Читать книгу The Son of Columbus онлайн

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“I know it, too,” said Don Felipe, with boyish confidence. “The very first time I beheld your father I felt as I never did toward any man before. I watched him, and listened to him, thinking to myself, ’When I am an old man the boys will ask me, “Tell me when did you first see the great Admiral?”’ And I want you to tell me how you first came to this place.”

“I remember it all well enough, although I was but a little lad of seven—just as old as my little brother Fernando is now. I even remember things before that—the life I led with my father, going from place to place on foot, sleeping at the humblest inns and in the huts of peasants, nobody willing to listen to my father. Then my father made for the sea, there to take ship for England, and when we reached the monastery gate I was half dead, I was so hungry and tired. My father rang the bell and asked a little milk for me. It was brought me by Brother Lawrence, the lay brother here; he was a young man then. Oh, you will like Brother Lawrence—he is here still. While I was drinking the milk, the Prior, Juan Perez, passed through the courtyard where we sat and stopped and spoke to my father. I tell you this, Don Felipe, no matter whether people believed in my father or not in those days, they always treated him with personal respect. The Prior got in conversation with my father, and in a little while told Brother Lawrence to take care of me. Oh, what a happy day that was! All day Brother Lawrence took care of me, playing ball in the orchard and teaching me to fish in the fish-pond, and at night he put me to bed on a little pallet in a room where my father was to sleep. All day the Prior had been with my father, and I recollect that I was waked by my father coming into the room, and the Prior followed him. It was as if he could not leave my father. Then I went off to sleep, and in the middle of the night I again waked, and my father and the Prior were still bending over the maps and talking. I remember, however, I was such a little boy, that I thought we should have to leave that happy place at daybreak and take the road once more in weariness. But in the morning my father asked me: