No one could resist this appeal: Antonio was sent for; he returned in raptures. On his first entrance, the lively eyes of Iñes, full of curiosity, were bent toward him; but he regarded her not; he threw his arms round Ignacio, lifted him off the ground, set him down again, gazed on his face, and burst suddenly into tears. "Ignacio, my Ignacio, how light you are! how thin! how pallid! how weak!" and Antonio was her first-born. Beside which, and masses go for anything. Can not we sing? there were mysteries, and signs, and tokens, such can not we play? What would you wish for his as ought to have taught him better. His whole studies? heresy, magic, freemasonry, chemistry, household were amazed, and edified, and awed, at necromancy? We want him, dear uncle; we want the result of supplications which, after four years him sadly with us. You always give us what we of fruitless marriage, had produced this blessing: ask for in reason. Come now, a kiss, uncle! and and the Moor's head, the blazon of the family, then the mule out of the stable. Come; we will was displayed by them, with greater pride than help you to write the letter, as you are somewhat ever, in the balcony of the ancient mansion-house. out of practice, and I know how to fold one up, About a year before this event, an Irish ensign | after a trial or two." had entered the service of Spain. Leave of absence was given him to visit his maternal uncle, the dean of Santander, near which city was the residence of Don Luis. Subsequently, Doña Pedrila saw him so often, and was so impressed by his appearance, that it was reported in the family, and the report was by no means discouraged by the dean, that Ensign Lucius O'Donnell, now entitled Don Lucio, had been dreamt of by Doña Pedrila, not once only, or occasionally, but on the three successive vigils of the three glorious saints who were more especially the patrons of the house. Under the impression of these dreams, there was a wonderful likeness of the infant to Don Lucio, which Don Luis was the first to perceive, and the last to communicate. It extended to the colour of the hair and of the eyes. Surely it ought to have rendered a reasonable man more pious and paternal, but it produced quite a contrary effect. He could hardly endure to hear the three glorious saints mentioned; and, whenever he uttered their names, he elongated the syllables with useless emphasis and graceless pertinacity. Moreover, in speaking of the child to its numerous admirers, he swore that the creature was ugly and white-blooded. Within two more years, Doña Pedrila bore another son to him, and died. This son, Ignacio, came into the world a few months before his cousin Iñes, and the fathers were confident that the union of two such congenial names would secure the happiness of the children, and of their posterity. Before Antonio had completed quite eleven years, he was sent for his education to Salamanca, not as a collegian, but as a pupil under an old officer, a friend of Don Luis, who, being somewhat studious, had retired to end his days in that city. Here the boy, although he made no unsatisfactory progress in polite literature, engaged more willingly with his tutor in manly exercises, likewise in singing and playing on the guitar. He was never invited home for three entire years; but Ignacio, who was of the mildest temper and kindest disposition, remembering the playfulness and fondness of Antonio, united his entreaties with those of Iñes, that he might return. Don Luis, in reply, threw a leg over a knee. "Uncle," said Iñes," he cannot ride on that knee all the way from Salamanca; send my mule for him, saddle, bridle, and ropes, and the little bit of gilt leather for the crupper, from the shrine of blessed St. Antonio, his patron, no less than the patron of mules and horses. Ignacio says we must have him, and have him we will, if prayers Don Luis looked on, and muttered something inaudible. Antonio, fearful of having offended his worthy genitor by neglect of duty, sprang from his dejection, clasped the waist of Don Luis, and then falling at his feet, asked his blessing. Don Luis, with bitter composure, prayed the three saints to bestow it, as they might well do, he said, on the young Señor Don Antonio now before them. The boy kissed his hand and thanked him fervently; and now, in his inconsiderate joyousness, another spring forward; but he stopped in the midst of it, and instead of running up at once to Iñes, who bit her lip and pinched her veil, he turned again to Ignacio, and asked him in a whisper whether cousins were forced to kiss, after an absence of only three years? "Certainly not," replied Ignacio. But Iñes came up, and pouting a little, gave him her hand spontaneously, and helped him moreover to raise it to his lips, saying, as he blushed at it, "You simpleton! you coward!" Antonio bore simpleton pretty well; coward amused him, and gave him spirit; he seized her hand afresh, and kept it within his, although she pushed the other against his breast; the little hand, with its five arches of pink polished nails half hidden in his waistcoat, the little hand sprouting forth at him, soft and pulpy as that downy bud which swells and bursts into the vine-leaf. Antonio never saw in her any other object than the betrothed of his brother, and never was with her so willingly as with him. Nor indeed did Iñes care much about Antonio, but wished he could be a little more attentive and polite, and sing in a chamber as willingly as in a chesnut-tree. After six weeks, Don Luis observed that Antonio was interrupting the studies of Ignacio, and neglecting