Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

"True, colonel," returned this veteran, firm as an oak tree. "My boy has left me; I saw him off last night and you might have heard the noise going on up here; half the town was at the station. I have no fears for him. He knows good from evil and has strong principles. I gave him my blessing and please Heaven he will return when the years are over. But my heart aches for these poor women who are weak when their emotions are in question. So I thought I would come and console them a bit, and tell them that military discipline after all is a very fine thing—the best thing that could happen to them if they only do their duty. You agree, colonel?"

"Of course I do," returned the colonel sharply. "There is no training like it. It makes men of boys if they have only an inch of wood in them that will bear carving."

We had noticed one pale woman close to the doorway, drooping and woe-begone. She seemed superior to those about her, and over her head, half draping her face, was the graceful mantilla. At that moment a youth appeared, a handsome, manly image of his mother—the resemblance was at once evident; his thread-bare clothes proving him scantily endowed with worldly goods. As he advanced a serious expression and hesitating manner betrayed his fate. No need to ask the question, and with a cry that was half sob, wholly despair, the mother threw her arms about her boy's neck as though life could hold no further ill for her. At such a moment reticence was thrown to the winds. What to her the lookers-on? Were they not all fellow-sufferers?

"A sad story," said our colonel, whose eyes glistened. "They were amongst the most prosperous people in Gerona, when the husband died and left them almost in poverty. Her eldest son turned scapegrace and this boy was her last hope. No doubt she feels that fate is hard upon her. Pedro," to the old man who looked on compassionately, "tell her it will all come right in the end. Stay; quietly whisper to her to come to my office to-morrow morning at ten and ask for me. I will promise to keep a special eye upon that boy of hers. He is of finer mould and deserves a better fate than many. I will see that he has it."

Pedro looked his gratitude, thought there was only one colonel in the world, and he stood before him. To be strong and merciful is to win hearts.

"There is more interest for me in this little crowd than in all your ecclesiastical outlines," said the colonel. "I never saw a building that I did not tire of in a week, but my work and my men interest me more year by year. I feel I have something to live for."

He was small and wiry, this colonel, with piercing dark eyes and a mouth of which a fierce moustache could not conceal the kindliness. One wished him a finer body of men than these recruits, too many of whom were of the lowest type and had not, to use his own metaphor, even the inch of wood that would bear carving.

"That need not greatly trouble you," he said. "It is surprising how many are the exceptions. After all, it is a survival of the fittest. But I see you are interested in humanity just as much as I am," noting how we followed every movement and expression of this pathetic little crowd. "So far your resources are wider than mine, for when on the subject of old buildings you are as absorbed as in front of this little drama. My interests are more restricted. Well then, if you like to come to my office to-morrow morning at ten you shall have more food for your sympathies. We will interview that poor woman together and see how far we can minister consolation to the widow and fatherless."

This was not one's idea of severe military discipline, but we could not help admiring a nature that after years of experience and repeated discouragements—in spite of what he had said—still possessed so warm a heart, so much of human faith. No doubt he had shown a little of his true self on the spur of the moment, influenced by the above incidents. All his kindliness of feeling was kept well out of sight of others. The next instant he had passed beyond the sentry and was holding forth in tones hard as the Pyramids, cold as the Sphinx.