Fortune

“Oh, look, Sir Englishman!” I cried, in the immodesty of my soul. “Do you not see those tall white walls that crown yonder precipice? Look at the beams of the morning on each spire and turret. Do they not smile and beckon? Look at those soldiers with flashing corslets marching upon the outer scarp. Do you not see their halberds glistening and the golden sheen upon their caps? Do they not feed your heart, Sir Englishman, these symbols of renown and victory?”

Indeed, all the majesty of power and the high-hearted genius of war and lofty enterprise passed before my eyes that morning in the spring. Hitherto my life was laid among the mountains in the north, where in one-and-twenty years the bravest things presented to it were monasteries, in themselves grand and severe, yet calling with no trumpet to the blood; and now and then some stained and ragged soldier, maimed and overborne, returning to his native parts. But now that my soul was filled with images of martial businesses, which never fail to delight an ardent nature, the sight thrilled in my veins like music; and as I stood upon the bridge of Alcantara, with my heart attuned to a strange yearning of desire, I rejoiced so greatly in the life that God had given me, that looking far unto those hills on which was set this castle, I thought I saw His face shining between the distant mountains and the yet more distant heavens.

“Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said, in the ecstasy of contemplation of the future and its store, “limn that surprising lady that is daughter to the duke; for I am here to woo her with courage, constancy, and high thoughts. You understand me?”

“I understand you for a beggar,” said the Englishman, with a laugh and a short grunt.

“My purse is bankrupt,” said I, “but there is blood in my heart and a sword by my leg; and, good Sir Richard Pendragon, if you could look behind my purposes, you would say I had no poverty whatever.”

“Well now,” said he, “if you had so much as three pesetas in the world, which you’ve not, I would wager that amount against you that if you could obtain the ear of the duke—and even to do that you will have to tread as warily as a young dog fox stealing down a hedgerow upon a morning in October—he will either pull your ears or cut your throat when you mention his daughter. Why, if he hath a miniard goodly wench with a rounded chin and a neat ankle, hath she no suitors, varlet? Are there no princes and noblemen and foreigners of consideration, with the blood of kings under their doublets, to woo this piece of the rib of Adam? Would they not come to this castle with the blowing of horns and the waving of banners, with companies of soldiers wearing their livery? Think of the valour of their performances, good varlet; the treasure in their chests; the breadth of their dominions. And then Master Don What-does-he-call-himself—a country youth with his shoes clouted by the village cobbler, a very beggar without a dole in his wallet, a raw Hodge or bumpkin, as we say in our direct English parlance, with a pair of hose too small in the shank and a coat laced with steel already past its meridian—this mad fellow comes forward and speaks to the duke of his daughter! If I do not die of a fluxion, may I forget the savour of burnt sack!”

Now though I was so derided by the Englishman, he had so poor an opinion of all persons, with one notable exception, that I did not pay him that heed which perhaps I ought to have done. Yet I will confess that the higher we ascended the steep road that wound in and out to the gate of the castle, the more was my mind engaged by the notion that his words had made to take shape in it; for he knew the world famously, and there might be sooth in what he said, since, after all, I had only my pedigree, good as it was, and a stout heart to recommend me to the duke’s service.

As we rode up into the shadow of those walls, that were now sheer and massive over our heads, Sir Richard Pendragon bent towards me and said,—

“Miguel, be advised by an elderly soldado. Get you back to Toledo city, sell your horse, which is as old as the moon, buy yourself an orange basket, take your stance at the shadiest corner of the Plaza del Toros, and be content with a modest annuity. You can then pay the true friend that addresses you the hundred crowns that are his due for launching you out of your native element into this broad and magnificent world. The sun is a good thing, so are the stars, so are the rivers and mountains, so is yonder palace of the Moriscoes, so is this castle that lies before us; and when you beget children you will be able to say that you have looked on all these things in your youth. But I pray you, my son, not to dwell upon them here. Return to some humbler walk, good Don; for if you adventure through these white gates flanked with grinning dragons made out of pumice stone, that sanguine and youthful spirit may get such an overthrow as will cripple it for years. At present, my young companion, you are of no account in the world. Now go your ways, like a good boy, and sell the wind-galled, curb-hocked, and bespavined old bone-bag that bears you.”

“Good Sir Richard Pendragon,” I said stoutly, “I have no fear of my reception before the duke. My sword is not much, but he shall have it for his use.”

“Much!” said the Englishman; “much is a large word for nothing. Get an orange basket, my son; and I pray you not to come into the presence of his grace before you have grown a beard. He is a whimsical old fellow, and yet so haughty that he might cut off your ears if you caused him to laugh excessively.”

“Pray have no qualms, Sir Richard. I will speedily obtain an audience of this grandee, and will look to it that he does not laugh at me too much.”

