-Viii- · I

While shaving with his razor the few fair hairs sprouting on his cheeks, Julián was turning over a plan in his mind: as soon as he was clean and shaved, he would set out for Cebre on foot, one foot after the other, on Shank’s mare; there he would ask the curate for a cup of chocolate and wait at the rectory until twelve o’clock, the hour when the stagecoach from Orense to Santiago passes by; it would be strange if there were not a vacant seat in the berline or the coupé. He had his valise packed: he would send a lad from Cebre to fetch it. And reckoning thus, he looked sorrowfully upon the pleasant landscape, the garden with its sleepy pool, the shady clump of the grove, the green of the meadows and maize fields, the mountain, the clear sky, and his soul was caught in the attraction of that sweet solitude and silence, so greatly to his taste that he would fain have spent his whole life there. But it could not be! God leads and guides us according to His own ends.... No, it was not God, but sin, in the person of Sabel, who was casting him out of Paradise.... That thought agitated him and he cut his cheek twice.... He was on the point of inflicting a third scratch upon himself, for someone clapped him on the shoulder.

He turned round.... Who would have recognized Don Pedro, transformed as he was? Shaved likewise, though without detriment to his beard, which shone smoothed with scented oil, smelling of soap and clean linen, dressed in a suit of mixed cloth, a white piqué waistcoat, a blue bowler hat, and with an overcoat over his arm, the Lord of Ulloa seemed another man, new and different, with twenty degrees more of breeding and culture than before. In a flash Julián understood everything... and his heart gave a joyful leap.

“Sir...!”

“Come, make haste, for time presses.... You must accompany me to Santiago and we need to reach Cebre before midday.”

“Are you really coming? It seems like a miracle! I was packing my valise today. God be praised! But if you decide that I should remain here in the meantime....”

“Heaven forbid! If I go alone, the trip is spoiled for me. I am going to give a surprise to Uncle Manolo, and make the acquaintance of my cousins, whom I have only seen when they were little chits.... If I lose heart now, I shall not pluck up courage again for ten years. I have already ordered Primitivo to saddle the mare and put the gear on the donkey.”

At that moment there appeared at the door a countenance that seemed sinister to Julián, and perhaps the Marquis thought the same, for he asked impatiently:

“Come now, what is the matter?”

“The mare,” replied Primitivo without raising his voice—is not fit for the road.

“For what reason? May one know?”

“She hasn’t so much as a single shoe on,” declared the hunter calmly.

“May a thunderbolt strike you!” shouted the Marquis, his eyes flashing fire. “Now you tell me that! Is it not your business to see that she is shod? Or must I take her to the blacksmith myself every day?”

“As I did not know the young master wished to go out today....”

“Sir,” intervened Julián, “I will walk. After all, I had resolved to take that walk. You ride the donkey.”

“There is no donkey either,” objected the hunter, without batting an eye or moving a single muscle of his bronze face.

“There... is... no... don... keyyy?” articulated Don Pedro, clenching his fists. “There is... no... don... keyyy? Let us see, let us see.... Repeat that to my face.”

The man of bronze remained unmoved as he repeated coldly:

“There is no donkey.”

“As God may save me! There shall be one and three more besides, or by who I am I will set you all on all fours and you shall carry me pick-a-back to Cebre!”

Primitivo made no reply, rooted against the door-post.

“Let us understand each other: how is it that there is no donkey?”

“Yesterday, on returning from pasture, the lad who minds her found two stab wounds on her.... The young master can go and see her.”

Don Pedro fired off an oath and went down the stairs two at a time. Primitivo and Julián followed him. In the stable the herd-boy, an adolescent with a stupid and scrofulous face, confirmed the hunter’s story. Yonder at the back of the stall they descried the poor beast, trembling, with drooping ears and glazed eyes; the blood from her wounds had coagulated in a black streak from her haunch to her hoofs. In that gloomy stable full of cobwebs Julián experienced an impression similar to what he would feel at the scene of a crime. As for the Marquis, he paused in suspense for an instant, and suddenly, seizing the herd-boy by the hair, pulled and rubbed his head with fury, shouting:

“That will teach you another time to let the beasts be knifed..., take that..., and that..., and that....”

The lad burst into a calf-like bawl, casting anguished looks at the impassive Primitivo. Don Pedro turned toward the latter.

“Seize my bag and Don Julián’s valise this very instant.... Flying.... We are going on foot to Cebre.... Stepping out well, we have time to catch the coach.”

The hunter obeyed without losing his icy calm. He brought down the valise and the bag; but instead of shouldering both burdens, he handed each to a farm lad, saying laconically:

“Go with the young master.”

