Patrañas

“The cock o’ercomes, though somewhat rough,So man, no less, the coy rebuffOf woman!”

The dueña, who had been standing by, watching this scene with the greatest anxiety, intent only on getting a chance of possessing some of the weft which was to make her young and beautiful, was driven beyond endurance by the turn matters were now taking. So she called her young mistress aside and descanted so earnestly on the incomparable powers of the cloth and the little probability of ever meeting with such a chance again if she neglected this one, and threw in, too, such clever hints about easy ways of getting over the difficulty, – that the simple shepherd could easily be deceived, that she could pretend she was going to listen to his attentions, though it need only be pretence, and in the meantime she would get his priceless treasure out of him, – that poor little Blanca was quite bewildered. She was, indeed, so anxious to see more of the mysterious shepherd, and so possessed with the vague fancy that there was some connexion between him and the Count of Barcelona, that it was no very difficult matter to overcome her scruples, particularly as the dueña promised to smooth the way a little for her.

The count, who had also been a little frightened, lest he had spoken too abruptly, was also willing to receive the dueña’s mediation, and in a very little time Blanca had obtained possession of the texture; but the count had also played his game so successfully, that Blanca was quite under his influence, and could think and dream of nothing else, nor rest till she had an opportunity of meeting him again. Of course this was not difficult, and the dueña was ready enough to assist her, as she thought the shepherd might have some other precious gift to impart.

Nor was she mistaken. The count consulted his ring as to what he should do next, and the ring gave him a fowl which laid pearls for eggs, and the chickens that came out of them had feathers like gold.

When Blanca saw this, she could not forbear coming down into the garden to ask for the beautiful fowl. The shepherd was feeding her with gold corn, and he went on throwing down the grains without taking any notice of her approach, but singing, —

“My fair begins to yield;I’m safe to win the field!”

“Pastorcillo, pastorcillo! give me the beautiful fowl!” said Blanca imploringly. “I should so like to have her. I shall cry if you won’t give her pastorcillo;” she continued, as the count turned on his heels, and continued singing, —

“My fair begins to yield;I’m safe to win the field!”

“Pastorcillo! listen,” repeated the poor child sadly, for though she did not recognize the count, he had so enthralled her, that she felt towards the supposed shepherd as she had never felt towards any but him.

“Oh, cease that horrid song, and speak to me,” she said at last, and so humbly, that the count thought it was time to put in a word.

“Will you come away with me? because otherwise it is no use talking,” he said, somewhat abruptly.

“Never!” retorted Blanca, indignantly; “and you had better take care, and not talk so loud, for if my father overheard you, he would send and have you strung up.”

But the shepherd did not care a bit, he had in the meantime spoken to her father, and told him what his plan was; and received from him the hearty approval of his scheme for bringing his incorrigible daughter to reason; so he sang out louder than before, —

“My fair begins to yield;I’m safe to win the field!”

Blanca had never been treated in this way, and did not know what to make of it. She turned to go away, but then the dread stole over her, suppose the shepherd should go away as mysteriously as he had come, and then there would be no one left to remind her of the count. She could not bear to think of it: she turned, and said faintly, —

“Pastorcillo! give me the beautiful fowl; you must give it me.”

“I am going away, Blanca,” he replied, but less sternly than before. It was the first time he had called her by her name, and it seemed as if she heard the count speaking.

“Going away!” she exclaimed, in blank despair; “oh, you must take me with you!”

“Take you with me!” repeated the shepherd. “No, you said you wouldn’t come.”

“Oh, but I did not know what I was saying!”

“It’s too late now,” replied the count.

“Oh, but I shall come, whether you will or no,” she said pertly; for every time he spoke his words seemed to rivet more firmly the chain which bound her to her affianced husband, it seemed as if he was his spectre come to avenge him.

“I cannot help it, if you choose to do that,” was all his answer, and he turned to go.

“Take me, Pastorcillo!” she said once more.

“You would not like to come where I have to go,” answered the supposed shepherd. “My dwelling is a dark cave, where no light ever enters. My bed is the sharp rock, which cuts through to the bones. My drink is water, muddy and cold; and my meat is grief and mourning. No companions are there where I live, for all men and women hold my way of living in dread.”

