The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales

Excerpt

THE GOLDSMITH'S DAUGHTER.

A LEGEND OF MADRID.

Many, many years ago, in those "good old times" so much bepraised by antiquaries and the laudatores temporis acti,—the good old times, that is to say, of the holy office, of those magnificent autos when the smell of roasted heretics was as sweet a savor in the nostrils of the faithful, as that of Quakers done remarkably brown was to our godly Puritan ancestors,—there dwelt in the royal city of Madrid a wealthy goldsmith by the name of Antonio Perez, whose family—having lost his wife—consisted of a lovely daughter, named Magdalena, and a less beautiful but still charming niece, Juanita. The housekeeping and the care of the girls were committed to a starched old duenna, Donna Margarita, whose vinegar aspect and sharp tongue might well keep at a distance the boldest gallants of the court and camp. For the rest, some half dozen workmen and servitors, and a couple of stout Asturian serving wenches made up the establishment of the wealthy artisan. As the chief care of the latter was to accumulate treasure, his family, while they were denied no comfort, were debarred from luxury, and, perhaps, fared the better from this very frugality of the master. Yet in the stable, which occupied a portion of the basement story of his residence,—the other half being devoted to the almacen, or store,—there were a couple of long-tailed Flemish mares, and a heavy, lumbering chariot; and in the rear of the house a garden, enclosed on three sides with a stone wall, and comprising arbors, a fountain, and a choice variety of fruits and flowers.

One evening, the goldsmith's daughter and her cousin sat in their apartment, on the second story, peeping out through the closed "jalousies," or blinds, into the twilight street, haply on the watch for some gallant cavalier, whose horsemanship and costume they might admire or criticize. Seeing nothing there, however, to attract their attention, they turned to each other.

"Juanita," said the goldsmith's daughter, "I believe I have secured an admirer."

"An admirer!" exclaimed the pretty cousin. "If your father and dame Margarita didn't keep us cooped here like a pair of pigeons, we should have, at least, twenty apiece. But what manner of man is this phœnix of yours? Is he tall? Has he black eyes, or blue? Is he courtier or soldier?"

"He is tall," replied Magdalena, smiling; "but for his favor, or the color of his eyes, or quality, I cannot answer. His face and figure shrouded in a cloak, his sombrero pulled down over his eyes, he takes up his station against a pillar of the church whenever I go to San Ildefonso with my duenna, and watches me till mass is ended. I have caught him following our footsteps. But be he gentle or simple, fair or dark, I know not."

"A very mysterious character!" cried Juanita, laughing, "like unto the bravo of some Italian tale. Jesu Maria!" she exclaimed, springing to the window, "what goodly cavalier rides hither? His mantle is of three-pile velvet, and he wears golden spurs upon his heels. And with what a grace he sits and manages his fiery genet! Pray Heaven your suitor be as goodly a cavalier."

Magdalena gazed forth upon the horseman, and her heart silently confessed that the praises of her cousin were well bestowed. As the cavalier approached the goldsmith's house, he checked the impatient speed of his horse, and gazed upward earnestly at the window where the young girls sat.

"Magdalena!" cried the mischievous Juanita, "old Margarita is not here to document us, and I declare your beauty shall have one chance." As she spoke she threw open the blind, and exposed her lovely and blushing cousin to the gaze of the cavalier.

Ardently and admiringly he gazed upon her dark and faultless features, and then raising his plumed hat, bowed to his very saddle bow, and rode on, but turned, ever and anon, till he was lost in the distance and gradual darkening of the street.

"Mutual admiration!" cried the gay Juanita, clapping her hands. "Thank me for the stratagem. Yon cavalier is, without a doubt, the mysterious admirer of San Ildefonso."

Don Julio Montero—for that was the name of the cavalier—returned again beneath the casement, and again saw Magdalena. He also made some purchases of the old goldsmith, and managed to speak a word with his fair daughter in the shop; and in spite of the duenna, billets were exchanged between the parties. The very secrecy with which this little intrigue was managed, the mystery of it, influenced the imagination of Magdalena and increased the violence of her attachment, and loving with all the fervor of her meridian nature, she felt that any disappointment would be her death....