Chapter V: To Our Friends the English!

Nearly two months passed, it was the 4th July. In the large sala of the house of Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon, Lieutenant Gordon stood by himself near a window, looking out dreamily into the street, a shade of sadness and of deep anxiety on his face. Don Roderigo had just left him, after a short conversation in which he had spoken many kind words to him, and had announced to him that he was no longer a prisoner of war, that he was released from his parole, and was free to go wheresoever it pleased him.

Don Roderigo had expected that his news would have been received with an outburst of joy, and so had taken it upon himself to make the announcement to him, for he had a kindly feeling for the young officer who had been so long his guest, and he felt a pleasure himself in telling him what he thought would give him pleasure. He was thus somewhat surprised when he saw the colour fade from his cheek, and at receiving answer only in a few incoherent words in acknowledgment of his great kindness.

His release was not unexpected by Lieutenant Gordon, the course which affairs were taking in Spain had shown him that the war between Spain and Great Britain was already virtually at an end, there could not be much longer any pretext for detaining him as a prisoner in Buenos Aires, and, once free, his duty called him far away. He himself had taken no step to obtain his release, had said no word to any one of his anticipation; now that the release came he thought only of its immediate consequences, and these consequences were to him painful, the announcement of freedom was to him as a sentence of banishment.

As he stood there by the window, sadly communing with his own thoughts, footsteps again approached him; he turned and saw Marcelino coming towards him with both hands stretched out, his face beaming with smiles and words of congratulation on his lips, but the words died away as Marcelino saw the sadness in the face of his friend. Then Gordon smiled and said--

"You come to congratulate me and you find me sad, most prisoners rejoice when they see their prison doors open for them, but is it strange that I cannot rejoice? I have had you for my gaoler and my imprisonment has been one long holiday."

"We have done our best to make it pleasant to you."

"That you have, all of you. I know that in the future I shall look back upon my prison as the dearest spot upon earth."

"We shall be sorry to lose you and shall miss you much, but have not you promised me that it shall only be for a time?"

"I have, and if God give me life I will keep my promise. When my own country needs my sword no longer then I will come back and aid you in the great object you have at heart."

"That object is surely well-nigh attained already. Spain fighting for her own liberty will hardly deny liberty to us."

"I wish I could think so, but I fear you will not become a free people without a sore struggle, and one which will entail much sorrow upon yourself."

"I know of what you think, it has caused me many a sleepless night for months past. You think of my father?"

"Yes, Don Roderigo is a man of very liberal opinions, but when the struggle commences he will remember only that he is a Spaniard."

"But he and many other Spaniards would gladly yield to us a share in the government of our own country, that is all we ask from Spain, we do not wish for absolute independence."

"You do not, for your father's sake, but others who have no such tie to Spain will be content with nothing short of complete independence. That Spain shall ever yield to you rights which she denies to her own sons is a dream, my friend. A year ago that was your opinion also."

"It was," said Marcelino sadly.

"You know that you have my sympathy in every trouble that may befall you," continued Gordon. "I wish I could remain and share your troubles with you, but in your chief trouble I cannot help you, I cannot even advise you. You will have to choose between your duty to your country and your duty to your father, look to God and your own conscience, they alone can guide you in each difficulty as it arises."

"God help me then, for if you cannot advise me I know not who can."

Then came the sound of feet tripping over the soft carpet towards them, and Dolores, with a bright flush on her face and a smile on her lip, came to present her congratulations to the newly-released prisoner of war, but her speech stopped short as she looked upon the grave faces of the two, and she hardly listened to what Gordon said in return, but laying her hand upon her brother's arm she said:

"What makes you sad, Marcelino?"

"We are losing a friend, Lola," said Marcelino, forcing himself to smile. "Is it not natural that I should be sad?"

"Yes, it is not strange, but he is not going now?"

"In three days I believe," said Gordon. "Don Roderigo tells me there is an English man-of-war at Monte Video, and I must lose no time in returning to my duty."

