The Firebrand Read online

  CHAPTER V

  THE ABBEY OF MONTBLANCH

  The great monastery of Montblanch was of regal, nay almost of imperialdignity. Though no emperor (as at Yuste) had here laid aside the worldand assumed the cowl, yet mighty Kings of Aragon and Navarra lay buriedwithin its walls, and its long line of mitred abbots included many inwhose veins ran the royal blood of all the Spains.

  Almost completely encircled by wild sierras, it was yet situated upon aplain, as it were let into the very heart of the mountains. A cleartrout stream, which furnished many a Friday's breakfast to the monks,ran through a rich vale. Of no place within fifty leagues, could it beso truly said, that all about it and above it there was heard a sound ofmany waters.

  Of the various potencies and pre-eminences of Montblanch, civil andecclesiastical, there was no end. A hundred villages owned its lordship.The men were serfs, the women handmaids. Soul and body they were boundto their masters of the monastery of Montblanch. Without permission theydared neither to wed nor to bury, neither to increase nor to multiply,to lay the bride on the bride-bed nor the corpse upon the bier.

  Nor, to thrill the listener's blood, were darker tales awanting,whispered with a quiver of the flesh, as men crouched closer about theglowing charcoal pan, and women glanced fearfully out between the greenlattice strips at the twinkling lights of the Abbey, set high above themunder the silent stars.

  It was said, not openly indeed, but rather with an awestruck lowering ofthe voice and fearful glances to right and left, that when theinquisition was done away with in the Spain of the cities and provinces,the chiefs of the Holy Office had found a last place of refuge beneaththe grey rocks of Montblanch, and that whoso offended against the monksof the mountain, or refused to them flock or herd, son or daughter,sooner or later entered the doors of the monastery never to be visibleagain in the light of day.

  So at least ran the tale, and as the two young men made their way upwardfrom San Vicencio, by the mountain path beside which the stream brattledand sulked alternate, Rollo Blair told these things to the Englishman asone who half believed them.

  "It is not possible," answered the latter scornfully; "this is nocentury in which such things can be done. Has civilisation not reachedas far as Aragon? Who talks of the rack and the inquisition at this timeof day?"

  The young Scot halted a sturdy peasant who came whistling down the path,a bundle of tough reed stems over his shoulder.

  "Did you ever hear of the black room of the monastery of Montblanch?" hesaid, pinching the man's blue overall between finger and thumb.

  The sunburnt Aragonese crossed himself and was silent.

  "Speak, have you heard?"

  The other nodded, and made with his digits that "fig of Spain" whichaverts the evil eye; but under his loose blouse half furtively as ifashamed of his precaution.

  "I have heard!" he said, and was silent.

  "Do you wish to enter it?" said Rollo.

  "God forbid!" quoth the man with conviction.

  "And why?" pursued the Scot, wishful to make his point.

  "Because of those who go in thither, no one ever comes out."

  The man, having thus spoken, hastened to betake himself out of sight,his feet, shod with sandals of esparto grass, pad-padding from side toside of the narrow mountain path.

  "You see," said Rollo Blair, "mine uncle, reverend man, is no favouritein his own district."

  It was now drawing towards evening, and the rich orange glowcharacteristic of northern Iberia deepened behind the hills, while thebushes of the wayside grew indistinct and took on mysterious shapes oneither side.

  "My object in coming to Spain is simple," said the Englishman, of whomhis companion had asked a question. "Before my father retires andconfides to me his spinning mills at Chorley, he stipulates that I shallmake by my own exertions a clear profit of a thousand pounds. I, on mypart, have agreed neither to marry nor to return till I can do so with athousand pounds thus acquired in my hand. I thought I could make it aseasily in the wine business as in any other of which I had no knowledge.And so, here I am!" concluded the young man.

  "Lord," cried Blair, "if my father had insisted on any such conditionswith me, he would have made me a wandering Jew for life, and aperpetual bachelor to boot! A thousand pounds! Great Saint Andrew, Iwould as soon think of getting to heaven by my own merits!"

  "Spoken like an excellent Calvinist!" cried the Englishman. "But howcame you into this country, and can you in any way assist me in thebuying of good vintages, out of which I may chance to make profit?Besides the firm's credit, I have a private capital of one hundredpounds, of which at present eight or nine are in a friend's hands!"

  "Good Lord!" cried the Scot, "then I by my folly have put you by so muchfarther from your happiness. But of course you have a sweetheart waitingfor you on your return?"

  "I have yet to see the woman I would give a brass farthing to marry, orfor whose mess of connubial pottage I would sell my good bachelor'sbirthright."