Being extremely upon my mettle, I rapped smartly with the hilt of my sword upon the massive gate.

When the Englishman saw that no heed was paid to my repeated blows, he laughed in a short, dry fashion, which gave me a feeling of discomfort.

“By your leave, you man of wisdom,” said he, “and advancing my poor opinion with that reserve that is its merit, I believe I spy a chain and padlock to this gate.”

I was fain to confess myself puzzled when my eye fell on these accompaniments.

“I am thinking, my son,” said Sir Richard, “although, to be sure, it is no more than a whim or a notion of mine, that you might be called to wait six days for an answer to your summons, for by its situation I should judge it to be a gate that is opened once a week; of a Wednesday, for the kitchen-maids to sally out at and wash their linen down below in the Tagus. And I would respectfully urge, although this again is no more than a whim or a notion, that the grand entrance is along this path half a furlong to the left; at least, if it be not so, it hath changed its place since I was here last June.”

It put me out of humour to reflect that I had not used my observation more shrewdly, for as soon as I received this information, which the Englishman conveyed to me in a mocking manner, I was able to perceive that behind the gate the patio was empty, instead of thronging soldiers and activity. Therefore we turned our horses into the path he had proposed, and stayed them presently before a gate far handsomer. And no sooner had I set my sword to this than it fell back before my hand and a very grave personage was standing with his hat off before my bridle-rein and inquiring my good pleasure.

That he was a person of consideration was clear enough. His mien was extraordinarily dignified, and to all that I said he listened politely; but when I asked for an audience of the duke he referred me to one of a surpassing stoutness, who came waddling up to us as we discoursed together. This gentleman, although extremely heavy and slow of speech, proved just as civil, and gave me to understand that he was no less a person than Don Luiz, the duke’s gentleman-usher. But when I spoke of an audience he bowed very low, and yet looked at me in a kind of sorrow, for he said,—

“Sir, you crave the impossible. The levee was yesterday, and a week must pass before you can be admitted to the next.”

“Sir,” I said, “I have travelled from the Asturias upon no other errand.”

Don Luiz shook his head, and deplored the fact that this could not help the matter. And all this time the Englishman was laughing in such a manner that I feared he must pitch straight off his horse.

“I would have you to believe, Don Luiz,” said I, with an urgency that was increased by the behaviour of the Englishman, “that I am one Miguel Jesus Maria de Sarda y Boegas, a name antecedent, if you please, to the Moorish invasion, and as favourably looked on as any in the northern provinces.”

Still, in spite of the earnestness with which I mentioned this, the portly and consequential Don Luiz stood as mute as a stone, not so much as twitching his lips or abating his glance in any particular. Indeed it would seem, from the manner in which he enfolded me in his sleepy looks, that the style of my clothes and their condition were a more imminent matter than my business and descent.

“Next week, sir,” was all he deigned to reply, and pointed to the gate for his final answer. Feeling myself to be powerless against this refusal, which was yet very arbitrary, resentment began to stir in me.

“Don Luiz,” I said firmly, “I cannot leave the precincts of this castle until I have had audience of its master. I have journeyed expressly from the Asturias to speak with him, and I can assure you it is not my custom to permit anything to interpose between my mind and its declared intention.”

Yet, notwithstanding the importunity of my tone, it left Don Luiz quite impassive. Indeed ere long he undertook to show me another side to this affair. He summoned two or three of the soldiers that were marching up and down the patio, and in short terms ordered them to conduct me to the gate. And I think I should have been taken there in this ignominious fashion had not at this moment Sir Richard Pendragon, who all this while had been consumed with hilarity, addressed the portly gentleman-usher.

“Don Luiz,” said he, “I would have you pay no heed to this poor mad varlet that is my squire. You see, Don Luiz, this immoderate, raving squire of mine once travelled in my suite to the Asturias, and in those altitudes he beheld a maid of pedigree to whom his wayward fancy turned. And that matter deranged any little wit he did enjoy; for he kissed her in those altitudes underneath the moon, and since that evening he has been a babbler. His conversation is now composed of pedigrees, maidens, Asturias, and moonshine of a highly grievous nature. It is pitiful, Don Luiz, yet to my mind there is a kind of poetry in it also.”

Now Sir Richard Pendragon feigned this monstrous tale with such a simplicity of look, and recited it with such a proper voice, that Don Luiz was moved to credulity, and said, “How whimsical! Yet indeed, sir, it does not surprise me, for I could discern from his address that he had a maggot in his brain.”

