Gabriel was just eighteen when he lost his father.
The old gardener died quietly, happy in seeing all
his family in the service of the Cathedral and the
good old tradition of the Lunas continued without
interruption. Thomas, the eldest son, remained
in the garden, Esteban, after serving many years as
acolyte and assistant to the sacristans, was Silenciario,
and had been given the Wooden Staff and seven reals
a day, the height of all his ambition; and as far as
regarded the youngest, the good Senor Esteban had
the firm conviction that he had begotten a Father
of the Church, for whom a place in heaven was especially
reserved at the right hand of God Omnipotent.
Gabriel had acquired in the seminary that ecclesiastic
sternness that turns the priest into a warrior more
intent on the interest of the Church than on the concerns
of his family. For this reason he did not feel
the death of his father very greatly; besides, much
greater misfortunes soon occurred to preoccupy the
young seminarist.
There was great excitement both in the Cathedral and
in the seminary, everyone discussing from morning
till night the news from Madrid, for these were the
days of the September revolution. The traditional
and healthy Spain, the Spain of the great historical
tradition had fallen. The Cortes Constituyentes
were a volcano, a breath from the infernal regions,
to those gentlemen of the black cassock who crowded
round the unfolded newspaper, and, if they found comfort
and satisfaction in a speech of Maesterola’s
they would suffer the agonies of death at the revolutionary
harangues, which dealt such terrible blows at the olden
days. The clergy had turned their eyes towards
Don Carlos, who was beginning the war in the northern
provinces; the king of the Vascongados[1] mountains
would be able to remedy everything when he came down
into the plains of Castille. But years passed
by, Amadeus had come and gone, they had even proclaimed
a republic! And yet the cause of God did not
seem to advance much, and Heaven seemed deaf.
A republican deputy proclaimed a war against God,
challenging Him to silence him; and so impiety stalked
along immune and triumphant, and its eloquence flowed
abroad like a poisonous spring.
[Footnote 1: Provinces of Alava, Guipuscoa, and
the lordship of Biscay.]
Gabriel lived in a state of bellicose excitement—he
forgot his books, he disregarded his future, he never
thought now of singing his mass. What would happen
to his career now that the Church was in peril, and
that the sleepy poetry of past ages, that had enveloped
him from his cradle like a perfumed cloud of old incense
and dried roses, was on the point of vanishing?
Often some of the pupils disappeared from the seminary,
and the professors would reply to the inquiries of
the curious with a sly wink.
“They have gone out—with the good
sort. They could not see quietly what was happening—’child’s
play,’ ‘follies.’”
