den or small farm to the south of the residencia. Here he It was a fine day, and the woods to which I led him were would be joined by the peasant whom I had seen on the green and pleasant and sweet-smelling and alive with the night of my arrival, and who dwelt at the far end of the hum of insects. Here he discovered himself in a fresh char-enclosure, about half a mile away, in a rude out-house; but acter, mounting up to heights of gaiety that abashed me, it was plain to me that, of these two, it was Felipe who did and displaying an energy and grace of movement that de-108
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lighted the eye. He leaped, he ran round me in mere glee; spoke to him long out of the heat of my indignation, call-he would stop, and look and listen, and seem to drink in ing him names at which he seemed to wither; and at length, the world like a cordial; and then he would suddenly spring pointing toward the residencia, bade him begone and leave into a tree with one bound, and hang and gambol there like me, for I chose to walk with men, not with vermin. He fell one at home. Little as he said to me, and that of not much upon his knees, and, the words coming to him with more import, I have rarely enjoyed more stirring company; the cleanness than usual, poured out a stream of the most touch-sight of his delight was a continual feast; the speed and ing supplications, begging me in mercy to forgive him, to accuracy of his movements pleased me to the heart; and I forget what he had done, to look to the future. ‘O, I try so might have been so thoughtlessly unkind as to make a habit hard,’ he said. ‘O, commandante, bear with Felipe this once; of these wants, had not chance prepared a very rude con-he will never be a brute again!’ Thereupon, much more clusion to my pleasure. By some swiftness or dexterity the affected than I cared to show, I suffered myself to be per-lad captured a squirrel in a tree top. He was then some suaded, and at last shook hands with him and made it up.
way ahead of me, but I saw him drop to the ground and But the squirrel, by way of penance, I made him bury; speak-crouch there, crying aloud for pleasure like a child. The ing of the poor thing’s beauty, telling him what pains it had sound stirred my sympathies, it was so fresh and innocent; suffered, and how base a thing was the abuse of strength.
but as I bettered my pace to draw near, the cry of the squirrel
‘See, Felipe,’ said I, ‘you are strong indeed; but in my hands knocked upon my heart. I have heard and seen much of the you are as helpless as that poor thing of the trees. Give me cruelty of lads, and above all of peasants; but what I now your hand in mine. You cannot remove it. Now suppose beheld struck me into a passion of anger. I thrust the fel-that I were cruel like you, and took a pleasure in pain. I low aside, plucked the poor brute out of his hands, and only tighten my hold, and see how you suffer.’ He screamed with swift mercy killed it. Then I turned upon the torturer, aloud, his face stricken ashy and dotted with needle points 109
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of sweat; and when I set him free, he fell to the earth and both were loopholed for musketry. The lower storey was, nursed his hand and moaned over it like a baby. But he besides, naked of windows, so that the building, if garri-took the lesson in good part; and whether from that, or soned, could not be carried without artillery. It enclosed from what I had said to him, or the higher notion he now an open court planted with pomegranate trees. From this a had of my bodily strength, his original affection was changed broad flight of marble stairs ascended to an open gallery, into a dog-like, adoring fidelity.
running all round and resting, towards the court, on slen-Meanwhile I gained rapidly in health. The residencia stood der pillars. Thence again, several enclosed stairs led to the on the crown of a stony plateau; on every side the moun-upper storeys of the house, which were thus broken up tains hemmed it about; only from the roof, where was a into distinct divisions. The windows, both within and with-bartizan, there might be seen between two peaks, a small out, were closely shuttered; some of the stone-work in the segment of plain, blue with extreme distance. The air in upper parts had fallen; the roof, in one place, had been these altitudes moved freely and largely; great clouds con-wrecked in one of the flurries of wind which were com-gregated there, and were broken up by the wind and left in mon in these mountains; and the whole house, in the strong, tatters on the hilltops; a hoarse, and yet faint rumbling of beating sunlight, and standing out above a grove of stunted torrents rose from all round; and one could there study all cork-trees, thickly laden and discoloured with dust, looked the ruder and more ancient characters of nature in some-like the sleeping palace of the legend. The court, in par-thing of their pristine force. I delighted from the first in the ticular, seemed the very home of slumber. A hoarse cooing vigorous scenery and changeful weather; nor less in the of doves haunted about the eaves; the winds were excluded, antique and dilapidated mansion where I dwelt. This was a but when they blew outside, the mountain dust fell here as large oblong, flanked at two opposite corners by bastion-thick as rain, and veiled the red bloom of the pomegran-like projections, one of which commanded the door, while ates; shuttered windows and the closed doors of numer-110
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ous cellars, and the vacant, arches of the gallery, enclosed puckered with suspicion as swiftly and lightly as a pool it; and all day long the sun made broken profiles on the ruffles in the breeze; but she paid no heed to my courtesy.
