CHAPTER XV.

MARAVILLA.

"Sempre il mal non vien per nuocere!"

ITALIAN PROVERB.

I AM an old man now, living peacefully at the English sea-port of Bridlinquay, the toils and the adventures of life over, aye, and its keenest pleasures also. Sometimes in the evening I sit outside my cottage, which is not far from the beach, and enjoy my pipe on a little green where there is a flagstaff, and where the colours that have "braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze" are hoisted on high days and holidays. There I remain for hours, listening to the regular wash of the waves on the beach and sands, occasionally arrested by some vessel far out at sea, which I scan through an old trustworthy telescope valued for its age and associations, but more often wrapped in my recollections of long past stirring days.

In the quiet and very peaceful churchyard a little

way inland, there is a green mound with a simple cross instead of a headstone, and these words only,

MARAVILLA.

Sempre il mal non vien per nuocere.

which being translated, gives a sentiment which may appear a marvel, nay, even a paradox to some of my friends, that "evil does not always come to injure." This has been a truth which many circumstances have impressed upon me, and in placing it over the grave of my dear and cherished wife, I was actuated by the knowledge that no human hand could alleviate the sufferings which an incurable disease had been permitted to entail upon her, and that the sorrow and the sad loneliness which followed her loss were more merciful than the pain which would have accompanied life had she lingered on. While I think of her as beyond the inroads of disease, or the necessity for physical endurance, while I hear, or at least seem to hear, her blithe songs of old in some of the murmurs of the sea, in some tones of the wind, and recognise her form sometimes in the evening sunset mists, or amidst the rich clouds rose-tinged in the early morning, gazing tenderly and pityingly upon me, and my desolate pathway here-while I await the time, ever coming nearer, when the angel of death shall summon the old man to meet his dear Maravilla again beyond the great seas, the sunlit clouds, and perhaps, the sun itself, some of my neighbours misinterpreting my quiet, silent and retrospective life, and entirely misapprehending the inscription

on the cross, and, moreover, disliking such an innovation on the ordinary stone erections in English churchyards, have spread quite a different report respecting its signification from any which I had ever imagined it would bear. This is partly the reason why I have often related an episode in a stirring life which would otherwise have remained unknown, and the knowledge of which would soon have been buried with me under the shadow of the ancient yew, whose trailing branches sweep the turf which, but a few years ago, was freshly placed over the best part of my heart and life-my faithful Maravilla.

When I was strong and active, and a young man, I had the command of a fine little trading brig called the "Happy-go-lucky," in which I made several trips to different parts of Old Spain, and amongst others, to that aged city, one of the most ancient in Europe, Cadiz.

This place is situated at the extremity of a sandy tongue of land projecting from the northern angle of the Isla de Léon, or Lion Island, and though built by the Phoenicians six or seven hundred years before the Christian era, it possesses quite a modern appearance. On my first visit, notwithstanding the life of adventure and novelty which had for some years been mine, I was much struck with the beauty of the approaches to this port. The white houses, and towers, and turrets, clustered together at the end and edge of a long narrow neck of land extending far out into the ocean, seemed to rise, as it were, from the very waves, to grow out of the

bosom of the great sea, which in fact washes the walls of the city on all sides, except where an isthmus joins its eastern portion with the coast of Spain.

My business during the visit, which bears upon the incidents I have to narrate, was at the wine vaults of Xeres, a naine oddly transferred in England to "sherries." Having arranged for my return freight to England, and leaving the mate in charge of the loading, I donned my gayest and best clothing, in accordance with the usual custom, and devoted a few days to an enjoyment of all the pleasures and festivities that could be found at Cadiz.

After obtaining a permit and inspecting the admirable fortifications, then, however, not wholly finished, and lying in abeyance; after exhausting the country and the cafés around, the time had nearly arrived for my departure, when considerable excitement arose in the city in consequence of an expected invasion by the French. Nothing else was talked of. Great preparations were made; but it was pretty well understood they would be of small avail were the place actually besieged by the powerful Gallic forces.

At this time I strayed one morning into the church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, attracted at first by its façade, and afterwards by a young Señorita of distinction, who passed slowly on, attended by a servant, with that peculiarly graceful and dignified walk which characterises so many of the Spanish ladies.

Both the face and figure of this unknown fair one struck me with a feeling unknown and unfelt before. The ladies of Cadiz are commonly thought, in Old Spain, to be inferior in beauty to those of Granada, Malaga, and Seville; but never in the Islands of the Mediterranean, or in the swathed and turbaned East, or even in my own favoured Britain, · had so exquisite a vision dawned upon me. An oval, delicately turned face, with large intensely dark eyes, shaded by long-fringed eye-lashes, softness and grace in every line of the splendid profile, a look lovely and yet arch and full of mirth, the overflowing of a stainless and innocent heartthat even outshone the clearness and transparency of the complexion-all this was hers.

I followed the young lady into the Church of the Virgin del Carmen, and watched her at her devotions; I marked her in the evening, walking with her father in the Plaza de San Antonio, and fell hopelessly and rapidly in love.

On enquiring minutely, I was informed that the name of my inamorata was Maravilla, and that she was the daughter of a Spanish grandee, high in power at Madrid, Don Diego Salvador, who was staying near Cadiz a few days only at his country-house.

Love is capable of anything. With much difficulty I had at last the good fortune to procure an introduction to Don Diego from some Cadiz friends, whom I had become acquainted with through the owners of my vessel, and by skilful management I obtained an hour with the charming Maravilla.