“Faith, yes,” said Sir Richard, with a solemnity at which I marvelled, “and it twists his poor mind into such odd and strange devices as you would never believe. Why, if he sits at home at the castle, he either plays mumchance all day by the buttery door or devises some ridiculous melody upon the virginal that makes all the cook-maids shed tears, or, stranger than that, Don Luiz, he will sit for hours playing snapdragon with the wishbone of a fowl. And when I say to him, ‘Wherefore, Miguel, should this quaintness be your chief employ?’ says he, with his eyes full of tears, ‘Why, excellency, if I used my fingers it would be sure to burn my hand.’ Did you ever hear an honest Christian Spaniard speak the like, Don Luiz?”

“By my faith, sir, I did not,” said Don Luiz, betraying some tokens of impatiency. “Might I trouble you, sir, to the extent of asking your business?”

“To see your master, the duke, in audience.”

“Then, sir, my answer must, with all respect, hold the same with you as with your twisted and unhappy squire.”

“I am afeared, Don Luiz,” said my strange companion with a look of insolence that became him remarkably well, “your wits are so accompanied by sack and butter that you do not take me in this affair. I will see your master at once.”

“On Tuesday next, sir,” said the gentleman-usher. “Before then an audience is out of the question.”

“I say I will see your master immediately,” said the Englishman. “Do you go straightway and inform him that a messenger is at the gate who hath ridden express from the King and is demanding audience.”

“The King!” exclaimed Don Luiz, while I held my breath at such a piece of audacity.

“The King,” said Sir Richard Pendragon sternly. “The King, my master, who holds the Duke of Montesina and all his minions in the hollow of his hand. Do you go straightway and tell him that, Don Luiz.”

Upon this assertion the chamberlain delivered a humble apology, called to the grooms to take our horses, conducted us to an antechamber with the greatest promptitude, and went forth himself to bear the matter to his master. As soon as I was alone with my companion in the fair apartment we had entered I began to tremble violently, and said to the outrageous foreigner,—

“This is indeed a fine pickle, Sir Englishman! We shall certainly be thrown into a dungeon, or perchance shall lose our heads. No prince of Spain will forgive you unless you make good your words.”

“You are a mad varlet,” said the Englishman; “you are as mad as nine men’s morris.”

“The madness is with you, sir, in this grievous and terrible matter.”

“Ah, my young companion,” said the Englishman, “what a vain fellow thou art to go in quest of the Princess Fortune without a knowledge of the world. The time is ripe for me to give you a watchword, my son; your excellent father appears not to have mentioned it. Learn to speak in a loud voice. Fail in no enterprise from a disregard of that motto, and in lieu of a vulgar death upon the gallows, which is the natural destination of every snuffler that goes about paltry chewing his words, you will die an eminently Christian death upon the field of battle, or in your bed with your favourite bawd soothing your pillows with hot and bitter tears.”

Before I could derive any store of fortitude from this advice wherewith to meet the grave ordeal that was now before us both, Don Luiz returned with the information that the duke, his master, was graciously pleased to receive us in audience.

Now, whether it was the sting of the rebuffs that I had already suffered during that ill-fated day, or the notion that I was become as a branded madman by the tongue of calumny, or whether it was the odd manner of our entrance, I cannot say, but what I know is this—I felt the sweat creep upon my brow as I made my way into the presence of this august grandee. I followed close upon the heels of Don Luiz and my most singular companion. We passed through several spacious and gorgeous apartments which were clad in great richness. Never had I seen so much magnificence before. The mere presence of so much splendour seemed to daunt me, for notwithstanding my birth and my father’s honour, in my country suit all dulled with dust, and my old boots, I felt myself to be but little better than a rustical fellow in surroundings of this kind.

Yet the Englishman, although his dress in its inconsistency was scarcely above my own, and though his pretext was so abominably false that it had only to be exposed to place his life in jeopardy, was just as much upon his ease in this dangerous place as if he had been abroad in the plain. Without removing his bonnet or showing the least concern for the dignity of the palace, he uttered a ribald joke in the ear of Don Luiz and spoke to him of the weather.

When at last we were ushered into the presence of the duke I tried to muster my courage, for I felt that the great moment of my life was come. Striving to make an honourable appearance I bore my head high and held myself in the most martial manner I could assume, and through the haze that oppressed my eyes I strove to stand worthy of my quest and the noble lady I was come to serve. You will understand, gentle reader, that all depended on the fair impression I must contrive to make upon the great nobleman who was about to receive me. Yet I was fain to reflect that I must have done better justice to my birth and breeding, which were all the credentials I had to offer, had I not been so unluckily accompanied. I am sure no one could have been more deeply sensible of the disadvantage of such a companionship. The flippant behaviour of Sir Richard Pendragon must have sorely abated the grace of my bearing, since such a mode of entry as he adopted before a great personage must have been wholly to the detriment of any who followed in his train. Indeed this extraordinary person was humming a catch as he swaggered like a common ruffler, with his bonnet on, into the presence of his grace, the Duke of Montesina.