The Marquis was astonished and looked at his huntsman with distrust. Never did Primitivo miss an opportunity to accompany him, and his hanging back on this occasion seemed strange. Across Don Pedro’s mind flashed swift gleams of suspicion; and as if Primitivo guessed it, he tried to dispel it.

“I have to see to the thinning of the Rendas grove yonder. The chestnuts are so close together that one cannot see.... The woodcutters are already at work there.... But without me they can do nothing....”

The young master shrugged his shoulders, calculating that perhaps Primitivo proposed to conceal in the grove the shame of his defeat. Nevertheless, as he believed he knew the man, it seemed hard to him that he should throw up the game without retaliation. He was on the point of exclaiming: ‘Come with me.’ He foresaw resistance, and thought to himself: ‘What the devil! Better to leave him behind. Even if he tries, he shall not bar my path.... And if he thinks he is a match for me...’.

He fixed, however, a searching look upon the hunter’s austere features, wherein he fancied he detected, closely veiled and dissembled, a certain diabolical twitch.

“What can this fox be brooding upon?” mused the young master. “We shall not get off without some trick. But just let him overstep the mark! He catches me today in a mood to brook no nonsense.”

Don Pedro went up to his room and returned with his shotgun on his shoulder. Julián looked at him in surprise that he should take the weapon when going on a journey. Suddenly the chaplain remembered something also and went to the kitchen.

“Sabel!” he called out. “Sabel! Where is the child, woman? I wanted to kiss him goodbye.”

Sabel came out and returned with the little boy clinging to her skirts. She had found him hidden in the cows’ manger, his favorite corner, and the little rogue had his curls entwined with grass and wild flowers. He was charming. Even the bandage over his wound made him look like Cupid. Julián lifted him in his arms, kissing him on both cheeks.

“Sabel, woman, wash him once in a while at least.... In the mornings....”

“Come along, come along...” urged the Marquis from the doorway, as if fearful of entering where the woman and child were. “Time is pressing.... The coach will leave us behind.”

If Sabel wished to detain that fleeing Aeneas, she gave not the slightest sign of it, for she turned back with great composure to her pots and trivets. Don Pedro, despite the urgency alleged to hurry Julián, waited two minutes at the door, perhaps with the secret illusion of being held back by the girl; but at last, shrugging his shoulders, he walked out ahead and set off along the path opened between vineyards that led to the wayside cross. The place was open, though the ground was broken, and the young master could easily scan to right and left everything that occurred: not a hare could start up there without his keen hunter’s eyes descrying it. Although conversing with Julián concerning the surprise prepared for the Lage family, and whether it threatened rain because the sky had clouded over, the Marquis did not neglect to watch for something that must needs interest him exceedingly. For an instant he halted, fancying he caught sight of a man’s head far away behind the stone walls enclosing the vineyard. But at such a distance he could not make sure. He kept watch more attentively.

They were drawing near the Rendas grove, situated before the cross; thence the trees grew thicker, and precautions became more difficult. They skirted the grove, reached the foot of the holy symbol, and plunged into the steepest and narrowest path, without seeing anything to justify fears. In the thicket they heard the repeated strokes of the axe and the woodcutters’ cries as they thinned the chestnuts. Further on, complete silence. The sky was covered with cirrus clouds, and the light of the sun scarcely made its way through, filtering dim and livid, portending a storm. Julián recalled a melancholy detail—the cross which they would shortly reach, marking the scene of a crime—and asked:

“Sir?”

“Eh?” murmured the Marquis, speaking with clenched teeth.

“Near here a man was killed, was he not? Where the wooden cross stands. Why was it, sir? Some feud?”

“A quarrel between drunken men, returning from the fair,” answered Don Pedro curtly, who was all eyes to inspect the bushes.

The cross was already looming black above them, and Julián began to recite the customary Our Father, in a very low voice. He walked in front, and the young master trod almost on his heels. The lads carrying the luggage had gone far ahead, eager to reach Cebre as soon as possible and take a draught at the tavern. To hear the rustle made by leaves and brushwood as they parted to give passage to a body, a hunter’s senses were indeed required. The young master perceived it, faint though it was, with absolute clarity, and saw the muzzle of the shotgun aimed so skillfully that the shot could not fail: the barrel did not threaten his own breast, but Julián’s back. The surprise was within an ace of paralyzing Don Pedro: it was a second, less than a second perhaps, an inappreciable space of time that he took to recover himself and throw his weapon to his shoulder, aiming in his turn at the ambushed enemy. If the latter’s shot went off, the bullet would cross almost with another avenging bullet. The situation lasted but a few moments: two adversaries worthy of measuring their strength stood face to face. The cleverer gave way on finding himself discovered. The Marquis heard the rustle of the foliage as the barrel threatening Julián was lowered, and Primitivo stepped out from the grove, brandishing his old unerring shotgun, mended with cords. Julián hurried through the Gloria Patri to say to him in a courteous tone:

“Hullo.... Are you coming with us after all as far as Cebre?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Primitivo, whose countenance recalled more than ever that of a bronze statue. “I leave matters arranged at Rendas, and I am going to see if between here and Cebre anything turns up to shoot....”

