XVIII.
The Aged Monk
"I will not boast a martyr's might
To leave my home without a sigh —
The dwelling of my past delight,
The shelter where I hoped to die."
Anon.
Much was Carlos strengthened by the result of his interview with Don Juan. The thing that he greatly feared, his beloved brother's wrath and scorn, had not come upon him. Juan had shown, instead, a moderation, a candour, and a willingness to listen, which, while it really amazed him, inspired him with the happiest hopes. With a glad heart he repeated the Psalmist's exulting words: "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart hath trusted in him and I am helped; therefore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise him."
He soon perceived that the Chapter was over; for figures, robed in white and brown, were moving here and there amongst the trees. He entered the house, and without happening to meet any one, made his way to the deserted Chapter-room. Its sole remaining occupant was a very aged monk, the oldest member of the community. He was seated at the table, his face buried in his hands, and his frail, worn frame quivering as if with sobs.
Carlos went up to him and asked gently, "Father, what ails you?"
The old man slowly raised his head, and gazed at him with sad, tired eyes, which had watched the course of more than eighty years. "My son," he said, "if I weep, it is for joy."
Carlos wondered; for he saw no joy on the wrinkled brow or in the tearful face. But he merely asked, "What have the brethren resolved?"
"To await God's providence here. Praised be his holy name for that." And the old man bowed his silver head, and wept once more.
To Carlos also the determination was a cause for deep gratitude. He had all along regarded the proposed flight of the brethren with extreme dread, as an almost certain means of awakening the suspicions of the Holy Office, and thus exposing all who shared their faith to destruction. It was no light matter that the danger was now at least postponed, always provided that the respite was purchased by no sacrifice of principle.
"Thank God!" reiterated the old monk. "For here I have lived; and here I will die and be buried, beside the holy brethren of other days, in the chapel of Don Alonzo the Good. My son, I came hither a stripling as thou art – no, younger, younger – I know not how many years ago; one year is so like another, there is no telling. I could tell by looking at the great book, only my eyes are too dim to read it. They have grown dim very fast of late; when Doctor Egidius used to visit us, I could read my Breviary with the youngest of them all. But no matter how many years. They were many enough to change a blooming, black-haired boy into an old man tottering on the grave's brink. And I to go forth now into that great, wicked world beyond the gate! I to look upon strange faces, and to live amongst strange men! Or to die amongst them, for to that it would come full soon! No, no, Señor Don Carlos. Here I took the cowl; here I lived; and here I will die and lie buried, God and the saints helping me!"
"Yet for the Truth's sake, my father, would you not be willing to make even this sacrifice, and to go forth in your old age into exile?"
"If the brethren must needs go, so, I suppose, must I. But they are not going, St. Jerome be praised," the old man repeated.
"Going or staying, the presence of Him whom they serve and for whom they witness will be with them."
"It may be, it may be, for aught I know. But in my young days so many fine words were not in use. We sang our matins, our complines, our vespers; we said the holy mass and all our offices, and God and St. Jerome took care of the rest."
"But you would not have those days back again, would you, my father? You did not then know the glorious gospel of the grace of God."
"Gospel, gospel? We always read the gospel for the day. I know my Breviary, young sir, just as well as another. And on festival days, some one always preached from the gospel. When Fray Domingo preached, plenty of great folks used to come out from the city to hear him. For he was very eloquent, and as much thought of, in his time, as Fray Cristobal is now. But they are forgotten in a little while, all of them. So will we, in a few years to come."
Carlos reproached himself for having named the gospel, instead of Him whose words and works are the burden of the gospel story. For even to that dull ear, heavy with age, the name of Jesus was sweet. And that dull mind, drowsy with the slumber of a long lifetime, had half awaked at least to the consciousness of his love.
"Dear father," he said gently, "I know you are well acquainted with the gospels. You remember what our blessed Lord saith of those who confess him before men, how he will not be ashamed to confess them before his Father in heaven? And, moreover, is it not a joy for us to show, in any way he points out to us, our love to him who loved us and gave himself for us?"
"Yes, yes, we love him. And he knows I only wish to do what is right, and what is pleasing in his sight."
Afterwards, Carlos talked over the events of the day with the younger and more intelligent brethren; especially with his teacher, Fray Cristobal, and his particular friend, Fray Fernando. He could but admire the spirit that had guided their deliberations, and feel increased thankfulness for the decision at which they had arrived. The peace which the whole community of Spanish Protestants then enjoyed, perilous and unstable as it was, stood at the mercy of every individual belonging to that community. The unexplained flight of any obscure member of Losada's congregation would have been sufficient to give the alarm, and let loose the bloodhounds of persecution upon the Church; how much more the abandonment of a wealthy and honourable religious house by the greater part of its inmates?
