Her son was a muleteer, who traded between Pampalona and Passages—a young man of about twenty-three years of age: he was employed by others, as well as on his mother's account, who was a widow left in a considerable business, to manage for herself and infant son, whom she bred up to industrious habits; and she had succeeded in laying by a small provision for the future, when Napoleon's ambition, which, in 1808, sent a French army into Spain, extended its baneful effects even to her humble dwelling.
The house in which this widow dwelt, was situated at the extremity of the village. It must have once been a most enchanting little home to an unambitious mind; for even at the time I saw it, ruin as it was, its garden trodden down, its trees broken and torn up, its fences destroyed, and its walks disfigured—a charm lingered over it that caught every passenger's attention. The scenery around gave it a peculiar beauty: the blue mountains, the dark valleys, the luxuriance of foliage, the deep green dell, the falling water, and the clear sky still remained;—these the soldiers of France could not destroy, and from such scenery did the wreck of the widow's cottage derive its rural halo. It reminded me of the fair Ophelia in her ruin,—so beautiful, so scathed and sorrowful! If a picture of the spot were painted by a Salvator Rosa, it would afford a melancholy pleasure to every beholder; but the reality—the poor widow and her breaking heart, gave too much pain to render a visit to her cheerless home at all enviable.
To have seen her sitting in the only tenantable apartment of her once comfortable cottage, thinly but cleanly clad—a white apron and kerchief covering the half worn out black stuff gown; two broken chairs, a crazy table, a straw pallet, and a few earthen panella's,[9] forming all her furniture; to have contemplated the fixed melancholy of her thin, worn, but once handsome countenance, her gentle manners, and her patient submission to the will of Heaven, under the deepest affliction—and yet to have been unable to alleviate her distress, could give no pleasure to the heart, unless to those who love to sympathise with grief and drop a tear with the unfortunate. Yet even such would have involuntarily said, on quitting the melancholy scene, “I wish I had not heard the poor old widow's story.”
Her son Diego the muleteer, when the French first entered Spain, under the orders of Buonaparte, was about twenty-two years of age, and had the reputation of being an exemplary young man, obedient, and affectionate to his mother—his only relation, except an uncle, who also resided in Ernani, and whose farm the young muleteer no doubt would have inherited, after his death, had he survived him.
Under the uncle's auspices, Diego had courted a young girl, nearly related to a respectable family, at the head of which was a clergyman residing in the convent of St. Ignatio de Loyola, but a few leagues from Ernani. The girl's father lived within a hundred yards of Diego and his mother, and from infancy the young couple became attached to each other.
Although the employment of a muleteer is, in general, considered beneath the class to which Diego's sweetheart belonged, yet there was no objection to her marriage, on account of the excellent character the young man bore, and the expectations which he had of future success in life. The marriage would have taken place as soon as a house, which the muleteer's uncle was building, might be completed. In this house the young couple were to have resided, and to it was attached an excellent farm, to be managed by him for the uncle. These happy arrangements, alas! were broken by the columns of the French army. Like mountain torrents they poured over the Pyrenees, sweeping the rustic comforts of the peaceful Spaniards before them. Requisitions for cattle and carriages were enforced, and Diego, amongst many, was obliged to march with his mules along with the invading army, wherever his directors thought fit.
Short was the time allowed for the sad yet endearing farewell of the lovers, and the interchange of blessings between the mother and the son. The uncle and the widow accompanied him a league beyond the village; but the poor girl, who now for the first time felt the bitterness of life, remained weeping at home, almost dead with grief; which was not alleviated by the return of Diego's mother and uncle, whose first care, after parting with the youth, was to go to her he loved so well. The house—the whole village was a place of mourning; for every family, in some way or other, had but too much cause for sorrow.
Poor old woman! when she told me of the last moment she passed with her lost son, she sobbed as if her heart would have burst. “Oh!” said she, “I was giving my dear child a prayer-book and a silk handkerchief, for the sake of remembrance, when one of the dragoons struck him with the flat of his sword, and ordered him to go on; he could only say, ‘God bless you, mother!’... I never saw him again.”
For six months after this separation, the family of Diego heard no tidings of him; for, no doubt, his letters, as well as theirs, were opened and destroyed by the invaders; however, at the end of that time, a muleteer, who had been pressed along with Diego, returned, by permission, to die from ill health, and he brought letters from him to the almost despairing friends. It appeared by these, that he was along with the army in the south of Spain, and had but little hopes of being able to return to his beloved Joanna, his relatives, and his projected farm-house, for at least another half-year; but he did not even at that period return—nor for upwards of a year after.
During this absence Mina and his intrepid Guerillas were incessant in their annoyance of the French, throughout the province in which the widow lived; frequently surprising strong parties of the enemy, even in the town of Ernani. So desperate were these warriors, that they would often appear on the high and broken hill, close under which the city of Tolase stands; and when the French regiments were on parade beneath them in the square, would open an unexpected volley of musketry on them, which never failed in taking good effect; and before they could be subject to retaliation they were generally off. It was an attack of this description, headed by Mina, which afforded a pretence for the destruction of Ernani.