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

characters. They are both young, and have time enough

for amendment if they want it; let them go their ways, and

withdraw whithersoever it may best please them. Make no

opposition, I beseech you, to their safe egress; it is a favour

which you may consider as done to me, and my motive for asking it

is to acquit myself of my debt to them. If my heart was not too

soft for my profession, answered the alguazil, I should lodge

these pretty gentlemen in limbo, in defiance of all your

pleadings in their favour; but your eloquence and my

susceptibility have relaxed the stern demeanour of justice for

this evening. Let them, however, leave town on the spur of the

occasion: for if I come across them to-morrow, and there is any

faith in an alguazil, they shall see such sport as will be no

sport to them.

 

When it was signified to Moralez and me, culprits as we were,

that we were to be let off scot free, we polished up the brass

upon our foreheads a little. It was time now to bounce and

swagger, and to maintain that we were men of undeniable

respectability; but the alguazil looked askew at us, and muttered

that least said was soonest mended. I do not know how, but those

gentry have a strange knack of curbing our genius; they are

complete lords of the ascendant. Florence and her dowry therefore

were lost to Pedro de la Membrilla by a turn of the dice, and we

may conclude that he was received as the son-in-law of Jerome de

Moyadas. I took to my heels with my companion. We blundered on

the road to Truxillo, with the consolation at our hearts of

having at least pocketed a hundred pistoles by our frolic. An

hour before night-fall we passed through a little village with

the intention of putting up for the evening at the next stage. An

inn of very tolerable appearance for the place attracted our

notice. The landlord and landlady were sitting at the door, on a

long bench such as usually graces a pothouse porch. Our host, a

tall man, withered, and with one foot in the grave, was tinkling

on a cracked guitar to the unbounded emolument of his wife, whose

faculties seemed to hang in rapture on the performance.

Gentlemen, cried out the intrepid tavern-keeper, when he found

that we were not upon the halt, you will do well to stop here;

you may fare worse further off. There is a devil of a three

leagues to the nearest village, and you will find nothing to make

you amends for what you leave behind; you may assure yourselves

of that. Take a word of advice, know when you are well used; I

will treat you with the fat of the land, and charge you at the

lowest rate. There was no resisting such a plea. We came up to

our courteous entertainers, paid them the compliments of course,

and sitting down by their side, the conversation was supported by

all four on the indifferent topics of the day. Our host announced

himself as an officer of the Holy Brotherhood, and his rib was a

fat laughing squab of a woman, withoutward good-nature, but with

an eye to make the most of her commodities.

 

Our discourse was broken in upon by the arrival of from twelve to

fifteen riders, some mounted on mules, others on horseback,

followed by about thirty sumpter-mules laden with packages. Ah!

what a princely retinue! exclaimed the landlord at the sight of

so much company: where can I put them all? In an instant the

village was crammed full of men and beasts. As luck would have

it, there was near the inn an immense barn, where the sumpter

mules and their packages were secured; the saddle-mules and

horses were taken care of in other places. As for their masters,

they thought less about bespeaking beds than about calling for

the bill of fare, and ordering a good supper. The host and

hostess, with a servant girl whom they kept, were all upon the

alert to make things agreeable. They laid a heavy hand upon all

the fowls in the poultry-yard. These precious roasts, with some

undisguised rabbits, cats in the masquerade of a fricassee, and a

deluging tureen of soup, stinking of cabbage and greasy with

mutton fat, were enough to have given a sickener to the

inveterate stomachs of a regiment.

 

As for Moralez and myself, we cast a scrutinizing eye on these

troopers, nor were they behindhand in passing their secret

judgments upon us. At last we came together in conversation, and

it was proposed on our part, if they had no objection, that we

should all sup together. They assured us that they should be

extremely happy in our company. Here we are, then, all seated

round the table. There was one among them who seemed to take the

lead; and for whom the rest, though in the main they were on the

most intimate terms with him, thought it necessary on some

occasions to testify their deference. In case of a dispute, this

high gentleman assumed the umpire, he talked in a tone above the

common pitch, going so far sometimes as to contradict in no very

courtly phrase the sentiments of others, who, far from giving him

back his own, were ready to swear to his assertions and crouch

under his rebuke. By accident the discourse turned on Andalusia.

Moralez happening to launch out into the praise of Seville, the

man about whom I have been talking said to him — My good fellow-traveller, you are ringing the chimes on the city which gave

birth to me; at least I am a native of the neighbourhood, since

the little town of Mayrena is answerable for my appearance in the

world. I have the same story to tell you, answered my companion.