four sides, and paraded the shadow of the pillars on the I went forth on my customary walk a trifle daunted, her gallery floor. At the ground level there was, however, a idol-like impassivity haunting me; and when I returned, certain pillared recess, which bore the marks of human although she was still in much the same posture, I was half habitation. Though it was open in front upon the court, it surprised to see that she had moved as far as the next pil-was yet provided with a chimney, where a wood fire would lar, following the sunshine. This time, however, she ad-he always prettily blazing; and the tile floor was littered dressed me with some trivial salutation, civilly enough con-with the skins of animals.
ceived, and uttered in the same deep-chested, and yet in-It was in this place that I first saw my hostess. She had distinct and lisping tones, that had already baffled the ut-drawn one of the skins forward and sat in the sun, leaning most niceness of my hearing from her son. I answered rather against a pillar. It was her dress that struck me first of all, at a venture; for not only did I fail to take her meaning with for it was rich and brightly coloured, and shone out in that precision, but the sudden disclosure of her eyes disturbed dusty courtyard with something of the same relief as the me. They were unusually large, the iris golden like Felipe’s, flowers of the pomegranates. At a second look it was her but the pupil at that moment so distended that they seemed beauty of person that took hold of me. As she sat back –
almost black; and what affected me was not so much their watching me, I thought, though with invisible eyes – and size as (what was perhaps its consequence) the singular wearing at the same time an expression of almost imbecile insignificance of their regard. A look more blankly stupid I good-humour and contentment, she showed a perfectness have never met. My eyes dropped before it even as I spoke, of feature and a quiet nobility of attitude that were beyond and I went on my way upstairs to my own room, at once a statue’s. I took off my hat to her in passing, and her face baffled and embarrassed. Yet, when I came there and saw 111
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the face of the portrait, I was again reminded of the miracle her customary idle salutations to myself. These, I think, of family descent. My hostess was, indeed, both older and were her two chief pleasures, beyond that of mere quies-fuller in person; her eyes were of a different colour; her cence. She seemed always proud of her remarks, as though face, besides, was not only free from the ill-significance they had been witticisms: and, indeed, though they were that offended and attracted me in the painting; it was de-empty enough, like the conversation of many respectable void of either good or bad – a moral blank expressing liter-persons, and turned on a very narrow range of subjects, ally naught. And yet there was a likeness, not so much they were never meaningless or incoherent; nay, they had a speaking as immanent, not so much in any particular fea-certain beauty of their own, breathing, as they did, of her ture as upon the whole. It should seem, I thought, as if entire contentment. Now she would speak of the warmth, when the master set his signature to that grave canvas, he in which (like her son) she greatly delighted; now of the had not only caught the image of one smiling and false-flowers of the pomegranate trees, and now of the white eyed woman, but stamped the essential quality of a race.
doves and long-winged swallows that fanned the air of the From that day forth, whether I came or went, I was sure court. The birds excited her. As they raked the eaves in to find the Senora seated in the sun against a pillar, or their swift flight, or skimmed sidelong past her with a rush stretched on a rug before the fire; only at times she would of wind, she would sometimes stir, and sit a little up, and shift her station to the top round of the stone staircase, seem to awaken from her doze of satisfaction. But for the where she lay with the same nonchalance right across my rest of her days she lay luxuriously folded on herself and path. In all these days, I never knew her to display the least sunk in sloth and pleasure. Her invincible content at first spark of energy beyond what she expended in brushing annoyed me, but I came gradually to find repose in the and re-brushing her copious copper-coloured hair, or in spectacle, until at last it grew to be my habit to sit down lisping out, in the rich and broken hoarseness of her voice, beside her four times in the day, both coming and going, 112
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and to talk with her sleepily, I scarce knew of what. I had The family blood had been impoverished, perhaps by long come to like her dull, almost animal neighbourhood; her inbreeding, which I knew to be a common error among the beauty and her stupidity soothed and amused me. I began proud and the exclusive. No decline, indeed, was to be to find a kind of transcendental good sense in her remarks, traced in the body, which had been handed down unim-and her unfathomable good nature moved me to admira-paired in shapeliness and strength; and the faces of to-day tion and envy. The liking was returned; she enjoyed my were struck as sharply from the mint, as the face of two presence half-unconsciously, as a man in deep meditation centuries ago that smiled upon me from the portrait. But may enjoy the babbling of a brook. I can scarce say she the intelligence (that more precious heirloom) was degen-brightened when I came, for satisfaction was written on erate; the treasure of ancestral memory ran low; and it had her face eternally, as on some foolish statue’s; but I was required the potent, plebeian crossing of a muleteer or made conscious of her pleasure by some more intimate mountain contrabandista to raise, what approached he-communication than the sight. And one day, as I set within betude in the mother, into the active oddity of the son. Yet reach of her on the marble step, she suddenly shot forth of the two, it was the mother I preferred. Of Felipe, venge-one of her hands and patted mine. The thing was done, and ful and placable, full of starts and shyings, inconstant as a she was back in her accustomed attitude, before my mind hare, I could even conceive as a creature possibly noxious.
had received intelligence of the caress; and when I turned Of the mother I had no thoughts but those of kindness.
to look her in the face I could perceive no answerable sen-And indeed, as spectators are apt ignorantly to take sides, timent. It was plain she attached no moment to the act, and I grew something of a partisan in the enmity which I perI blamed myself for my own more uneasy consciousness.
ceived to smoulder between them. True, it seemed mostly The sight and (if I may so call it) the acquaintance of the on the mother’s part. She would sometimes draw in her mother confirmed the view I had already taken of the son.
breath as he came near, and the pupils of her vacant eyes 113
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would contract as if with horror or fear. Her emotions, shelves or terraces, there would start up, and then disperse, such as they were, were much upon the surface and readily a tower of dust, like the smoke of in explosion.
shared; and this latent repulsion occupied my mind, and I no sooner awoke in bed than I was conscious of the kept me wondering on what grounds it rested, and whether nervous tension and depression of the weather, and the the son was certainly in fault.
effect grew stronger as the day proceeded. It was in vain I had been about ten days in the residencia, when there that I resisted; in vain that I set forth upon my customary sprang up a high and harsh wind, carrying clouds of dust.
morning’s walk; the irrational, unchanging fury of the storm It came out of malarious lowlands, and over several snowy had soon beat down my strength and wrecked my temper; sierras. The nerves of those on whom it blew were strung and I returned to the residencia, glowing with dry heat, and jangled; their eyes smarted with the dust; their legs and foul and gritty with dust. The court had a forlorn ap-ached under the burthen of their body; and the touch of pearance; now and then a glimmer of sun fled over it; now one hand upon another grew to be odious. The wind, be-and then the wind swooped down upon the pomegranates, sides, came down the gullies of the hills and stormed about and scattered the blossoms, and set the window shutters the house with a great, hollow buzzing and whistling that clapping on the wall. In the recess the Senora was pacing was wearisome to the ear and dismally depressing to the to and fro with a flushed countenance and bright eyes; I mind. It did not so much blow in gusts as with the steady thought, too, she was speaking to herself, like one in an-sweep of a waterfall, so that there was no remission of ger. But when I addressed her with my customary saluta-discomfort while it blew. But higher upon the mountain, it tion, she only replied by a sharp gesture and continued her was probably of a more variable strength, with accesses of walk. The weather had distempered even this impassive fury; for there came down at times a far-off wailing, infi-creature; and as I went on upstairs I was the less ashamed nitely grievous to hear; and at times, on one of the high of my own discomposure.
