The Spanish Brothers

"What think you?" asked Juan, with difficulty restraining his emotion.

"Well, Señor Don Juan, I think that if that good news be true, it would not be so hard to suffer for it. Blessed Virgin! Could it be aught but joy to me, for instance, to lie in a dark dungeon, or even to be hanged or burned, if that could work out his deliverance? There be worse things in the world than pain or prisons. For where there's love, señor – Moreover, it comes upon me sometimes that the Lords Inquisitors may have mistaken his case. Wise and learned they may he, and good and holy they are, of course – 'twere sin to doubt it – yet they may mistake sometimes. 'Twas but the other day, my old eyes growing dim apace, that I took a blessed gleam of sunlight that had fallen on yon oak table for a stain, and set to work to rub it off; the Lord forgive me for meddling with one of the best of his works! And, for aught we know, just so may they be doing, mistaking God's light upon the soul for the devil's stain of heresy. But the sunlight is stronger than they, after all."

"Dolores, you are half a Lutheran already yourself," answered Juan in surprise.

"I, señor! The Lord forbid! I am an old Christian, and a good Catholic, and so I hope to die. But if you must hear all the truth, I would walk in a yellow sanbenito, with a taper in my hand, before I would acknowledge that he ever said one word or thought one thought that was not Catholic and Christian too. All his crime was to find out that the good Lord loved him, and to be happy on account of it. If that be your religion also, Señor Don Juan, I have nothing to say against it. And, as I have said, God granting me, in his great mercy, one assurance first, I am ready to follow you and your lady to the world's end."

With these words on her lips she left the room. For a time Juan sat silent in deep thought. Then he opened the Testament, and turned over its leaves until he found the parable of the sower. "'Some fell upon stony places,'" he read, "'where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they withered away.' There," he said within himself, "in those words is written the history of my life, from the day my brother confessed his faith to me in the garden of San Isodro. God help me, and forgive my backsliding! But at least it is not too late to go humbly back to the beginning, and to ask him who alone can do it to break up the fallow ground."

He closed the book, walked to the window and looked out. Presently his eye was attracted to those dear mystic words on the pane, which both the brothers had loved and dreamed over from their childhood, —

"El Dorado Yo hé trovado."

And at that moment the sun was shining on them as brightly as it used to do in those old days gone by for ever.

No vague dream of any good, foreshadowed by the omen to him or to his house, crossed the mind of the practical Don Juan. But he seemed to hear once more the voice of his young brother saying close beside him, "Look, Ruy, the light is on our father's words." And memory bore him back to a morning long ago, when some slight boyish quarrel had been ended thus.

Over his stern, handsome face there passed a look that shaded and softened it, and his eyes grew dim – dim with tears.

But just then Doña Beatriz, radiant from a morning walk, and with her hands full of early spring flowers, tripped in, singing a Spanish ballad, —

"Ye men that row the galleys,I see my lady fair; She gazes at the fountainThat leaps for pleasure there."

Beatriz was a child of the city; and, moreover, her life hitherto had been an unloved and unloving one. Now her nature was expanding under the wholesome influences of home life and home love, and of simple healthful pleasures. "Look, Don Juan, what pretty things grow in your fields here! I have never seen the like," she said, breaking off in her song to exhibit her treasures.

Don Juan looked carelessly at them, lovingly at her. "I would fain hear a morning hymn from those sweet, tuneful lips," he pleaded.

"Most willingly, amigo mio, —

'Ave Sanctissima – '"

"Hush, my beloved; hush, I entreat of you." And laying his hand lightly on her shoulder, he gazed in her face with a mixture of fond and tender admiration and of gentle reproach difficult to describe. "Not that. For the sake of all that lies between us and the old faith, not that. Rather let us sing together, —

'Vexilla Regis prodeunt.'

For you know that between us and our King there stands, and there needs to stand, no human mediator. Do you not, my beloved?"

"I know that you are right," answered Beatriz, still reading her faith in Don Juan's eyes. "But we can sing afterwards, whatever you like, and as much as you will. I pray you let us come forth now into the sunshine together. Look, what a glorious morning it is!"

