The Velvet Glove

by Henry Seton Merriman

In all of which he was quite right. And it was not for him, any more than it is for the profane reader, to inquire why latter-day miracles are nearly always performed at or near popular health resorts.

Was another in grief, Evasio Mon would send him on a long journey to a gay city, where the devout are not without worldly diversion in the evenings.

Neither was it upon hearsay only that he prescribed. He had been to all these places, and tested them perhaps, which would account for his serene demeanour and that even health which he seemed to enjoy. He had traveled without perturbment, it would seem, for his journeys had left no wrinkles on his bland forehead, neither was the light of restlessness in his quiet eyes.

He must have seen many cities, but cities are nearly all alike, and they grow more alike every day. Many men also must he have met, but they seemed to have rubbed against him and left him unmarked--as sandstone may rub against a diamond. It is upon the sandstone that the scratch remains. He was not part of all that he had seen, which may have meant that he looked not at men or cities, but right through them, to something beyond, upon which his gaze was always fixed.

Living as he did, in a city possessing so great a shrine as that of the "Virgen del Pilar," the scene of a vision accorded to St. James when traveling through Spain, Mon naturally interested himself in the pilgrims, who came from all parts of the world to worship in the cathedral, who may be seen at any hour kneeling in the dim light of flickering candles before the altar rails.

Mon's apartment, indeed, in the tall house next door to the Posada de los Reyes on the Paseo del Ebro was a known resort of the more cultured of the pilgrims, of these who came from afar; from Rome and from the farthest limits of the Roman Church--from Warsaw to Minnesota.

Evasio Mon had friends also among the humble and such as sheltered in the Posada de los Reyes, which itself was a typical Spanish hostelry, and one of those houses of the road in which the traveler is lucky if he finds the bedrooms all occupied; for then he may, without giving offense, sleep more comfortably in the hayloft. Here, night and day, the clink of bells and the gruff admonition of refractory mules told of travel, and the constant come and go of strange, wild-looking men from the remoter corners of Aragon, far up by the foothills of the Pyrenees. The huge two-wheeled carts drawn by six, eight or ten mules, came lumbering through the dust at all hours of the twenty-four, bringing the produce of the greener lands to this oasis of the Aragonese desert. Some came from other oases in the salt and stony plains where once an inland sea covered all, while the others hailed from the north where the Sierras de Guara rise merging into the giant Pyrenees.

Many of these drivers made their way up the stairs of the house where Evasio Mon lived his quiet life, and gave a letter or merely a verbal message, remembered faithfully through the long and dusty journey, to the man who, though no priest himself, seemed known to every priest in Spain. These letters and messages were nearly always from the curate of some distant village, and told as often as not of a cheerful hopefulness in the work.

Sometimes the good men themselves would come, sitting humbly beneath the hood of the great cart, or riding a mule, far enough in front to avoid the dust, and yet near enough for company. This was more especially in the month of February, at the anniversary of the miraculous appearance, at which time the graven image set up in the cathedral is understood to be more amenable to supplication than at any other. And, having accomplished their pilgrimage, the simple churchmen turned quite naturally to the house that stood adjoining the cathedral. There, they were always sure of a welcome and of an invitation to lunch or dinner, when they were treated to the very best the city could afford, and, while keeping strictly within the letter of the canonical law, could feast their hearty country appetites even in Lent.

Mon so arranged his journeys that he should be away from Saragossa in the great heats of the summer and autumn, which wise precaution was rendered the easier by the dates of the other great festivals which he usually attended. For it will be found that the miracles and other events attractive to the devout nearly always happen at that season of the year which is most suitable to the environments. Thus the traditions of the Middle Ages fixed the month of February for Saragossa when it is pleasant to be in a city, and September for Montserrat--to quote only one instance--at which time the cool air of the mountains is most to be appreciated.