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All day the wind continued; and I sat in my room and that been necessary) to take off the edge from my distaste-made a feint of reading, or walked up and down, and lis-ful solitude. But on Felipe, also, the wind had exercised its tened to the riot overhead. Night fell, and I had not so influence. He had been feverish all day; now that the night much as a candle. I began to long for some society, and had come he was fallen into a low and tremulous humour stole down to the court. It was now plunged in the blue of that reacted on my own. The sight of his scared face, his the first darkness; but the recess was redly lighted by the starts and pallors and sudden harkenings, unstrung me; and fire. The wood had been piled high, and was crowned by a when he dropped and broke a dish, I fairly leaped out of shock of flames, which the draught of the chimney bran-my seat.
dished to and fro. In this strong and shaken brightness the
‘I think we are all mad to-day,’ said I, affecting to laugh.
Senora continued pacing from wall to wall with discon-
‘It is the black wind,’ he replied dolefully. ‘You feel as if nected gestures, clasping her hands, stretching forth her you must do something, and you don’t know what it is.’
arms, throwing back her head as in appeal to heaven. In I noted the aptness of the description; but, indeed, Felipe these disordered movements the beauty and grace of the had sometimes a strange felicity in rendering into words woman showed more clearly; but there was a light in her the sensations of the body. ‘And your mother, too,’ said I; eye that struck on me unpleasantly; and when I had looked
‘she seems to feel this weather much. Do you not fear she on awhile in silence, and seemingly unobserved, I turned may be unwell?’
tail as I had come, and groped my way back again to my He stared at me a little, and then said, ‘No,’ almost defi-own chamber.
antly; and the next moment, carrying his hand to his brow, By the time Felipe brought my supper and lights, my nerve cried out lamentably on the wind and the noise that made was utterly gone; and, had the lad been such as I was used his head go round like a millwheel. ‘Who can be well?’ he to seeing him, I should have kept him (even by force had cried; and, indeed, I could only echo his question, for I 115
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was disturbed enough myself.
thy of hell. I stood at the door and gave ear to them, till at, I went to bed early, wearied with day-long restlessness, last they died away. Long after that, I still lingered and still but the poisonous nature of the wind, and its ungodly and continued to hear them mingle in fancy with the storming unintermittent uproar, would not suffer me to sleep. I lay of the wind; and when at last I crept to my bed, it was with there and tossed, my nerves and senses on the stretch. At a deadly sickness and a blackness of horror on my heart.
times I would doze, dream horribly, and wake again; and It was little wonder if I slept no more. Why had I been these snatches of oblivion confused me as to time. But it locked in? What had passed? Who was the author of these must have been late on in the night, when I was suddenly indescribable and shocking cries? A human being? It was startled by an outbreak of pitiable and hateful cries. I leaped inconceivable. A beast? The cries were scarce quite bes-from my bed, supposing I had dreamed; but the cries still tial; and what animal, short of a lion or a tiger, could thus continued to fill the house, cries of pain, I thought, but shake the solid walls of the residencia? And while I was certainly of rage also, and so savage and discordant that thus turning over the elements of the mystery, it came into they shocked the heart. It was no illusion; some living thing, my mind that I had not yet set eyes upon the daughter of some lunatic or some wild animal, was being foully tor-the house. What was more probable than that the daughter tured. The thought of Felipe and the squirrel flashed into of the Senora, and the sister of Felipe, should be herself my mind, and I ran to the door, but it had been locked from insane? Or, what more likely than that these ignorant and the outside; and I might shake it as I pleased, I was a fast half-witted people should seek to manage an afflicted kins-prisoner. Still the cries continued. Now they would dwindle woman by violence? Here was a solution; and yet when I down into a moaning that seemed to be articulate, and at called to mind the cries (which I never did without a shud-these times I made sure they must be human; and again dering chill) it seemed altogether insufficient: not even cru-they would break forth and fill the house with ravings wor-elty could wring such cries from madness. But of one thing 116
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I was sure: I could not live in a house where such a thing All morning I went from one door to another, and en-was half conceivable, and not probe the matter home and, tered spacious and faded chambers, some rudely shuttered, if necessary, interfere.