"Three days!" said Dolores, the colour fading from her cheeks.

"But he does not regret his imprisonment among us, Lola," said Marcelino softly, "he will not forget us when he is back in his own country."

"Forget! never!" said Gordon. "These last two years have been the happiest in my life so far. Wherever I go I shall look upon this country as my second home, and shall long for the day when I can return to it and to you."

"Then you will come back?" asked Dolores eagerly.

"That is my firm purpose. As yet I am only a subaltern and must rejoin my regiment, but when the war is over I shall come back; I shall have one great joy if the 71st has the luck to be ordered on active service, that in my next campaign I shall be fighting for you and not against you."

"Do not forget to say that in your speech at the banquet to-morrow," said Marcelino. "Are you clever at making speeches?"

"I never made one in my life," replied Gordon.

"Then if you do not prepare one you will simply say two words and sit down again, and every one will be disappointed."

"I hope I shall manage to say something more than two words, I ought to after all the kindness I have received, but of a set speech I am incapable."

"Without preparation that is very probable; but if I were to write down for you some hints, you could easily make them into a speech. You may safely say things that none of us dare to say, such as I have often heard you say in intimate conversation. You will be the only Englishman present."

"That is a fact, and I will speak out boldly as an Englishman just what I think, but in preparing my speech some hints from you might be of service to me."

"I will go and write them out for you at once," said Marcelino, and turning from them he left the room.

Dolores and Lieutenant Gordon being left alone stood together at the window for some minutes without speaking. Dolores was the first to break the silence.

"You are sorry to leave us, Mr Gordon," she said; "but it will give you great joy to see your own family again."

"It will. You who have never been away from your own people cannot tell the joy there is in meeting again those you love after a long absence," replied Gordon.

"But I can understand it, remember how long Marcelino was away from us; I was quite a little girl when he went to Cordova, but I used often to think of him and wonder what he would be like, and then when he did come back I was so proud of him. Your sisters are thinking about you now as I used to think about Marcelino."

"I dare say they are, for this was my first experience of foreign service. I had no idea that I should come here when I left England, for we were sent to the Cape of Good Hope."

"What things you will have to tell them! If you had never been----if you had not stopped with us you would never have known what it is to gallop over the Pampa."

"And more than that, I should never have known you as I do know you. They know already what kind friends I have found here, how fortunate I have been. When I reach home I shall never be tired of talking to them about you."

"They will be glad to have you back again, but they will not care to hear much about us. Marcelino has told me how in Europe they think that all South Americans are savages."

"They will soon learn to know better when I tell them about you, and about Doña Constancia and Don Roderigo and Marcelino, and about all of you. And about your houses, and about your tertulias in the evenings. They will learn to think much of you, my sisters would be ready to love you if they only saw you. My mother knows your name already; in her second letter she asked me a great many questions about you."

"But you will not stop long with them, will you? If the English send an army to Spain you will go and fight for Spain against Napoleon."

"If my regiment is ordered there I shall go with it. Would you be glad to hear that I was fighting for Spain?"

"I should. Will not you be proud to fight for Spain?",

"You look upon Spain as your own country; then if I fight for Spain I shall think that I am fighting for you. If the 71st is not sent to Spain I will exchange into some other regiment and go there for your sake, if an English army does go. If I were in Spain you would often think of me. I am only a subaltern with little more than my sword to depend upon, but when the war is over and we have beaten Napoleon out of Spain then I shall come back here, for I shall never forget Buenos Aires, and shall think of you every day till I come back again. Promise me that wherever I have to go you will not forget me."

"Oh! of that there is not the slightest fear," said Dolores, in a low eager voice, which sounded in Gordon's ears as the sweetest music, and the memory of which remained with him for years after, while an ocean rolled between them.

