I have no recollection of what my uncle was doing at that time; I only know that his brutality to me increased to such a point that, weary of his cruelty, I ran away, determined to seek my fortune. I fled to San Fernando and from thence to Puerto Real. I hung on to the lowest class that haunt the shore, which has always been a famous nest for gaol-birds. Why or wherefore I quite forget, but I found myself with a gang of these choice spirits at Medina-Sidonia when, one day, a tavern where we were sitting was entered by a press-gang and we promptly separated, each hiding himself as best he might. My good star led me to a house where the owners had pity on me, taking the greatest interest in me, no doubt by reason of the story I told, on my knees and drowned in tears, of my miserable plight, my past life and all my misfortunes.
These good people took me under their protection and saved me from the press-gang, and from that time I remained in their service. With them I went to Vejer de la Frontera where they lived; they had only been passing through Medina-Sidonia.
My guardian angels were Don Alonso Gutierrez de Cisniega, a ship’s captain, and his wife, both advanced in years. They taught me much that I did not know, and as they took a great fancy to me before long I was promoted to be Don Alonso’s page, accompanying him in his daily walks, for the worthy veteran could not use his right arm, and it was with difficulty that he moved his right leg. What they saw in me to arouse their interest I do not know; my tender years, my desolate circumstances and no doubt too my ready obedience may have contributed to win their benevolence, for which I have always been deeply grateful. I may also add—though I say it that should not—as explaining their kind feeling towards me, that although I had always lived among the lowest and most destitute class, I had a certain natural refinement of mind which enabled me very soon to improve in manners, and in a few years, notwithstanding I had no opportunities for learning, I could pass for a lad of respectable birth and training.
I had spent four years in this home when the events happened which I must now relate. The reader must not expect an accuracy of detail which is out of my power when speaking of events which happened in my tender youth, to be recalled in the evening of my existence when I am near the end of a long and busy life and already feel the slow poison of old age numbing the fingers that use the pen; while the torpid brain strives to cheat itself into transient return of youth, by conjuring up the sweet or ardent memories of the past. As some old men strive to revive the warm delights of the past by gazing at pictures of the beauties they have known, I will try to give some interest and vigor to the faded reminiscences of my long past days, and to warm them with the glow of a counterfeit presentment of departed glories.
The effect is magical! How marvellous are the illusions of fancy! I look back with curiosity and astonishment at the bygone years, as we look through the pages of a book we were reading, and left with a leaf turned down to mark the place; and so long as the charm works I feel as if some beneficent genius had suddenly relieved me of the weight of old age, mitigating the burden of years which crushes body and spirit alike. This blood—this tepid and languid ichor, which now scarcely lends warmth and life to my failing limbs, grows hot again, flows, boils, and fires my veins with a swifter course. A sudden light breaks in upon my brain, giving color and relief to numberless strange figures—just as the traveller’s torch, blazing in some dark cavern, reveals the marvels of geology so unexpectedly that it seems as though they were then and there created. And my heart rises from the grave of past emotions—a Lazarus called by the voice of its Lord—and leaps in my breast with joy and pain at once.
I am young again; time has turned backwards, I stand in the presence of the events of my boyhood; I clasp the hands of old friends, the joys and griefs of my youth stir my soul once more—the fever of triumph, the anguish of defeat, intense delights, acute sorrows—all crowded and mixed in my memory as they were in life. But stronger than any other feeling one reigns supreme, one which guided all my actions during the fateful period between 1805 and 1834. As I approach the grave and reflect how useless I am among men—even now tears start to my eyes with the sacred love of country. I can only serve it with words—cursing the base scepticism which can deny it, and the corrupt philosophy which can treat it as a mere fashion of a day.
This was the passion to which I consecrated the vigor of my manhood, and to this I will devote the labors of my last years, enthroning it as the tutelary genius, the guiding spirit of my story as it has been of my existence. I have much to tell. Trafalgar, Bailén, Madrid, Zaragoza, Gerona, Arapiles!—I can tell you something of all these, if your patience does not fail. My story may not be as elegantly told as it should be but I will do my best to insure its being true.
