As the restoration of a warm bed was now most likely
to be successful, they lifted the helpless stranger upon a horse,
walking on each side with supporting arms. Once again our Kate is in
the saddle; once again a Spanish Caballador. But Kate's bridle-hand is
deadly cold. And her spurs, that she had never unfastened since leaving
the monastic asylum, hung as idle as the flapping sail that fills
unsteadily with the breeze upon a stranded ship.
This procession had some miles to go, and over difficult ground; but at
length it reached the forest-like park and the chateau of the wealthy
proprietress. Kate was still half-frozen and speechless, except at
intervals. Heavens! can this corpse-like, languishing young woman, be
the Kate that once, in her radiant girlhood, rode with a handful of
comrades into a column of two thousand enemies, that saw her comrades
die, that persisted when all were dead, that tore from the heart of all
resistance the banner of her native Spain? Chance and change have
'written strange defeatures in her face.' Much is changed; but some
things are not changed: there is still kindness that overflows with
pity: there is still helplessness that asks for this pity without a
voice: she is now received by a Senora, not less kind than that
maternal aunt, who, on the night of her birth, first welcomed her to a
loving home; and she, the heroine of Spain, is herself as helpless now
as that little lady who, then at ten minutes of age, was kissed and
blessed by all the household of St.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213