Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846

"Ay," said Fane, "I rather fancy you were."

"We had a very pleasant drive home," said I, willing to effect a diversion in favour of Leicester, who was puffing desperately at his cigar in a savage kind of silence; – "and a capital supper afterwards; I wish you had been with us."

"And I had a very jolly drive too: I got a gig, and galloped nearly all the way; and a very good supper, too, before I started; but I won't return your compliment; we were a very snug party without you. Upon my word, Leicester, your eldest cousin is one of the very nicest girls I ever met: the sort of person you get acquainted with at once, and so very lively and good-humoured – no nonsense about her."

"I'll make a point of letting her know your good opinion," replied Horace, in a tone conveying pretty plainly a rebuke of such presumption. But it was lost upon Hurst.

"Probably you need not trouble yourself," said Fane; "I dare say he has let her know it himself already."

"No – really no" – said Hurst, as if deprecating any thing so decided; "but Miss Leicester is a very nice girl; clever, I should say, decidedly; there's a shade of one can hardly call it rusticity – about her manner; but I like it, myself – I like it."

"Do you?" – said Horace, very drily.

"Oh! a season in London would take all that off." And Hurst began to quaver again —

"Queen of my soul, whose" —

"I'll tell you what," said Horace, rising, and standing with his back to the fire, with his hands under his coat-tails – "You may not be aware of it, but you're rather drunk, Hurst."

"Drunk!" said Hurst; "no, that's quite a mistake; three glasses, I think it was, of champagne at supper; and you men have sat here drinking punch all the evening; if any body's drunk, it's not me."

Hurst's usually modest demeanour was certainly so very much altered as to justify, in some measure, Leicester's supposition; but I really believe Flora Leicester's bright eyes had more to answer for in that matter than the champagne, whether the said three glasses were more or less.

However, as Horace's temper was evidently not improving, Miller, Fane, and myself wished him good-night, and Hurst came with us. We got him into Fane's rooms and then extracted from him a full history of the adventures of that delightful evening, to our infinite amusement, and apparently to his own immense satisfaction. It was evident that Miss Flora Leicester had made an impression, of which I do not give that young lady credit for being in the least unconscious.

The impression, however, like many others of its kind, soon wore off, I fancy; for the next time I saw Mr Wellington Hurst, he had returned to his usual frame of mind, and appeared quite modest and deferential; but it will not perhaps surprise my readers any more than it did myself, that Horace was never fond of referring to our drive to the steeple-chase at B – , and did not appear to appreciate, as keenly as before, the trick we had played Hurst in leaving him behind; while all the after-reminiscences of the latter bore reference, whenever it was possible, to his favourite date – "That day when you and I and Leicester had that team to B – together."

THE STUDENT OF SALAMANCA

Part III

"Como un pobre condenado
Agui vivo entre cadenas,
A mi xabega amarrado,
Tendido en esta carena."

    Cancion Andatuza.
In one of the wildest and most secluded of the valleys formed by the sierra of Urbasa and its contiguous ranges, stands a small cluster of houses, differing in few respects from the nine or ten hundred villages and hamlets scattered over the fertile vales and rugged hills of Navarre, but of which, nevertheless, a brief description may not be without interest. The village in question is composed of some five-score houses, for the most part the habitations of peasants, who earn their living by labour in the fields of the neighbouring proprietors, or, many of them, by the cultivation of small portions of land belonging to themselves. Nothing can be more uniform than the arrangement and construction of Navarrese houses of this class, which are well adapted to the wants and tastes of the race of men who inhabit them, and to the extremes of heat and cold for which the climate of that part of Spain is remarkable. The walls are generally of stone, of which the neighbouring mountains yield an abundant supply; glass windows are rare, and replaced by wooden shutters; the door, usually of oak, and of great solidity, is hung in a low archway of granite blocks. The entrance is into a small clay-floored room or vestibule, answering a variety of purposes. Here are seen implements of agriculture – sometimes a plough, or the heavy iron prongs with which the Basques and Navarrese are accustomed laboriously to turn up the ground in places too steep for the use of oxen; mules or ponies stand tethered here, waiting their turn of duty in the fields, or on the road; and here sacks of vegetables and piles of straw or maize-ears are temporarily deposited, till they can be placed in the granary, usually in the upper part of the house. At the further end, or on one side of this vestibule, a door opens into the stable or cowshed, and on the other side is the kitchen, which the family habitually occupy. An immense arched chimney projects far into the last-named apartment, and under it is a stone hearth, slightly raised above the tiled floor. Around, and upon this tiled hearth, during the long winter evenings, the peasant and his family establish themselves; the room is lighted by a glimmering oil-lamp, and, more effectually, by the bright wood-fire, which crackles and sparkles as the rain-drops or snow-flakes occasionally fall through the aperture of the chimney. The men smoke and talk, and repose themselves after the fatigues of the day; the women spin and attend to the pots of coarse red earth, in which various preparations of pork, eggs, or salt-fish, with beans and garbanzos, (a sort of large pea of excellent flavour,) the whole plentifully seasoned with oil and red pepper, stew and simmer upon the embers. Above stairs are the sleeping and store rooms, the divisions between which often consist of slight walls of reeds, plastered over and whitewashed.

