The Spanish Brothers: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

by Deborah Alcock

But nature had not designed him for a keeper of secrets. The colour mounted rapidly to his cheek, as he answered,--

"I am flattered by my lady cousin's solicitude for me. But, I thank God, my health is as good as ever. In truth, Doctor Cristobal is a man of learning and a pleasant companion, and I enjoy an hour's conversation with him. Moreover, he has some rare and valuable books, which he is kind enough to lend me."

"He is certainly very well-bred, for a man of his station," said Doña Inez, condescendingly.

Carlos did not resume his attendance upon the lectures of Fray Constantino at the College of Doctrine; but when the voice of the eloquent preacher was heard in the cathedral, he was never absent. He had no difficulty now in recognizing the truths that he loved so well, covered with a thin veil of conventional phraseology. All mention, not absolutely necessary, of dogmas peculiarly Romish was avoided, unless when the congregation were warned earnestly, though in terms well-studied and jealously guarded, against "risking their salvation" upon indulgences or ecclesiastical pardons. The vanity of trusting to their own works was shown also; and in every sermon Christ was faithfully held up before the sinner as the one all-sufficient Saviour.

Carlos listened always with rapt attention, usually with keen delight. Often would he look around him upon the sea of earnest upturned faces, saying within himself, "Many of these my brethren and sisters have found Christ--many more are seeking him;" and at the thought his heart would thrill with thankfulness. But even at that moment some word from the preacher's lips might change his joy into a chill of apprehension. It frequently happened that Fray Constantino, borne onward by the torrent of his own eloquence, was betrayed into uttering some sentiment so very nearly heretical as to make his hearer tingle with the peculiar sense of pain that is caused by seeing one rush heedlessly to the verge of a precipice.

"I often thank God for the stupidity of evil men and the simplicity of good ones," Carlos said to his new friend Losada, after one of these dangerous discourses.

For by this time, what De Seso had first led him to suspect, had become a certainty with him. He knew himself a heretic--a terrible consciousness to sink into the heart of any man in those days, especially in Catholic Spain. Fortunately the revelation had come to him gradually; and still more gradually came the knowledge of all that it involved. Yet those were sorrowful hours in which he first felt himself cut off from every hallowed association of his childhood and youth; from the long chain of revered tradition, which was all he knew of the past; from the vast brotherhood of the Church visible--that mighty organization, pervading all society, leavening all thought, controlling all custom, ruling everything in this world, even if not in the next. His own past life was shattered: the ambitions he had cherished were gone--the studies he had excelled and delighted in were proved for the most part worse than vain. It is true that he believed, even still, that he might accept priestly ordination from the hands of Rome (for the idolatry of the mass was amongst the things not yet revealed to him); but he could no longer hope for honour or preferment, or what men call a career, in the Church. Joy enough would it be if he were permitted, in some obscure corner of the land, to tell his countrymen of a Saviour's love; and perpetual watchfulness, extreme caution, and the most judicious management would be necessary to preserve him--as hitherto they had preserved Fray Constantino--from the grasp of the Holy Inquisition.

To us, who read that word in the lurid light that martyr fires kindled after this period have flung upon it, it may seem strange that Carlos was not more a prey to fear of the perils entailed by his heresy. But so slowly did he pass out of the stage in which he believed himself still a sincere Catholic into that in which he shudderingly acknowledged that he was in very truth a Lutheran, that the shock of the discovery was wonderfully broken to him. Nor did he think the danger that menaced him either near or pressing, so long as he conducted himself with reserve and prudence.

It is true that this reserve involved a degree of secrecy, if not of dissimulation, that was fast becoming very irksome. Formerly the kind of fencing, feinting, and doubling into which he was often forced, would rather have pleased him, as affording for the exercise of ingenuity. But his moral nature was growing so much more sensitive, that he began to recoil from slight departures from truth, in which heretofore he would only have seen a proper exercise of the advantage which a keen and quick intellect possesses over dull ones. Moreover, he longed to be able to speak freely to others of the things which he himself found so precious.

Though quite sufficiently afraid of pain and danger, the thought of disgrace was still more intolerable to him. Keener than any suffering he had yet known--except the pang of renouncing Beatrix--was the consciousness that all those amongst whom he lived, and who now respected and loved him, would, if they guessed the truth, turn away from him with unutterable scorn and loathing.