  "Fegs," said Rollo Blair, gazing with admiration upon his shortercompanion, and, as was his wont when excited, relapsing into dialect,"the shoe has aye pinched the ither foot wi' me, my lad. No to speak o'Peggy Ramsay, I think I hae been disappointed by as mony as a rounddozen o' lasses since I shook off the dust o' the Lang Toon o'Kirkcaldy."

  "Disappointed?" queried his companion, "how so, man? Did you not pleasethe maids?"

  "Oh, aye, it wasna that," returned the squire of Fife, taking hiscompanion's arm confidentially; "the lasses, to do justice to their goodtaste, were maistly willing eneuch. There's something aboot a lang manlike me that tak's them, the craiturs, and I hae a way o' my ain wi'them, though I never gat mair schooling than my father could thrash intome wi' a dog whip. But the fact is that aye afore the thing gaed fareneuch, I cam to words wi' some brither or faither o' the lass, andmaybe put a knife into him, or as it were an ounce o' lead, I wadnawonder--to improve his logic."

  "In other words you are quarrelsome?" said Mortimer shortly.

  The Scot removed his hand from the Englishman's arm and drew himself tohis full height.

  "There" he said, "I beg to take issue with you, sir! Argumentative I maybe, and it is my nature, but to the man who flings it in my teeth that Iam of a quarrelsome disposition, I have but one answer. Sir, receive mycard!"

  And with great gravity he pulled from his pocket an ancient card-case ofdamaged silver, bulged and dinted out of all shape, opened it, and burstinto a loud laugh.

  "I declare I have not one left! I spent them all on those Aragonese dogsdown there, who thought, I daresay, that they were soup tickets on the_frailuchos'_ kitchen up above. And anyway it is heaven's own truth, I_am_ a quarrelsome, ungrateful dog! But forgive me, Mr. Mortimer, it ismy nature, and at any rate it does not last long. I am not yet of those'that age and sullens have,' as my father used to say. A desperate wiseman my father, and well read! I would have learned more from him if Ihad not preferred Sergeant McPherson and the stables, to the study andmy father's Malacca cane about my shoulders each time I made a falsequantity."

  "But you have not answered my question," said the Englishman. "I am hereto buy wines. I am above all anxious to take over to England somethousand hectolitres of the famous Priorato of Montblanch, and anyother vintages that will suit the English market."

  "But how on a hundred pounds can you expect to do so much?" asked theScot, with an unlooked-for exhibition of native caution.

  "Oh, I have enough credit for anything that I may buy on account of thefirm. The hundred is my own private venture, and it struck me that withyour command of the language and my knowledge of business, we might beable to ship some Spanish wines to the Thames on very favourable terms.I should of course be glad to pay you the usual commission."

  "Vintages and commissions and shipments are so much Greek to me," saidRollo Blair; "but if I can do anything to lessen the weight ofobligement under which you have placed me, you can count on my services.I am scarce such a fool as my tongue and temper make me out
sometimes!You are the only man alive I have tried to pick a quarrel with andfailed."

  "I think we shall do very well together yet," said Mortimer; "the usualcommission is five per cent, on all transactions up to a hundredpounds--above that, seven and a half."

  "Damn you and your commissions, sir," cried Blair, hotly. "Did I nottell you I would do my best, on the honour of a Scottish gentleman!"

  "Very likely," returned the other, dryly; "but I have always found thebenefit of a clear and early understanding between partners."

  They had been gradually ascending the narrow path which wound throughclumps of rosemary, broom, thyme, and bay-tree laurel to a shelteredlittle plain, much of it occupied by enclosed gardens and the vastwhite buildings of the monastery itself.

  The moon, almost full but with a shaving off its right-hand side whichkept it a full hour late, shone behind the two adventurers as they stoodstill a moment to take in the scene.

  Pallid limestone pinnacles rose high into serene depths of indigo, inwhich the stars twinkled according to their size and pre-eminence,nearer and farther, gradually retiring into infinite space. In theclefts high up were black tufts of trees, that seemed from below like somany gooseberry bushes. A kind of three days' stubble of beard coveredthe plain itself right up to the monastery wall, while here and therewas heard the continuous tinkle of many goat bells as the leadersalternately strayed and cropped the herbage between the boulders.

  Stretching from side to side was the white abbey, not so much imposingfor architectural beauty, but because of its vast size, its Titanicretaining walls and multitude of windows, now mere splashed oblongs ofdarkness irregularly scattered along the white walls. Only at one endthe chapel was lit up, and from its windows of palest gold, and Madonnablue, and ruby red, came the sweet voices of children beginning to singthe evening hymn as it stands in the Breviary for the use of thefaithful in the arch-diocese of Tarragona--

  "Rosasque miscens liliis. Aram vetustam contegit."