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EL CONDE FERNAN GONZALEZ

Conde Fernan Gonzalez was a bold lance. Restless as brave; when not engaged in chasing the Moors, he kept his appetite for noble exploits whetted with the dangers of the chase.

One day, the furious course of a wild boar, and his own impetuosity in the pursuit, led him far away from his companions, and the hills and leafy oaks of Lara soon hid him from sight. On went the boar, and on went the Conde after him, till, in the thickest of the forest, the brute took refuge in a hermit’s cell long deserted and forgotten, and overgrown with ivy. The trees grew so close round the spot, that the horse could not go through for the low interlacing branches, so Gonzalez dismounted, taking his sword in his hand, and wrapping his cloak round his arm by way of shield⁸⁴. Cutting his way through to the low doorway, he found the boar lying panting at the foot of a little altar which was there.

The good Count would not hurt the animal under such circumstances, so he put up his sword into the sheath, and, before he turned to go, knelt to offer up a prayer upon the sacred spot.

Suddenly, as he knelt, there appeared before him a vision of the former inhabitant of the place. He was a venerable man, dressed in white, with bald head and a long grey beard, his feet were bare and he leant upon a crook.

“Good Conde Fernan Gonzales,” he said, “Behold, the King Almanzor⁸⁵ is even now preparing to come out to meet thee. Now, go out and give him battle, and be of good heart; for though thou shalt be badly wounded, and the infidels shall spill much of thy blood, yet shall a hundred of them fall for one of thine. God guard thee, Conde, and that which thou shalt do this day shall resound throughout all Spain. But this sign must come to pass first; and when it is fulfilled do not lose courage, for all that are with thee shall be stricken with fear and ready to flee away; but only stand thou fast, and the day shall be given thee. After that shall come days of peace; and a good wife shall be given thee, who shall be called Sancha. And now return to Lara, for thy people are seeking thee with fear and anxiety; and when these things come to pass, remember the hermit who foretold them.”

Then, without answering him a word, the good Count rose from his knees, and, mounting his horse, rode back to Lara. There he found his people, all running hither and thither in search of him. But he, without telling them what had befallen, ranged them in order of battle, and went out to meet King Almanzor.

Thus they went their way, and sure enough they were none too soon; for even as the hermit had said, King Almanzor was on his way to meet him.

When the followers of Gonzalez saw the host that was marching towards them, they were stricken with fear, for they were but a handful. But Gonzalez, seeing their disorder, turned and said to them, “It is a shame, noble Castilian knights, to flee at sight of an infidel host; for who is there that can stand against our banner and our arms? At them! my friends, at them! Let there be not one of us wanting!”

With that he set spurs to his charger, and rode into the midst of the Moors; and he did so valiantly, that all his followers dashed into them with like impetuosity, and none could stand before them; and for one of them that was slain, a hundred of the infidels lay stretched upon the ground. But the good Conde was wounded, and his blood was poured out upon the ground; yet they pushed their way into the camp, where they found much precious spoil.

And when they divided the treasure, Gonzalez remembered the hermit, and set aside a portion of his share; and with it he built the church of San Pedro de Arlanza.

THE FIRST TUNNY FISHING

There was once a fisherman named Pepe; he was very good, and very poor. He never went out to fish without first kneeling down and asking a blessing on his labours; he never lost his time in drinking-bouts; he brought his children up to be as honest and industrious as himself; yet nothing prospered with him. He toiled the livelong day, and often far into the night, yet he could scarcely earn enough to keep his family above want. If ever there was a storm, it was sure to be Pepe’s boat that would be swamped. And if ever there was a rich shoal of fish came within his ordinary fishing-ground, it would be sure to happen when he was ill, or his gear was out of order, or when, for some reason, he could not avail himself of the blessing.

What was most remarkable was, that under all this misfortune Pepe was always cheerful. As the beautiful Spanish proverb says, he was like the sandal-wood, perfuming the axe which strikes it low⁸⁶. He not only never complained, and continued at his toil steadily day by day, but he was always praising God for what He had given him – his wife, his children, his humble hut, his strong arms. “Put your trust in God, and your feet diligently along the road⁸⁷;” so he used to say, and so he used to act.

One day he had gone out as usual, and, as often happened, had taken nothing. It was no use going back with an empty bag; he persevered another day, and another, though he had nothing but a loaf to live on. The sun above was like a furnace, the sea below like a lake of fire. Pepe crept under the shadow of his sails, and was so exhausted with heat and hunger that he fell into a swoon.

He saw himself lying at the bottom of his boat, but not alone. There was One lying there also, who slept too. His raiment glistened, and a light of glory surrounded Him, which paled that of the blazing sun. By and by the sun went down, and it seemed that night came on, but He was still there; and the wind rose, and Pepe’s little boat was tossed and buffeted, and Pepe was ready to cry out with alarm. Then he thought, “While He is here, no harm can come; I will keep His slumber sacred.” So he looked out on the fury of the storm, and waited. Then that shining One arose and waved His hands abroad towards the winds, and there came a sweet melody from His mouth, which said, “Peace! peace!” Then suddenly all was still and bright again, and the soft breeze echoed back the music of “Peace! peace!” Then Pepe, when he saw what He had done, fell on his knees before Him, and said, “Lord, as Thou hast done this, send me now a draft of fishes, that my net may be full.” Then the Bright One stretched out His hands over the sea; and there rose out of the rippling waves great handsome fishes such as Pepe had never seen the like. They were of the height of a man in length, and their skin shone like silver interwoven with many colours, and their fins of gold. Docile at His gesture, they rose gently over the side of the boat, and laid them obedient at His feet. One by one, on they came till – appalling sight! – the boat began to sink under their priceless weight.

For one moment Pepe’s heart almost fainted within him at seeing the rich prize sink away again just as it was within grasp, and with it his boat, his tackle, all that he had to call his own! But his eye rested on the Bright One who stood there, and his faith and confidence returned. He observed that some folds of His glistening mantle, as it hung loosely from His shoulders, floated on the waves which were now meeting over the place where he stood. Confident that it would bear him up, Pepe stepped on to it, as on to dry land, while all his earthly treasure sunk out of sight.

Then Pepe woke. The sun had nearly set; a light breeze was gently carrying off the superfluous heat of the day; but his bark was empty, no Bright One sat in it, no beautiful fish lay there. Pepe listlessly looked over the side of his boat; the influence of his dream was yet upon him, and he could not restrain a look after his sunken prize. What was that? Something large and shining swam under his boat, surely! Hastily Pepe detached a little lamp which always burnt under a cross hung on the mast, and looked down into the clear blue waters, when lo! as if attracted by the light, the shining fish turned their small bright eyes towards it, as if they took the unwonted light for the rising sun, and swam straight at it almost within arm’s length. Pepe was now at no loss what to do. Taking a large hook which lay in the bottom of his boat, he lashed it firmly to a long spar, and then hanging the lamp over the side of the boat, he prepared to seize the finny prey with his improvised harpoon. The lamp attracted them as before, and now came the struggle. Pepe was a small man, and the first fish he tackled was a foot taller than himself and well-nigh pulled him over the side of his boat. Pepe was glad enough to let him go, even at the cost of his weapon, which the fish carried down into the deep with him. Pepe was, as you know by now, one who never lost heart; he pulled out his narvaja (or long-bladed knife with a cross-hilt), and tied it to another long piece of wood. Pepe was gaining experience; this time he selected a smaller antagonist, and great was his joy when, after a brief encounter, he landed him safely in the bottom of the boat. Pepe was not avaricious, more anxious to share the good news with his family than to obtain a large haul, he only waited to take one moderate-sized fish more, and then he was off to his home.

Great was the joy in the village next morning, as the news of the new source of industry spread. Some were frightened, and said there must be witchcraft in it; but when they saw the trade prosper, they were glad enough to take it as the good gift of God, and from that time to this the Tunny fishery has never failed to enrich the dwellers on all the shores of the Mediterranean.

“WHERE ONE CAN DINE, TWO CAN DINE⁸⁸.”

In the days when our Lord walked on earth, it happened that one night He and St. Peter found themselves far from any city or village, on a bleak and desolate plain. Weary and footsore, it was with great delight St. Peter descried at last a light from a woodman’s cot. “Lord, let us rest here, let us pass the night under this shelter,” said St. Peter.

They knocked at the woodman’s door; he was a good-hearted old man, and he welcomed the belated travellers with no grudging greeting. He heaped up the dry fagots and made the hut shine like a gilded palace with that brilliant blaze which no wood throws out like that of the olive-root; and such humble fare as he had he set before them without stint.

The bleak wind moaned without, through the lofty alcornóques⁸⁹, and rattled the ill-fitting door. But presently, above the moaning of the wind and the clatter of the planks, they heard a hand knocking outside. The woodman opened, and was rather taken aback to find two more wayfarers at the door. “Never mind,” said St. Peter, “it’s only some of our people, it’s all right, ‘Where one can dine, two can dine.’” A little embarrassed, the woodman scratched his head, as he thought of the slenderness of his stores, but made no opposition, and the strangers passed in. The wind moaned on, and another knocking came. The woodman opened, and found two more guests standing without. St. Peter, who had fancied he heard the soft voice of St. John murmuring a favourite canticle as he passed, rose to see who it was, and soon recognized the waving hair of gold of the youngest Apostle. “All right,” said St. Peter, “let them in, they belong to our party too, ‘Where one can dine, two can dine.’” The woodman, more and more puzzled, stood by and let them pass. He had hardly sat down when another knock was heard above the storm. With his habitual readiness, the woodman opened, and found two more strangers begging admittance. St. Peter, who seemed to have a natural aptitude for the office of doorkeeper, once more encouraged him to let them in, assuring him they all belonged to the same party; and after another knock, the number of the Apostolic college was complete.

The woodman looked wistfully at the empty table. He was the most hospitable of woodmen, and gave his last crumb without a grudge; but he was aghast at the thought that for the thirteen guests who had honoured his roof, there was not sufficient to help round; and he slunk away quite ashamed at the apparent but unavoidable stint.

Then He who first came in with St. Peter, rose and gave thanks, then broke the bread and passed it round, and called on the woodman to come and take his place among them. With fear and trembling the woodman sat down, and with fear and trembling he saw his few barley-loaves and his few grapes and fruits pass round and round till all were filled, and there remained over and above to them that had eaten a larger provision than he had ever seen under his roof before; but he durst not ask who was his guest, knowing it must be the Lord.

Then they lay down and slept, each wrapped in his travelling mantle, and in the blaze of the olive-root fire. In the morning when they rose to depart, the woodman, alarmed at what he had seen the night before, durst not ask them whither they went, but let them depart in silence. St. Peter, however, remained behind, and after thanking him for his hospitality, told him to ask what boon he would, and he would grant it. The woodman was a man of few wants, and after he had thought a minute, he answered that he was content with his humble lot; he did not want it changed. His only amusement was now and then a game at cards, when the season of wood-felling or any other chance brought an accession of companions to his hut for a few nights; and it would be a pleasure if he might always win whenever he played.

St. Peter looked grave; he did not much like giving an encouragement to card-playing; but then he considered the poor fellow’s irreproachable character, his life of privations, and moreover his own unconditioned promise to grant his request, and finally, that each success, while it would do no harm to the well-regulated old man, would serve as a discouragement to all the other players; so he ended by giving his consent, only reserving one condition, that he should never play for stakes sufficiently high to injure his companions; and then hasted on to join the rest of his party, who had made some way while he was parleying.

“‘Fortune is certainly for those to whom she comes,’” moralized the woodman when he was left alone, “‘and not for those who seek her⁹⁰.’ How many are there who would have given their ears for such a chance as I have had to-day; and it is given to me, who, being already gifted with content, want for nothing!”

Time passed on, and the woodman, being a just man, never abused the favour he had received, which however served, by the satisfaction which success always confers, to cheer his solitary life. At last the time came when the measure of his days was full; and resigning his spirit to the care of his Lord, it was carried by his angel to the realms above.

Now, all through his life it had rankled in his mind that he might have made a better and less selfish use of the gift St. Peter had bestowed on him, when now, for the first time, it occurred to him how to apply it. Then he turned to his angel, and begged him to stop on his way, at the bedside of the first poor dying man they passed whose soul was most in danger of being lost. The angel, who descried some charitable design in the request, bore him to a room in a great city where an escribano⁹¹ lay at the last gasp. The demon of avarice sat on his pillow, straining to clutch the passing soul, while his young son and a clergyman knelt beside him, entreating him to be reconciled to God. “Caramba!” exclaimed the woodman, “surely, our Lord died for all, without even excluding escribanos!” As the good angel hovered over the bed, a gentle sleep fell on the dying man, and the demon relaxed his watch.

“Come, now,” said the woodman, “you can’t do any thing while the man’s asleep, let’s have a game at cards to wile away the time.” “Agreed,” said the demon, for cards being invented by his crew, he thought himself safe to win; “but how shall we manage about the stakes? You see you’ve had to leave your pocket behind you, so how will you pay me?” “I’ll stake you something better than money,” replied the woodman. “What say you to staking my soul, which is on its way to glory, against this escribano’s soul, of which at best you are only three parts sure?” “All right,” said the demon, who thought it one of the best chances he had ever had.