“Give me that shotgun, Primitivo,” ordered Don Pedro. “I hear a quail calling there, as though it were making game of me. I forgot to load my carbine.”

Suiting the action to the word, he took the shotgun, aimed at random, and fired. Leaves and twigs flew from a neighboring oak, though no quail fell wounded.

“Missed!” exclaimed the young master, feigning great vexation, while thinking to himself: ‘It was not a bullet, it was buckshot.... He meant to lodge lead pellets in his body.... Of course, a bullet would have been more scandalous, more alarming to justice. He is a cunning fox!’.

And aloud:

“Do not load again; there is no shooting today, for the rain is upon us and we must mend our pace. Walk in front, show us the shortcut to Cebre.”

“Does not the young master know it?”

“Aye, but at times I am absent-minded.”

-IX-

As the bell had already rung twice and the servants showed no signs of opening, the young ladies of the house of Lage, supposing that at so early an hour no ceremonial visitor would come, went down in person and in a body to open the door, uncombed, in dressing-gowns and slippers, in complete disarray. Consequently they were taken aback at finding an arrogant young man, who said to them in a hearty, easy tone:

“I’ll wager no one here knows who I am!”

They felt an impulse to run away; but the third, the least pretty of them all, appearing to be about twenty years of age, murmured:

“For certain it is cousin Perucho Moscoso.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed Don Pedro. “Here is the cleverest of the family!”

And stepping forward with open arms, he went to embrace her; but she, dodging aside, held out a cool little hand, freshly washed with water and cologne. Immediately she ran through the house shouting:

“Papa! Papa! Cousin Perucho is here!”

The floor shook under elephantine footsteps.... The Señor de la Lage appeared, filling the anteroom with his bulk, and Don Pedro embraced his uncle, who bore him almost off his feet into the drawing-room. Julián, who in order not to spoil the surprise of the cousin’s appearance had remained hidden behind the door, emerged laughing from his hiding-place, much teased by the young ladies, who declared that he was stout as could be; and he slipped along the corridor in search of his mother.

Seeing them together, an extraordinary resemblance was observable between the Señor de la Lage and his nephew: the same tall stature, the same ample proportions, the same abundance of bone and muscle, the same strong and copious beard; but what in the nephew was harmony of a titanic constitution, strengthened by open air and bodily exercises, in the uncle was exuberance and plethora; condemned to a sedentary life, it was evident that he had blood and flesh to spare, of which he knew not what to make; without being what is called obese, his bulk overflowed on all sides; each of his feet looked like a launch, each hand like a carpenter’s mallet. He was suffocated in walking suits; he could not fit into small rooms; he panted in theater stalls, and at Mass distributed elbow-thrusts to secure more room. A magnificent specimen of a race fitted for the warlike and woodland life of feudal epochs, he was wasting away miserably in the vile idleness of small towns, where he who produces nothing, teaches nothing, and learns nothing, is good for nothing and does nothing. Oh, sorrow! That thoroughbred Pardo de la Lage, born in the fifteenth century, would have given the archaeologists and historians of the nineteenth something to think about.

He showed admiration at his nephew’s good looks and spoke to him familiarly to inspire him with confidence.

“Boy, boy! Whither away with such bulk? Mind that you are more of a man than I am.... You always took after Gabriel and me rather than your mother, may she rest in holy glory.... As for your father, not a bit of it.... You turned out neither Moscoso nor Cabreira, lad; you turned out Pardo through and through. You have seen your cousins already, eh? Girls, what have you to say to your cousin?”

“What do they say to me? They received me like a most ceremonious stranger.... I wanted to embrace this one, and she held out her hand to me very politely.”

“What sheep! What Miss Prim and Prudes! Let us see you all embrace your cousin, this very moment.”

The first to come forward to obey the order was the eldest. On clasping her, Don Pedro could not help noticing the splendid proportions of the fine human form he was pressing. A queen of a lass, the eldest cousin!