some receiving their full charge of daylight, all empty and The next day came, the wind had blown itself out, and unhomely. It was a rich house, on which Time had breathed there was nothing to remind me of the business of the night.
his tarnish and dust had scattered disillusion. The spider Felipe came to my bedside with obvious cheerfulness; as I swung there; the bloated tarantula scampered on the cor-passed through the court, the Senora was sunning herself nices; ants had their crowded highways on the floor of halls with her accustomed immobility; and when I issued from of audience; the big and foul fly, that lives on carrion and is the gateway, I found the whole face of nature austerely often the messenger of death, had set up his nest in the smiling, the heavens of a cold blue, and sown with great rotten woodwork, and buzzed heavily about the rooms.
cloud islands, and the mountain-sides mapped forth into Here and there a stool or two, a couch, a bed, or a great provinces of light and shadow. A short walk restored me carved chair remained behind, like islets on the bare floors, to myself, and renewed within me the resolve to plumb this to testify of man’s bygone habitation; and everywhere the mystery; and when, from the vantage of my knoll, I had walls were set with the portraits of the dead. I could judge, seen Felipe pass forth to his labours in the garden, I re-by these decaying effigies, in the house of what a great and turned at once to the residencia to put my design in prac-what a handsome race I was then wandering. Many of the tice. The Senora appeared plunged in slumber; I stood men wore orders on their breasts and had the port of noble awhile and marked her, but she did not stir; even if my offices; the women were all richly attired; the canvases most design were indiscreet, I had little to fear from such a guard-of them by famous hands. But it was not so much these ian; and turning away, I mounted to the gallery and began evidences of greatness that took hold upon my mind, even my exploration of the house.
contrasted, as they were, with the present depopulation 117
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and decay of that great house. It was rather the parable of smouldered and smoked upon the hearth, to which a chair family life that I read in this succession of fair faces and had been drawn close. And yet the aspect of the chamber shapely bodies. Never before had I so realised the miracle was ascetic to the degree of sternness; the chair was of the continued race, the creation and recreation, the weav-uncushioned; the floor and walls were naked; and beyond ing and changing and handing down of fleshly elements.
the books which lay here and there in some confusion, there That a child should be born of its mother, that it should was no instrument of either work or pleasure. The sight of grow and clothe itself (we know not how) with humanity, books in the house of such a family exceedingly amazed and put on inherited looks, and turn its head with the man-me; and I began with a great hurry, and in momentary fear ner of one ascendant, and offer its hand with the gesture of of interruption, to go from one to another and hastily in-another, are wonders dulled for us by repetition. But in the spect their character. They were of all sorts, devotional, singular unity of look, in the common features and com-historical, and scientific, but mostly of a great age and in mon bearing, of all these painted generations on the walls the Latin tongue. Some I could see to bear the marks of of the residencia, the miracle started out and looked me in constant study; others had been torn across and tossed aside the face. And an ancient mirror falling opportunely in my as if in petulance or disapproval. Lastly, as I cruised about way, I stood and read my own features a long while, trac-that empty chamber, I espied some papers written upon ing out on either hand the filaments of descent and the with pencil on a table near the window. An unthinking cu-bonds that knit me with my family.
riosity led me to take one up. It bore a copy of verses, very At last, in the course of these investigations, I opened roughly metred in the original Spanish, and which I may the door of a chamber that bore the marks of habitation. It render somewhat thus –
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Pleasure approached with pain and shame, tices of a mechanical devotion, and dwelling in a great iso-Grief with a wreath of lilies came.
lation of soul with her incongruous relatives; and as I leaned Pleasure showed the lovely sun;
on the balustrade of the gallery and looked down into the Jesu dear, how sweet it shone!
bright close of pomegranates and at the gaily dressed and Grief with her worn hand pointed on, somnolent woman, who just then stretched herself and Jesu dear, to thee!
delicately licked her lips as in the very sensuality of sloth, my mind swiftly compared the scene with the cold cham-Shame and confusion at once fell on me; and, laying down ber looking northward on the mountains, where the daugh-the paper, I beat an immediate retreat from the apartment.
ter dwelt.
