The Friar saw the conflict from a knoll, And sang Laus Deo and cheered on his men:
"Well thrown, Bautista,--that's another soul;
After him, Gomez,--try it once again;
This way, Felipe,--there the heathen stole;
Bones of St. Francis!--surely that makes TEN;
Te Deum laudamus--but they're very wild;
Non nobis Domine--all right, my child!"
When at that moment--as the story goes--A certain squaw, who had her foes eluded, Ran past the Friar, just before his nose.
He stared a moment, and in silence brooded;
Then in his breast a pious frenzy rose And every other prudent thought excluded;
He caught a lasso, and dashed in a canter After that Occidental Atalanta.
High o'er his head he swirled the dreadful noose;
But, as the practice was quite unfamiliar, His first cast tore Felipe's captive loose, And almost choked Tiburcio Camilla, And might have interfered with that brave youth's Ability to gorge the tough tortilla;
But all things come by practice, and at last His flying slip-knot caught the maiden fast.
Then rose above the plain a mingled yell Of rage and triumph,--a demoniac whoop:
The Padre heard it like a passing knell, And would have loosened his unchristian loop;
But the tough raw-hide held the captive well, And held, alas! too well the captor-dupe;
For with one bound the savage fled amain, Dragging horse, Friar, down the lonely plain.
Down the arroyo, out across the mead, By heath and hollow, sped the flying maid, Dragging behind her still the panting steed And helpless Friar, who in vain essayed To cut the lasso or to check his speed.
He felt himself beyond all human aid, And trusted to the saints,--and, for that matter, To some weak spot in Felipe's riata.
Alas! the lasso had been duly blessed, And, like baptism, held the flying wretch,--A doctrine that the priest had oft expressed, Which, like the lasso, might be made to stretch, But would not break; so neither could divest Themselves of it, but, like some awful fetch, The holy Friar had to recognize The image of his fate in heathen guise.
He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow;
He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill;
He saw the gopher standing in his burrow;
He saw the squirrel scampering at his will:--He saw all this, and felt no doubt how thorough The contrast was to his condition; still The squaw kept onward to the sea, till night And the cold sea-fog hid them both from sight.
The morning came above the serried coast, Lighting the snow-peaks with its beacon-fires, Driving before it all the fleet-winged host Of chattering birds above the Mission spires, Filling the land with light and joy, but most The savage woods with all their leafy lyres;
In pearly tints and opal flame and fire The morning came, but not the holy Friar.
Weeks passed away. In vain the Fathers sought Some trace or token that might tell his story;
Some thought him dead, or, like Elijah, caught Up to the heavens in a blaze of glory.
In this surmise some miracles were wrought On his account, and souls in purgatory Were thought to profit from his intercession;
In brief, his absence made a "deep impression."
A twelvemonth passed; the welcome Spring once more Made green the hills beside the white-faced Mission, Spread her bright dais by the western shore, And sat enthroned, a most resplendent vision.
The heathen converts thronged the chapel door At morning mass, when, says the old tradition, A frightful whoop throughout the church resounded, And to their feet the congregation bounded.
A tramp of hoofs upon the beaten course, Then came a sight that made the bravest quail:
A phantom Friar on a spectre horse, Dragged by a creature decked with horns and tail.
By the lone Mission, with the whirlwind's force, They madly swept, and left a sulphurous trail:
And that was all,--enough to tell the story, And leave unblessed those souls in purgatory.
And ever after, on that fatal day That Friar Pedro rode abroad lassoing, A ghostly couple came and went away With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing, Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey, And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing;
For ere ten years had passed, the squaw and Friar Performed to empty walls and fallen spire.
The Mission is no more; upon its wall.
The golden lizards slip, or breathless pause, Still as the sunshine brokenly that falls Through crannied roof and spider-webs of gauze;
No more the bell its solemn warning calls,--A holier silence thrills and overawes;
And the sharp lights and shadows of to-day Outline the Mission of San Luis Rey.
IN THE MISSION GARDEN
(1865)
FATHER FELIPE
I speak not the English well, but Pachita, She speak for me; is it not so, my Pancha?
Eh, little rogue? Come, salute me the stranger Americano.
Sir, in my country we say, "Where the heart is, There live the speech." Ah! you not understand? So!
Pardon an old man,--what you call "old fogy,"--Padre Felipe!
Old, Senor, old! just so old as the Mission.
You see that pear-tree? How old you think, Senor?
Fifteen year? Twenty? Ah, Senor, just fifty Gone since I plant him!
You like the wine? It is some at the Mission, Made from the grape of the year eighteen hundred;
All the same time when the earthquake he come to San Juan Bautista.
But Pancha is twelve, and she is the rose-tree;
And I am the olive, and this is the garden:
And "Pancha" we say, but her name is "Francisca,"
Same like her mother.
Eh, you knew HER? No? Ah! it is a story;
But I speak not, like Pachita, the English:
So! if I try, you will sit here beside me, And shall not laugh, eh?
When the American come to the Mission, Many arrive at the house of Francisca:
One,--he was fine man,--he buy the cattle Of Jose Castro.
So! he came much, and Francisca, she saw him:
And it was love,--and a very dry season;
And the pears bake on the tree,--and the rain come, But not Francisca.
Not for one year; and one night I have walk much Under the olive-tree, when comes Francisca,--Comes to me here, with her child, this Francisca,--Under the olive-tree.
Sir, it was sad; . . . but I speak not the English;
So! . . . she stay here, and she wait for her husband:
