THE STEEPLE OF COVEÑA.
At a very little distance from Madrid you may already discern against the horizon the outline of the steeple of Coveña, which is one of the handsomest edifices of New Castile; and all the thitherward way it is before you, standing against the sky as a landmark to the traveller.
The people are so proud of having a church which bears so unusual a proportion to the size of their village, that they will not allow it was designed by any architect of less renown than Juan de Herrera, the architect of the Escorial, whom another tradition declares to have had a hand in the works at St. Peter’s, in Rome.
Nor are they satisfied with the mere statement; they are also very circumstantial in their account of his connexion with it, though both are declared to be quite apocryphal. They say he was so pleased with this work of his genius that he had it produced entirely under his own eye. He watched while the foundations were laid, while the materials were collected round the spot, while every stone was laid in its place; in fact, he was never tired of looking at it: now he would take a long walk into the country to enjoy its appearance in the distant view; now he would stand in the plaza beneath, and gaze up at the storied decorations with which his fancy had invested it; now he would mount the interior staircase of the tower, and look down from the monument he had raised, upon the insignificant dwellings with which it was surrounded.
On one of these latter expeditions he observed that he was one day followed by Andres, his son, a boy of some fifteen years of age. The circumstance pleased him, because he had noticed with growing sorrow that Andres on many occasions had failed to display that fearless disposition which is the characteristic of a brave and generous spirit. Through an opening in the tracery he turned to watch, from a higher stage, the boy’s proceedings. For a certain distance he mounted steadily enough, but in proportion as he got higher and had completed more turnings, giddiness seemed to overcome him. Juan de Herrera began to lose patience. The boy wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and sat down in a recess. Herrera felt so provoked that he could not restrain an impetuous movement; slight as was the attendant noise, it struck upon the boy’s excited nerves; he started from his resting-place, trembling like an aspen leaf.
“What’s the matter, Andres, my boy?” cried his father, to reassure him: “it is only I, your father.”
“I’m all right!” replied Andres, ashamed to be caught under a display of weakness.
“Then come on, boy; and don’t sit panting like a broken-winded horse. There, put your head out of that slit in the wall, and look down and see what a fine height I have made this tower. You’ll see Dolores and Pepito and Luis and Mariquilla playing in the plaza, and they will look like ants from this high tower.”
Andres somewhat recovered from his exertions and his alarm, and, curious to see his playmates looking “like ants,” summoned sufficient courage to put his head through the loophole.