"We are so unlike each other,
Thou and I, that none would guess
We were children of one mother,
But for mutual tenderness."--E. B. Browning
After the first tumult of greeting, in which affection was expressed rather by look and gesture than by word, the brothers sat down and talked. Eager questions rose to the lips of both, but especially to those of Carlos, whose surprise at Juan's unexpected appearance only equalled his delight.
"But you are wounded, my brother," he said. "Not seriously, I hope?"
"Oh no! Only a bullet through my arm. A piece of my usual good luck. I got it in The Battle."
No adjective was needed to specify the glorious day of St. Quentin, when Flemish Egmont's chivalrous courage, seconded by Castilian bravery, gained for King Philip such a brilliant victory over the arms of France. Carlos knew the story already from public sources. And it did not occur to Juan, nor indeed to Carlos either, that there had ever been, or would ever be again, a battle so worthy of being held in everlasting remembrance.
"But do you count the wound part of your good luck!" asked Carlos.
"Ay, truly, and well I may. It has brought me home; as you ought to have known ere this."
"I received but two letters from you--that written on your first arrival, and dated from Cambray; and that which told of your notable prize, the French prisoner."
"But I wrote two others: one, I entrusted to a soldier who was coming home invalided--I suppose the fellow lost it; the other (written just after the great St. Laurence's day) arrived in Seville the night before I made my own appearance there. His Majesty will need to look to his posts; certes, they are the slowest carriers to be found in any Christian country." And Juan's merry laugh rang through the convent parlour, little enough used to echo such sounds.
"So I have heard almost nothing of you, brother; save what could be gathered from the public accounts," Carlos continued.