When Blanca heard this, she turned pale; nevertheless, she could not see him go without her, and still asked to go.

The shepherd walked on without saying a word. Blanca followed him as if drawn by magic.

Away they went, sad and silent: far, far away; over rocks and declivities, through streams and torrents, past briars and brakes. For months they went on thus; the count going on before, – Blanca, sad and silent, after him. They never entered any town; and their only food was the berries they found in the wood, and the water of the brooks they crossed. Blanca’s fair soft skin was burnt brown by the sun and parched up by the wind; her hands were torn by the thorns, and her feet bleeding from the unevennesses of the way. At last a day came when she could go no farther. She sank down fainting on the earth, but she was so humble now, she did not so much as proffer a word of complaint.

“What is the matter, Blanca?” inquired the count. “Do you give up following me any farther?”

“Pastorcillo! mock me not. You see I would follow you gladly, but you see too my strength is at an end; I can go no farther;” and with that her senses failed.

When the count saw her in this condition, he took pity on her, and, lifting her up in his arms, carried her to a shepherd’s hut at no great distance along the moor, and there the good wife attended to her, putting her in her poor bed, and gently trying to bring her to again. But it was all of no use, she continued in the swoon, and the poor peasant’s restoratives were of no avail.

When the count saw this, he was in despair, and sitting down under shadow of a rock, he took out his ring to ask it what was to be done, now being almost ready to reproach it for having led him to be so cruel.

But the ring told him to be of good heart, and all the promises of the milk-white dove would be fulfilled. “Blanca has now learnt a lesson, and acquired a habit of submission which she will not forget all through her life. And besides, after she has given such strong proofs of love and devotion towards you, she will have no inclination to resume the provoking ways with which she tormented you before, so you may safely discover yourself to her now.”

Then the good ring suddenly pronounced some words near the peasant’s hut, and it became a fine palace, and the bed on which Blanca was lying became covered with beautiful embroidered coverlets, and all around were clothes fit for a countess to wear. The Count, too, was provided with a shining suit of armour and a prancing charger, and by its side a palfrey for his bride, and a train of noble knights and dames to attend them. Over Blanca, too, the ring said some words, and her consciousness came back to her, and when she saw the Count standing by her side, looking just as he did the day he dropped the pomegranate pip, it seemed as if she had never seen him in any other garb, only that he kept singing a verse the ring had taught him —

“She spurned me, bridegroom, in her pride!Then with a shepherd would abide;Yet loved me still, for I have triedHer love, as gold is purified!”

till she begged him not to sing it, but so gently and submissively, that he could not resist. So he lifted her on to her palfrey, and the whole noble train moved on towards his father’s palace, where she lived by his side all her life, a model of a devoted wife.

MOORISH REMNANTS

IISSY-BEN-ARAN

Though the Moors were always hated in Spain, first as a conquering and afterwards as a conquered race, yet many poetical traces of their traditions and maxims remain in the popular literature of the country; and in some of these they appear in a very advantageous light, though, of course, the national hatred loved rather to record those of a contrary import.

Issy-ben-Aran was a venerable muleteer, well-known in all the towns of Granada for his worth and integrity – an elder and a father among his tribe.

One day, as he was journeying over a wild and sequestered track of the Sierra Nevada, he heard a cry of pain proceeding from the road-side. The good old man immediately turned back to render help to the unfortunate. He found a young man lying among the sharp points of an aloe hedge, groaning as if at the last gasp.

“What ails thee? Son, speak,” said Issy-ben-Aran.

“I was journeying along the road, father, an hour agone, as full of health as you may be, when I was set upon by six robbers, who knocked me off my mule, and not satisfied with carrying off all I possessed in the world, beat me till they thought I was dead, and then flung my body into this aloe hedge.”

Issy-ben-Aran gave him a draught of water from his own bota104 and bound his head with linen cloths steeped in fresh water, then he set him on his own beast to carry him at a gentle pace to the nearest town and further care for him, with great strain of his feeble arms lifting him tenderly into the saddle.