his own. Accordingly he was sent back to Salamanca, where he continued five whole years without recall. At this time the French armies had invaded Spain: the old officer, Don Pablo Espinosa, who directed the studies of Antonio, wrote to his father that the gallant youth, now in his twentieth year, desired to be enrolled in the regiment of the province, next to himself, as a Volunteer and a private. In the fulness of joy, Don Luis announced these tidings to Ignacio and Iñes. They both turned pale, both threw themselves on the floor before him, entreating and imploring him to forbid it. Their supplications and their tears for many days were insufficient to mollify Don Luis. By this time, a large division of the French army had surrendered, and insurrection was universal. Don Pablo was constrained, by three urgent letters, of which the father's was however the least so, to leave his pupil at the university he himself took the field, and perished in the first battle. Antonio, disappointed in his hopes of distinction, swore to avenge his tutor's death, and his country's honour. His noble person, his extraordinary strength, his eloquent tongue, his unquestioned bravery, soon placed him at the head of many students, and he was always the first to advise and execute the most difficult and dangerous enterprises. Toward the north of Spain the enemy had rallied, and had won indeed the battle of Rio-Seco, but within a month were retreating in all directions. Antonio, bound by no other duties than those of a volunteer, acceded at last to the earnest and repeated wishes of his brother and cousin, that he would in this interval return to them. Don Luis said he would be a madman wherever he was, but might return if he liked it, both he and his guitar. On the first of August, 1808, the visitor passed again the threshold of his native home. Covered as he was with dust, he entered the apartment where the family were seated. The sun was setting, and the supper had just been taken off the table, excepting two small flasks of red and white wine, part of a water-melon, and some pomegranates. In fact, more was remaining than had been eaten or removed, not reckoning a radish of extraordinary length and tenuity, which the Señorita Iñes was twisting round her thumb. It was no waste; there was not any use for it; many things in the house were better to mend harness with. Moreover on the sideboard there were sundry yellow peaches, of such a size, weight, and hardness, that only a confident and rash invader would traverse the country in the season of their maturity, unless he had collected the most accurate information that powder was deficient in the arsenals. At the dusty apparition, at the beard and whiskers never seen before, at the broad and belted shoulder, at the loud spurred boot, at the long and hurried stride toward the party, Don Luis stared; Don Ignacio stared; Doña Iñes cast her eyes on the ground, and said, ""Tis he!" The brother, whether he heard her or not, repeated the words, "tis he!" and rushed into his arms. Don Luis himself rose slowly from his chair, and welcomed him. Iñes was the nearest to him, and seemed abashed. "My cousin!" said Antonio, bending down to her, "I have yet to remove in part the name of coward," and, lifting her hand from her apron, he kissed the extremities of her fingers. "Brother! one more embrace, and then for those promegra nates: I am thirsty to death. God be with you, my dear, kind, honoured father! you look upon me with more than usual, and much more than merited, affection." Don Luis did indeed regard him with much complacency. "I must empty those two flasks, my beloved father, to your health." So saying, he poured the contents of one into a capacious beaker, with about the same quantity of water, and swallowed it at a draught. "What lady have you engulfed with that enormous gasp?" asked Iñes, with timid shyness; "will she never rise up, do you think, in judg ment against you?" "Pray mix me the flask near you," said he, "in like manner as the last, and then perhaps I may answer you, my sweet cousin; but tell me, Iñes, whether I did not rasp your nails with my thirsty and hard lips?" "Yes, and with that horrid brake above," said she, pouring out the wine and water, and offering it. Don Luis all this time had kept his eyes constantly on his son, and began to prognosticate in him a valiant defender; then discovered, first in one feature, afterward in another, a resemblance to himself; and lastly, he was persuaded in his own mind, that he had been prejudiced and precipitate when he was younger. The spirit of hospitality was aroused by paternal love: he gave orders for a fowl to be killed instantaneously, even the hen on her nest rather than none, although the omelet might be thinner for it on the morrow. Such was the charm the gallant and gay Antonio breathed about the house. peculiarly pleased and gratified by the suavity of his father, not that he ever had doubted of his affection, but he had fancied that his own bois terous manners had rendered him less an object of solicitude. He had always been glad to see it be stowed on his brother, whose delicate health and sensitive nature so much required it. He was No house in Spain, where few were happy then. contained four happier inmates. Ignacio, it is true, became thinner daily, and ceased after a time to join in the morning walks of his brother and Iñes; but he was always of the party when, returning from the siesta, they took up their guitars, and tuned each other's. Were there ever two comely and sensitive young persons, possessing sweet