Besides the humble dwellings above described, many of these mountain villages contain two or three houses of larger size and greater pretension, belonging to hidalgos or country gentlemen, who own estates in the neighbourhood. Independently of their superior dimensions, glass in the windows, painted doors and shutters, and the arms of the family carved in stone above the entrance, perhaps a few valuable pictures by the old Spanish masters, decorating the walls of the apartments, distinguish these more aristocratic mansions, which, although spacious, and of dignified aspect, frequently afford little more real comfort than the cottages above which they tower.

It was early on an August morning, about a fortnight subsequently to the rescue of Count Villabuena, that a man in an officer's uniform, and who, to judge from the stripe of gold-lace on his coat cuff, held the rank of major, knocked at the door of a house of the description last referred to. The applicant for admission was about forty years of age, of middle stature, broad-shouldered and powerful, and his countenance, the features of which were regular, might have been called handsome but for a peculiarly lowering and sullen expression. Apparently he had just come off a journey; his boots and dress were covered with dust, his face was unshaven, and he had the heated, jaded look of a man who has passed in the saddle the hours usually allotted to repose.

"Is Count Villabuena quartered here?" said he to the servant who opened the door.

"He is, Señor Comandante," replied the man.

The stranger entered the house, and was ushered into a large apartment on the first floor. He had waited there but a few minutes, when the door of an adjoining chamber opened, and Count Villabuena, wrapped in a morning-gown, and seemingly just out of bed, made his appearance.

"Don Baltasar!" exclaimed the Count, in a tone of some surprise, on beholding his early visitor.

"As you see, cousin," replied the new-comer; "and glad enough, I assure you, to be at the end of his ride, although the bearer of no very welcome news."

"Whence come you?" said the Count, "and what are the news you bring?"

"From Pampeluna, or at least from as near to it as I could venture. The news I bring are bad enough. Yesterday morning, at this hour, Juan Orrio, and the four other officers who were taken in the skirmish near Echauri, were shot to death on the glacis of Pampeluna."

"Bad news indeed!" said the Count, starting, in visible perturbation, from the chair on which he had seated himself. "Most unfortunate, just at this time."

"At this or at any other time it would hardly be welcome intelligence to the general," observed Don Baltasar. "Orrio was one of the first who joined him after he took command of the king's army, and he greatly valued him both as a friend and an officer."

"True," replied Villabuena; "but at this moment I have especial reasons for regretting his death. Have you communicated it to Zumalacarregui?"

"Not yet. I have been to his quarters; he rode out at daybreak, and has not returned. My horse is dead beat, and as the direction the general took is not exactly known, I think it better to wait his coming than to follow him. Meanwhile, cousin, a cup of chocolate will be no unwelcome refreshment after the night's march."

Villabuena rang a hand-bell that lay upon the table, and gave his orders to the servant who answered the summons. Some smoking chocolate and other refreshments, and a small brazen cup containing embers for lighting cigars, were brought in, and the Major applied himself vigorously to the discussion of his breakfast.