The sword hung over their heads, suspended by a single hair, which a hasty or incautious movement, a word, a breath even, might suffice to break.
XIX.
Truth and Freedom
"Man is greater than you thought him;
The bondage of long slumber he will break,
His just and ancient rights he will reclaim,
With Nero and Busiris he will rank
The name of Philip."
Schiller.
Never before had it fallen to the lot of Don Juan Alvarez to experience such bewilderment as that which his brother's disclosure occasioned him. That brother, whom he had always regarded as the embodiment of goodness and piety, who was rendered illustrious in his eyes by all sorts of academic honours, and sanctified by the shadow of the coming priesthood, had actually confessed himself to be – what he had been taught to hold in deepest, deadliest abomination – a Lutheran heretic. But, on the other hand, from the wise, pious, and in every way unexceptionable manner in which Carlos had spoken, Juan could not help hoping that what, probably through some unaccountable aberration of mind, he himself persisted in styling Lutheranism, might prove in the end some very harmless and orthodox kind of devotion. Perhaps, eventually, his brother might found some new and holy order of monks and friars. Or even (he was so clever) he might take the lead in a Reformation of the Church, which, there was no use in an honest man's denying, was sorely needed. Still, he could not help admitting that the Sieur de Ramenais had sometimes expressed himself with nearly as much apparent orthodoxy; and he was undoubtedly a confirmed heretic – a Huguenot.
But if the recollection of this man, who for months had been his guest rather than his prisoner, served, from one point of view, to increase his difficulties, from another, it helped to clear away the most formidable of them. Don Juan had never been religious; but he had always been hotly orthodox, as became a Castilian gentleman of purest blood, and heir to all the traditions of an ancient house, foremost for generations in the great conflict with the infidel. He had been wont to look upon the Catholic faith as a thing bound up irrevocably with the knightly honour, the stainless fame, the noble pride of his race, and, consequently, with all that was dearest to his heart. Heresy he regarded as something unspeakably mean and degrading. It was associated in his mind with Jews and Moors, "caitiffs," "beggarly fellows;" all of them vulgar and unclean, some of them the hereditary enemies of his race. Heretics were Moslems, infidels, such as "my Cid" delighted in hewing down with his good sword Tizona, "for God and Our Lady's honour." Heretics kept the passover with mysterious, unhallowed rites, into which it would be best not to inquire; heretics killed (and perhaps ate) Christian children; they spat upon the cross; they had to wear ugly yellow sanbenitos at autos-da-fé; and, to sum up all in one word, they "smelled of the fire." To give full weight to the last allusion, it must be remembered that in the eyes of Don Juan and his cotemporaries, death by fire had no hallowed or ennobling associations to veil its horrors. The burning pile was to him what the cross was to our fore-fathers, and what the gibbet is to us, only far more disgraceful. Thus it was not so much his conscience as his honour and his pride that were arrayed against the new faith.
But, unconsciously to himself, opposition had been silently undermined by his intercourse with the Sieur de Ramenais. It would probably have been fatal to Protestantism with Don Juan, had his first specimen of a Protestant been an humble muleteer. Fortunately, the new opinions had come to him represented by a noble and gallant knight, who who was as careful of his "pundonor"10 as any Castilian gentleman, and scarcely yielded even to himself in all those marks of good breeding, which, to say the truth, Don Juan Alvarez de Santillanos y Meñaya valued far more than any abstract dogmas of faith.
"In open battle or in tilting field
Forbore his own advantage;"
This circumstance produced a willingness on his part to give fair play to his brother's convictions. When Carlos returned to Seville, which he did about a week after the meeting of the Chapter, he was overjoyed to find Juan ready to hear all he had to say with patience and candour. Moreover, the young soldier was greatly attracted by the preaching of Fray Constantino, whom he pronounced, in language borrowed from the camp, "a right good camerado." Using these favourable dispositions to the best advantage, Carlos repeated to him passages from the New Testament; and with deep and prayerful earnestness explained and enforced the truths they taught, taking care, of course, not unnecessarily to shock his prejudices.
And, as time passed on, it became every day more and more apparent that Don Juan was receiving "the new ideas;" and that with far less difficulty and conflict than Carlos himself had done. For with him the Reformed faith had only prejudices, not convictions, to contend against. These once broken down, the rest was easy. And then it came to him so naturally to follow the guidance of Carlos in all that pertained to thinking.
Unmeasured was the joy of the affectionate brother when at last he found that he might safely venture to introduce him privately to Losada as a promising inquirer.