voices, exercising them daily together, bending over the same book, expressing the same sentiment in its most pas sionate accents, were they ever long exempt from the gentle intrusion of one sweet stranger? Neither Iñes nor Antonio was aware of it: both would have smiled in the beginning, and both would have afterward been indignant at any such surmise. But revolutions in states effect no revolutions in nature. The French, who changed everything else, left the human heart as they found it. Ignacio feared, but said nothing. Antonio too, although much later, was awakened to the truth, and determined on departure. And now Ignacio was ashamed and grieved at his suspicions, and would have delayed his brother, who dissembled his observation of them; but the poor youth's health, always slender, had given way under them. For several days he had taken to his bed; fever had seized him, and had been subdued. But there is a rose which Death lays quietly on the cheek of the devoted, before the poppy sheds on it its tranquillising leaves: it had settled immoveably in the midst of Ignacio's smiles, smiles tranquilly despondent. Seldom did Antonio leave his bedside, but never had he yet possessed the courage to inquire the cause of those sighs and tears, which burst forth in every moment of silence, and then only. At length however he resolved on it, that he might assure him the more confidently of his recovery, having first requested Iñes that, whenever he was absent, she would supply his place. 66 "Can not we go together?" said she, disquieted. "No, señora!" answered he, with stern sadness, we can not. You owe this duty to the companion of your girlhood, to the bequeathed of your parents, to your betrothed!" At that word sudden paleness overspread her countenance; her lips, which never before had lost their rich colour, faded and quivered; no reply could pass them, had any been ready: even the sigh was drawn suddenly back: not one escaped. In all that was visible she was motionless. But now with strong impulse she pressed both palms against her bosom, and turned away. The suddenness and the sound struck terror into the heart of Antonio. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and looked into her face. Tears glittered on the folds of the long black veil; and they were not the tears of Iñes. But now she also shed them. Alas! from how many and from what distant sources do they flow! Iñes went; she sobbed at the door, but she went. No song that evening, no book, no romance of love, no narrative of war: the French were as forgotten as the Moors. Morning rose fresh and radiant: but the dim lavender on each side of the narrow pathway had all its dew upon it; the cistus was opening its daily flowers, with no finger to press down and attempt to smoothen the crumpled leaves; none to apply its viscous cup in playful malice against the trim ornament of a smiling lip. Nobody thought of looking for the large green lizard on the limestone by the twisted rosemary-bush, covered with as many bees as blossoms, and uprearing as many roots as branches above the prostrate wall. Nobody thought of asking "Did you ever know any creature who panted so quickly as that foolish lizard?.. I mean in battle." Nobody met the inquiry with, "Did you ever hear of any one who felt anything a little, a very little like it, at the cembalo?" Antonio, at this early hour, was scated on the edge of his brother's bed, asking him, with kind dissimulation, what reason he could possibly have to doubt Iñes' love and constancy. "At first," replied Ignacio, "she used to hold my hand, to look anxiously in my face, and to wipe away her tears that she might see it the more distinctly in this darkened chamber. Now she has forgotten to take my hand; she looks as often into my face, but not anxiously; not even inquiringly; she lets her tears rise and dry again; she never wipes them away, and seldom hides them. This at least is a change in her; perhaps no favourable one for me." Antonio thus answered him: "Ignacio, if we would rest at all, we must change our posture in grief as in bed. The first moments are not like the second, nor the second like the last. Be confident in her; be confident in me: within two hours you shall, I promise you, whether you will or not. Farewell, my beloved brother! You are weary; close but your eyes for sleep, and sleep shall come. I will not awaken you, even with glad tidings." Folding his arms, he left the chamber with a firm step. Within two hours he entered it again; but how? Hateful as monastic life had ever appeared to him, ridiculous as he daily in Salamanca had called its institutions, indifferent and incredulous as he lately had become to many articles of the faith, having been educated under the tuition of a soldier, so free in his opinions as once to have excited the notice and questionings of the Inquisition, he went resolutely forth at daybreak, and prevailed on the superior of a monastic order to admit him into it at once, as its sworn defender. He returned in the vestments of that order, and entered the bedchamber in silence. His brother had slept, and was yet sleeping. He gently undrew the curtain, and stood motionless. Ignacio at last moved his elbow, and sighed faintly; he then rested on it a little, and raised his cheek higher on the pillow; it had lost the gift of rest; its virtues were departed from it; there was no cool part left. He opened his eyes and looked toward Antonio; then closed them, then looked again. 