Major Baltasar de Villabuena, that distant relative of the Count to whom reference has been already made as the intended husband of his daughter, was a soldier of fortune who had entered the army at an early age, and at the outbreak of the Carlist insurrection was captain in a regiment of the line. He might have risen higher during his twenty years' service, but for his dogged and unpleasant temper, which ever stood in the way of his advancement. The death of the Count's sons, although it constituted him heir to the Villabuena property, made but little real difference in his prospects. The Count was only twelve or fifteen years older than himself, and likely to live nearly as long. The cousins had not met for many years, and had never been on intimate or even friendly terms; and it was therefore with joyful surprise, that, a few days after the commencement of the war, Don Baltasar received a letter from the Count, expressing a wish to see and know more of the man who was to inherit his title and estates. The letter informed him of what he already knew, that the Count had espoused the cause of Charles V.; and it further urged him to throw up his commission in the army of the usurping government, and to hasten to join his kinsman, who would receive him with open arms. Some vague hints concerning a nearer alliance between them, were more than was wanting to raise Don Baltasar's hopes to the highest pitch, and to induce him instantly to accept the Count's propositions. He at once resigned his commission and joined the Carlists, by whom he was made heartily welcome; for men of military experience were then scarce amongst them. Don Baltasar was a bold and efficient officer, and the opportunity was favourable for exhibiting his qualities. The Count was at first much pleased with him; and soon afterwards, when the Carlists were temporarily dispersed, and the insurrection was seemingly at an end, Major Villabuena accompanied his cousin to France, and was presented to Rita as her intended husband. But his unpolished manners and brutal abruptness made a most unfavourable impression upon the lady, who did not attempt to conceal her repugnance to her new suitor. The Count himself, who, amidst the bustle and activity of the life he had recently led, had overlooked or not discovered many of his kinsman's bad qualities, was now not slow in finding them out; and although the proposed marriage was of his own planning, he began almost to congratulate himself on his prudence in having made the promise of his daughter's hand contingent on her encouragement of her cousin's addresses. That encouragement there appeared little probability of Baltasar's obtaining. The gallant major, however, who entertained an abundantly good opinion of his own merits, instead of attributing the young lady's dislike to any faults or deficiencies of his own, laid it at the door of her attachment to Herrera, of which he had heard something from the Count; and he vowed to himself, that if ever he had the opportunity, he would remove that obstacle from his path, and make short work of it with the beardless boy who stood between him and the accomplishment of his wishes.

Whilst the Major satisfied the keen appetite which his night-ride had given him, Count Villabuena restlessly paced the room, his features wearing an expression of anxiety and annoyance.

"You take this news much to heart, Count," said Baltasar. "I knew not that Orrio or any other of the sufferers was your friend."

"None of them were particularly my friends," replied the Count; "nor does my regret for their fate exceed that which I should feel for any other brave and unfortunate men who might lose their lives in the service of his majesty. But their death at this precise conjuncture is most unfortunate. You have heard me speak of Luis Herrera?"

"Herrera!" repeated Baltasar, with affected unconcern; "is not that the name of your former protégé, the love-stricken swain who ventured to aspire to the hand of your fair daughter?"

"The same," replied the Count, gravely.

"He is with the enemy," said Baltasar; "holds a commission in a cavalry regiment now in our front. I trust to fall in with him some day, and to exchange a sabre-cut in honour of the bright eyes of my charming cousin."

"He would find you employment if you did," replied the Count. "He is a brave lad and a skilful soldier. But at present there is small chance of your meeting him, at least with a sword in his hand. He was taken prisoner a few days ago, and is now in this village."

"Ha!" exclaimed Baltasar, his dark deep-set eyes emitting a gleam of satisfaction. "And what does Zumalacarregui propose to do with him?"

"Up to yesterday, I trusted to procure his release. The general seemed half inclined to grant it, as well as that of the other captive officers, if they would take an oath not to bear arms against the king. A few of them had agreed to give the required pledge; and although the others, including Herrera, obstinately refused, I was not without hopes of overcoming their repugnance. But last evening news came of the excesses that Rodil's division has been committing in Biscay, burning houses, ill-treating the peasantry, and refusing quarter to prisoners. This greatly exasperated the general, and he talked of recommencing the system of reprisals, which, since the removal of Quesada from the command of the Christino forces, has been in some degree abandoned."

"You are particularly interested, then, in the fate of this Herrera?" said Baltasar, with a searching glance at the Count.

"I am so for various reasons. His father and myself, although of different political creeds, were old friends; the son was long an inmate of my house, and I at one time thought of him as my future son-in-law. If he has taken up arms against his rightful sovereign, it is from a mistaken sense of duty, and not, as many have done, with a view to personal gain and advantage. Moreover, during my recent short captivity, of which you have probably heard, he twice saved my life; once at great risk and with positive detriment to himself."

"Numerous and sufficing motives," said Baltasar, with a slight sneer.

"Undoubtedly they are," replied the Count; "and you now see why I regret your arrival and the intelligence you bring. The general's indignation at the slaughter of Orrio and his companions will place the lives of Herrera and the other prisoners in great jeopardy."

"I am sorry," said Baltasar, in a tone which belied his professed concern, "that my arrival should interfere with your plans, and endanger the life of your friend."

"I can scarcely believe in your regrets, cousin," replied the Count, "or that you will grieve for the death of one whom you regard as rival. But again I tell you that Herrera can never be the husband of my daughter; and although you have the impression that he is now one of the chief obstacles to your success with Rita, time cannot fail to obliterate her childish attachment. Be sure that you will do more towards winning her favour by acting generously in the present circumstances, than if you were to take this opportunity of compassing Herrera's death."