immemorial, the cavaliers of Burgos had deposited in it, on their return from the wars, as a just and holy homage to the God of battles. Torrents of light spread themselves about in all directions, incense filled the nave of the church, and sacred chants sounded in harmony with the peals of the bells.