No sooner was the stranger well mounted, with his feet firmly set in the stirrups, than, drawing himself up with no further appearance of weakness, he dug his heels into the horse’s side, and setting up a loud laugh, started off at a rapid gallop.

Issy-ben-Aran, to whom every stone of the road was known as the lines upon his right hand, immediately scrambled down the mountain-side, so as to confront the stranger at the turning of the road.

“Hold!” he cried. And the nag, who loved his master well, stood still and refused to move for all the stranger’s urging.

“Son! think not I am come to reproach you,” said the old man. “If you desire the horse, even take it at a gift; you shall not burden your conscience with a theft on my account.”

“Thank you!” scoffed the heartless stranger. “It is fine to make a merit of necessity; but I have nothing to do but ride to the nearest town, and sell the brute.”

“Beware! and do it not,” said the old man. “The nag of Issy-ben-Aran is known at every market in the kingdom, and any man of all our tribes who frequents them, finding you with him, will reckon you have killed me, and slay you in turn. Even for this have I come to you: take this scroll to show that you have it of me as a free gift, and so no harm shall come to you.

“Only one condition I exact. Bind yourself to me, that you tell no man of what has passed between us; lest peradventure, should it become known, a man hearing his brother cry out in distress might say, ‘This man is feigning, that he may take my horse like the horse of Issy-ben-Aran,’ and the man who is really in danger be thus left to perish miserably.”

IIMÓSTAFA ALVILÁ

Móstafa Alvilá was califf of a conquered province in Spain, where he reigned with oriental state. The tributary people were ground down with hard work to minister to his treasury, and the vast sums he amassed were spent in beautifying his Alcázar, and filling it with costly productions from all parts. Merchants from every climate under heaven were encouraged to come and offer him their choicest wares.

One day, a merchant of Persia brought a large pack of shawls and carpets, all woven in gold and pearls, and wools and silks of brilliant colours, but among them all the most beautiful was one carpet of great price, on which Móstafa Alvilá’s choice was immediately set; but in all his treasury there was not found the price of it. Nothing would do, he must possess it: then Ali Babá his vizier came forward and said, “Let ten thousand dogs of Christians be sold, and with the price of them you shall purchase the carpet.”

Móstafa Alvilá answered and said, “The advice is good!” So they sent and sold ten thousand Christians, and with the price of them the carpet was bought.

Móstafa Alvilá sat contemplating the curious devices, and tracing the wonderful arabesque patterns with which the carpet was covered; and there was one pattern, all shining with gold and pearls, quite prominent in the centre, which had a likeness to the characters of an inscription; and when Móstafa Alvilá saw it, he was very curious to know if it was an inscription, and what it meant, so he sent to recall the merchant; but he was gone from the Alcázar. Then he sent his servants after him, and though they travelled three days’ journey by every road, they could neither find him nor obtain any tidings of whither he had passed. Then Móstafa Alvilá was more curious, and sent and gathered all the learned men in his califate, and inquired of them what the inscription might mean. They all looked troubled, and said they could not tell, they had never seen such letters. But one there was who concealed the difficulty he was in so ill, that Móstafa Alvilá saw he knew what the writing meant, so he looked very severely upon him and threatened him with instant death if he did not tell him exactly what the writing was.

Then the interpreter, when he found there was no other way to save his life, with great fear and trembling said, this is the meaning thereof: —

“Shiroes, son of Chosroes, killed his father; and he died six months after.”

Móstafa Alvilá was greatly troubled when he heard the sentence; for he had ascended the califate by killing his father, and he had reigned six months all but one day. So he sent and commanded that the interpreter and all who had heard the sentence should be put to death, that no one might know the omen.

But that night, in the middle of the dark hours, when Móstafa Alvilá was alone in his chamber, a horrible vision came to him. He thought he saw the body of his father whom he had murdered rise up to convict him. He sunk down in his bed, and covered his face in fear and horror.

In the morning, when they came to call him, they found only his lifeless corpse.

