The Story of Don John of Austria

ers. Ana's son Jeromín was the first to get there, with his big blue eyes staring and his beautiful golden hair thrown back. But there was good cau

of Maricuernos opposite, declaring it to be the Vega of Granada. Jeromín gave the word "Santiago," and from both sides, like bullets from an arquebus, came lumps of soft earth. At this inopportune moment, while the battle was raging along the road from Madrid bordering the orchard of Maricuernos, four mules appeared, harnessed in pairs with long traces to what seemed to be a little wooden house, with two tiny windows and four big wheels. A man was riding the foremost mule on the off side, and another was seated on the roof of the house, guiding the mules with a long stick. Through one of the windows a very fat man with grey moustaches and a pointed beard, c

that the musician Francisquin, as they called him, had died some years previously, but that his widow Ana de Medina still lived there and that her son Jeromín, was one of those present. This Pedro demonstrated by seizing Jeromín by the neck of his doublet and pulling him forward. For the fat man to hear this, look at Jeromín and stretch his arms out of the window as if to seize him and drag him into the coach was only

him in her woollen skirt. She asked the boys several questions, but they all answered together, and all

anada at that time. Bautista Vela tarried too long; by the time he arrived at Ana's house he could no longer be there alone. Round the corner of the street came the whole population of the village, surrounding with wonder the vehicle

f which was never seen before, stopped in front of her; the gentleman greeted her politely, and

h was also her kitchen, clean certainly and with room for twenty peopl

neither destroyed the activity of his limbs nor the charm of his manners. He spoke with a soft, low, kindly voice with a marked Flemish accent, and not like the haughty man of war so common at that time. Everything in him betokened the obsequious courtier, accustomed to the yoke of powerful masters. Very courteously he tol

g his words, added that this business had been urgently recommended to him by the very

rapid glance of fear and suspicion. Jeromín, calmer than the rest, sat on a high stool, swinging his legs and never taking his eyes off

there. Meanwhile Prevost had produced a paper carefully wrapped up in two covers of linen, which he held out to the widow folded in four. As she could not rea

up like our own son, and not to tell anyone whose son he was, as Se?or Adrian did not wish that by this means his wife or anyone else should know or hear of him. For this reason I, Francis Massy, and Ana de Medina, my wife, and our son Die

e me for the journey, for taking the child, for a horse and clothes, and keep for one year that is to say that the year is counted from the 1st day of August of this present year 1550. For which I hold myself content and paid for this year, as it

ly recognised this document to be genuine from end to end. She had done as she had sworn, and would act in the same way in the future, and give up the child to whoever was sent to fetch him; but for God's sake and Our Lady's and a

da would be when he found the state of absolute mental neglect in which the boy had lived all these years, as he was healthy in body and appeared to be so also in mind; but it was clear that he knew nothing except how to run about the country shooting at birds with his crossbow and arrows, nor had he had o

ose hands they had received the child, but of Luis Quijada, Steward to C?sar and one of his greatest lords. And their idea, which no doubt Prevost also shared, was confirmed when the supper-hou

a request or an order, "Isn't she going to have any supper?" This made the widow burst again into sobs and lamentations, and the boy bit his lips to restrain the tears which filled his eyes. We cannot be certain whether Jeromín slept that night or not, but it is certain that no one had to rouse him the next morning, and the firs

Moors all mixed up, filled with awe and envy at seeing him in the seat of honou

ade plaything with which he had acquired such wonderful dexterity, and he g

and the children much farther, also Ana de Medina, crying out and begging

But at the last turn, passing the orchard of Maricuernos, at the place where the Hermitage de los Angeles was afterwards erected, Jeromín's l