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There was the shattered stock of the very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer on his poaching exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh: the sword also with which he played Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb.
"Beware! beware! of the Black Friar, Who sitteth by Norman stone, For he mutters his prayers in the midnight air, And his mass of the days that are gone. When the Lord of the Hill, Amundeville, Made Norman Church his prey, And expell'd the friars, one friar still Would not be driven away.
When the English ancient was spread, and three guns fired, as a signal of friendship, we perceived a smoke rise from the creek; upon which I ordered the boat out, taking Friday with me, and hanging out a white flag of truce, I went on shore, accompanied also by the young friar, to whom I had related the history of the first part of my life; besides we had sixteen men well armed, in case we had met with any opposition.
The artist became the devoted friend of the preacher, and, when the latter was seized, tortured, and burned, Bartolommeo became a friar, and left his pictures to be finished by his pupil Albertinelli. For four years he lived the most austere life, and did not touch his brush: then his superior commanded him to resume his art; but the painter had no interest in it.
As you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II.... You remember all that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition; and everything becomes clear to your mind's eye with a sudden light; for the first time you understand it all; the Escorial is Philip II.... He is still there alive and terrible, with the image of his dreadful God... . Even now, after so long a time, on rainy days, when I am feeling sad, I think of the Escorial, and then look at the walls of my room and congratulate myself.... I see again the courtyards of the Escorial. ... I dream of wandering through the corridors alone in the dark, followed by the ghost of an old friar, crying and pounding at all the doors without finding a way of escape."
Then did the three, being upon their knees, lay their hands upon the sword and swear the oath as Beltane commanded; now came the white friar and stared upon the sword and beholding the motto graven in the steel, lifted up his hand to heaven and cried aloud:
The former is the sculptor, the latter the statue, because all that we are, think, or do, we owe to the friar to his patience, his toil, his perseverance of three centuries to modify the form Nature gave us. The Philippines without the friar and without the Indian what then would become of the unfortunate government in the hands of the Chinamen?"
It is all one, to be a Roman poet in his villa, a lazy friar of the Middle Ages toasting in the sun, or a modern idler, who has drifted here out of the active currents of life, and cannot make up his mind to depart.
"My son," said he, gravely, "the friar you saw yesterday is confessor to Don Picador Cangrejo's family; his reason for asking to obtain an interview with you was from its being known that you were active in capturing the unfortunate men with whom young Federico Cangrejo, his only son, was leagued. Oh that poor, poor boy! Had you known him, gentlemen, as I knew him, poor, poor Federico!"
The innkeeper and the friar entered the house and stepped into the large bar-room. Two men came to meet them there. One of them, a man about forty-five years old, dressed in the simple costume of the Tyrolese, and of a tall, powerful form, was Peter Mayer, known throughout the Tyrol as one of the most ardent and faithful patriots, and a man of extraordinary intrepidity, firmness, and energy.
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