IIITHE EMIR IN SEARCH OF AN EYE

The Emir Abu-Bekir lost an eye in battle against the Christians. “The Christians shall pay me what they have taken from me,” he said; and he sent for a number of Christian captives, and had one of their eyes taken out, in the idea of replacing his own; but it was found that none of them agreed with his in size, and form, and colour. The Emir Abu-Bekir was of very comely person, and his eyes had been so mild and soft, that it was at last thought only the eye of a woman could replace the missing one; the choice fell upon a beautiful maiden named Sancha. Sancha was brought into the Emir’s presence, and his physician was ordered to take out her eye, and place it in the vacant socket.

Now Sancha stood trembling and wailing, and by her very crying damaging the perfection of the coveted feature. Then there stood up a travelling doctor who was in great fame among the people, and begged a hearing of the Emir; for albeit he was a Turk, yet he possessed pity and gratitude. He knew that the operation, while a torment to the Christian maiden, would be of no service to the Emir; and he pitied the waste of pain. It happened further, that once, when on a journey he had sunk fainting by the way-side, this very Sancha had comforted and relieved him; and now he determined to rescue her.

Accordingly, he stepped up to the Emir, and told him that he had eyes made of crystal, and coloured by cunning art, which no one could tell from living eyes, and which would be of much greater service and ornament than those of the Christian dogs, whose eyes he might have observed lost all their lustre and consistency the moment they were taken from their natural place. The Emir admitted the truth of the last statement, and being marvellously pleased with the glass eyes the travelling doctor displayed, asked him the price.

“The maiden for a slave,” replied the doctor.

The Emir gladly consented to so advantageous a bargain, and suffered the glass eye to be fixed in his head. All the Court applauded the appearance.

“But I cannot see with it!” cried the Emir.

“Oh! you must give it a little time to get used to your ways,” answered the doctor, readily; “you can’t expect it all of a sudden to do as well as the other, that you have had in use so long.”

So the Emir was content to wait; meantime, the doctor made off with his fair prize, whom he conducted safely back to Spain, and restored her faithfully to her friends and her liberty.

IVYUSSUF’S FRIEND

The merchant Yussuf took great pains to train up his only son in prudence, that he might be able, when he was no more, to carry on his business, as he had done before him, with credit and success. But in spite of all his lessons, he would be continually putting his confidence in worthless persons; and in particular he fostered an intimacy with a young Jew of dangerous character, who had several times, by fraud and cunning, cheated him out of large sums, all the while leading young Yussuf to believe that what he had done was fair and just; nor would he listen to his father’s suspicion of him.

The merchant Yussuf had to take a journey to Africa with his son; and while preparing for it, he lamented loudly over the difficulty he was in as to placing his money in safety during his absence.

“Now, if you had not been so suspicious of my friend the Jew,” said young Yussuf, “there’s a man who would have taken care of it for you!”

“You know my opinion of him,” replied his father.

“Ah! you’re so suspicious,” replied young Yussuf, “I know him better.”

“Well, if you think so well of him, I will on your advice ask him to take care of a strong-box for me.”

“Well done, father!” replied the young man; “you’ll see you’ll never repent it.”

The same evening, the merchant Yussuf sent a large chest, heavy enough to contain a vast amount of treasure, to the Jew, by the hand of his son; and the next day they set out for Africa.

Having brought their affairs to a prosperous termination, the two Yussufs returned home to Granada.

On the morrow of their arrival, the merchant sent his son to the Jew, to reclaim the strong-box. Young Yussuf returned presently, full of indignation.

“Father, you have insulted my friend beyond all possibility of reconciliation. He tells me it was not money you entrusted to his keeping, but a parcel of broken stones!”

“And pray,” replied his father, “how did your honourable friend discover what was in my strong-box? To find this out, he must have broken my locks; which will, I think, show you it was very well I gave no greater value into his keeping.”

Young Yussuf hung his head, and suffered himself to be guided after that by his father’s experience in his judgment of mankind.

VTHE SULTANA’S PERFUMER-IN-CHIEF

Of all the luxurious appointments of the Moorish houses, none were more prominent than the baths. And you must not think that means a bath just big enough to get into, like those in our houses. At Seville and Granada, and wherever the Moors lived and built, you may see remains of the vast constructions which served them for baths, all of white marble, and situated in the midst of scented shrubs and sweet and brilliant flowers.