66 'Ignacio!" said Antonio softly, "you see me; it is me you see, Ignacio!" The sick exhausted youth sighed again, and closing his hands, raised them up as if in prayer. This movement fully awakened him. He now opened his eyes in wonder on his brother, who pressed those raised hands within his, and kissed that brow which the fever, had shortly left. Ignacio sighed deeply, and sank back again. The first words he uttered afterward were these: "Oh Antonio! why could you not have waited? impetuous, impatient Antonio! I might have seen you both from Paradise; I might have blest you from thence; from thence I might indeed. O God! O Virgin! O Mary, pure and true! pardon my ingratitude! Should love ever bear that bitter fruit? Forbid it, O host of Heaven! forbid it! it must not be." "Brother! speak not so: it is accomplished," said Antonio; "and now can you doubt your bride?" Iñes at this moment rushed into the chamber: she knew the stately figure, she knew the lofty | the officers of the garrison made parties with the head, although tonsured; she screamed and ladies of the city to enjoy the vintage in its vici. fainted. Antonio drew her forth by the arm, nity. One morning a peasant boy employed by and, when she recovered her senses, thus addressed Antonio, ran breathless up to him on the moun. her: tain-side, saying, as soon as he could say it : "Cousin! my heart reproaches me for having loved you. If yours (how incomparably less guilty!) should haply feel some compunction, not indeed at what is past, but at what you see," and he extended his large mantle to his arm's length, "return from the unworthy to the worthy; from him who renounces the world to him whose world you are. Now, Iñes, now we can with unabashed front go together into his chamber." "I will tend him," said she, "day and night: I will follow him to the grave; I will enter it with him yes, and even that chamber, while he suffers in it, I will enter." She paused awhile, then continued: "Antonio! oh Antonio! you have never loved. They tell us, none can love twice. That is false; but this is true: we can never love twice the same object." Antonio stood mute with wonder at the speech of this innocent girl, retired alike from society and unbeguiled by books. Little had he considered how strong a light is sometimes thrown on the intellect, what volumes of thought are expanded and made clearly legible, by the first outflaming of the passions. And yet Antonio should have known it; for in the veins of Antonio one half was blood, the other half was fire. While, with eyes fixed on the ground, he stood yet before her, who perhaps was waiting for his reply, she added briefly : Leave me, sir." "Illustrious señor! the señora Iñes, and the other señoras, and an officer and a soldier, all French, are coming; and only a mile behind are many more." "I have watched them," replied Antonio, "and shall distinguish them presently." He led his horse close behind a high waggon, laden with long and narrow barrels of newly gathered grapes, standing upright in it, and then tied his bridle to the bar which kept them in their position. Only one horse could pass it at a time. behind; the officer was showing her the way, and threatening both vintagers and mules for their intractability. Antonio sprang forward, seized him by the collar, and threw him under them, crying to Iñes: Iñes was "Fly into the mountains with me: not a moment is to be lost. Pass me he is out of the way. Fly! fly! Distrust my sanctity, but trust my honour, O Iñes of Ignacio !" Iñes drew in her bridle, turned her face aside, and said irresolutely. "I can not.. Oh! I can not. I am.. I am.." She could not utter what she was: perhaps the sequel may in part reveal it. Scarcely had she spoken the last words, before she leapt down from her saddle, and hung with her whole weight on Antonio's arm, in which the drawn sword was uplifted over the enemy, and waiting only until his defence. He was young, as was discernible even through the dense forest of continuous hair, which covered all but nose and forehead. Roughly and with execrations did he thrust Iñes away from him, indignant at her struggles for his protection. Before the encounter (for which both were eager) could begin, the private had taken his post behind an ilex at the back of Antonio, and discharged his musket. Gratitude, shame, love perhaps too, hurried Iñes to his help. She fell on her kness to raise him. Gently, with open palm and quivering fingers, he pushed her arm away from him, and, turning with a painful effort quite round, pressed his brow against the wayside sward. The shepherd-dogs, in the evening of that sultry day, tried vainly to quench their thirst, as they often had done in other human blood, in the blood also of Antonio: it was hard, and they left it. The shepherds gave them all the bread they carried with them, and walked home silently. "Let me repair my fault as well as may be. he could rise upon his feet again, and stand upon You shall see me no more. Antonio did leave her. In a fortnight the gentle spirit of Ignacio had departed. The French armies had again defeated the Spanish, penetrated to Santander, laid waste all the country around, and demolished the convent in which Iñes had taken refuge. Some women in Spanish cities were heroines; in Spanish convents if any became so, the heroism was French. They who have visited Santander, will remember the pointed hill on the north-west of the city, looking far over the harbour, the coast, and the region of La Mancha. Even while the enemy was in possession of the place, a solitary horseman was often seen posted on this eminence, and many were the dead bodies of French soldiers found along the roads on every side under