"Senor," she replied, "I have but one boon to crave. Give me my father"s place here at this gun. Let me serve it as he served it, so long as the siege lasts. He has taught me how. You shall not find me remiss. I think I am not unskilful. Yesterday, in the presence of the dead, I vowed a vow--I vowed not to leave my post here till the French should retreat from Zaragoza. Let me but keep that vow. Give me here the right to hold my father"s place, the right to draw his pay, and that portion of food for the helpless babes at home that every soldier"s family may claim. I ask nothing else!" She spoke very simply; there was no thought in her heart of playing the hero"s part. She asked bread for the children, and the right to earn it for them. If deep down in her heart the fire of patriotism was burning fiercely, she never thought of posing as a heroine sacrificing herself for her country. No, hers was a simple nature. She loved her father with pa.s.sionate devotion. She longed to accomplish the work which had been his. She yearned after the little helpless children, and felt she must earn for them the necessities of life. Provisions were beginning to run short. Rations were provided for the soldiers and their families; but the citizens were face to face with a scarcity that might become actual famine ere long. The little ones must not starve; such had been Agostina"s leading thought. She would win for them their daily bread. She had been a mother to them for long; now she would be a father too.
Don Jose"s face was gravely tender as he replied:
"My child, your pet.i.tion is granted. No more n.o.ble or courageous custodian of that gun could I find within these walls. I appoint you its gunner, with double pay. When peace has been restored, and I can tell to the world the story of the Maid of Zaragoza, it will go hard if the nation do not provide a pension too for so brave a daughter of her soil!"
Agostina"s cheek glowed; she bent her knee for a moment, and ere Don Jose quite knew what she was about to do, she had pressed her lips upon his hand.
"Our Blessed Lady guard and keep you, Senor," she said. "You have granted me my heart"s desire!"
It was a strange heart"s desire, in truth! To stand upon that battered wall in the teeth of the enemy"s guns; to be a target for the shot and sh.e.l.l of those terrible batteries; to serve that smoking gun, and send its fierce answers forth into the hostile camp of the invaders. Others fell about and around Agostina, but no shot touched her. They came to say that she bore a charmed life; and it, at least, was plain that the thought of fear could never find a lodging place within her breast.
Then came a desperate day when it seemed indeed as though all were lost.
A new battery was being built over against a convent, whose walls were weak already, and almost ready to fall. Strengthen them as they might, the garrison was helpless to effect any real improvement in their condition. They fell almost at the first shock when the new battery opened fire, and the French, rushing in through the breaches made, took possession of one quarter of the city, and sent a haughty summons to Don Jose to surrender.
The situation was tragic enough. They were now between two fires, and only a wide s.p.a.ce like a boulevard separated the hostile camps. Don Jose had long been expecting succour from his brother, Don Francisco, who had sent word that he was marching to his relief with three thousand men and stores of food and ammunition. But there was no sign of his near approach as yet; and the city was in pitiful plight.
"Surrender! By capitulation alone can Zaragoza be saved."
Such was the haughty message from the French General Lefebre, brought to Don Jose and his exhausted men after the fall of the quarter of the city called St. Engracia.
The Commander looked around upon the ring of gaunt men about him, and over at the shattered buildings of the town. What answer was it his duty to return? Was he justified in sacrificing all these brave lives? What did the people of Zaragoza think of it themselves? They had at least a right to be asked. It was they upon whom the brunt of these fearful days fell.
"What answer shall we return to General Lefebre?" he asked, looking from one to the other; and the men themselves seemed scarce to know what answer to make.
Then a voice from the crowd shouted out the words:
"Let us ask the Maid of Zaragoza!"
Don Jose"s face lighted at the suggestion. He turned in the direction of the speaker, and cried aloud:
"Go--ask the Maid of the Gun what answer we shall send back. By her word we will abide!"
A strange thrill of enthusiasm ran through the whole city as the messenger sped forth to the farther wall to ask of Agostina what the Commander should answer. Strange as was the choice of such an umpire, there was something fitting and dramatic about it that fired the Spaniards, and wrought a strange kind of exultation among them.
Soon a gathering murmur in the distance, which increased to a perfect roar as the crowd surged onwards, showed that the answer was being brought back, and that it had stirred to the depths the impulsive and excitable populace.
"War to the knife! War to the knife!" The words detached themselves at last from the general clangour, and the soldiers, flashing out their swords, took up the answer of the Maid of Zaragoza, and the welkin rang with the shout--"War to the knife!"
A few days after those four words had been sent by Don Jose to General Lefebre, the longed-for help came; and the eyes of Agostina shone and glowed as she watched from her gun upon the wall the French soldiers in full retreat blocking the road to Pamplona. The siege of Zaragoza was at an end; and the Commander came himself and fastened a medal of honour upon the heroine"s breast.
AGNES BEAUMONT
"Thou shalt never listen to the rogue again!"
"But, father----"
"Silence, girl! Have I not said it? Thou shalt never go to hear him preach again! He is a pestilent knave. He will bring all who hear him to trouble. Dost hear me, girl? Thou shalt not go!"
"Nay, but, sweet father!"
"Silence!" thundered the angry man. "I have spoken; let that be enough.
Thou shalt have no more of this preaching dinned into thine ears, and neither will I. Thou shalt never hear Mr. Bunyan again. He has done harm enough already."