XXXIX.

Left Behind

"They are all gone into a world of light, And I alone am lingering here."Henry Vaughan.

The change of seasons brought little change to those dark cells in the Triana, where neither the glory of summer nor the breath of spring could come. While the world, with its living interests, its hopes and fears, its joys and sorrows, kept surging round them, not even an echo of its many voices reached the doomed ones within, who lay so near, yet so far from all, "fast bound in misery and iron."

Not yet had the Deliverer come to Carlos. More than once he had seemed very near. During the summer heats, so terrible in that prison, fever had wasted the captive's already enfeebled frame; but this was the means of prolonging his life, for the eve of the Auto found him unable to walk across his cell. Still he heard without very keen sorrow the fate of his beloved friends, so soon did he hope to follow them.

And yet, month after month, life lingered on. In his circumstances restoration to health was simply impossible. Not that he endured more than others, or even as much as some. He was not loaded with fetters, or buried in one of the frightful subterranean cells where daylight never entered. Still, when to the many physical sufferings his position entailed was added the weight of sickness, weakness, and utter loneliness, they formed together a burden heavy enough to have crushed even a strong heart to despair.

Long ago the last gleam of human sympathy and kindness had faded from him. Maria Gonsalez was herself a prisoner, receiving such payment as men had to give her for her brave deeds of charity. God's payment, however, was yet to come, and would be of another sort. Herrera, the under-gaoler, was humane, but very timid; moreover, his duties seldom led him to that part of the prison where Carlos lay. So that he was left dependent upon the tender mercies of Gaspar Benevidio, which were indeed cruel.

And yet, in spite of all, he was not crushed, not despairing. The lamp of patient endurance burned on steadily, because it was continually fed with oil by an unseen Hand.

It has been beautifully said, "The personal love of Christ to you, felt, delighted in, returned, is actually, truly, simply, without exaggeration, the deepest joy and the deepest feeling that the heart of man or woman can know. It will absolutely satisfy your heart. It would satisfy your heart if it were his will that you should spend the rest of your life alone in a dungeon."

Just this, nothing else, nothing less, sustained Carlos throughout those long slow months of suffering, which had now come to "add themselves and make the years." It proved sufficient for him. It has proved sufficient for thousands – God's unknown saints and martyrs, whose names we shall learn first in heaven.

Those who still occasionally sought access to him, in the hope of transforming the obstinate heretic into a penitent, marvelled greatly at the cheerful calm with which he was wont to receive them and to answer their arguments.

Sometimes he would even brave all the wrath of Benevidio, and raising his voice as loud as he could, he would make the gloomy vaults re-echo to such words as these: "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Or these: "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."

But still it was not in Christ's promise, nor was it to be expected, that his prisoner should never know hours of sorrow, weariness, and heart-sinking. Such hours came sometimes. And on the very morning when Don Juan and Doña Beatriz were going forth together into the spring sunshine through the castle gate of Nuera, Carlos, in his dungeon, was passing through one of the darkest of these. He lay on his mat, his face covered with his wasted hands, through which tears were slowly falling. It was but very seldom that he wept now; tears had grown rare and scarce with him.

The evening before, he had received a visit from two Jesuits, bound on the only errand which would have procured their admission there. Irritated by his bold and ready answers to the usual arguments, they had recourse to declamation. And one of them bethought himself of mentioning the fate of the Lutherans who suffered at the two great Autos of Valladolid. "Most of the heretics," said the Jesuit, "though when they were in prison they were as obstinate as thou art now, yet had their eyes opened in the end to the error of their ways, and accepted reconciliation at the stake. At the last great Act of Faith, held in the presence of King Philip, only Don Carlos de Seso – " Here he stopped, surprised at the agitation of the prisoner, who had heard their threatenings against himself so calmly.

"De Seso! De Seso! Have they murdered him too?" moaned Carlos, and for a few brief moments he gave way to natural emotion. But quickly recovering himself he said, "I shall only see him the sooner."

"Were you acquainted with him?" asked the Jesuit.