"My time is very short here now," he said, in a tremulous voice; "perhaps we may never be alone together again before I go, and years may pass before I am able to return. You have promised that you will not forget me, that you will think of me while I am far away; will you not give me some still sweeter hope? Will you not let me hope that when I return I shall find you as you are now? Will you not let me centre all my hopes for life in you?"

"When you reach your own country you will find some one for whom you will care much more than you can ever care for me," said Dolores, in a very low voice, while the long, dark lashes fell over her eyes, and she bent her head, gazing upon the ground.

"Never," replied Gordon earnestly; "I never met any one whom I could love as I love you, and I never shall."

As he spoke he stepped nearer to her, and took one of her hands in his own.

"I know not what life is before me," he continued, "but one little word from you encouraging me to hope would gild that life so that I should shrink from no toil or hardship which might bring me nearer to you. Will you not bid me hope, I ask no more."

To this Dolores answered nothing, but the taper fingers of the hand twined round his with a gentle pressure, which sent a thrill of proud joy through his whole frame.

Again the door opened, and in came Doña Constancia, smiling, and stretching out her hand to Lieutenant Gordon.

"I have come to congratulate you," she said, apparently unconscious of the excitement which was only too manifest in his face. "You are going from us, and we shall miss you very much."

Long the three sat together talking of the future, Gordon again and again reiterating his resolution to come back and make Buenos Aires his home.

* * * * *

The next day there was high feasting at the house of Don Gregorio Lopez. His dining-room was very large, but there was barely room for the numerous guests assembled. It was a political banquet in celebration of the first anniversary of the defeat of the English army which had attacked the city under the command of General Whitelock. The Viceroy, Marshal Don Santiago Liniers, with many of his principal officers, was present; also the leading members of the various corporations which formed the government, together with the commanders of the various regiments, both of the Spanish troops and the militia; also others who held no official position, but were there as personal friends of their host. Among these there was one who, among the crowd of brown and blue uniforms, profusely embroidered with gold lace and bullion, was conspicuous by his plain scarlet coat, and the gay tartan plaid which hung gracefully from his shoulder. It being a political banquet there were no ladies present.

The banquet commenced an hour before sundown; after about two hours Don Gregorio rose from his seat, and in a short complimentary speech proposed the health of the Viceroy, the hero of the 12th August, 1806, and of the 5th and 6th July, 1807. The toast was drunk with enthusiasm; then Liniers replied at greater length and proposed "The Junta of Seville," now the virtual government of Spain and the Indies, on account of the imprisonment by Napoleon of the ex-King Charles IV. and his son Ferdinand. To these followed many other patriotic and complimentary toasts; and then there was a short pause, during which each man spoke with his neighbour in low tones, till Don Manuel Belgrano, after receiving a nod of acquiescence from Don Gregorio, rose to his feet and proposed the "Morenos de Ponce." His speech was a short one, but it elicited a long one from Don Marcelino in acknowledgment of the toast. For Marcelino was proud of his negroes; and as on the 5th July he had not commanded them he could expatiate freely upon their gallantry on that occasion without laying himself open to an accusation of vanity. He told many anecdotes about them, illustrative both of their devotedness and of their simplicity; several of these anecdotes excited peals of laughter, and when he at length sat down he was applauded by a vehement clapping of hands, the Viceroy himself setting the example.

