The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-06-12
DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH.
nrrrcroRr-MrssroS SAN GABRIEL.
1868.

loOS.
Good. said the Padre believe ME stlll,
Call him Don Juan, or Whatever you Will
The tvpe's eternal We know him mere
As Don Diego del SUD. FEAR
The storys no new one. will you hear?
One of those spirits you can't tell why
God has permitted. Wherein
Have the advantage, for hold
THAT wolves are sent to the purest fold,
And we save the wolf, II we'd get the lamb,
You're no believer Coed. am.
We'll. for some purpose, grant, you, dim,
Ths Don loved women, and they loved him,
Each thought herself his last love Worst,
MANY believed that they were his frst
And such are those creatures, since the fall,
The very doubt had a charm for all
You laugh You are young-but Indeed
Ihave no patience. To proceed;
You saw as YOU passed through the upper town
The Encindi, where the road goes down
To san Felipe. There one morn,
They found Diego his mantle torn,
And as many stabs through his doublet's band
As there were wronged husbands-you under
stand?
dying SO said the gossips. Dead
Was what the friars who found him said
Good Qtiien sabe! Who else should know2
1t was hundred years ago.
There was "A funeral. Small indeed
Private. What would you:
To proceed:
Scarcely the year had flown. one night
The COmmandante awoke in fright
Hearing below his easements bar
The we-known twang of the Don's guitar
And rushed 20 the window just 10 see
His wife-a-swooA on the balcony.
One week later Don Juan Ramirez
Found his own daughter the Dona Ines
Pale as a ghost, leaning out to hear
The song of that phantom cavalier.
Even Alcalde Pedro Bias
Saw, it was said, through his niece's glass
The shade of Diego twice repass.
What these gentlemen each confessed
Heaven and the church only knows. At best
The case was "A bad one. How to deal
With Sin a. a ghost they couldn't but feel
Was an awful thing Till certain Fray
Humbly offered TO show the way.
And the way was this /: Did say before
That the Fray a stranger? No-Senor
STRANGE Very strange. l should have said
That the very week that the Don lay dead
ale came among us Bread he broke
Silent; ever TO one he spoke.
So he had vowed il. Below his brows
His face hidden, There are such vows.
Strange, are they not? You do not use
Snuff? bad habit?
Well the views
OF the Fray were this: That the peuance done
by the cabelleros was right; but one
Was due from the cGuSe and that, in brief,
Was Dona Dolores Gomez, chief,
And Inez, Sanchicha Conception,
Aud Carmen. Well half the girls in town
on his tablets the friar had written down.
These were to come on certain day
And ask at the hands of the pious Fray
For absolution. that done, small fear
But the shade of Diego would disappear.
They came each knet in her turn and place,
To the pious Fray with hidden face,
And voiceless lips; and each again
Took back her soul freed from spot stain,
Till the Dona lneZ, with eyes downcast,
And tear on their fringes, knelt her last.
Aud then-perhaps that her voice was low,
From fear or from shame-the monks said So
We're thrilled by a scream, and saw her fall
Painting beside the confessional.
And was the ghost of Diego laid,
As the Fray had said. No more his shade
Was seen at san Gabriers Mission. Eli
The girl interests you, dare say?
" Nothing she said, when they brought her TO,
"Noth.ug-a faintness 80 They spake more true
Who SAID twas stubborn soul. But then
Women are women, and men are men
SO 10 return. As said before,
Having got the wolf by the same high law,
And that's my story. The tale, fear,
Is stun for a moral. What's your view:
You smile, Don Pancho. All that's like you!
Bret Harte, in the Netr York Times.