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The Governor And The NotaryThe Governor And The Notary
The Governor And The Notary
In former times there ruled, as governor of the Alhambra, a doughty old
cavalier, who, from having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly known by the
name of el Gobernador Manco, or "the one-armed governor." He in fact prided
himself upon being an old soldier, wore his mustaches curled up to his eyes,
a pair of campaigning boots, and a Toledo as long as a spit, with his pocket
handkerchief in the basket-hilt.
He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of all
his privileges and dignities. Under his sway the immunities of the Alhambra,
as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to
enter the fortress with firearms, or even with a sword or staff, unless he
were of a certain rank; and every horseman was obliged to dismount at the
gate, and lead his horse by the bridle. Now as the hill of the Alhambra rises
from the very midst of the city of Granada, being, as it were, an excrescence
of the capital, it must at all times be somewhat irksome to the
captain-general, who commands the province, to have thus an imperium in
imperio, a petty independent post in the very centre of his domains. It was
rendered the more galling, in the present instance, from the irritable
jealousy of the old governor, that took fire on the least question of
authority and jurisdiction; and from the loose vagrant character of the
people who had gradually nestled themselves within the fortress, as in a
sanctuary, and thence carried on a system of roguery and depredation at the
expense of the honest inhabitants of the city.
Thus there was a perpetual feud and heart-burning between the
captain-general and the governor, the more virulent on the part of the latter,
inasmuch as the smallest of two neighboring potentates is always the most
captious about his dignity. The stately palace of the captain-general stood
in the Plaza Nueva, immediately at the foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and
here was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics, and city
functionaries. A beetling bastion of the fortress overlooked the palace and
public square in front of it; and on this bastion the old governor would
occasionally strut backwards and forwards, with his Toledo girded by his side,
keeping a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitering his quarry
from his nest in a dry tree.
Whenever he descended into the city it was in grand parade, on horseback,
surrounded by his guards, or in his state coach, an ancient and unwieldy
Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt leather, drawn by eight mules, with
running footmen, outriders, and lackeys; on which occasions he flattered
himself he impressed every beholder with awe and admiration as vicegerent of
the king; though the wits of Granada, particularly those who loitered about
the palace of the captain-general, were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and
in allusion to the vagrant character of his subjects, to greet him with the
appellation of "the king of the beggars." One of the most fruitful sources of
dispute between these two doughty rivals was the right claimed by the governor
to have all things passed free of duty through the city, that were intended
for the use of himself or his garrison. By degrees this privilege had given
rise to extensive smuggling. A nest of contrabandistas took up their abode in
the hovels of the fortress, and the numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove
a thriving business under the connivance of the soldiers of the garrison.
The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal
adviser and factotum, a shrewd meddlesome escribano, or notary, who rejoiced
in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the Alhambra, and
involving him in a maze of legal subtilties. He advised the captain-general
to insist upon the right of examining every convoy passing through the gates
of his city, and penned a long letter for him in vindication of the right.
Governor Manco was a straightforward cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an
escribano worse than the devil, and this one in particular worse than all
other escribanos.
"What!" said he, curling up his mustaches fiercely, "does the
captain-general set his man of the pen to practise confusions upon me? I`ll
let him see an old soldier is not to be baffled by schoolcraft."
He seized his pen and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand, in
which, without deigning to enter into argument, he insisted on the right of
transit free of search, and denounced vengeance on any custom-house officer
who should lay his unhallowed hand on any convoy protected by the flag of the
Alhambra. While this question was agitated between the two pragmatical
potentates, it so happened that a mule laden with supplies for the fortress
arrived one day at the gate of Xenil, by which it was to traverse a suburb of
the city on its way to the Alhambra. The convoy was headed by a testy old
corporal, who had long served under the governor, and was a man after his own
heart; as rusty and stanch as an old Toledo blade.
As they approached the gate of the city, the corporal placed the banner
of the Alhambra on the pack-saddle of the mule, and drawing himself up to a
perfect perpendicular, advanced with his head dressed to the front, but with
the wary side-glance of a cur passing through hostile ground, and ready for a
snap and a snarl.
"Who goes there?" said the sentinel at the gate.
"Soldier of the Alhambra!" said the corporal, without turning his head.
"What have you in charge?"
"Provisions for the garrison."
"Proceed."
The corporal marched straight forward, followed by the convoy, but had
not advanced many paces before a posse of custom-house officers rushed out of
a small toll-house.
"Hallo there!" cried the leader. "Muleteer, halt, and open those
packages."
The corporal wheeled round, and drew himself up in battle array. "Respect
the flag of the Alhambra," said he; "these things are for the governor."
"A figo for the governor, and a figo for his flag. Muleteer, halt, I
say."
"Stop the convoy at your peril!" cried the corporal, cocking his musket.
"Muleteer, proceed."
