“That she wishes you to come up to the castle as soon as your comfort allows, as she has something special to say.”
“That I will, presently,” exclaimed Don Pedro, getting up so promptly his gaunt figure showed to no advantage in its scant costume. “And so tell Gil, or whoever came, to carry back word. How the dear lady talks of comfort to a man accustomed to the ease of camps! Fetch me those things, Iorge, and look behind the arras for my slashed doublet. Stop, before you go, reach down my sword and spurs from the hook behind the door.”
Now all this is very rational, much like what one would say at the present date, and unless the Spanish version of my story was never written, (which the Muse of veracity—whatever her name—it was not Clio, I know—forbid!) was the identical language employed on the occasion by my hero, as true a knight as Spain has produced since her Cid Rodrigo. This reminds me a hero of romance cannot be passed over as commoner folks, with a surmise as to his inches and the color of his hair, and moreover is expected to be an Apollo in shape, and sort of supernatural in virtues, provided his character is not cast in quite a different mould, and dependent for admiration on the enormity of its crimes. But Don Pedro, unfortunately for the interest his fortunes are destined to excite, fell into neither extreme, was neither a saint nor a monster of iniquity, and as far from being handsome as from being deformed. To have designated him in a crowd, you would have called attention to his overtopping the rest by a full head, or to a certain sinewy spareness of limb, or else the simplicity of his toilet, at a time when country gentlemen wore ribbons and gewgaws alternately with steel harness. But closer, the irregularity of his features, browned by the sun where the rim of the casque had not interposed, was compensated for by the singularly calm beauty of his eyes, which, in their serene intelligence, would have become the brows of any woman, and even in battle shone with a high sort of exultation, such as one would attribute to a victorious angel in the celestial wars. There was nothing about Don Pedro which harmonized with these eyes, except, perhaps, an undertone of gentleness pervading his voice; it was an undertone only, for nothing womanish characterized his speech, no mincing of words or petit-maître modulations in addressing the other sex: there was not a particle of affectation in the man, because there was not a particle of untruth.
I think it was these same fine eyes and gentleness which first won the heart of the lady Hermosa, and his sincerity that safely kept it. Of where and how they first met, in what words our Don laid his little keep of a castle and patrimony at her feet, (his whole estate would not have paid her upholsterer’s bill,) history discloses nothing. It is only known she married him, and thereby raised a tempest of wrath and despair in the breasts of numberless admirers, who, however, all consented to eat of her cake on the happy occasion. Sir Peter was in nothing changed by the event, but lived as before in his tower, spent not a maravedi of his wife’s income on himself, and contented her by the frequency and tenderness of his interviews. It was his whim to lead this style of life, and she loved him enough to soon make it a whim of her own, the separations not being very remote it must be conceded, as the keep and castle stood perched on opposing hills, in full sight of one another. Such concession in a young wife was certainly praiseworthy, although some were found to be scandalized at its want of precedent. Of the husband’s crotchet I say only, it was a quaint piece of instinctive honor, which a few of his neighbors extolled, and the greater part laughed at as an act of arrant simplicity: although, to my mind, the less said about simplicity the better, by people who lived when dragons and giants were not yet supposed to have retired upon ultimate Thule, and Ponce de Leon’s search after the fountain of youth, (he was looking for it then in Florida!) counted no great waste of time.
The Don and his countess concerned themselves very little about such gossip, finding abundant occupation in a course of life which, without the bias one unavoidably entertains for his heroes, is a source of satisfaction to the writer hereof. It was in the lady’s nature to be charitable, being one of those unaffected well wishers of humanity with “abundant means,” whose part in this life seems to be to render everybody in reach as satisfied as themselves, and before Sir Pedro’s discretion and mature knowledge of the world came to her assistance, committed as many philanthropic blunders as would have made her eligible to an abolition chair, or seat in Exeter Hall. Of course I must not be understood to undervalue the good she continued to do in the dark. I have too great a reverence for money to suppose it capable of injury to any recipient under any circumstances, differing in this respect from all medicines whatever, which become poisons in quantity, and are defective in the important item of universal application. The truth is, I am led to this admission by an instance I have now in mind. There was one Don Carlo, (so he called himself: the fellow had a dog’s name, but any dog, short of a sheep-worrier, would have been compromised by his acquaintance.) A free-captain, who earned his crust by such little excesses as made the payment of black-mail an acceptable compromise on the part of his favorites, and even in Philip the Second’s time, brought an amount of civil odium upon his head which would have relieved him of that incumbrance, had he not disbanded his company and retired to the provinces to enjoy his honest gains. Here Captain Carlo—who was of a playful temper and delighted in masking—made the acquaintance of our heroine in the likeness of a veteran of the Moorish wars, and found waylaying her steps and asking an alms as many times a day as she walked out unattended (in as many different characters, of course,) so much more profitable, to say nothing of the safety of the proceeding, than poniarding a foot-passenger, or roasting a villager to discover hidden treasure, that he became a pattern of morality to the country round, and is currently said to have refrained more than once, when sorely tempted by the purse she carried, from cutting his benefactress’ slender throat; in this respect showing himself wiser than the avaricious owner of the goose Æsop tells us of.
Captain Carlo, however, lost his golden eggs, as did many others of scarcely less merit, when Sir Pedro de Padilh brought, as has been hinted, his longer head and more comprehensive benevolence to the aid of his young wife’s virtuous designs.
The latter quickly saw her mistake when once its results were laid bare, and fell to correcting it with a feminine energy which constituted a strong element of her character; Sir Peter meanwhile contenting himself with a vigilant guardianship of her interests and benevolent projects, and a hearty participation in her active measures—suggestions of his own, not unfrequently too—which it was his fancy to conceal under an assumption of caution; although I can’t say his wife was ever deceived by the cloak worn on such occasions, for her tender affection would have lent intelligence to faculties much duller than my heroine’s.
Sir Pedro very well knew it was some such work ahead which brought a summons to his gate so early, and was in his saddle, breathing in the fresh, moist air, and galloping through the fields and olive plantations between, before Gil reached his lady’s castle.
I see the good knight now in my mind’s eye: Andalusian steed and housings both spotless white, the first as much over the average height of his race as was his master above that of common men: sitting straight, with doublet buttoned easily across the breast, and a cap with a trailing plume, which a branch caught off and forced him to wheel his horse, with a gracias señor, to recover: so, picking a way up the hill, and stooping under the portcullis, ready open, diminishing the stature of the men around by contrast with his figure dismounted. Up the wide steps, and into a room where his countess met him with her usual happy face whenever this giant of a husband was nigh her. Perhaps I call attention too often to Sir Peter’s seven feet of altitude, but in this case the mention was involuntary; for I was thinking how, when she put her arms about him, there being no one near, she was constrained to kiss him where she laid her cheek, on his breast, being able to reach no higher; and he, as a pine might an ash in windy weather, stooped and kissed her on the forehead.
“Lady mine,” he said with a grave smile, holding her off to look down in her face, “what is the matter? You were scarcely more troubled when I rode against the Moors.”