"I loved and honoured him. My avowing that cannot hurt him now," answered Carlos, who had grown used to the bitter thought that any name would be disgraced and its owner imperilled, by his mentioning it with affection.

"But if you will do me so much kindness," he added, "I pray you to tell me anything you know of his last hours. Any word he spoke."

"He could speak nothing," said the younger of his two visitors. "Before he left the prison he had uttered so many horrible blasphemies against Holy Church and Our Lady that he was obliged to wear the gag during the whole ceremony, 'lest he should offend the little ones.'"31

This last cruel wrong – the refusal of leave to the dying to speak one word in defence of the truths he died for – stung Carlos to the quick. It wrung from lips so patient hitherto words of indignant threatening. "God will judge your cruelty," he said. "Go on, fill up the measure of your guilt, for your time is short. One day, and that soon, there will be a grand spectacle, grander than your Autos. Then shall you, torturers of God's saints, call upon the mountains and rocks to cover you, and to hide you from the wrath of the Lamb."

Once more alone, his passionate anger died away. And it was well. Surrounded as he was on every side by strong, cold, relentless wrong and cruelty, if his spirit had beaten its wings against those bars of iron, it would soon have fallen to the ground faint and helpless, with crushed pinions. It was not in such vain strivings that he could find, or keep, the deep calm peace with which his heart was filled; it was in the quiet place at his Saviour's feet, from whence, if he looked at his enemies at all, it was only to pity and forgive them.

But though anger was gone, a heavy burden of sorrow remained. De Seso's noble form, shrouded in the hideous zamarra, his head crowned with the carroza, his face disfigured by the gag, – these were ever before his eyes. He well-nigh forgot that all this was over now – that for him the conflict was ended and the triumph begun.

Could he have known even as much as we know now of the close of that heroic life, it might have comforted him.

Don Carlos de Seso met his doom at the second of the two great Autos celebrated at Valladolid during the year 1559. At the first, the most steadfast sufferers were Francisco de Vibero Cazalla, one of a family of confessors; and Antonio Herezuelo, whose pathetic story – the most thrilling episode of Spanish martyrology – would need an abler pen than ours.

During his lingering imprisonment of a year and a half, De Seso never varied in his own clear testimony to the truth, never compromised any of his brethren. Informed at last that he was to die the next day, he requested writing materials. These being furnished him, he placed on record a confession of his faith, which Llorente, the historian of the Inquisition, thus describes: – "It would be difficult to convey an idea of the uncommon vigour of sentiment with which he filled two sheets of paper, though he was then in the presence of death. He handed what he had written to the Alguazil, with these words: 'This is the true faith of the gospel, as opposed to that of the Church of Rome, which has been corrupted for ages. In this faith I wish to die, and in the remembrance and lively belief of the passion of Jesus Christ, to offer to God my body, now reduced so low.'"

All that night and the next morning were spent by the friars in vain endeavours to induce him to recant. During the Auto, though he could not speak, his countenance showed the steadfastness of his soul – a steadfastness which even the sight of his beloved wife amongst those condemned to perpetual imprisonment failed to disturb. When at last, as he was bound to the stake, the gag was removed, he said to those who stood around him, still urging him to yield, "I could show you that you ruin yourselves by not following my example; but there is no time. Executioners, light the fire that is to consume me."

Even in the act of death it was given him, though unconsciously, to strengthen the faith of another. In the martyr band was a poor man, Juan Sanchez, who had been a servant of the Cazallas, and was apprehended in Flanders with Juan de Leon. He had borne himself bravely throughout; but when the fire was kindled, the ropes that bound him to the stake having given way, the instinct of self-preservation made him rush from the flames, and, not knowing what he did, spring upon the scaffold where those who yielded at the last were wont to receive absolution. The attendant monks at once surrounded him, offering him the alternative of the milder death. Recovering self-possession, he looked around him. At one side knelt the penitents, at the other, motionless amidst the flames, De Seso stood,

"As standing in his own high hall."

His choice was made. "I will die like De Seso," he said calmly; and then walked deliberately back to the stake, where he met his doom with joy.

