"Hush, hush!" cried I; "for Heaven's sake, never mention it to my father, or to any one; but, above all, on no account to Father Francis." I then exacted a promise to this effect from the good old soldier, feeling heartily ashamed of my night's employment; and turning as red as fire every time the thought crossed my mind, that I had been sitting drinking and playing with a couple of vulgar sharpers, who had nearly succeeded in cheating me of all the money which my father had given me from his own limited means. To get rid of these pleasant reflections, I hurried to bed; and meeting the rotund form of the Capuchin on the stairs, nearly jostled him to the bottom in pure ill-humour.
CHAPTER VII.
Early the next morning we arose, and took our departure for Gavarnie. Mine host at Luz, however, drew me aside as we were setting out, and said he hoped we had not suffered ourselves to be cheated by the Capuchin or his companion, each of whom he was sure was a great rogue, and the Capuchin, he believed, had no more of the monk about him than the gown and shaved head. "Be cautious, be cautious," said he, "and if ever you meet them again, have nothing to do with them." I thanked this candid host for his information, giving him at the same time to understand, that he had better have warned me the night before, and that I took his tardy caution at no more than it was worth; after which I spurred on, and joined Father Francis and Houssaye, who had not proceeded far on their journey ere I reached them.
Our road to Gavarnie lay through scenery of that grand and magnificent nature, which mocks the feeble power of language. The change was still from sublime to sublime, till the heart seemed to ache at its own expansion. The vast, the wonderful, the beautiful, the sweet, were spread around in dazzling confusion. The gigantic rocks and precipices, the profuse vegetation, the peculiar lustrous atmosphere of the mountains, the thousand rare and lovely flowers with which every spot of soil was carpeted and every rock adorned, the very butterflies which, fluttering about in thousands, seemed like flying blossoms; all occupied my mind with new and beautiful objects, till it was almost wearied with the exhaustless novelty. All was lovely, and yet I felt then, and always do feel, in such scenes, a degree of calm melancholy, so undefined in its nature, that I know not in what to seek its cause. Whether it is, that man feels all the weaknesses and follies of his passions reproved by the calm grandeur of nature's vaster works; or whether his spirit, excited by the view of things so beautiful, seemed clogged and shackled by the clay to which she is joined, and longs to throw off those earthly trammels which circumscribe her powers to enjoy, to estimate, to comprehend--I know not.
Had the scenery through which we passed needed a climax even more sublime than itself, it could not have been more exquisitely terminated than by the famous Circle of Gavarnie, where above an amphitheatre of black marble fourteen hundred feet in height--perpendicular as a wall, and sweeping round an extent of half a league--rises the icy summit of the Pyrenees, flashing back the rays of the sun in long beams of many-coloured light. When we arrived in the centre of the amphitheatre, a light cloud was stretched across the top of the cascade, while the stream, shooting over the precipice above us, fell with one burst full fourteen hundred feet; and, before it reached the ground, also spread out into another cloud. Gazing upon it, as we did, from a distance, we saw it thus pouring on, between the two, without perceiving whence it came, or whither it went; so that the long defined line of its waters, streaming from the one indistinct vapour to the other, offered no bad image of the course of mortal time flowing on between two misty eternities. At the same time, the bright diamond heads of the mountains shone out above the clouds, with a grand, unearthly lustre, like those mighty visions of heaven seen by the inspired apostle at Samos.
I could have gazed on it for ever, but the evening light soon began to fail; and as we had to rise early also the next morning, our stay in the amphitheatre was necessarily curtailed. Winding round the little lakes[[3]] that the stream forms after its fall, we returned to the filthy hut in which we were to pass the night, often looking back by the way to catch another glance of that grand and wonderful scene, whose very remembrance makes every other object seem small and insignificant.
By sunrise we were once more upon our way, and passing through what is called the Porte de Gavarnie, entered Spain, after having been examined from top to toe by the officers of the Spanish custom-house. A wide and wavy sea of blue interminable hills now presented themselves; and a guide, whom we had hired at Gavarnie, pointed out a spot in the distance which he called Saragossa. Had he called it Jerusalem, he might have done so uncontradicted by any object visible to our eyes, for nothing was to be seen but hill beyond hill, valley running into valley, till the far distance and the blue sky mingled together, with scarcely a perceptible line to mark the division.
Thitherward, however, we wended on, and some hours after reached Jacca, where, out of complaisance to Father Francis's mule, we remained for the night, and set off before daybreak the next morning, hoping to escape the heat of the middle of the day. In this we were deceived, making less progress than we anticipated, and enjoying the scorching of a meridian sun till we reached the gates of Saragossa.
On arriving at the inn, we inquired for the Chevalier, as we had been directed, but found that he had ridden out early in the morning. He returned, however, soon after, and having welcomed us cordially to Spain, as no apartments could be procured in the house, he led us out to seek for a lodging in the immediate neighbourhood. It was some time before we could discover one to our mind, for it is with great difficulty that the Spaniards can be induced to receive any foreigner into their dwelling; and even when we did so, we had to undergo as strict an examination by the old lady of the house, as we had bestowed upon her apartments. She said it was but just that both parties should be satisfied, she with us as well as we with her; and not content with asking all manner of questions, which had as much to do with her lodgings as with her hopes of heaven, she actually turned me round to take a more complete view of my figure.
This was carrying the ridiculous to so high a point, that I burst out into a fit of laughter, which, far from offending the good dame, tickled her own organs of risibility, and from that moment we were the best friends in the world. Our baggage being brought, and it being agreed that we should eat at the posada with the Chevalier, nothing remained but to distribute the three chambers upon the same floor, which constituted our apartments, according to our various tastes. As Father Francis sought more quiet than amusement, he fixed upon the large room behind, where he certainly could be quiet enough, for if ever even the distant voice of an amorous cat on the house-top reached his solitude, it must have been a far and a faint sound, like the hymns of angels said to be heard by monks in the cells of a monastery. Houssaye took up with the small chamber between the two larger ones, and I occupied the front room of a tall house in a narrow street, whose extreme width of which might possibly be two ells. Nevertheless, whatever was to be seen, was to be seen from my window; and my very first determination was to see as much of Spain while I was in it, as I possibly could.