The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, Alain René le Sage [most read books .txt] 📗

his discourse to my young

companion: you behold in me a man, like yourself; who has been a

broad mark for the wantonness of fortune to take aim at. Word is

sent me from Cuen�a, a town at the distance of a league hence,

that some backbiter has been blackening my fair fame in the

esteem of justice; who is coming with her hue and cry to disturb

the repose of these rural scenes, and to lay her paw upon my

person. But an old fox is too cunning to be caught in a trap.

This is not the first time that I have cut and run before the

bloodhounds of the law. But, thanks to myself for having my wits

about me, I have always ended the chase in a whole skin, and held

myself in readiness for another. It is now time to assume another

form; for, whether you like me best in my old skin or my new, I

cast my hermit’s decrepit slough, to bask in the sunshine of

youth and vigour.

 

To suit the action to the word, he threw off the incumbrance of

his ecclesiastical petticoat, and stood forth to view in a

doublet of black serge with slashed sleeves. Then off went his

cap, and snap went a string, which supported the hoary honours of

a beard, and our anchorite was at once transformed to a brawny

ruffian of eight-and-twenty or thirty. Brother Anthony, following

a good example, discarded the outward show of religion, treated

his fiery beard as the snowy one had been handled just before,

and pulled out of an old worm-eaten trunk a sorry rag of a

cassock, with which he invested his person. But what words can

express my surprise, when Signor Don Raphael presented himself to

my view, like a phoenix from the ashes of the old bead-counter!

To complete the trick of the pantomime, brother Anthony was

turned into my faithful vassal and trusty squire, Ambrose de

Lamela. Here are miracles! exclaimed I in a quandary; as far as I

can perceive, we are all hail fellow well met! You never were

more lucky in your life, Signor Gil Blas, said Don Raphael, with

a brazen-faced good humour: you have fallen among old friends

when you least expected it. It must be owned you have a crow to

pluck with us; but let the past be buried in oblivion, and thank

heaven, here we are together again. Ambrose and I will serve

under your banner; and let me tell you, you will have subalterns

of no contemptible prowess. You may object to our morals; but

they are better in the main than many a hypocrite’s pretensions.

We never assassinate, and rarely maltreat: and that in pure self-defence. The only liberty we take with society is to live at free

quarters: and though robbery may be considered as containing some

little spice of injustice, the necessity we labour under of

committing it restores its equilibrium to the scale. Even join

your fortune with ours: you will lead a life of hazard, but of

variety. Our predatory peregrinations have every pastoral beauty

except innocence, and the want of that is more than counterpoised

by subtlety and stratagem. Not but, with all our forecast, a

certain mechanical concatenation of second causes sometimes

frustrates our best-concerted projects, and drags our philosophy

through the mire. But a ducking now and then only makes us swim

the better. The seasons must all be taken in their turns; the

blanks as well as the prizes must be drawn in the cheating

lottery of life.

 

Courteous stranger, pursued the pretended hermit, speaking to Don

Alphonso, we extend the proposal of partnership to you, and it

may be a question whether you will better yourself by rejecting

it, in the lamentable condition of your affairs; for, to say

nothing of the chance-medley for which you are at hide and seek,

your fortune is probably a little out at elbows. Most lamentably

so, said Don Alphonso; and hence, since the truth must out, are

my forebodings more dark than even my present evils. That is the

very thing! replied Don Raphael. You were sent by our better

genius to join the party. You will find no such good berth in the

honest part of the world. Your wants will all be supplied, and

you may laugh at the vigilance of your pursuers. There is not a

corner in all Spain which we have not ferreted out; those who are

always on the scamper see a great deal of the country. We are

perfect connoisseurs in landscape, and affect Salvator Rosa’s

rugged scenery. There we graze in peace and freedom, secure from

the brutality of justice. Don Alphonso expressed himself very

much obliged to them for their kind invitation; and finding

neither money in his purse, nor contrivance to procure it in his

pericranium, made up his mind at once not to stand upon punctilio

with morality. I too was led into a looser course than agreed

with my rigid principles, by a growing friendship for this young

man, whom I could not find in my heart to abandon in so perilous

an enterprise.

 

We all four agreed to set off in a body, and never to part

company. The question was put whether we should sound a retreat

on the instant, or first give a peremptory summons to a flagon of

excellent wine, which brother Anthony had invested by regular

approaches at Cuen�a the day before; but Raphael, a more

experienced general than any of us, represented that the first

thing to be done was to render our own camp impregnable, for

which purpose he proposed that we should march all night, to gain

a very thick wood between Villardesa and Almodabar, where we

should halt, as in a friendly country, and recruit after the

fatigues of the campaign. These general orders were approved of

in council. Our lay hermits then went about packing up their

baggage and provisions, which were swung in two bundles across

the back of Don Alphonso’s horse. We were not long in our

preparations, after which we sheered off from the hermitage,

leaving a rich booty to legal rapine in the saintly paraphernalia

of the two hermits; including a white beard and a red one, two

rickety bedsteads, a table without a leg, a chest without a

bottom, two chairs without any seats, and an unmutilated image of

St Pacomo.