Neither Felipe nor his mother could have read the books That same afternoon, as I sat upon my knoll, I saw the nor written these rough but feeling verses. It was plain I Padre enter the gates of the residencia. The revelation of had stumbled with sacrilegious feet into the room of the the daughter’s character had struck home to my fancy, and daughter of the house. God knows, my own heart most almost blotted out the horrors of the night before; but at sharply punished me for my indiscretion. The thought that sight of this worthy man the memory revived. I descended, I had thus secretly pushed my way into the confidence of a then, from the knoll, and making a circuit among the woods, girl so strangely situated, and the fear that she might some-posted myself by the wayside to await his passage. As soon how come to hear of it, oppressed me like guilt. I blamed as he appeared I stepped forth and introduced myself as myself besides for my suspicions of the night before; won-the lodger of the residencia. He had a very strong, honest dered that I should ever have attributed those shocking countenance, on which it was easy to read the mingled cries to one of whom I now conceived as of a saint, spec-emotions with which he regarded me, as a foreigner, a her-tral of mien, wasted with maceration, bound up in the prac-etic, and yet one who had been wounded for the good cause.
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Of the family at the residencia he spoke with reserve, and forget that I had been locked in, and that night when Felipe yet with respect. I mentioned that I had not yet seen the brought me my supper I attacked him warily on both points daughter, whereupon he remarked that that was as it should of interest.
be, and looked at me a little askance. Lastly, I plucked up
‘I never see your sister,’ said I casually.
courage to refer to the cries that had disturbed me in the
‘Oh, no,’ said he; ‘she is a good, good girl,’ and his mind night. He heard me out in silence, and then stopped and instantly veered to something else.
partly turned about, as though to mark beyond doubt that
‘Your sister is pious, I suppose?’ I asked in the next pause.
he was dismissing me.
‘Oh!’ he cried, joining his hands with extreme fervour, ‘a
‘Do you take tobacco powder?’ said he, offering his snuff-saint; it is she that keeps me up.’
box; and then, when I had refused, ‘I am an old man,’ he
‘You are very fortunate,’ said I, ‘for the most of us, I am added, ‘and I may be allowed to remind you that you are a afraid, and myself among the number, are better at going guest.’
down.’
‘I have, then, your authority,’ I returned, firmly enough,
‘Senor,’ said Felipe earnestly, ‘I would not say that. You although I flushed at the implied reproof, ‘to let things take should not tempt your angel. If one goes down, where is their course, and not to interfere?’
he to stop?’
He said ‘yes,’ and with a somewhat uneasy salute turned
‘Why, Felipe,’ said I, ‘I had no guess you were a preacher, and left me where I was. But he had done two things: he and I may say a good one; but I suppose that is your sister’s had set my conscience at rest, and he had awakened my doing?’
delicacy. I made a great effort, once more dismissed the He nodded at me with round eyes.
recollections of the night, and fell once more to brooding
‘Well, then,’ I continued, ‘she has doubtless reproved on my saintly poetess. At the same time, I could not quite you for your sin of cruelty?’
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‘Twelve times!’ he cried; for this was the phrase by which the point of noon. The Senora was lying lapped in slumber the odd creature expressed the sense of frequency. ‘And I on the threshold of the recess; the pigeons dozed below told her you had done so – I remembered that,’ he added the eaves like snowdrifts; the house was under a deep spell proudly – ‘and she was pleased.’
of noontide quiet; and only a wandering and gentle wind
‘Then, Felipe,’ said I, ‘what were those cries that I from the mountain stole round the galleries, rustled among heard last night? for surely they were cries of some crea-the pomegranates, and pleasantly stirred the shadows.
ture in suffering.’
Something in the stillness moved me to imitation, and I
‘The wind,’ returned Felipe, looking in the fire.
went very lightly across the court and up the marble stair-I took his hand in mine, at which, thinking it to be a case. My foot was on the topmost round, when a door caress, he smiled with a brightness of pleasure that came opened, and I found myself face to face with Olalla. Sur-near disarming my resolve. But I trod the w