Agnes was absolutely aghast at this sudden outbreak, for which she was totally unprepared. She and her father had for some while been attending with great interest and profit the teachings and preachings of the notable Puritan, John Bunyan, whose wonderful personal experiences brought home to his hearers a sense of reality which was often lacking in other teachers.
Farmer Beaumont had, however, of late been strangely silent and morose, so that his daughter had been rather afraid to speak to him. She had noted that he had not mentioned the approaching preaching, which she was most anxious to attend; but she had no idea that any great change had come over him till he suddenly burst forth in this manner, as they were sitting together at supper, after his return from the neighbouring town, where he had spent the previous night.
Of course, Agnes was well aware that by many people this John Bunyan was regarded as a dangerous man, and that these inveighed against him as a preacher and teacher of strange new doctrines. Sometimes, she knew, it was dangerous to attend these meetings. She had heard it whispered before now that persons were often brought up before the authorities and fined or otherwise punished for offences of this sort, but it never occurred to her that her st.u.r.dy father would be frightened. She had no fear for herself. She believed she heard Heaven-sent gospel from this preacher, and she longed to hear him again.
It was plain to her that somebody had got hold of her father during his absence from home, and had worked upon the fears that were beginning to agitate him before. She knew that there was a lawyer there--a man she especially disliked and distrusted. Once he had been suitor for her hand; for Farmer Beaumont was reputed to be a warm man, and Agnes was likely to come into the bulk of his property and savings at his death.
But the girl had repelled his advances with energy; having an intense dislike to the sly, fox-faced man of the quill, and he now repaid her dislike in kind, and she believed that on more than one occasion he had sought to poison her father"s mind against her.
She suspected that this was the case now. It was plain that the old man was in a very angry mood.
After sitting awhile in glowering silence, he broke out again even more fiercely than before.
"I"ll have a promise from thee, girl; thou shalt promise me here and now that thou wilt never go and hear one of his preachings more. Say the words and have done with it."
"Oh, father, do not ask me to make such a promise as that!"
"Ay, but I will. I"ll have no disobedient daughter in my house. I"ve had a talk to Farry about it. Thou first will not have him for a husband at my bidding; now thou art taking up with this pestilent preacher Bunyan----"
"But, father, thou didst take me thyself to hear him, and said he was a G.o.dly man. It is Farry"s evil tongue that hath wrought this change in thee. Prithee, pardon my boldness, but I dare not promise what is against my conscience!"
"It is against thy conscience to obey thy father, girl?" raved the angry farmer. "A pretty conscience in all sooth. I"ll have that promise from thee to-night, or else I"ll drive thee from my doors, and disown thee for my daughter!"
Agnes was in great distress, for she loved her father, and had always been an obedient daughter; but the stern tenets of the Puritan divines had penetrated deeply into her soul; and she was sorely afraid that by obeying her father she would be trifling with her soul"s salvation. Most sincerely did she desire to do right; but it was so hard for her to know what was most right.
At last after much deliberation and some silent prayer Agnes brought herself to say, whilst her father had spent much of his energy in railing and threats:
"Dear father, I will promise you this, that so long as you live I will not go to one of these preachings without your consent; and I beg of you not to ask me more than that."
On hearing these words spoken whilst the tears ran down her cheeks, the father"s rage suddenly abated. He kissed Agnes and told her that she was a good girl after all; and the storm in the house died down to a calm.
But poor Agnes was very unhappy. It seemed to her as though in obeying her father she had in some sort violated her conscience and betrayed her Lord. When she consulted her married sister and brother-in-law on the subject (all ardent admirers of Mr. Bunyan), she found that they also took this view of the matter, and her trouble became very great.
It was now her chief aim and object to gain her father"s consent to her attending the approaching meeting, where John Bunyan was to preach and afterwards to administer the Sacrament. It seemed to her equally impossible to remain away or to break her word to her father; and her only hope of real peace of mind lay in winning his consent to her going there.
During the last two days he had been much kinder to her; but still she was in great fear lest he was in the same mind with regard to Bunyan and the preaching. She got her sister to come over to the farm the evening before, and by talking and a certain amount of coaxing and argument, they at last won the old man"s permission that Agnes should accompany her relatives to the meeting at Gamlinhay, they promising to get her taken and returned, as the farmer had no mind to a.s.sist her by sparing one of his own horses to carry her, and the distance was too far for her to walk.
It was a great joy to Agnes to win this permission; and she was more sure than ever that it was Lawyer Farry"s jeering words and overbearing arguments that had caused her father so to turn against her and the preacher; for since he had been at home with her again, he had become quiet and reasonable.
But she thought it would be wise to be off and away early upon the morrow, lest he should in any wise change his mind; and so she rose with the sun, set about her morning tasks with great energy, and had taken her own breakfast and left everything in readiness for her father before she slipped into her riding dress, and made her way across the fields to her brother-in-law"s house, without having caught a glimpse of the farmer. Indeed, she had left the house before he was astir.
Her sister received her kindly, and told her that they had arranged for her to ride behind Mr. Wilson, the minister of Hitchin, who would call on his way at the house. But time went on, and there was no sign of him, and poor Agnes"s face grew pale with anxiety. Her brother had only one horse and would take his wife behind him. Agnes could not burden them; no horse could carry three riders. Strong as she was, she could not walk the whole distance in the time, since they had waited now so long. It seemed for a moment as though after all she must be left behind, when suddenly her sister, who had been gazing down the road, cried out eagerly: