Part 2 (1/2)
”But why?”
”Because, Antonia, he is suspected. There is an American called Houston.
Don Luis met him in Nacogdoches. He has given his soul to him, I think.
He would have fought Morello about him, if the captain could have drawn his sword in such a quarrel. I should not have known about the affair had not Senora Valdez told me. Your father says nothing against the Americans.”
”Perhaps, then, he knows nothing against them.”
”You will excuse me, Antonia; not only the living but the dead must have heard of their wickedness. They are a nation of ingrates. Ingrates are cowards. It was these words Captain Morello said, when Don Luis drew his sword, made a circle with its point and stood it upright in the centre.
It was a challenge to the whole garrigon, and about this fellow Houston, whom he calls his friend! Holy Virgin preserve us from such Mexicans!”
”It is easier to talk than to fight. Morello's tongue is sharper than his sword.”
”Captain Morello was placing his sword beside that of Don Luis, when the Commandant interfered. He would not permit his officers to fight in such a quarrel. 'Santo Dios!' he said, 'you shall all have your opportunity very soon, gentlemen.' Just reflect upon the folly of a boy like Don Luis, challenging a soldier like Morello!”
”He was in no danger, mother,” said Antonia scornfully. ”Morello is a bully, who wears the pavement out with his spurs and sabre. His weapons are for show. Americans, at least, wear their arms for use, and not for ornament.”
”Listen, Antonia! I will not have them spoken of. They are Jews--or at least infidels, all of them!--the devil himself is their father--the bishop, when he was here last confirmation, told me so.”
”Mother!”
”At least they are unbaptized Christians, Antonia. If you are not baptized, the devil sends you to do his work. As for Don Luis, he is a very Judas! Ah, Maria Santissima! how I do pity his good mother!”
”Poor Don Luis!” said Isabel plaintively.
”He is so handsome, and he sings like a very angel. And he loves my father; he wanted to be a doctor, so that he could always be with him.
I dare say this man called Houston is no better than a Jew, and perhaps very ugly beside. Let us talk no more about him and the Americans. I am weary of them; as Tia Rach.e.l.la says, 'they have their spoon in every one's mess.'”
And Antonia, whose heart was burning, only stooped down and closed her sister's pretty mouth with a kiss. Her tongue was impatient to speak for the father, and grandmother, and the friends, so dear to her; but she possessed great discretion, and also a large share of that rarest of all womanly graces, the power under provocation, of ”putting on Patience the n.o.ble.”
CHAPTER III. BUILDERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
”Methinks I see in my mind a n.o.ble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eye in the full mid-day beam.”
--MILTON.
”And from these grounds, concluding as we doe, Warres causes diuerse, so by consequence Diuerse we must conclude their natures too: For war proceeding from Omnipotence, No doubt is holy, wise, and without error; The sword, of justice and of sin, the terror.”
--LORD BROOKE.
It is the fas.h.i.+on now to live for the present but the men of fifty years ago, the men who builded the nation, they reverenced the past, and therefore they could work for the future. As Robert Worth rode through the streets of San Antonio that afternoon, he was thinking, not of his own life, but of his children's and of the generations which should come after them.
The city was flooded with suns.h.i.+ne, and crowded with a pack-train going to Sonora; the animals restlessly protesting against the heat and flies; their Mexican drivers in the pulqueria, spending their last peso with their compadres, or with the escort of soldiers which was to accompany them--a little squad of small, lithe men, with round, yellow, beardless faces, bearing in a singular degree the stamp of being native to the soil. Their lieutenant, a gorgeously clad officer with a very distinguished air, was coming slowly down the street to join them. He bowed, and smiled pleasantly to the doctor as he pa.s.sed him, and then in a few moments the word of command and the shouting of men and the clatter of hoofs invaded the enchanted atmosphere like an insult.
But the tumult scarcely jarred with the thoughts of his mind. They had been altogether of war and rumors of war. Every hour that subtile consciousness of coming events, which makes whole communities at times prescient, was becoming stronger. ”If the powers of the air have anything to do with the destinies of men,” he muttered, ”there must be unseen battalions around me. The air I am breathing is charged with the feeling of battle.”
After leaving the city there were only a few Mexican huts on the shady road leading to his own house. All within them were asleep, even the fighting c.o.c.ks tied outside were dozing on their perches. He was unusually weary, he had been riding since dawn, and his heart had not been in sympathy with his body, it had said no good cheer to it, whispered no word of courage or promise.
All at once his physical endurance seemed exhausted, and he saw the white wall and arched gateway of his garden and the turrets of his home with an inexpressible relief. But it was the hour of siesta, and he was always careful not to let the requirements of his profession disturb his household. So he rode quietly to the rear, where he found a peon nodding within the stable door. He opened his eyes unnaturally wide, and rose to serve his master.