The Spanish Brothers. Deborah Alcock

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СКАЧАТЬ faithful nurse of their infancy, and who still cast upon their young lives the only shadow of motherly love they had ever known – a shadow, it is true, pale and faint, yet the best thing that had fallen to their lot: for even Juan could remember neither parent; while Carlos had never seen his father's face, and his mother had died at his birth.

      Yet it happened that in the imaginary world which the children had created around them, and where they chiefly lived, their unknown father was by far the most important personage. All great nations in their childhood have their legends, their epics, written or unwritten, and their hero, one or many of them, upon whose exploits Fancy rings its changes at will during the ages when national language, literature, and character are in process of development. So it is with individuals. Children of imagination – especially if they are brought up in seclusion, and guarded from coarse and worldly companionship – are sure to have their legends, perhaps their unwritten epic, certainly their hero. Nor are these dreams of childhood idle fancies. In their time they are good and beautiful gifts of God – healthful for the present, helpful for after-years. There is deep truth in the poets words, "When thou art a man, reverence the dreams of thy youth."

      The Cid Campeador, the Charlemagne, and the King Arthur of our youthful Spanish brothers, was no other than Don Juan Alvarez de Menaya, second and last Conde de Nuera. And as the historical foundation of national romance is apt to be of the slightest – nay, the testimony of credible history is often ruthlessly set at defiance – so it is with the romances of children; nor did the present instance form any exception. All the world said that their father's bones lay bleaching on a wild Araucanian battle-field; but this went for nothing in the eyes of Juan and Carlos Alvarez. Quite enough to build their childish faith upon was a confidential whisper of Dolores – when she thought them sleeping – to the village barber-surgeon, who was helping her to tend them through some childish malady: "Dead? Would to all the Saints, and the blessed Queen of Heaven, that we only had assurance of it!"

      They had, however, more than this. Almost every day they read and re-read those mysterious words, traced with a diamond by their father's hand – as it never entered their heads to doubt – on the window of the room which had once been his favourite place of retirement: —

      "El Dorado

       Yo hé trovado."

      "I have found El Dorado."

      No eyes but their own had ever noticed this inscription; and marvellous indeed was the superstructure their fancy contrived to raise on the slight and airy foundation of its enigmatical five words. They had heard from the lips of Diego many of the fables current at the period about the "golden country" of which Spanish adventurers dreamed so wildly, and which they sought so vainly in the New World. They were aware that their father in his early days had actually made a voyage to the Indies: and they had thoroughly persuaded themselves, therefore, of nothing less than that he was the fortunate discoverer of El Dorado; that he had returned thither, and was reigning there as a king, rich and happy – only, perhaps, longing for his brave boys to come and join him. And join him one day they surely would, even though unheard of dangers (of which giants twelve feet high and fiery dragons – things in which they quite believed – were among the least) might lie in their way, thick as the leaves of the cork-trees when the autumn winds swept down through the mountain gorges.

      "Look, Ruy," said Carlos, "the light is on our father's words!"

      "So it is! What good fortune is coming now? Something always comes to us when they look like that."

      "What do you wish for most?"

      "A new bow, and a set of real arrows tipped with steel. And you?"

      "Well – the 'Chronicles of the Cid,' I think."

      "I should like that too. But I should like better still – "

      "What?"

      "That Fray Sebastian would fall ill of the rheum, and find the mountain air too cold for his health; or get some kind of good place at his beloved Complutum."

      "We might go farther and fare worse, like those that go to look for better bread than wheaten," returned Carlos, laughing. "Wish again, Juan; and truly this time – your wish of wishes."

      "What else but to find my father?"

      "I mean, next to that."

      "Well, truly, to go once more to Seville, to see the shops, and the bull-fights, and the great Church; to tilt with our cousins, and dance the cachuca with Doña Beatriz."

      "That would not I. There be folk that go out for wool, and come home shorn. Though I like Doña Beatriz as well as any one."

      "Hush! here comes Dolores."

      A tall, slender woman, robed in black serge, relieved by a neat white head-dress, entered the room. Dark hair, threaded with silver, and pale, sunken, care-worn features, made her look older than she really was. She had once been beautiful; and it seemed as though her beauty had been burned up in the glare of some fierce agony, rather than had faded gradually beneath the suns of passing years. With the silent strength of a deep, passionate heart, that had nothing else left to cling to, Dolores loved the children of her idolized mistress and foster-sister. It was chiefly her talent and energy that kept together the poor remains of their fortune. She surrounded them with as many inexpensive comforts as possible; still, like a true Spaniard, she would at any moment have sacrificed their comfort to the maintenance of their rank, or the due upholding of their dignity. On this occasion she held an open letter in her hand.

      "Young gentlemen," she said, using the formal style of address no familiarity ever induced her to drop, "I bring your worships good tidings. Your noble uncle, Don Manuel, is about to honour your castle with his presence."

      "Good tidings indeed! I am as glad as if you had given me a satin doublet. He may take us back with him to Seville," cried Juan.

      "He might have stayed at home, with good luck and my blessing," murmured Carlos.

      "Whether you go to Seville or no, Señor Don Juan," said Dolores, gravely, "may very probably depend on the contentment you give your noble uncle respecting your progress in your Latin, your grammar, and your other humanities."

      "A green fig for my noble uncle's contentment!" said Juan, irreverently. "I know already as much as any gentleman need, and ten times more than he does himself."

      "Ay, truly," struck in Carlos, coming forward from the embrasure of the window; "my uncle thinks a man of learning – except he be a fellow of college, perchance – not worth his ears full of water. I heard him say such only trouble the world, and bring sorrow on themselves and all their kin. So, Juan, it is you who are likely to find favour in his sight, after all."

      "Señor Don Carlos, what ails your face?" asked Dolores, noticing now for the first time the marks of the hurt he had received.

      Both the boys spoke together.

      "Only a blow caught in fencing; all through my own awkwardness. It is nothing," said Carlos, eagerly.

      "I hurt him with my foil. It was a mischance. I am very sorry," said Juan, putting his hand on his brother's shoulder.

      Dolores wisely abstained from exhorting them to greater carefulness. She only said, —

      "Young gentlemen who mean to be knights and captains must learn to give hard blows and take them." Adding mentally – "Bless the lads! May they stand by each other as loyally ten or twenty years hence as they do now."

       II.

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