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

as you please. Oh, sir! rejoined

Moralez, as if he were shocked, my master will never take them.

You do not know him. Heaven and earth! he is a man of the nicest

scruples in money matters. Not one of your shabby fellows, always

spunging upon his friends, and ready to take up money wherever he

can get it! Running in debt is ratsbane to him. If he is to beg

his bread or go into an hospital, why there is an end of it! but

as for borrowing, he will never be reduced to that. So much the

better! said the good burgess: I value him the more for his

independence. Running in debt is a mean thing; it ought to be

ratsbane to him and everybody else. Your people of quality, to be

sure, may plead prescription in their favour; there is a sort of

privileged swindling, not incompatible with high honour, in high

life. If tradesmen were to be paid, they would be too nearly on a

level with their employers. But as your master has such upright

principles, heaven forbid they should be violated in this house!

Since any offer of pecuniary assistance would hurt his feelings,

we must say no more about it. As the point seemed to be settled,

the purse was for steering its course back again into the pocket;

but my provident partner laid hold of Signor de Moyadas by the

arm, and delayed the convoy. Stay, sir, said he, whatever

aversion my master may have to borrowing on a general principle,

and considered as borrowing, yet there is a light in which, with

good management, he may be brought to look kindly on your hundred

pistoles. In fact, it is only in a mercantile point of view, as

an affair of debtor and creditor between strangers, that he holds

this formal doctrine; but he is free and easy enough where he is

on a family footing. Why, there is his own father! It is only ask

and have; and he does ask and have accordingly. Now you are going

to be a second father to him, and are fairly entitled to be put

on the same confidential footing. He is a young man of nice

discrimination, and will doubtless think you entitled to the

compliment.

 

By thus shifting his ground, Moralez got possession of the old

gentleman’s purse. As for the girl and myself, we were engaged in

a little agreeable flirting; but were soon joined by our honoured

parent, who interrupted our t�te-�-t�te. He told Florence how

much he was obliged to me, and expressed his gratitude to myself,

in terms which left no doubt of our being a very happy family. I

made the most of so favourable a disposition, by telling the good

man, that if he would bestow on me an acknowledgment the nearest

to my heart, he must hasten my marriage with his daughter. My

eagerness was not taken amiss. He assured me, that in three days

at latest I should be a happy bridegroom, and that instead of six

thousands ducats, the fortune he had promised to give my wife, he

would make it up ten, as a substantial proof how deeply he felt

himself indebted to me for the service I had rendered him.

 

Here we were, therefore, quite at home with our good friend

Jerome de Moyadas, sumptuously entertained, and catching every

now and then a vista vision of ten thousand ducats, with which we

proposed to march off abruptly from Merida. Our transports,

however, were not without their alloy. It was by no means

improbable that within three days the bon� fide son of Juan Velez

de la Membrilla might come and interrupt our sport. This fear had

for its foundation more than the weakness of our nerves. On the

very next morning, a sort of clodpole, with a portmanteau across

his shoulders, knocked at the door of Florence’s father. I was

not at home at the time, but my colleague had to bear the brunt

of it. Sir, said the rustic to our sagacious friend, I belong to

the young gentleman at Calatrava who is to be your son-in-law —

to Signor de la Membrilla. We have both just come off our

journey: he will be here in an instant, and sent me forward to

prepare you for his arrival. Hardly had these unaccountable

tidings been announced, when the master appeared in person; which

stretched the old fellow’s blinkers into a stare, and put Moralez

a little to the blush.

 

Young Pedro was what we call a tall fellow of his inches. He

began at once paying his compliments to the master of the house;

but the good man did not give him time to finish his speech; and

turning towards my partner in iniquity, asked what was the

meaning of all this. Hereupon Moralez, whose power of face was

not to be exceeded by any human impudence, boldly asserted our

identity, and said to the old gentleman — Sir, these two men

here before you belong to the gang which pillaged us on the

highway. I have a perfect recollection of their features; and in

particular could swear to him who has the effrontery to call

himself the son of Signor Juan Velez de la Membrilla. The old

citizen gulped down the lies of Moralez like nectar, and told the

intruders, on the supposition of their being the impostors —

Gentlemen, you are come the day after the fair; the trick was a

very good one, but it will not pass; the enemy has taken the

ground before you. Pedro de la Membrilla has been under this roof

since yesterday. Have all your wits about you, answered the young

man from Calatrava; you are nursing a viper in your bosom. Be

assured that Juan Velez de la Membrilla has neither chick nor

child but myself. And what relation is the hangman to you?

replied the old dupe: you are better known than liked in this

house. Can you look this young man in the face? or can you deny

that you robbed his master? If I were anywhere but under your

roof, rejoined Pedro in a rage, I would punish the insolence of

this scoundrel who fancies to pass me off for a highwayman. He is

indebted for his safety to your presence, which puts a curb upon

my choler. Good sir, pursued he, you are grossly imposed on. I am

the favoured youth to whom your brother Austin has promised your

daughter. Is it your pleasure for me to produce the whole

correspondence with my father on the subject of the impending

match? Will you be satisfied with Florence’s picture sent me by

him as a present a little while before his death?