 

Our march was continued the whole night, and we began to chafe

and feel other inconveniences, when at daybreak we hailed the

wood where our toils were to end. Sailors after a long voyage

work the ship with double alacrity at sight of their native land.

So it was with us, we pushed forward and got to our journey’s end

by sunrise. Dashing into the thickest of the wood, we pitched

upon a retired and pleasant spot, where the turf was circled in

by tall and branching oaks, whose gigantic limbs, interwoven over

our heads, formed a natural vault, not to be penetrated even by

noon-day heat. We took the bridle off the horse to let him feed

after he was unloaded. Then down we sat, pulling out of brother

Anthony’s wallet some large pieces of bread and good substantial

slices of roast meat, at which we began pegging with all possible

pertinacity. Nevertheless, let our appetites be as obstinate as

they might, we every now and then suspended the fray to spar a

little with the flagon, which returned our blows till it made us

reel again.

 

About the end of the conflict, Don Raphael said to Don Alphonso -

- My brave comrade, after the confidence you have reposed in me,

it is but fair that in my turn I should recount the history of my

life to you with the same sincerity. You will do me a great

favour, answered the young man; and an equal one to me, chimed in

I. My curiosity is all alive to know your adventures, for

doubtless they must afford much matter of useful speculation. You

may rest assured of that, replied Don Raphael; and I mean to

leave behind me a history of my own times. The composition shall

be the amusement of my old age, for I am as yet in the prime of

life, and mean to furnish in propri� person� many new hints for

my commonplace-book. But we are all weary, let us recruit with

some hours of sleep. While we three lie down, Ambrose shall keep

watch for fear of a surprise, and shall then take a nap in his

turn. For though, to all appearance, we are here in perfect

safety, it is always good to keep a sentry at the out-posts.

After this precaution he stretched himself along upon the grass.

Don Alphonso did the same. I followed their example, and Lamela

performed the office of a scout.

 

Don Alphonso, so far from getting any rest, was incessantly

brooding over his misfortunes, and I could not get a wink of

sleep. As for Don Raphael, he snored most sonorously. But he

awoke in little more than an hour, when, finding us in a

listening mood, he said to Lamela — My friend Ambrose, you may

now yield to the gentle influence of Morpheus. No, no, answered

Lamela, my sleepy fit is over; and though I know all the passages

of your life by rote, they are so instructive to the

practitioners of our art and mystery, that I do not care how

often I hear the tale over again. Without further preface, Don

Raphael began the narrative of his adventures in these terms.

 

BOOK THE FIFTH.

 

CH. I. — History of Don Raphael.

 

I MADE my entrance on the stage of life at Madrid, where my

mother was an actress, famous for dramatic, and infamous for her

intriguing talents. Her name was Lucinda. As for my father, every

man must have one; but my arithmetic is too scanty to determine

the number of mine. It might indeed be a matter of history, that

such or such a man of fashion was dangling after my mother at the

epoch of my arrival in this system; but then, that mere fact

would by no means warrant a deduction that any individual gallant

of the mother must therefore be the father of the child. A lady,

so eminent as she was in so notorious and wholesale a profession,

must have many strings to her bow; where her blandishments are

most publicly lavished, her favours are most sparingly bestowed:

there is a show article or two for public exhibition, but her

everyday wares are cheap, and hackneyed to the meanest purchaser.

 

There is nothing like taking scandal by the beard, and treating

the opinion of the world with heroic indifference. Lucinda,

instead of cooping me up in a garret at home, made no scruple

about owning her little bastard, but took me in her hand to the

theatre with a modest assurance, regardless how the tongue of

rumour might babble at her expense, or how the laugh of malice

might peal at my unlucky appearance. In short, I was her pet, and

came in for the caresses of all the men who frequented the house.

One would have sworn that nature pleaded in my favour, and

inspired each of them with a father’s pride in the brat they had

clubbed for. The twelve first years of my life were suffered to

waste away in all kinds of frivolous amusements. Scarcely did

they teach me to read and write. Still less was it thought of any

consequence to initiate me in the principles of my religion. To

dance, to sing, to play on the guitar, was the sum total of my

early attainments. With these gifts and graces for my only

acquisitions, the Marquis of Leganez asked for me to be