In the meantime their outward life passed on smoothly and happily. With much feasting and rejoicing, Juan was betrothed to Doña Beatriz. He had loved her devotedly since boyhood; he loved her now more than ever. But his love was a deep, life-long passion – no sudden delirium of the fancy – so that it did not render him oblivious of every other tie, and callous to every other impression; it rather stimulated, and at the same time softened his whole nature. It made him not less, but more, sensitive to all the exciting and ennobling influences which were being brought to bear upon him.
In Doña Beatriz Carlos perceived a change that surprised him, while, at the same time, it made more evident than ever how great would have been his own mistake, had he accepted the passive gratitude of a child towards one who noticed and flattered her for the true deep love of a woman's heart. Doña Beatriz was a passive child no longer now. On the betrothal day, a proud and beautiful woman leaned on the arm of his handsome brother, and looked around her upon the assembled family, queen-like in air and mien, her cheek rivalling the crimson of the damask rose, her large dark eye beaming with passionate, exulting joy. Carlos compared her in thought to the fair, carved alabaster lamp that stood on the inlaid centre table of his aunt's state receiving-room. Love had wrought in her the change which light within always did in that, revealing its hidden transparency, and glorifying its pale, cold whiteness with tints so warmly beautiful, that the clouds of evening might have envied them.
The betrothal of Doña Sancha to Don Beltran Vivarez quickly followed. Don Balthazar also succeeded in obtaining the desired Government appointment, and henceforth enjoyed, much to his satisfaction, the honours and emoluments of an "empleado." To crown the family good fortune, Doña Inez rejoiced in the birth of a son and heir; while even Don Gonsalvo, not to be left out, acknowledged some improvement in his health, which he attributed to the judicious treatment of Losada. The mind of an intelligent man can scarcely be deeply exercised upon one great subject, without the result making itself felt throughout the whole range of his occupations. Losada's patients could not fail to benefit by his habits of independent thought and searching investigation, and his freedom from vulgar prejudices. This freedom, so rare in his nation, led him occasionally, though very cautiously, even to hazard the adoption of a few remedies which were not altogether "cosas de Espana."11
The physician deserved less credit for his treatment of Juan's wounded arm, which nature healed, almost as soon as her beneficent operations ceased to be retarded by ignorant and blundering leech-craft.
Don Juan was occasionally heard to utter aspirations for the full restoration of his cousin Gonsalvo's health, more hearty in their expression than charitable in their motive. "I would give one of my fingers he could ride a horse and handle a sword, or at least a good foil with the button off, and I would soon make him repent his bearing and language to thee, Carlos. But what can a man do with a thing like that, save let him alone for very shame? Yet he is dastard enough to presume on such toleration, and to strike those whom his own infirmities hinder from returning the blow."
"If he could ride a horse or handle a sword, brother, I think you would find a marvellous change for the better in his bearing and language. That bitterness, what is it, after all, but the fruit of pain? Or of what is even worse than pain, repressed force and energy. He would be in the great world doing and daring; and behold, he is chained to a narrow room, or at best toils with difficulty a few hundred paces. No wonder that the strong winds, bound in their caverns, moan and shriek piteously at times. When I hear them I feel far too much compassion to think of anger. And I would give one of my fingers – nay, I would give my right hand," he added with a smile, "that he shared our blessed hope, Juan, my brother."
"The most unlikely person of all our acquaintance to become a convert."
"So say not I. Do you know that he has given money – he that has so little – more than once to Señor Cristobal for the poor?"
"That is nothing," said Juan. "He was ever free-handed. Do you not remember, in our childhood, how he would strike us upon the least provocation, yet insist on our sharing his sweetmeats and his toys, and even sometimes fight us for refusing them? While the others knew the value of a ducat before they knew their Angelus, and would sell and barter their small possessions like Dutch merchants."
"Which you spared not to call them, bearing yourself in the quarrels that naturally ensued with undaunted prowess; while I too often disgraced you by tearful entreaties for peace at all costs," returned Carlos, laughing. "But, my brother," he resumed more gravely, "I often ask myself, are we doing all that is possible in our present circumstances to share with others the treasure we have found?"
"I trust it will soon be open to them all," said Juan, who had now come just far enough to grasp strongly his right to think and judge for himself, and with it the idea of emancipation from the control of a proud and domineering priesthood. "Great is truth, and shall prevail."
"Certainly, in the end. But much that to mortal eyes looks like defeat may come first."