The private chamber in which the duke sat was smaller than the others through which we had passed. It was draped heavily with gorgeous tapestries, and instead of rushes upon the floor there was a rich Arabian carpet. The first thing I perceived was a noble painting of the Holy Virgin. The duke was sitting in a gilded chair placed on a daïs near a window through which streamed the beams of the bright sun. He was engaged upon a refection of light wine and oat cake, and was alone save for a dwarf who mowed at us behind the chair of his master.

The duke was an old man with a beard of silver, frail, and little in his person, and of an ascetic, yet, as I make bold to think, a somewhat peevish countenance. He rose upon our entry and bowed in so sublime a manner as at once to make it clear that here was the pink and mirror of a Spanish gentleman; one whose mind was grave and lofty, and whose person was garnished with fine graces. A piece of old punctilio he was, according to my companion, yet when he left his chair and took a few steps towards us, to confer upon us an additional grace of welcome, his form seemed to have been wedded to silk and silver all its days, such was the ease with which it bore them; he seemed to move to music; while when he brought himself to business, it appeared to my disordered mind, dazzled as it was with so much glamour, that his lightest word became a proclamation and his frown an executioner. Sir Richard Pendragon, however, was far from having this awe of him. It filled me with dismay to see this person of foreign nationality passage with the duke for all the world as if he were of an equal condition.

“I trust I find the grace of your lordship in pretty good health,” said the English giant; and it relieved me much to observe that he had the good manners to pull off his bonnet, and to bow not ungracefully when he addressed the duke in this fashion.

“I find myself in good health, I thank you, sir,” said the duke coldly and simply. “You bear a communication from my nephew Castile, I understand?”

“I am glad your excellency understands that,” said the Englishman, “for burn my five wits if I do!”

“Will you deign to explain this matter?” said the duke, and it turned me faint in my spirit to see a sudden light of anger flame across his eyes.

“If I mentioned your nephew Castile, may I never drink sack out of a bombard again,” said the Englishman.

“Bimbos,” said the duke, turning to the dwarf, who was grinning like a jackanapes behind him, “do you go to Don Luiz and bring him here instantly.”

It was clear that the duke was a man of choler by the irascibility of his words.

Don Luiz came immediately. There was trepidation in his mien.

“This person,” said the duke, “informs us that he bears no communication from our nephew the Castilian.”

“Under your favour, excellency,” said the Englishman, “your mind although virtuously given and an ornament to your age and country, appears to have led you into some sort of confusion. English Richard, honest man, never spoke of Castile your nephew; he would scorn to speak of such a scurvy rogue, but rather did he mention your lordship’s lord and master.”

“My lord,” said the fat Don Luiz, speaking with a most ponderous impressiveness, “my words shall be these. This gentleman informed me at the gate that he was the bearer of a message from the King, and on that ground demanded audience in quite a peremptory manner.”

“So I did, brother, so I did,” said the Englishman. “You cursed Spaniards are so dull that I am obliged to speak peremptory if I speak at all.”

“Further, my lord,” said Don Luiz, passing over this scandalous interruption with immense disdain, “he declared himself to be the emissary of that great King who at this moment held, as it were, your lordship’s grace in the hollow of his hand. Now, it was perfectly clear to me, your lordship, that there is only one king whose might is of this nature, which is him of Castile, your lordship’s nephew. Thus, under your grace’s favour, was I justified, I think.”

“Ods my life!” said the duke, addressing my companion with the greatest irascibility, “if I find you have perverted your speech in this particular, or that you think to make a toy of such as I, sirrah, I will undertake to show you how far you are astray by having you broke upon the wheel.”

When the angry duke spoke these last terrible words he exalted his voice into such an accent as rendered them truly affrighting to my ears. Straight I fell into a violent trembling on the Englishman’s account; but he, steadfast man, did not abate a whit of his easy smiling. As he looked at the threatful duke his red eyes seemed to be full of a furtive and whimsical humour.

“No, by my soul,” he said, “this is not politeness, at least as we of England understand that quality. Wheel? No matter where I travel in this unholy land of Spain, the parish that I come to is a scurvy one. Wheel? Duke or donkey driver, it is nothing to the matter, all are tainted with incivility. Wheel? Why, duke, my message is ‘Be thou of good courage,’ and He who sends it thee is that great King of Heaven who holds thee in the hollow of His hand. Do you pause and think upon it, duke.”

The duke obeyed him in this particular, for certes he paused and thought upon it much. And while this he did with a deal of gravity, the wheel rose up before my eyes and I could feel my bones being broken on it. For was ever such audacity since the beginning of the world!