Chapter VII: Introduction (6)

Pedro Jimenez had every reason to be satisfied with the decision he had come to. All the neighbours who were sufficiently men of worth to make their opinion a matter of consequence, far from looking down on him for the disclosure, warmly applauded his generosity; and in return for the few worthless ones whose acquaintance he lost by it, he won for himself the affection of a devoted son. The old man had never known a greater pleasure than that he now found in taking his adopted child out with him day by day, and instructing him in all the various arts of treating the vine--the mode of planting and culture, the vintage, the pressing of the grape, and the disposal of the wine; and to all this, his young charge listened with an earnestness and intelligence that repaid all his care. His frugality, and industry, and straightforward manly conduct on all occasions--his almost feminine kindliness of manner in supplying to the best of his power the offices of the old wife, when God took her home, all rendered the old man quite easy as to the future successor to his name.

At last the time came when Pedro Jimenez the elder, full of years and honour, was called to his account; and as his adopted son turned to meet the desolation of the lonely house, there was one thought of consolation to gild his bereavement, the sense that he could make his whole after-life a token of obedience to the upright maxims of his benefactor, in whose stead he now stood.

While our hero had been living in rustic tranquillity in the remotest part of the south of Spain, great events had been stirring Europe. The tumultuous tide of the French Revolution had overflowed the Peninsula. I will not detain you with any thing you can consider a dry epitome of history. Suffice it to say, that in consequence of the troubles in which his country was involved, young Pedro Jimenez was called to join the army.

Having felt, as I hope you have, some interest in the honest pride with which he was on the point of entering on his inheritance, I am sure you will sympathize with the sadness of heart which now overshadowed him as he was obliged to abandon his fair homestead just as it had become his own. "It is well the old man never suspected it would come to this! ... and then peace must come and restore me to my home some time or other," he used to say to comfort himself during the weary march or tedious drill. There was, however, yet a heavier trial in store. It was the policy of the intruded French ruler to send away the native troops out of their country, and replace them with French troops. Now it happened that Pedro Jimenez was attached to the regiment of General Romano, which was one of those selected for foreign service. Ordered to the banks of the Rhine, poor Pedro Jimenez seemed farther than ever from the fulfilment of his darling hopes. He had perhaps felt the defence of his country some compensation for the separation from home; but to fight for the unjust aggressions of one who was the usurper of the throne of his native land was surpassingly hard. When not joining his comrades in lamenting their hard fate, he would wander over the country, trying to find any incident which might remind him of his beloved Andalusia. His attention was thus arrested by the vines which he found growing on the heights around. The knowledge of the subject he had acquired during so many years' apprenticeship, and under so experienced a master, now proved invaluable. His practised eye readily distinguished among the varieties presented to it a superior variety adapted to the soil and climate of Andalusia, and he determined, whenever Providence was pleased to give him an opportunity of returning, that he would provide himself with the means of propagating this stock in his own plantation.

Nor was this opportunity very long withheld. General Romano, though scarcely taller than the length of an ordinary man's arm [73] bore in his little body a large and loyal heart: by dint of persevering efforts, he succeeded in making a way of escape for his whole regiment, shipped them, and carried them safely round to a friendly port of Portugal, and thence draughted them all back into Spain, where they did good service under Wellington.

Pedro could hardly believe his ears for joy, when the mysterious order was transmitted to him, to prepare for the secret return: yet he did not in his transports forget the coveted vine. The plant thus obtained, tended and preserved with much care and anxiety through the voyage, might still have been condemned to perish, had he been called to active service; but the rough life and the long voyage had impaired his health. After several months in hospital, during which time, you may be sure, he did not neglect his precious plant, he was sent home invalided.

He found his own viña in a sad state of neglect; but his native air having soon restored his strength, he was able within a few years more, not only to bring it round again, but also to produce a goodly show from his newly imported vine-stock. And from this vintage it is--the Rhenish stock planted in Andalusian soil, and cultivated with tender care and intelligence--that we get the choice variety of sherry wine (you can ask Papa to let you taste it some day at dessert) called "Pedro Jimenez."

ST. MARTIN IN SPAIN.

About the time that the Pedro Jiménez vintage was coming into growth, a favourite old vintage of Spain was just becoming exhausted, or for some reason going out of fashion,--the white wine of San Martin, so called from the locality of its production in Castilla la Vieja, not far from Toledo.