"I think my learned brother, so much wiser than I upon many subjects, fails to read well the signs of the times. Whose Word saith, 'When ye see the fig-tree put forth her buds, know ye that summer is nigh, even at the door'? Everywhere the fig-trees are budding now."
"Still the frosts may return."
"Hold thy peace, too desponding brother. Thou shouldst have learned another lesson yesterday, when thou and I watched the eager thousands as they hung breathless on the lips of our Fray Constantino. Are not those thousands really for us, and for truth and freedom?"
"No doubt Christ has his own amongst them."
"You always think of individuals, Carlos, rather than of our country. You forget we are sons of Spain, Castilian nobles. Of course we rejoice when even one man here and there is won for the truth. But our Spain! our glorious land, first and fairest of all the earth! our land of conquerors, whose arms reach to the ends of the world – one hand taming the infidel in his African stronghold, while the other crowns her with the gold and jewels of the far West! She who has led the nations in the path of discovery – whose fleets gem the ocean – whose armies rule the land, – shall she not also lead the way to the great city of God, and bring in the good coming time when all shall know him from the least to the greatest – when they shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free? Carlos, my brother, I do not dare to doubt it."
It was not often that Don Juan expressed himself in such a lengthened and energetic, not to say grandiloquent manner. But his love for Spain was a passion, and to extol her or to plead her cause words were never lacking with him. In reply to this outburst of enthusiasm, Carlos only said gently, "Amen, and the Lord establish it in his time."
Don Juan looked keenly at him. "I thought you had faith, Carlos?" he said.
"Faith?" Carlos repeated inquiringly.
"Such faith," said Juan, "as I have. Faith in truth and freedom!" And he rang out the sonorous words, "Verdad y libertad," as if he thought, as indeed he did, that they had but to go forth through a submissive, rejoicing world, "conquering and to conquer."
"I have faith in Christ," Carlos answered quietly.
And in those two brief phrases each unconsciously revealed to the other the very depths of his soul, and told the secret of his history.
XX.
The First Drop of a Thunder Shower
"Closed doorways that are folded
And prayed against in vain."
E.B. Browning.
Meanwhile the happy weeks glided on noiselessly and rapidly. They brought full occupation for head and heart, as well as varied and intense enjoyment. Don Juan's constant intercourse with Doña Beatriz was not the less delightful because already he sought to imbue her mind with the truths which he himself was learning every day to love better. He thought her an apt and hopeful pupil, but, under the circumstances, he was scarcely the best possible judge.
Carlos was not so well satisfied with her attainments; he advised reserve and caution in imparting their secrets to her, lest through inadvertence she might betray them to her aunt and cousins. Juan considered this a mark of his constitutional timidity; yet he so far attended to his warnings, that Doña Beatriz was strongly impressed with the necessity of keeping their religious conversations a profound secret, whilst her sensibilities were not shocked by any mention of words so odious as heresy or Lutheranism.
But there could be no doubt as to Juan's own progress under the instructions of his brother, and of Losada and Fray Cassiodoro. He began, ere long, to accompany Carlos to the meetings of the Protestants, who welcomed the new acquisition to their ranks with affectionate enthusiasm. All were attracted by Don Juan's warmth and candour of disposition, and by his free, joyous, hopeful temperament; though he was not beloved by any as intensely as Carlos was by the few who really knew him, such as Losada, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, and the young monk, Fray Fernando.
Partly through the influence of his religious friends, and partly through the brilliant reputation he had brought from Alcala, Carlos now obtained a lectureship at the College of Doctrine, of which the provost, Fernando de San Juan, was a decided and zealous Lutheran. This appointment was an honourable one, considered in no way derogatory to his social position, and useful as tending to convince his uncle that he was "doing something," not idly dreaming his time away.
Occupations of another kind opened out before him also. Amongst the many sincere and anxious inquirers who were troubled with perplexities concerning the relations of the old faith and the new, were some who turned to him, with an instinctive feeling that he could help them. This was just the work that best suited his abilities and his temperament. To sympathize, to counsel, to aid in conflict as only that man can do who has known conflict himself, was God's special gift to him. And he who goes through the world speaking, whenever he can, a word in season to the weary, will seldom be without some weary one ready to listen to him.
Upon one subject, and only one, the brothers still differed. Juan saw the future robed in the glowing hues borrowed from his own ardent, hopeful spirit. In his eyes the Spains were already won "for truth and freedom," as he loved to say. He anticipated nothing less than a glorious regeneration of Christendom, in which his beloved country would lead the van. And there were many amongst Losada's congregation who shared these bright and beautiful, if delusive dreams, and the enthusiasm which had given them birth, and in its turn was nourished by them.