In their own hotter country, their baths received a still greater development. There was once a sultana, Moorka-Hama, who had a fancy to have her baths always filled with rose-water. One day, when she came to bathe, she found the air perfumed to a most unusual degree; and on her causing an inquiry into it, they found that the heat of the sun had expressed the essential oil, which was floating on the surface. The process thus suggested by accident, was immediately imitated by art; and by it is produced the delicious scent which is now an article of commerce, and which we call attar of roses.

EL MORO SANTON105

Just as it was permitted to the heathen soothsayer Balaam to foretell true things to the Lord’s people, so it is narrated that, a little before the taking of Granada by the Christians, great consternation was produced among the infidel population by the predictions of a Moorish dervish who was held in great veneration.

He was an ancient man, more than a hundred years old; his long white beard seemed to be falling snow, it was more than a yard long, and he could gird it round his waist. He lived out on the mountains of Granada a life of great austerity; though it was long since he had never a hair left, he wore no covering on his head, and the action of the sun and rain had worn it into the appearance of a skull; his eyebrows grew long and bushy, and served as a protection to his eyes; and no clothing wore he but a tunic of camel’s hide; his feet, too, were bare, and his skin was yellow and shrivelled by long exposure. He slept in a cave upon the cold ground, with a stone for his pillow. And for all the hundred years of his life, he had never taken but one meal a day, nor tasted aught but honey and milk, which other Moors brought him by orders of the king.

All looked up to him as to a saint, in all Andalusia; and whatever words he uttered, they respected it as Al Korán, and next to the words of Mahomet himself.

One day, when the king and many people were gathered together to hear him, he spoke to them these words: “When you shall see joined together Aragon and Castille, then know for certain that Granada shall be taken.

“And the king who shall take it, know that his name shall begin with F., for in his time faith106 shall reign throughout his kingdom.

“And the queen his wife, her name will begin with Y., which may be taken to stand for ygual; for his equal she shall be, in courage and prudence.

“These two shall likewise turn Judaism out of Spain, and set up the Inquisition, by which the wicked shall be sentenced to death.

“They shall acquire three kingdoms, and conquer the Indies.

“And they shall have a grandson, who shall be called Emperor of Germany, also King of Hungary, who shall lay siege to the city of the Pope, and lay low the three lilies of France in the field of Pavia.

“Of the three laws now prevailing in Spain, one only shall remain, and that shall be that one which commences with the font and blessed water, and ends with blessed oils107.

“And thus they will make an end of the sect of Mahomet; for it had but a thousand years given it, and as more than eight hundred are past, it will soon now come to its end.”

This is said to have been pronounced about fifty years before its fulfilment, in the persons of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille.

TRADITIONS DE ULTRAMAR

HERNAN CORTES IN SANCTUARY

Hernan Cortes was a Spanish gentleman whose achievements in the new world earned him a fame almost as great and almost as fantastic as that of any of the mediæval heroes. He was first taken out to the West Indies as secretary to Diego Velasquez, Governor of Cuba, whose arbitrary acts excited so much discontent, that a commission of inquiry was sent out from Spain, which established its head-quarters at Hispaniola108. It was a perilous enterprise to carry the complaint of Cuba over to the commission; and as no one could be found to undertake the service, Hernan Cortes resolved to go himself, though he had to cross the straits in an open boat. The governor had been on the watch, and one of the swiftest boats under his orders succeeded in overtaking Cortes’s boat, and putting him in irons to bring him back to shore.

Hernan Cortes was one of the handsomest of men; and his beauty and misfortunes exciting the sympathy of his keepers, he was not very vigilantly watched. Possessing great natural pluck and dexterity, he managed in the night, as they neared the land, to slip his chains and gain the shore. Here he hid himself in the jungle till daybreak, when he found sanctuary in a little church. For several days he remained here in safety, but among the frequenters of the shrine was Melinda Xuares, whose piety, and modest demeanour in spite of her exceeding beauty, attracted his attention and won his heart. Her brother, Juan Xuares, with whom she lived, for she was an orphan, was delighted to cultivate the acquaintance of a man he admired so much, and therefore received him cordially.