A Well-Won Dish of Cherries
Manalet ran away, but he soon came back with a lot of other little boys, all barefoot, dirty, unkempt, and ragged, and amongst them his brother Badoret, with Gasparo pickapack, clinging tightly with arms and legs to his shoulders and waist. All seemed very pleased, especially Badoret, who was distributing cherries to his companions.
“Take one, Andres,” said the boy, giving me a cherry. “How did you think I got them? Well, I’ll tell you. I was going with Gasparo on my back down the calle del Lobo, when I saw open the gate of the Convent of the Capuchin Nuns, which is always shut. Gasparo would keep on asking me for bread and crying, and I gave him little slaps to make him keep quiet, telling him that if he wouldn’t leave off I would tell his Excellency the Governor. But when I saw the convent gate open, I said to myself, ‘there will be something to find here,’and I slipped in. I crossed the courtyard, and then entered the church and passed through the choir till I reached a long corridor with a lot of little rooms, and I didn’t meet a soul. I looked carefully everywhere to see if I could get anything, but I only came across some candle-ends and two or three skeins of silk, which I began to chew to see if they gave any juice. I was thinking of returning to the street, when I heard behind me, ‘Ss—t, Ss—t’, as if somebody was calling me. I looked, but I saw nobody. Oh, how afraid I was, Andres! Down at the bottom of the corridor there was a huge print, in which was a devil with a long green tail. I thought it was the devil calling me, and began to run. But, oh dear! I could not find a door, and I went round and round that horrid corridor, and all the time, ‘Ss—t!’ And then I heard some one say, ‘Little boy, come here,’and I looked at the ceiling and the walls, until I at last saw behind some bars a white hand and a worn and wrinkled face. I was not afraid then, and went to it. The nun said to me, ‘Come, don’t be afraid, I have something to say to you.’I went close to the grating, and said to her, ‘Pardon me, Señora, I thought you were the devil.’”
“Why, it must have been some poor sick nun who could not escape with the others.”
“That’s it. The lady said to me, ‘Little boy, how did you come in here? God has sent you to do me a great service. All the sisters have gone away. I am ill and a cripple. They wanted to take me, but it grew late, and so they left me behind. I am very afraid. Is all the town burnt? Have the French entered? Just now, when I was half asleep, I dreamt that all the sisters had been beheaded in the slaughter-house, and that the French were eating them. Boy, would you venture to go, now at once, to the fort, and give this note to my nephew, Don Alonso Carrillo, captain of the regiment of Ultonia? If you do so, I will give you the dish of cherries you see here, and this half loaf.’ “Even if she hadn’t offered them me I would have gone, you know. I seized the note, she told me where I could get out, and I ran towards the fort. Gasparo cried more than before, but I said to him, ‘If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll put you in a cannon as if you were a ball, and shoot you away, and you’ll go rolling amongst the French, who will cook you in a saucepan and eat you.’ “At last I reached the fort. What a lot of firing there! That down here is nothing to it. The cannon balls whizzed through the air like a flight of birds. And do you think I was afraid? Not I! Gasparo went on crying and screaming; but I showed him the flames bursting from the bombs, and the flashes from the powder-pans, and said, ‘Look, how pretty! We are going to shoot cannons too now!’ “A soldier gave me a cuff to push me to one side, and I fell on a heap of dead, but I got up and went straight on. Then the Governor appeared, and grasping a large black banner he waved it in the air, and then he said that he would have the first coward hanged. What do you think of that? I went in front and shouted, ‘Quite right, too!’ ‘Some soldiers told me to go away, and the women who were looking after the wounded began to abuse me, asking me why I had taken the baby there. What a crowd of sparks! They fell like flies, first one, then another. The French wanted to get in, but we wouldn’t let them.”
“What? You wouldn’t?”
“Yes; the women and our men threw stones from the top of the wall at the scoundrels who wanted to climb them. I loosened Gasparo, putting him on the top of a box in which was some powder and cannon-balls, and I also began to throw stones. And what stones! I threw one which weighed at least six hundredweight, and hit a Frenchman, doubling him in two. You ought to have seen it. The French were many, and they wanted to do nothing else but come into the fort. You should have seen the Governor, Andresillo! Don Mariano, and I, we sprang in front... and always went where the soldiers were most hard pressed. I don’t know what I did, but I did something, Andres. I could not see for the smoke, nor hear for the noise. Such terrible firing! Into your very ears, Andres. It makes one quite deaf. I began to shout, calling them blackguards, thieves, and telling them that Napoleon was a good-for-nothing. Maybe they didn’t hear me for the noise, but I made them turn back and a-half. Rather! Well, Andres, not to tire you, I stayed there until they retreated. The Governor told me he was satisfied—no, he did not speak to me, he said it to the rest.”
“But the letter.”
“I looked for Captain Carrillo—I knew him by sight before—and I met him at last when all was over. I gave him the paper, and he gave me a message for the nun. Then, remembering Gasparo, I went to look for him where I had left him, but he wasn’t there. I began to shout out, ‘Gasparo, Gasparo!’ but he didn’t answer. At last I saw him under a gun carriage, rolled up like a little ball, with his fists in his mouth, looking between the spokes of the wheel, and a large tear in each eye. I put him on my back and ran to the convent. But now comes the best of it; as I was going along thinking of battles, and my head full of all I had seen, I forgot the message the Captain had given me for the nun. She scolded me, saying that I had torn up the letter, and wanted to deceive her, and that she couldn’t think of giving me either the cherries or the bread she had promised. And then she began to grumble, and called me a bad boy and a beast. One of Gasparo’s toes was bleeding, and the nun tied a rag round it; but the cherries—not a single one! At last all was settled, for Captain Carrillo came himself, and she gave me the cherries and the bread, and I ran out of the convent.”
“Take the child home to your sister,” I said, noticing that poor Gaspar foot was still bleeding.
“I have kept some cherries for Siseta,” he cried.
“Oh, I say, boys!” shouted Manalet, running back towards us, “the Governor is going through the town with a lot of people and banners; the ladies are singing in front, and the monks dancing, and the bishop smiling, and the nuns crying. Come along!”
And like a flock of birds the band of children ran down the street.
Gerona: “Episodios Nacionales.” Perez Galdos.