Then Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon rose to his feet:--

"Señores," he said, "we this day celebrate the first anniversary of our great victory over the English. We do right to celebrate this victory gained by a colony of the old and glorious kingdom of Spain over the well-appointed army of a great and valiant nation. We are proud of the victory we gained on the 5th July, 1807, but I know that you will all join with me in the wish that we may never gain another. The war between England and Spain resulted from the insidious intrigues of the usurper who, not content with seizing for himself the throne of France, seeks to make kings and princes of all the low-born adventurers who surround him, seizing for them by fraud and violence the thrones of every kingdom in Europe. Thank God, the mask of friendship by which he has deluded Spain has at last been torn from him, we have seen ere it was too late the abyss into which he would have led us. England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia have in vain striven to stay the advance of his victorious standards, but at last his usurpations have raised against him a foe who will trample them in the dust. Spain, unconquered Spain, has risen up against him. The Spanish people have risen as one man against Napoleon, and Spain will be the graveyard of his ruffian soldiery. We have seen and acknowledge the errors which led us into hostilities against England, we have stretched out the hand to her in friendship, she has clasped it in forgiveness of the past. We forgive the destruction of our navies at Trafalgar, she forgives the wholesale slaughter of her soldiery in the streets of this our city. England and Spain are now firm allies, together we shall reconquer the territory the invader has already wrested from us, and shall bring back in triumph our rightful king.

"No, Señores, we wish for no more victories over the English, the English are our friends and sworn allies. We who witnessed the fight this day one year ago, who saw how dauntlessly the English advanced under a hailstorm of balls which strewed our streets with their dead; we who saw how small parties of them, cut off from all succour and hemmed in on every side, yet held out for hours refusing to surrender; we who saw them on that day know how to appreciate the valour of such brave allies. We rejoice that they are no longer our foes, they are now our friends, and as friends and allies we welcome them to fight beside us in the cause of every people. We have seen them as they are, and know that they are worthy to fight side by side with the indomitable soldiery of Spain.

"Señores, fill your glasses and join me in one more toast to our friends the English!"

Again with loud "Vivas" every man rose from his seat, and every eye was turned towards the place where Lieutenant Gordon sat in his scarlet coat, the sole representative there of the new-found friends of Spain. As the applause ceased he rose and spoke as follows:--

"Señores, it is with many mixed feelings that I rise to thank you for the warmth with which you have received the toast which has just been proposed to you by my friend Don Roderigo, whose guest I had been for two years. Two years ago the fortune of war made me your prisoner; thanks to Don Roderigo, and to others of you from whom I have received unvarying kindness, these two years have been to me as one long holiday; I cannot look upon you as my gaolers, I cannot fancy that I ever did look upon you as my enemies, your kindness to me will make it impossible for me ever to think of you otherwise than as dear friends. When I am far away, I know not where, in the service of my own country, I shall look back upon Buenos Aires as the spot where I have passed the happiest years of my life. I came here knowing as little as Englishmen generally do of Spain or of the colonies of Spain, I was a soldier, my country was at war with Spain, and I came here to do her bidding, to fight as I thought against Spain. I came here as an enemy, the chances of war made me your prisoner, among you I have lived ever since.

"Living among you I have learned to know you, and to think it the greatest of all misfortunes that England and you should look upon each other as enemies. Living among you I have learned that Buenos Aires is not Spain, and that in fighting against Buenos Aires, England fights against a country which every interest binds to her in firm friendship and alliance. Most of you by race and language are Spaniards, many of you were born in Spain, but this country is not Spain, those who live in this country cannot long remain Spaniards. In the Old World we live fettered by the trammels of worn-out traditions, but here in the New World the very air is redolent of freedom. Unarmed, often alone, I have galloped for days over your boundless Pampa, I have shared the hospitality of great landowners, whose possessions exceed the limits of many an English county, and have also often been indebted for a night's lodging to the kindness of some lowly herdsman; from both the reception was the same, a frank welcome, an offer of everything I could require, and no question asked as to whence I came, or when or whither I would go. Galloping north, south, and west over the trackless Pampa, meeting nowhere with any obstacle, finding everywhere frankness and open-handed hospitality, I have felt the blood course through my veins with the joy of unrestricted freedom. I have gazed around me to the very verge of the far-off horizon, seeing nothing which could prevent me from galloping on and on whithersoever my will might lead to, and have known for the first time in my life the proud feeling of absolute independence.