Again, there were others who rejoiced with much trembling over the good tidings that often reached them of the spread of the faith in distant parts of the country, and who welcomed each neophyte to their ranks as if they were adorning a victim for the sacrifice. They could not forget that name of terror, the Holy Inquisition. And from certain ominous indications they thought the sleeping monster was beginning to stir in his den. Else why had new and severe decrees against heresy been recently obtained from Rome? And above all, why had the Bishop of Terragona, Gonzales de Munebrãga, already known as a relentless persecutor of Jews and Moors, been appointed Vice-Inquisitor General at Seville?
Still, on the whole, hope and confidence predominated; and strange, nay, incredible as it may appear to us, beneath the very shadow of the Triana the Lutherans continued to hold their meetings "almost with open doors."
One evening Don Juan escorted Doña Beatriz to some festivity from which he could not very well excuse himself, whilst Carlos attended a reunion for prayer and mutual edification at the usual place – the house of Doña Isabella de Baena.
Don Juan returned at a late hour, but in high spirits. Going at once to the room where his brother sat awaiting him, he threw off his cloak, and stood before him, a gay, handsome figure, in his doublet of crimson satin, his gold chain, and well-used sword, now worn for ornament, with its embossed scabbard and embroidered belt.
"I never saw Doña Beatriz look so charming," he began eagerly. "Don Miguel de Santa Cruz was there, but he could not get so much as a single dance with her, and looked ready to die for envy. But save me from the impertinence of Luis Rotelo! I shall have to cane him one of these days, if no milder measures will teach him his place and station. He, the son of a simple hidalgo, to dare lift his eyes to Doña Beatriz de Lavella? The caitiff's presumption! – But thou art not listening, brother. What is wrong with thee?"
No wonder he asked. The face of Carlos was pale; and the deep mournful eyes looked as if tears had been lately there. "A great sorrow, brother mine," he answered in a low voice.
"My sorrow too, then. Tell me, what is it?" asked Juan, his tone and manner changed in a moment.
"Juliano is taken."
"Juliano! The muleteer who brought the books, and gave you that Testament?"
"The man who put into my hands this precious Book, to which I owe my joy now and my hope for eternity," said Carlos, his lip trembling.
"Ay de mi! – But perhaps it is not true."
"Too true. A smith, to whom he showed a copy of the Book, betrayed him. God forgive him – if there be forgiveness for such. It may have been a month ago, but we only heard it now. And he lies there —there."
"Who told you?"
"All were talking of it at the meeting when I entered. It is the sorrow of all; but I doubt if any have such cause to sorrow as I. For he is my father in the faith, Juan. And now," he added, after a long, sad pause, "I shall never tell him what he has done for me – at least on this side of the grave."
"There is no hope for him," said Juan mournfully, as one that mused.
"Hope! Only in the great mercy of God. Even those dreadful dungeon walls cannot shut Him out."
"No; thank God."
"But the prolonged, the bitter, the horrible suffering! I have been trying to contemplate, to picture it – but I cannot, I dare not. And what I dare not think of, he must endure."
"He is a peasant, you are a noble – that makes some difference," said Don Juan, with whom the tie of brotherhood in Christ had not yet effaced all earthly distinctions. "But Carlos," he questioned suddenly, and with a look of alarm, "does not he know everything?"
"Everything," Carlos answered quietly. "One word from his lips, and the pile is kindled for us all. But that word will never be spoken. To-night not one heart amongst us trembled for ourselves, we only wept for him."
"You trust him, then, so completely? It is much to say. They in whose hands he is are cruel as fiends. No doubt they will – "
"Hush!" interrupted Carlos, with a look of such exceeding pain, that Juan was effectually silenced. "There are things we cannot speak of, save to God in prayer. Oh, my brother, pray for him, that He for whom he has risked so much may sustain him, and, if it may be, shorten his agony."
"Surely more than two or three will join in that prayer. But, my brother," he added, after a pause, "be not so downcast. Do you not know that every great cause must have its martyr? When was a victory won, and no brave man left dead on the field; a city stormed, and none fallen in the breach? Perhaps to that poor peasant may be given the glory – the great glory – of being honoured throughout all time as the sainted martyr whose death has consecrated our holy cause to victory. A grand lot truly! Worth suffering for!" And Juan's dark eye kindled, and his cheek glowed with enthusiasm.
Carlos was silent.
"Dost thou not think so, my brother?"
"I think that Christ is worth suffering for," said Carlos at last. "And that nothing short of his personal presence, realized by faith, can avail to bring any man victorious through such fearful trials. May that – may he be with his faithful servant now, when all human help and comfort are far away."