LITMIR.BIZ

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complete. His sadness and discouragement were so profound that he would not return to his country. With the debris of his bark he constructed a little skiff among the rocks, and commenced as a fisherman. It was he who furnished the convent with fish: the brothers in exchange gave him bread, oil, and vinegar. It is now twelve years that he has lived here in peace with all the world.”

      This recital finished when they had arrived at a point where the paths divide into two roads.

      “I will return soon,” said the old commandant; “in an instant I will be at your disposal, and salute your hosts.”

      “Say to Gaviota,” cried Momo, “that her illness does not alarm me, bad weeds never die.”

      “Has the commandant been long at Villamar?” asked Stein of Momo.

      “Let me count – a hundred and one years before the birth of my father.”

      “And who is this Rosita, his hostess?’

      “Who? Señorita Rosa Mistica!” replied Momo, with grotesque gesture. “It is a first love: she is uglier than hunger; she has one eye which looks to the east, and the other to the west; and her face, which the small-pox has not spared, is filled with cavities, each sufficient to hold an echo. But, Don Frederico, the heavens scorch, the clouds rush as if they would pursue us – let us hasten our steps.”

      CHAPTER V

      BEFORE we continue our recital, it is well, we believe, to make the acquaintance of this new personage. Don Modesto Guerrero was the son of an honorable farmer, who, like many others, was possessed of excellent parchments of nobility. During the war of independence, the French burned these parchments in burning his house, under the pretext that the children of a laborer are brigands, – that is to say, that they have committed the unpardonable crime of defending their country. The brave man could reconstruct his house; but as to the parchments, they were not of the class of phœnix. Modesto was called to the military service, and, in default of a substitute, he entered a regiment of infantry as a cadet. Sufficiently good-natured, he was not long in becoming a butt, the object of coarse jokes from his companions. These, encouraged by his forbearance, pushed their mockeries so far that Don Modesto put an end to them, as we will directly see. On a grand parade day he took his station at the end of a file. Near by was a cart. His comrades, with as much address as promptitude, passed a noose round his leg, and attached it to the wheels of the cart. The colonel gave the orders to “March!” The trumpets sounded, and all the men were in motion, with the exception of Modesto, who was brought up with his feet in the air, in the position which the sculptors give to the Zephyrs ready to fly.

      The review ended. Modesto returned to quarters calm and tranquil as he had set out, and, without changing his step, he demanded satisfaction of his companions. Neither of them would assume the responsibility of the trick played. He then declared he would fight with them all, one after the other. Then he who had planned and executed the trick came forward, and they went out to fight. In the combat, Modesto’s adversary lost an eye. “If you desire to lose the other,” the vanquisher said to him, with his habitual phlegm, “I am at your service when you please.”

      Without relations or patrons at court, without ambitious views, and no fondness for intrigue, Modesto continued his career at a tortoise pace, until the siege of Gaëte, in 1805, a period at which his regiment received an order to join the troops of Napoleon. Modesto distinguished himself so well by his bravery and coolness, that he merited a cross, and the praises of his chiefs. His name was blazoned at Gaëte like a meteor, to disappear immediately in eternal obscurity.

      These laurels were the first and the last which he had an opportunity of gathering during his military career: severely wounded in the arm, he was obliged to quit active service, and received as compensation the post of commandant of the ruined fort of San Cristobal. It was then forty years that he had under his orders the skeleton of a fort, and a garrison of lizards of all varieties. In the commencement, our Guerrero could not content himself with this abandonment. No one year passed without his pressing a request to the government to obtain the necessary repairs; also the guns and troops which this point of defence demanded. All these requests remained unnoticed, although, according to circumstances, he did not fail to represent the possibility of an invasion, whether by the English or the American insurgents, whether by the French, or the revolutionists, or the Carlists. A similar reception was accorded to his continual solicitations to obtain part: the government took no account whatever of these two ruins – the fort, and its commander. Don Modesto was patient; he finished by submitting to his destiny. When he arrived at Villamar, he lodged with the widow of the sacristan, who, in company with her then young daughter, lived a life of devotion. It was the abode of excellent women, a little meagre, and tainted with excessive intolerance, and scolds; but good, charitable, and of exquisite neatness.

      The inhabitants of the village, who had great affection for the commandant, and who, at the same time, knew how irksome his position was, did all they possibly could to render his situation less irksome. They never killed a pig without sending him a supply of lard and pudding. At harvest-times they brought him some wheat, pease, oil, and honey. The women made him presents of the fruits of their orchards; and his happy hostess had always an abundance of provisions, thanks to the generous kindness which inspired the good Modesto, who, of a nature corresponding with his name, far from feeling pride from so many favors, was accustomed to say that Providence was everywhere, but that his headquarters were at Villamar. He knew, in truth, how to show his gratitude for all these bounties by being serviceable to every one, and complaisant in the extreme. He arose with the sun, and his first duty was to assist the cura in the services of the mass. One villager charged him with a commission; another besought him to write to his son, who was a soldier; a mother confided to his care her little children, while she attended out doors to some little household affairs: he watched at the bedsides of the sick, and mingled his prayers with those of his hostesses; indeed, he sought to be useful to everybody in all that was in his power, consistent with decorum or honor. The widow of the sacristan died, leaving her daughter Rosa, now full forty-five years of age, and of an ugliness which you would travel far to see the like of. The mournful consequences of the varioloid did not contribute a little to augment this last misfortune. The evil was concentrated on one of her eyes, and chiefly on the pupil, which she could but half open; and it resulted that the pupil half effaced gave to all her physiognomy an aspect devoid of intelligence and mind, forming a singular contrast with the other eye, from which shot out flames like the fire of a brier-bush at the slightest cause of scandal; and certainly the occasions which presented themselves were frequent enough.

      After the funeral, the nine days of mourning passed, the Señorita Rosita said one morning to Don Modesto: “I regret much, señor, the duty of announcing to you that we must separate.”

      “We part!” cried the brave man, opening his large eyes, and placing his cup of chocolate on the table-cloth, instead of placing it on the tray. “And why, Rosita?”

      Don Modesto was accustomed, during thirty years, to employ this pet name when he spoke to the daughter of his old hostess.

      “It seems to me,” she replied, elevating her eyelids, “it seems to me you need not ask me why. You know it is not proper that two honest persons live together under the same roof. It gives rise to scandal.”

      “And who could bring scandal against you?” replied Don Modesto; “you, the village model!”

      “Are you sure there will not be something? What will you say when you learn that you yourself, despite your great age, your uniform, and your cross, and I, a poor girl who thinks only of serving God, that we afford amusement to these scandal-mongers?”

      “What say you?” demanded Don Modesto, saddened.

      “What you have just heard. And no one knows us but under nicknames which they apply to us, these cursed!”

      “I am stunned, Rosita. I cannot believe – ”

      “So much the better for you if you do not believe it,” said the devout girl; “but I avow to you that these impious ones, – God pardon them! – when they see us arrive together at the church, at the early morning mass, they say, one to the other: ‘Sound the mass, here come the Mystic Rose and the Tower

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