 

No, put in the old burgess crustily; the picture will work just

as strongly on my conviction as the letters. I am perfectly aware

by what chance they all fell into your hands; and if you will

take a stupid fellow’s advice, Merida will soon be rid of such

rubbish. A quick march may save you a trouncing. This is beyond

all bearing, screamed out the young royster with an overwhelming

vehemence. My name shall never be stolen from me, and assumed by

a common cheat with impunity; neither shall my person be

confounded with that of a freebooter. There are those in this

town who can identify me: they are forth coming, and shall expose

the fallacy by which you are prejudiced against me. With this

assurance he withdrew, attended by his servant, and Moralez kept

possession of the field. The adventure had even the effect of

determining Jerome de Moyadas to fix the wedding for the very

time being. Accordingly he went his way, for the purpose of

giving the necessary orders for the celebration.

 

Though my colleague in knavery was well enough pleased to see

Florence’s father in a humour so pat for our purposes, he was not

without certain scruples of conscience about our safety. It was

to be feared, lest the probable proceedings of Pedro might be

followed up by awkward consequences; so that he waited

impatiently for my arrival, to make me acquainted with what had

occur red. I found him over head and ears in a brown study. What

is the matter, my friend? said I, seemingly there is something

upon your mind. Indeed there is; and something that will be

minded, answered he. At the same time he let me into the affair.

Now you may judge, added he after a pause, whether we have not

some food for reflection. It is your ill star, rash contriver,

which has thrown us into this perplexity. The idea, it must he

confessed, was full of fire and ingenuity; had it answered in the

application, your renown would have been emblazoned in the

chronicles of our fraternity; but according to present

appearances, the run of luck is against us, and my counsels

incline to a prudent avoidance of all explanations, by quietly

sneaking off with the market-penny we have made of the silly old

fellow’s credulity.

 

Master Moralez, replied I to this desponding speech, you give way

to difficulties with more haste than good speed. Such

pusillanimity does but little honour to Don Matthias de Cordel,

and the other gallant blades with whom you were affiliated at

Toledo. After serving a campaign under such experienced generals,

it is not soldierly to shrink from the perils of the field. For

my part, I am resolved to fight the battles of these heroes over

again, or, in more vulgar phrase, to prove myself a chip from the

old blocks. The precipice which makes your head turn giddy only

stiffens my sinews to surmount the toils of the way, and push

forward to the end of our career. If you arrive at your journey’s

end in a whole skin, said my companion, I will myself be your

biographer, and set your fame far above all the parallels of

Plutarch.

 

Just as Moralez was finishing this learned allusion, Jerome de

Moyadas came in. You shall be my son-in-law this very evening,

said he. Your servant must have given you an account of what has

just passed. What say you to the impudence of the scoundrel who

wanted to make me believe that he was the son of my brother’s

correspondent? Honoured sir, answered I, with a melancholy air,

and in a tone of voice the most insinuating that ever cajoled the

easy faith of a dotard, I feel within me that it is not in my

nature to carry on an imposition without betraying it in my

countenance. It now becomes necessary to make you a sincere

confession. I am not the son of Juan Velez de la Membrilla. What

is it you tell me? interrupted the old man, out of breath with

surprise, and out of his wits with apprehension. So then! you are

not the young man to whom my brother… . . For pity’s sake,

sir, interrupted I in my turn, condescend to give me a hearing

patiently to the end of my story. For these eight days have I

doted to distraction on your daughter; and this dotage, this

distraction, has riveted me to Merida. Yesterday, after having

rescued you from your danger, I was making up my mind to ask her

of you in marriage; but you gave a check to my passion and put a

tie upon my tongue, by the intelligence that she was destined for

another. You told me that your brother, on his death-bed,

enjoined you to give her to Pedro de la Membrilla; that your word

was pledged, and that you were the sworn vassal and bondman of

your veracity. These circumstances, it must be owned, were

overwhelming in the extreme; and my romantic passion, at the last

gasp of its despair, gained breath by the stratagem with