He sat still, his mind working, while in a fair inner
land Isabel and I moved together; then in a meditative
quiet he finished his drawing. He himself was
admirable, fine gold and bronze, sapphire-eyed, with
a face where streams of visions moved the muscles,
and all against the blue and the willow tree.
At last he put away pencil, and at his gesture I came
from the boat and the reeds. I looked at what
he had drawn, and then he shut book and, the mule
following us, we moved back to the road.
“My dear fisherman,” he said, “you
are trudging afoot and your dress exhibits poverty.
Painters may paint Jove descending in showers of golden
pesos and yet have few pesos in purse. I have
at present ten. I should like to share them with
you who have done me various good turns to-day.”
I said that he was generous but that he had done me
good turns. Moreover I was not utterly without
coin, and certainly the hour had paid for itself.
So he mounted his mule and wished me good fortune,
and I wished him good fortune.
“Are you going to Santa Fe?”
“Yes. I have a friend in the camp.”
“I go there to paint her Highness the Queen
for his
Highness the King. Perhaps we shall meet again.
I am
Manuel Rodriguez.”
“I guessed that,” I answered, “an
hour ago! Be so good, great painter, as not to
remember me. It will serve me better.”
The light played again over his face. “The
Disguised Hidalgo. Excellent pictures come
to me like that, in a great warm light, and excellent
names for pictures.—Very good. In
a way, so to speak, I shall completely forget you!”
Two on horseback, a churchman and a knight, with servants
following, came around a bend of the dusty road and
recognizing Manuel Rodriguez, called to him by name.
Away he rode upon his mule, keeping company with them.
The dozen in their train followed, raising as they
went by such a dust cloud that presently all became
like figures upon worn arras. They rode toward
Santa Fe, and I followed on foot.
Santa Fe rose before me, a camp in wood, plaster
and stone, a camp with a palace, a camp with churches.
Built of a piece where no town had stood, built that
Majesty and its Court and its Army might have roofs
and walls, not tents, for so long a siege, it covered
the plain, a city raised in a night. The siege
had been long as the war had been long. Hidalgo
Spain and simple Spain were gathered here in great
squares and ribbons of valor, ambition, emulation,
desire of excitement and of livelihood, and likewise,
I say it, in pieces not small, herded and brought here
without any “I say yes” of their own, and
to their misery. There held full flavor of crusade,
as all along the war had been preached as a crusade.
Holy Church had here her own grandees, cavaliers and
footmen. They wore cope and they wore cowl, and