Now it happens that in Spain--where Christianity has woven itself more familiarly perhaps than any where else into the home traditions of the people, and every class and state of man has assigned to it a special patron--that St. Martin is counted the patron Saint of drunkards. "Patron Saint of drunkards!" you will perhaps exclaim; "what have Saints got to do with drunkards?" But think a little, and remember how mercifully our Lord associated "with publicans and sinners," that He might reclaim them, and then you will say it is not so strange after all. Drunkards are very few in Spain, so few that there is no idiomatic word to call them by--nothing but the popular mocking expression borracho, which is simply formed by putting a masculine termination to the word borracha, a wine-skin; for you know it is the common practice in Spain, to store all the wine that is intended for use within a short period, in skins instead of barrels. And very curious it is, I assure you, when you are travelling in Spain, to see great skins of pigs and goats, sometimes with the hair still on, hanging up in the wine-shops, swelled out to their utmost extent with wine.

I was curious to find out how St. Martin came to be reckoned the male-wineskin's patron; and in course of my inquiries, came upon two or three little traditions which may amuse you.

One was, that in a church much frequented by large numbers of the poorer peasantry, there was, among other pictures, one representing St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar, according to the legend you have all heard. But it happened that the painter, in the plenitude of his idealism, had made a slight alteration in the usual treatment of the figures. Instead of putting a beggar kneeling by the wayside and sturdily asking alms, he had drawn one lying down in the extremity of exhaustion, and with scarcely a rag to cover him. St. Martin, instead of being in the act of cutting his cloak in halves with his sword, as you usually see him, was tenderly placing the already severed portion of his garment over the shivering form of the beggar. But the execution of the picture was not equal to the conception: the livid face, with its red and purple lines, by which the painter had thought to depict the effect of cold and want, was taken by the people to show forth the swollen features of a drunkard, and the attitude of exhaustion, for one of helpless intoxication. St. Martin's part in the picture was reckoned to be the saving him from the ridicule of the passengers, by covering him up. This act of patronage, so assumed, was reckoned to extend to all victims of drunkenness.

Another story told me, was, that it arose from a waggish remark made by an Andalusian on another and more normal picture of St. Martin. Andalusians are famous for their wit. It is said that the soil of Spain is adapted to produce every thing required for both the necessity and luxurious enjoyment of human life, except spices; but that this is supplied by the spice of Andalusian wit, for an Andalusian hardly opens his mouth but to say something witty.

An Andalusian, then, being asked what he thought of a certain picture of the legend of St. Martin replied, it represented such a piece of folly that none but a drunken man could have committed it. And the connexion thus once set up between a Saint and the condition of inebriety, though in jest, was sufficient to fasten on him the patronage of the inebriate.

But for my own part, I am inclined to think that the vintage of San Martin, though now seldom spoken of, having at one time been regarded all over Spain as the first vintage of the world, popular tradition naturally ascribed the care of those who partook of it to the Saint whose name it fortuitously bore.

In inquiring thus about St. Martin, I found that Spaniards have a jesting way of calling one San Rorro also, patron of drunkards; and this puzzled me, as I could find nothing like San Rorro in the Calendar. Then I learnt that rorro means a child just beginning to walk. Now a drunken man staggers much in the same way as an infant first learning to support its own weight; and thus "San Rorro" is merely a punning allusion to this similarity. But the Spaniard, who, as I have said, weaves his Christianity and--I may add--his innocent jest into every thing, remembering that the Divine Infant must have tottered too in His first early efforts to walk, sees a connexion here which may suggest an occasion for Divine pity and patronage. Certainly the common immunity from bad consequences of their falls, has led all countries to fable about a "special Providence for drunkards."

MARVELLOUS STORIES.

After recording so many marvellous stories, it seems not out of place to give two or three instances of how marvellous stories rise in popular imagination; from which it is not difficult to infer how other stories have received their marvellous dress.

I.

ST. MICHAEL'S FEATHER.

There is a town in Spain where a feather is preserved which is reported by the common people to have been shed by the Archangel Michael on the occasion of a miraculous visit to the place. An archæologist who was at great pains to investigate this matter, after spending much time over the inquiry, traced it very satisfactorily to an occasion in which, some hundreds of years ago, an Auto Sacramentale, or, as we say in English, a Mystery Play--that is, a dramatic representation of a religious subject--was being shown, in which St. Michael was one of the dramatis personæ. A feather having fallen from the wings employed on the occasion, was picked up and preserved with the care which so religious a people naturally bestowed on any thing connected, however remotely, with a sacred matter; and in process of time, the local circumstances being forgotten, the feather was ascribed to St. Michael the Archangel himself.

II.

"EYES TO THE BLIND."

Alfonso Tostato, an Archbishop of Alcalá de Henáres in the Middle Ages, wrote some commentaries on the Bible which were regarded as a work of great piety and erudition. Difficult passages were elucidated with so much plainness, that it was said metaphorically in his epitaph, that his works enabled the blind to see [74], which sentence getting to be reported among the common people, it was confidently believed that in virtue of the services rendered by his works to the Word of God, any blind person who could be brought within reach of his writings would be instantly restored to sight.