it. Doubtless, the horseman had strong and urgent reasons for occupying a position so exposed to danger. It was Antonio. He had heard that Iñes, after the desecration of the convent, had been carried back by the invaders into Santander. Early in October, THE DEATH OF HOFER. and his little daughter, and for the mother who had reared them up carefully and tenderly thus far through the perils of childhood; finally, when in a lower tone, but earnestly and emphatically, he besought pardon from the Fount of Mercy for her brother, his betrayer, many smote their breasts aloud; many, thinking that sorrow was shameful, lowered their heads and wept; many, knowing that it was dangerous, yet wept too. The people remained upon the spot an unusual time; and the French, fearing some commotion, pretended to have received an order from Buonaparte for the mitigation of the sentence, and publicly announced it. Among his many falsehoods, anyone of which would have excluded him for ever from the society of men of honour, this is perhaps the basest; as indeed of all his atrocities the death of Hofer, which he had ordered long before and appointed the time and circumstances, is, of all his actions, that which the brave and virtuous will reprobate the most severely. He was urged by no necessity, he was prompted by no policy: his impatience of courage in an enemy, his hatred of patriotism and integrity in all, of which he had no idea himself, and saw no image in those about him, outstripped his blind passion for fame, and left him nothing but power and celebrity. The name of Andreas Hofer will be honoured by posterity far above any of the present age, and together with the most glorious of the last, Wash I PASSED two entire months in Germany, and like the people. On my way I saw Waterloo, an ugly table for an ugly game. At Innspruck I entered the church in which Andreas Hofer is buried. He lies under a plain slab, on the left, near the door. I admired the magnificent tomb of bronze, in the centre, surrounded by heroes, real and imaginary. They did not fight, tens against thousands; they did not fight for wives and children, but for lands and plunder: there fore they are heroes! My admiration for these works of art was soon satisfied, which perhaps it would not have been in any other place. Snow, mixed with rain, was falling, and was blown by the wind upon the tomb of Hofer. I thought how often he had taken advantage of such weather for his attacks against the enemies of his country, and I seemed to hear his whistle in the wind. At the little village of Landro (I feel a whimsical satisfaction in the likeness of the name to mine) the innkeeper was the friend of this truly great man.. the greatest man that Europe has produced in our days, excepting his true compeer, Kosciusko. Andreas Hofer gave him the chain and crucifix he wore three days before his death. You may imagine this man's enthusiasm, who, because I had said that Hofer was greater than king or emperor, and had made him a present of small value, as the companion and friend of that harmless and irreproachable hero, took this precious relic from his neckington and Kosciusko. For it rests on the same and offered it to me. By the order of Buonaparte, the companions of Hofer, eighty in number, were chained, thumbscrewed, and taken out of prison in couples, to see him shot. He had about him one thousand florins, in paper currency, which he delivered to his confessor, requesting him to divide it impartially among his unfortunate countrymen. The confessor, an Italian who spoke German, kept it, and never gave relief from it to any of them, most of whom were suffering, not only from privation of wholesome air, to which, among other privations, they never had been accustomed, but also from scantiness of nourishment and clothing. Even in Mantua, where, as in the rest of Italy, sympathy is both weak and silent, the lowest of the people were indignant at the sight of so brave a defender of his country, led into the public square to expiate a crime unheard of for many centuries in their nation. When they saw him walk forth, with unaltered countenance and firm step before them; when, stopping on the ground which was about to receive his blood, they heard him with unfaltering voice commend his soul and his country to the Creator; and, as if still under his own roof (a custom with him after the evening prayer), implore a blessing for his boys VOL. II. foundation, and indeed on a higher basis. In virtue and wisdom their co-equal, he vanquished on several occasions a force greatly superior to his own in numbers and in discipline, by the courage and confidence he inspired, and by his brotherly care and anxiety for those who were fighting at his side. Differently, far differently, ought we to estimate the squanderers of human blood and the scorners of human tears. We also may boast of our great men in a cause as great; for without it they could not be so. We may look back upon our Blake; whom the prodigies of a Nelson do not eclipse, nor would he have wished (such was his generosity) to obscure it. Blake was among the founders of freedom; Nelson was the vanquisher of its destroyers; Washington was both; Kosciusko was neither; neither was Hofer. But the aim of all three was alike; and in the armoury of God are suspended the arms the two last of them bore ; suspended for success more signal and for vengeance more complete. I am writing this from Venice, which is among cities what Shakspeare is among men. He will give her immortality by his works, which neither her patron saint could do nor her surrounding sea. H H |