"This liberty, which has been to me but as a brief holiday, has been to the majority of the men of this country the leading influence of their life. These immense plains which you call the Pampa are peopled by a hardy race of yeomen, who have grown to maturity in an atmosphere of freedom; from their earliest boyhood they have been accustomed to think and act for themselves, they have been trained in self-reliance, the trammels of the Old World are to them unknown, liberty is with them the very essence of their life. And you who live in the city also feel the impulse of this all-pervading influence. Obsolete laws and customs fetter you and check the growth of the genuine instincts of your nature, but you breathe the free air of America; around you stretch those boundless plains which speak to you whenever you look upon them of the nothingness of man in face of the immensity of Nature. No man, whether he be a Spaniard, an Englishman, or a Frenchman, can live long surrounded by these influences without feeling that in the sight of God all men are equal. It has therefore caused me no surprise to find here men who, in ideas and modes of thought, resemble the most advanced philosophers of Europe.

"The liberal ideas, which carried to excess have been a scourge to France, driving her to seek for peace under the iron rule of a military despot, have yet their foundation in great natural truths; these truths are taught to you by every influence which surrounds you. Thus the men of this land, though colonists of Spain, are yet a separate people. In coming here to fight against Spain we forced you into hostilities against us, and raised up for ourselves an enemy where we might have found our firmest friend. Spain alone is powerless against us, but twice have we been foiled by a colony of Spain.

"A colony is an infant nation; the day will come when in the maturity of your strength you will take your place among the nations of the world. If in your infancy you have by your valour humbled the pride of haughty England, that place will surely be in the foremost rank. England at peace with Spain is now no longer your enemy and will be the first to stretch out to you the hand, and welcome you into the great family of the nations.

"England and Spain have now the glorious task before them of setting bounds to the insatiate ambition of Napoleon; in this struggle I hope to have my part, fighting once more under the red cross of St George, in the most righteous of all causes, the deliverance of a noble people from foreign usurpation. In fighting for Spain I shall feel that I am fighting for you also, and thus in some degree repaying the great kindness which during two years of captivity has taught me to look upon Buenos Aires as my second country.

"Señores, again I thank you for the warmth with which you have welcomed the friendship of old England."

As Gordon resumed his seat, the majority of those present commenced clapping their hands, snouting "Vivan los Ingleses!" and some few added in a lower tone, "The true allies of America."

But there were others, among them the Viceroy, who neither shouted nor clapped their hands, but looked uneasily one at the other, as though they were far from pleased.

Don Gregorio, looking round his table, saw the various emotions depicted on the faces of his guests; he saw a cloud on the usually open countenance of the Viceroy, ill-concealed anger in the faces of Don Martin Alzaga and other Spaniards, annoyance and vexation in the face of his son-in-law Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon; while in the flushed features of many of his younger guests he read a dangerous excitement, which one untoward word might rouse into a storm. Hurriedly he rose from his seat.

"Señores," he said, "Spain has taken upon herself a task which Europe united has failed to accomplish. In this she will need staunch allies, she will find them in the English, therefore fill your glasses once more and honour a repetition of this toast, 'To our friends the English!'"

"To our friends the English!" shouted all the company, rising to their feet, and the toast being duly honoured they left their places and began conversing in groups about the room, upon which Don Gregorio ordered a large pair of folding doors to be thrown open, and invited his guests to adjourn to the sala for coffee, thus preventing the perpetration of any more ambiguous speeches.

From the sala the guests gradually dispersed, many of them being engaged to pass the rest of the night at the house of Don Fausto Velasquez.

"My congratulations on your speech, my friend," said Marcelino to Gordon, as they left the house together.

"Some of them did not half like it," replied Gordon, laughing; "but I said nothing that I have not said to you fifty times."

"True, but it would be treason for any of us to speak so before the Viceroy. The Spanish doctrine is that 'a colony is a slave.'"

"If her colonists were slaves Spain would have lost this colony a year ago. It takes men to beat us."

"Well, as my father said, we will never beat you again. I never drank to a toast with more pleasure in my life than I did to his 'To our friends the English!'"