The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack; the custom-house officer
sprang forward and seized the halter; whereupon the corporal levelled his
piece, and shot him dead.
The street was immediately in an uproar.
The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing sundry kicks, and
cuffs, and cudgellings, which are generally given impromptu by the mob in
Spain, as a foretaste of the after penalties of the law, he was loaded with
irons, and conducted to the city prison; while his comrades were permitted
to proceed with the convoy, after it had been well rummaged, to the Alhambra.
The old governor was in a towering passion when he heard of this insult
to his flag and capture of his corporal. For a time he stormed about the
Moorish halls, and vapored about the bastions, and looked down fire and sword
upon the palace of the captain-general. Having vented the first ebullition of
his wrath, he dispatched a message demanding the surrender of the corporal, as
to him alone belonged the right of sitting in judgment on the offences of
those under his command. The captain-general, aided by the pen of the
delighted escribano, replied at great length, arguing that as the offence had
been committed within the walls of his city, and against one of his civil
officers, it was clearly within his proper jurisdiction. The governor rejoined
by a repetition of his demand; the captain-general gave a sur-rejoinder of
still greater length and legal acumen; the governor became hotter and more
peremptory in his demands, and the captain-general cooler and more copious in
his replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely roared with fury at
being thus entangled in the meshes of legal controversy.
While the subtle escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of the
governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal, who, mewed up in a
narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated window at which to
show his iron-bound visage and receive the consolations of his friends.
A mountain of written testimony was diligently heaped up, according to
Spanish form, by the indefatigable escribano; the corporal was completely
overwhelmed by it. He was convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hanged.
It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from the
Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put in capilla,
that is to say, in the chapel of the prison, as is always done with culprits
the day before execution, that they may meditate on their approaching end and
repent them of their sins.
Seeing things drawing of extremity, the old governor determined to attend
to the affair in person. For this purpose he ordered out his carriage of
state, and, surrounded by his guards, rumbled down the avenue of the Alhambra
into the city. Driving to the house of the escribano, he summonedhim to the
portal.
The eye of the old governor gleamed like a coal at beholding the smirking
man of the law advancing with an air of exultation.
"What is this I hear," cried he, "that you are about to put to death one
of my soldiers?"
"All according to law - all in strict form of justice," said the
self-sufficient escribano, chuckling and rubbing his hands. "I can show your
excellency the written testimony in the case."
"Fetch it hither," said the governor. The escribano bustled into his
office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his ingenuity
at the expense of the hard-headed veteran.
He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long
deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had collected,
listening with outstretched necks and gaping mouths.
"Prithee, man, get into the carriage, out of this pestilent throng, that
I may the better hear thee," said the governor.
The escribano entered the carriage, when, in a twinkling, the door was
closed, the coachman smacked his whip-mules, carriage, guards and all dashed
off at a thundering rate, leaving the crowd in gaping wonderment; nor did the
governor pause until he had lodged his prey in one of the strongest dungeons
of the Alhambra.
He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel
or exchange of prisoners - the corporal for the notary. The pride of the
captain-general was piqued; he returned a contemptuous refusal, and forthwith
caused a gallows, tall and strong, to be erected in the centre of the Plaza
Nueva for the execution of the corporal.
"Oho! is that the game?" said Governor Manco. He gave orders, and
immediately a gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling bastion
that overlooked the Plaza. "Now," said he in a message to the captain-general,
"hang my soldier when you please; but at the same time that he is swung off in
the square, look up to see your escribano dangling against the sky."
The captain-general was inflexible; troops were paraded in the square;
the drums beat, the bell tolled. An immense multitude of amateurs gathered
together to behold the execution. On the other hand, the governor paraded his
garrison on the bastion, and tolled the funeral dirge of the notary from the
Torre de la Campana, or Tower of the Bell.
The notary`s wife pressed through the crowd with a whole progeny of
little embryo escribanos at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet of the
captain-general, implored him not to sacrifice the life of her husband, and
the welfare of herself and her numerous little ones, to a point of pride; "for
you know the old governor too well," said she, "to doubt that he will put his
threat in execution, if you hang the soldier."
The captain-general was overpowered by her tears and lamentations, and
the clamors of her callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the Alhambra,
under a guard, in his gallows garb, like a hooded friar, but with head erect
and a face of iron. The escribano was demanded in exchange, according to the
cartel. The once bustling and self-sufficient man of the law was drawn forth
from his dungeon more dead than alive. All his flippancy and conceit had
evaporated; his hair, it is said, had nearly turned gray with affright, and
he had a downcast, dogged look, as if he still felt the halter round his neck.
The old governor stuck his one arm akimbo, and for a moment surveyed him
with an iron smile. "Henceforth, my friend," said he, "moderate your zeal in
hurrying others to the gallows; be not too certain of your safety, even though
you should have the law on your side; and above all take care how you play off
your schoolcraft another time upon an old soldier."
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