"When the ceremony was over I went in search of my boys. I cannot describe, Maria, what I felt when I saw them, the one with his gold medal and the other with his cross of St. Ferdinand. But what I can say is that the queen herself can't feel prouder, with her crown and sceptre, than I felt with my Gaspar and my Michael! If Gaspar was happy, Michael was happier still; his eyes danced with joy; the other seemed dazed. 'Good, my son, good,' I said to him, 'that's the way Spaniards behave when they are fighting for their country, their queen, and their faith, remembering that the soldier who is brave and not humane is brave only as the brutes are. You have deserved the medal, son, and your father's blessing with it.'"
"'Why, what did I do?' said Gaspar, who like all really brave men is neither proud nor boastful, and holds himself for less, not more than he is really worth.
"'You saved your brother's life,' I replied.
"'And by so heroic an act that it will be written in letters of gold,' added Michael.
"'Why, nonsense," answered Gaspar, putting his arm around his brother's neck; 'I have done nothing but pay a debt I owed.'
"'And Spain has paid the debt she owed to the Moors, and with interest,' I said; and I fancy they won't be likely to try their tricks again. So you see, wife, all the advantages the war has brought us. Hurrah for the war!"
"John Joseph," returned his wife, "we mustn't forget, because it has been favorable to us—and that, perhaps, owing to that poor mother's dying blessing—the many evils to which war gives rise: the unhappy people who suffer, those who are left disabled, those who die, and all the families who are at this moment weeping and in mourning; for war is a calamity, and therefore we ought to pray to God with all our hearts and souls for peace, for the song of the angels is: 'Glory to God in the highest; and peace on earth, to men of goodwill!'"
CHAPTER VI
Two months later, that is to say, toward the middle of January, John Joseph, his wife, and his daughter were seated one evening around the brazier. The sky had been covered for several days with heavy clouds that sent down their rain with a steadiness not usual in storms. The wind that came from the Levant roared as if it brought with it, to terrify Spain, the menacing howls of the savage children of Africa and the growling of its lions.
"Who knows what they may be going through now!" said Catherine, in a voice choked with emotion.