Brat cared for me, but he had dumb yearnings coming on at the time, and wrote bosh in verse.
Then Buckie suggested that my people loved me, but that was a sore point with an ache in the middle. My fat aunt and my fat uncle had lately got religion and were spending Brat's money as well as mine on a private chapel, a stout priest and that family patron of ours, the excellent San Jiminy. Him they begged to use his influence on behalf of the dear Brat and the beloved Blackguard to have us rescued from the sins of envy, covetousness and blasphemy—by post, to get us delivered from the alluring temptations of riches in a wicked world, that we might inherit the family pew in Paradise, wear the La Mancha halos, and twang the heirloom harps. Their son would bear the burden of our earthly heritage.
On learning these things I wrote to Tita saying that Brat and I were so robust in health that San Jiminy must surely be neglecting the family practise. Why not chuck him, and take on San Diablo who had done so well for Tito?
Tita's response as trustee was all about blasphemy, and my request for statement of account was piously ignored. Hence, my letter to our Cousin Isabella, begging Her Catholic Majesty to revive the good old Spanish inquisition, and have dear Tita fried.
The Queen Regent answered, telling me not to fuss, and sending my father's jewel of the Golden Fleece which she bade me wear as a remembrance. Of course I was being fleeced, not that Her Majesty was capable of a joke or any other breach of etiquette. I wore the jewel slung on a slender chain, and because the diamonds were scratchy against my skin was making it a little buckskin sack. I explained to Buckie that the thing was a popish object used for idolatry. That shocked him all to pieces, for Buckie was a Prot.
But why, he pleaded, should I get drunk?
I threw him our homely Spanish proverb, that wine is the tomb of memory, but it was no use throwing pearls before a corporal. He could not understand. Nor could I fully understand the aching of my heart, the bitter pain.
The Blatherskite, open-mouthed and shut-eyed as any hippopotamus, had sent a corporal only last week to ask if I would take on as his servant. Now Sam could claim a cadet for his esquire, but in Blatherskite it was most infernal cheek. A hippo, which neglected its tooth-brush, ate its beans with a knife—I sent it word that it might kiss my socks. I come of a breed trained to obedience and the command of armies from the days when Spaniards conquered and ruled the world. The badge of the Golden Fleece was mine by right, and to stand covered before the kings of Spain, my peers. But Spain is only a barren little country with a scattering on her moorlands of poor shepherds, unable to hold her own among the rich and populous nations of to-day. She had no armadas or armies left for her conquistadors to lead, no more new worlds to be made Christian by her gallant priests, no work for us La Manchas and our kinsmen. But robbed of our heritage, and driven from our country, the Brat and I were not less caballeros than our fathers, were still well able to earn our bread and wine as men-at-arms until Spain had need of us. A knight of the Golden Fleece may not be soldier-servant to any sort of hippopotamus. And the wound rankled. So I would get drunk and assault the guard.
And yet—the words came somehow from the air. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." I lifted up my eyes and saw the Selkirk Mountains, range on range dissolving into night; and far away against the upper snow-fields caught a faint glint as from some fallen star.
"What's that light?" asked Buckie, and I laughed. For that was the light at the Throne Mine, where Loco Burrows lived as caretaker in charge. The Burrows woman wrote that she could see our camp. I was to address my letters "Mrs. Sarde," which sounded more important than Miss Burrows. She wanted me to call. That was the help from the hills, and I laughed out loud, jumping to my feet. Suppose the woman were to marry me! What a lark it would be to take her to Madrid—to the dullest, stiffest court-of-frumps in Europe! Enter that cat, and see the mice climb!