Remember the Alamo [59]
there
without my wish."
"I am sure if Jack has one day he will come to you. And when
he hears of the surrender of General Cos--"
"Well now, it was God's will that General Cos should
surrender. What more can be said? It is sufficient."
"Let me call Antonia. She is miserable at your displeasure;
and it is not Antonia's fault."
"Pardon me, Roberto. I have seen Antonia. She is not
agreeable and obedient to Fray Ignatius."
"She has been very wickedly used by him; and I fear he intends
to do her evil."
"It is not convenient to discuss the subject now. I will see
Isabel; she is a good child--my only comfort. Paciencia!
there is Luis Alveda singing; Isabel will now be deaf to all
else"; and she rose with a sigh and walked towards the
casement looking into the garden.
Luis was coming up the oleander walk. The pretty trees were
thinner now, and had only a pink blossom here and there. But
the bright winter sun shone through them, and fell upon Luis
and Isabel. For she had also seen him coming, and had gone to
meet him, with a little rainbow-tinted shawl over her head.
She looked so piquant and so happy. She seemed such a proper
mate for the handsome youth at her side that a word of dissent
was not possible. The doctor said only, "She is so like you,
Maria. I remember when you were still more lovely, and
when from your balcony you made me with a smile the happiest
man in the world."
Such words were never lost ones; for the Senora had a true and
great love for her husband. She gave him again a smile, she
put her hand in his, and then there were no further
conciliations required. They stood in the sunshine of their
own hearts, and listened a moment to the gay youth, singing,
how at--
The strong old Alamo
Two hundred men, with rifles true,
Shot down a thousand of the foe,
And broke the triple ramparts through;
And dropped the flag as black as night,
For Freedom's green and red and white.[3]
[3] The flag of the Mexican Republic of 1824 was green, red
and white in color.
CHAPTER XI.
A HAPPY TRUCE.
"Well, honor is the subject of my story;
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself."
"Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act,
Of the imperial theme."
"This is the eve of Christmas,
No sleep from night to morn;
The Virgin is in travail,
At twelve will the Child be born."
Cities have not only a certain physiognomy; they have also a
decided mental and moral character, and a definite political
tendency. There are good and bad cities, artistic and
commercial cities, scholarly and manufacturing cities,
aristocratic and radical cities. San Antonio, in its
political and social character, was a thoroughly radical city.
Its population, composed in a large measure of
adventurous units from various nationalities, had
that fluid rather than fixed character, which is susceptible
to new ideas. For they were generally men who had found the
restraints of the centuries behind them to be intolerable--men
to whom freedom was the grand ideal of life.
It maybe easily undertood{sic} that this element in the
population of San Antonio was a powerful one, and that a
little of such leaven would stir into activity a people who,
beneath the crust of their formal piety, had still something
left of that pride and adventurous spirit which distinguished
the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabel.
In fact, no city on the American continent has such a bloody
record as San Antonio. From its settlement by the warlike
monks of 1692, to its final capture by the Americans in 1836,
it was well named "the city of the sword." The Comanche and
the white man fought around its walls their forty years'
battle for supremacy. From 1810 to 1821 its streets were
constantly bloody
without my wish."
"I am sure if Jack has one day he will come to you. And when
he hears of the surrender of General Cos--"
"Well now, it was God's will that General Cos should
surrender. What more can be said? It is sufficient."
"Let me call Antonia. She is miserable at your displeasure;
and it is not Antonia's fault."
"Pardon me, Roberto. I have seen Antonia. She is not
agreeable and obedient to Fray Ignatius."
"She has been very wickedly used by him; and I fear he intends
to do her evil."
"It is not convenient to discuss the subject now. I will see
Isabel; she is a good child--my only comfort. Paciencia!
there is Luis Alveda singing; Isabel will now be deaf to all
else"; and she rose with a sigh and walked towards the
casement looking into the garden.
Luis was coming up the oleander walk. The pretty trees were
thinner now, and had only a pink blossom here and there. But
the bright winter sun shone through them, and fell upon Luis
and Isabel. For she had also seen him coming, and had gone to
meet him, with a little rainbow-tinted shawl over her head.
She looked so piquant and so happy. She seemed such a proper
mate for the handsome youth at her side that a word of dissent
was not possible. The doctor said only, "She is so like you,
Maria. I remember when you were still more lovely, and
when from your balcony you made me with a smile the happiest
man in the world."
Such words were never lost ones; for the Senora had a true and
great love for her husband. She gave him again a smile, she
put her hand in his, and then there were no further
conciliations required. They stood in the sunshine of their
own hearts, and listened a moment to the gay youth, singing,
how at--
The strong old Alamo
Two hundred men, with rifles true,
Shot down a thousand of the foe,
And broke the triple ramparts through;
And dropped the flag as black as night,
For Freedom's green and red and white.[3]
[3] The flag of the Mexican Republic of 1824 was green, red
and white in color.
CHAPTER XI.
A HAPPY TRUCE.
"Well, honor is the subject of my story;
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but for my single self,
I had as lief not be, as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself."
"Two truths are told
As happy prologues to the swelling act,
Of the imperial theme."
"This is the eve of Christmas,
No sleep from night to morn;
The Virgin is in travail,
At twelve will the Child be born."
Cities have not only a certain physiognomy; they have also a
decided mental and moral character, and a definite political
tendency. There are good and bad cities, artistic and
commercial cities, scholarly and manufacturing cities,
aristocratic and radical cities. San Antonio, in its
political and social character, was a thoroughly radical city.
Its population, composed in a large measure of
adventurous units from various nationalities, had
that fluid rather than fixed character, which is susceptible
to new ideas. For they were generally men who had found the
restraints of the centuries behind them to be intolerable--men
to whom freedom was the grand ideal of life.
It maybe easily undertood{sic} that this element in the
population of San Antonio was a powerful one, and that a
little of such leaven would stir into activity a people who,
beneath the crust of their formal piety, had still something
left of that pride and adventurous spirit which distinguished
the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabel.
In fact, no city on the American continent has such a bloody
record as San Antonio. From its settlement by the warlike
monks of 1692, to its final capture by the Americans in 1836,
it was well named "the city of the sword." The Comanche and
the white man fought around its walls their forty years'
battle for supremacy. From 1810 to 1821 its streets were
constantly bloody