Another brave sufferer at this Auto, Don Domingo de Roxas, ventured to make appeal to the justice of the King, only to receive the memorable reply, never to be read without a shudder, – "I would carry wood to burn my son, if he were such a wretch as thou!"

All these circumstances Carlos never heard on this side of the grave. But in the quiet Sabbath-keeping that remaineth for the people of God, there will surely be leisure enough to talk over past trials and triumphs. At present, however, he only saw the dark side – only knew the bare and bitter facts of suffering and death. He had not merely loved De Seso as his instructor; he had admired him with the generous enthusiasm of a young man for a senior in whom he recognizes his ideal – all that he himself would fain become. If the Spains had but known the day of their visitation, he doubted not that man would have been their leader in the path of reform. But they knew it not; and so, instead, the chariot of fire had come for him. For him, and for nearly all the men and women whose hands Carlos had been wont to clasp in loving brotherhood. Losada, D'Arellano, Ponce de Leon, Doña Isabella de Baena, Doña Maria de Bohorques, – all these honoured names, and many more, did he repeat, adding after each one of them, "At rest with Christ." Somewhere in the depths of those dreary dungeons it might be that the heroic Juliano, his father in the faith, was lingering still; and also Fray Constantino, and the young monk of San Isodro, Fray Fernando. But the prison walls sundered them quite as hopelessly from him as the River of Death itself.

Earlier ties sometimes seemed to him only like things he had read or dreamed of. During his fever, indeed, old familiar faces had often flitted round him. Dolores sat beside him, laying her hand on his burning brow; Fray Sebastian taught him disjointed, meaningless fragments from the schoolmen; Juan himself either spoke cheerful words of hope and trust, or else talked idly of long-forgotten trifles.

But all this was over now: neither dream nor fancy came to break his utter, terrible loneliness. He knew that he was never to see Juan again, nor Dolores, nor even Fray Sebastian. The world was dead to him, and he to it. And as for his brethren in the faith, they had gone "to the light beyond the clouds, and the rest beyond the storms," where he would so gladly be. Why, then, was he left so long, like one standing without in the cold? Why did not the golden gate open for him as well as for them? What was he doing in this place? – what could he do for his Master's cause or his Master's honour? He did not murmur. By this time his Saviour's prayer, "Not my will, but thine be done," had been wrought into the texture of his being with the scarlet, purple, and golden threads of pain, of patience, and of faith. But it is well for His tried ones that He knows longing is not murmuring. Very full of longing were the words – words rather of pleading than of prayer – that rose continually from the lips of Carlos that day, – "And now, Lord, what wait I for?"

XL.

"A Satisfactory Penitent."

"How long in thraldom's grasp I lay I knew not; for my soul was black, And knew no change of night or day."Campbell.

Carlos was sleeping tranquilly in his dungeon on the following night, when the opening of the door aroused him. He started with sickening dread, the horrors of the torture-room rising in an instant before his imagination. Benevidio entered, followed by Herrera, and commanded him to rise and dress immediately. Long experience of the Santa Casa had taught him that he might as well make an inquiry of its doors and walls as of any of its officials. So he obeyed in silence, and slowly and painfully enough. But he was soon relieved from his worst fear by seeing Herrera fold together the few articles of clothing he had been allowed to have with him, preparatory to carrying them away. "It is only, then, a change of prison," he thought; "and wherever they bring me, heaven will be equally near."

His limbs, enfeebled by two years of close confinement, and lame from the effects of one terrible night, were sorely tried by what he thought an almost interminable walk through corridors and down narrow winding stairs. But at last he was conducted to a small postern door, which, greatly to his surprise, Benevidio proceeded to unlock. The kind-hearted Herrera took advantage of the moment when Benevidio was thus occupied to whisper, —

"We are bringing you to the Dominican prison, señor; you will be better used there."

Carlos thanked him by a grateful look and a pressure of the hand. But an instant afterwards he had forgotten his words. He had forgotten everything save that he stood once more in God's free air, and that God's own boundless heaven, spangled with ten thousand stars, was over him, no dungeon roof between. For one rapturous moment he gazed upwards, thanking God in his heart. But the fresh air he breathed seemed to intoxicate him like strong wine. He grew faint, and leaned for support on Herrera.

"Courage, señor; it is not far – only a few paces," said the under-gaoler, kindly.

Weak as he was, Carlos wished the distance a hundred times greater. But it proved quite long enough for his strength. By the time he was delivered over into the keeping of a couple of lay brothers, and locked by them into a cell in the Dominican monastery, he was scarcely conscious of anything save excessive fatigue.

The next morning was pretty far advanced before any one came to him; but at last he was honoured with a visit from the prior himself. He said frankly, and with perfect truth, —

"I am glad to find myself in your hands, my lord."

To one accustomed to feel himself an object of terror, it is a new and pleasant sensation to be trusted. Even a wild beast will sometimes spare the weak but fearless creature that ventures to play with it: and Don Fray Ricardo was not a wild beast; he was only a stern, narrow, conscientious man, the willing and efficient agent of a terrible system. His brow relaxed visibly as he said, —

"I have always sought your true good, my son."

"I am well aware of it, father."

"And you must acknowledge," the prior resumed, "that great forbearance and lenity have been shown towards you. But your infatuation has been such that you have deliberately and persistently sought your own ruin. You have resisted the wisest arguments, the gentlest persuasions, and that with an obstinacy which time and discipline seem only to increase. And now at last, as another Auto-da-fé may not be celebrated for some time, my Lord Vice-Inquisitor-General, justly incensed at your contumacy, would fain have thrown you into one of the underground dungeons, where, believe me, you would not live a month. But I have interceded for you."

"I thank your kindness, my lord. But I cannot see that it matters much how you deal with me now. Sooner or later, in one form or other, it must be death; and I thank God it can be no more."

While a man might count twenty, the prior looked silently in that steadfast sorrowful young face. Then he said, —

"My son, do not yield to despair; for I come to thee this day with a message of hope. I have also made intercession for thee with the Supreme Council of the Holy Office; and I have succeeded in obtaining from that august tribunal a great and unusual grace."

Carlos looked up, a sudden flush on his cheek. He hoped this unusual grace might be permission to see some familiar face ere he died; but the prior's next words disappointed him. Alas! it was only the offer of escape from death on terms that he might not accept. And yet such an ofter really deserved the name the prior gave it – a great and unusual grace. For, as has been already intimated, by the laws of the Inquisition at that time in force, the man who had once professed heretical doctrines, however sincerely he might have retracted them, was doomed to die. His penitence would procure him the favour of absolution – the mercy of the garotte instead of the stake: that was all.

The prior went on to explain to Carlos, that upon the ground of his youth, and the supposition that he had been led into error by others, his judges had consented to show him singular favour. "Moreover," he added, "there are other reasons for this course of action, upon which it would be needless, and might be inexpedient, to enter at present; but they have their weight, especially with me. For the preservation, therefore, both of your soul and your body – upon which I take more compassion than you do yourself – I have, in the first place, obtained permission to remove you to a more easy and more healthful confinement, where, besides other favours, you will enjoy the great privilege of a companion, constant intercourse with whom can scarcely fail to benefit you."

Carlos thought this last a doubtful boon; but as it was kindly intended, he was bound to be grateful. He thanked the prior accordingly; adding, "May I be permitted to ask the name of this companion?"

"You will probably find out ere long, if you conduct yourself so as to deserve it," – an answer Carlos found so enigmatical, that after several vain endeavours to comprehend it, he gave up the task in despair, and not without some apprehension that his long imprisonment had dulled his perceptions. "Amongst us he is called Don Juan," the prior continued. "And this much I will tell you. He is a very honourable person, who had many years ago the great misfortune to be led astray by the same errors to which you cling with such obstinacy. God was pleased, however, to make use of my poor instrumentality to lead him back to the bosom of the Church. He is now a true and sincere penitent, diligent in prayer and penance, and heartily detesting his former evil ways. It is my last hope for you that his wise and faithful counsels may bring you to the same mind."