I am also of Mayrena; and it is scarcely possible but that our

families should be acquainted. Whose son are you? An honest

notary’s, replied the stranger, by name Martin Moralez. As fate

will have it, exclaimed my comrade with emotion, the adventure is

very remarkable! You are then my eldest brother, Manuel Moralez?

Exactly so, said the other, and if my senses do not deceive me,

you your very self are my little brother Lewis, whom I left in

the cradle when I turned my back upon my father’s house? You are

right in your conjectures, answered my honest colleague. At this

discovery they both got up from table, and almost hugged the

breath out of each other’s bodies. At last Signor Manuel said to

the company — Gentlemen, this circumstance is altogether

marvellous. By mere chance, I have met with a brother and have

been challenged by him, whom I have not seen for more than twenty

years: allow me to introduce him. At once all the travellers, who

had risen from their seats out of curiosity and good manners,

paid their compliments to the younger Moralez, and made him run

the gauntlet through their salutations. When these were over, the

party returned to the table, nor did they think any more of an

adjournment. Bed-time never entered. into their heads. The two

brothers sat next to one another, and talked in a whisper about

their family affairs; the other guests plied the bottle, and made

merry in a louder key.

 

Lewis had a long conference with Manuel; and afterwards, taking

me aside, said to me: All these troopers belong to the household

of the Count de Montanos, whom the king has very lately appointed

to the vice-regal government of Majorca. They are convoying the

equipage of the viceroy to Alicant, where they are to embark. My

brother, who has risen to be steward to that noble man, proposes

to take me along with him; and on the difficulty I started about

leaving you, he told me that if you would be of the party, he

would procure you a good berth. My dear friend, pursued he, I

advise you not to stand out against this proposal. Let us take

flight together for the island of Majorca. If we find our

quarters pleasant, we will fix there; and if they are otherwise,

we have nothing to do but to return into Spain.

 

I accepted the proposal with the best grace possible. What a

reinforcement, in the person of young Moralez and myself, to the

household of the count! We took our departure in a body from the

inn, before daybreak. We got to the city of Alicant by long

stages, and there I bought a guitar, and arranged my dress in a

manner suited to my new destination, before we embarked. Nothing

ran in my head but the island of Majorca; and Lewis Moralez was a

new man as well as myself. It should seem as though we had bid

farewell to the rogueries of this wicked world. Yet, not to play

the liar in the ear of so rigorous a confessor as my own

conscience, we had a mind not to pass for villains incarnate, now

that we had got into company that had some pretensions to

decency: and that was the sum total of our honesty. The natural

bent of our genius remained much the same; we were still men of

business, but just now keeping a vacation. In short, we went on

board gallantly and gaily in this lucid interval of innocence,

and had no idea but of landing at Majorca under the especial care

of Neptune and AEolus. Hardly, however, had we cleared the gulf

of Alicant, when a sudden and violent storm arose, enough to have

frightened better men. Now is my opportunity, or never, to speak

of moving accidents by flood; to set the atmosphere on fire, and

give a louder explosion to the thunder-cloud; to compare the

whistling of the winds to the factions of a populace, and the

rolling of the waves to the shock of conflicting hosts; with

other such old-fashioned phraseologies as have been heirlooms of

Parnassus from time immemorial. But it is useless to be poetical

without invention. Suffice it therefore to say, in slang

metaphor, that the storm was a devil of a storm, and obliged us

to stand in for the point of Cabrera. This is a desert island,

with a small fort, at that time garrisoned by an officer and five

or six soldiers. Our reception was hospitable and cordial.

 

As it was necessary for us to stay there some days, for the

purpose of refitting our sails and rigging, we devised various

kinds of amusements to keep off the foul fiend, melancholy. Every

one did as seemed good in his own eyes: some played at cards,

others diverted themselves in other ways; but as for me, I went

about exploring the island, with such of our gentry as had either

a curiosity or a taste for the picturesque. We were frequently

obliged to clamber from rock to rock; for the face of the country

is rugged, and the soil scanty, presenting a scene difficult of

access, but interesting from its wildness. One day, while we were

speculating on these dry and barren prospects, and extracting a

moral from the vagaries of nature, who can swell into the

fruitful mother and the copious nurse, or shrink into the lean

and loathsome skeleton as she pleases, our sense was all at once

regaled with a most delicious fragrance. We turned as with a

common impulse towards the east, whence the scented gale seemed

to come. To our utter astonishment, we discovered among the rocks

a green plat of considerable dimensions, gay with honeysuckles

more luxuriant and more odorous than even those which thrive so

greatly in the climate of Andalusia. We were not sorry to

approach nearer these delicious shrubs, which were wasting their

sweetness in