The woodman let him cut and shuffle and play what tricks he liked with the pack, secure of his success; and in less than half an hour his triumph was secure. The demon could not believe his eyes, but could not, either, deny his defeat; so, putting his tail between his legs, he laid his ears back⁹² and disappeared through the floor, quite ashamed of himself.

While this was going on, the escribano had awoke from his refreshing sleep; freed from the solicitations of the demon of avarice, he no longer refused the ministrations of the minister of the Church, but had expressed his contrition for the sins of the past, and was ready to depart in peace with God and all the world.

When the woodman arrived at the gate of Paradise, accompanied by the soul of the escribano, St. Peter called out, “Who goes there?” “I, of the hut on the bleak moor,” replied the woodman.

“Yes, you I know,” replied St. Peter; “but you don’t come alone – who is that black soul with you?”

“No, Señor, I don’t come alone, because I thought God loved to see men in good fellowship. This poor soul is only black because, being an escribano, some of his ink has stuck to him.”

“There’s no admittance here for escribanos,” replied St. Peter, “so creep in alone.”

“Nay, Señor; but I said not so when you came to my hut on the bleak moor and brought other twelve with you. Doesn’t ‘Where one can dine, two can dine,’ hold good here also?”

St. Peter could not say nay, so he turned his back while the woodman took up the soul of the escribano on his shoulders and crept in under the shade of the eternal groves.

HORMESINDA

At the period of the Moors’ most complete dominion over Spain, Pelayo, the noble scion of her ancient kings, stood almost alone in the defence of his country. Undismayed by the misfortunes of his race and people, or by the oppressive rigours of the conquerors, he never tired of rousing his brethren to a sense of their shameful condition, and stirring them up to the desire of again restoring their religion and the throne of their native rulers.

Meantime, his sister Hormesinda, no less ardent and patriotic, but weaker and more short-sighted, had thought to benefit her people by sealing a compromise with the invaders. Forgetful of the religious laws which forbid such a union, she married Munuza, one of the Moorish chiefs who reigned at Gijon, and for a few years imagined she had effected wonders because she had induced the conqueror to mitigate his oppressions.

Pelayo, however, was almost more distressed at the contamination of his sister, married to an unbeliever, than by the bondage of his fellow-countrymen; and being on the point of leading the people he had collected to an attack on the Moorish Alcázar, he first obtained an interview with her, within the king’s private apartments, with the view of inducing her to abandon her infidel lord.

Hormesinda, however, had chosen her path, and could not now escape its leadings; the interview was both stormy and touching. Pelayo, unflinching in his morality and patriotism, could find nothing to say to her but words of reproach. And Hormesinda could only urge, that though she might have been wrong in marrying the Moor, yet, now her word, and life, and love were pledged to him, she could not leave him.

Munuza despised the Christians, and so Pelayo had no difficulty in gaining access to Hormesinda accompanied by the venerable Veremundo, his father; but a Jew in Munuza’s service having betrayed the information that he had no less a person than Pelayo himself in his power, he ordered him to be captured and thrown into a dismal dungeon called a mazmorra.

No sooner did Munuza know that he had nothing to fear from Pelayo, than it became evident his moderation towards the Christians had been dictated less by Hormesinda’s representations than by dread of Pelayo’s reprisals, for he now began to add to the burdens of the conquered, without mercy. To crown all, he issued a decree by which all who would not make themselves Mohammedans were declared to be slaves.

This measure completed the indignation of the Christians; and when it became known where Pelayo was held in durance, it needed but little urging of Leandro, his brother, to lead the outraged population to the assault of the Alcázar of Gijon.

The impetuosity of the despairing population was irresistible. Munuza, inclined to despise them at first, found himself surrounded before he was aware, and sallied out with his reserve to give life to his troops and repel the insurgents. He had no sooner left the precincts of the palace than Hormesinda took advantage of the circumstance to set free her brother, who was thus enabled to show himself at the head of his people like a miraculous apparition, inspiring them with courage to drive all before them.

Munuza, obliged to escape for his life, re-entered the Alcázar, where Hormesinda awaited him with feminine tenderness, desirous only to make a bulwark of her body between him and Pelayo’s fury. Munuza, however, had doubtless courage, though it was the courage of an infidel; and not only refused to owe his life to the protection of a woman, but recognizing that it was her hand alone could have set his captive free, stabbed her and himself just in time to die at the entering feet of Pelayo and his victorious host.

This victory of the Christian arms was the first-fruits of many others, which, hardly fought through succeeding centuries, restored at last the whole of Spain to Christendom.