Kabanata Kabanata 9 · PILATES

When the news of this misfortune became known in the town, some

lamented it and others shrugged their shoulders. No one was to blame,

and no one need lay it on his conscience.

The lieutenant of the Civil Guard gave no sign: he had received an

order to take up all the arms and he had performed his duty. He had

chased the tulisanes whenever he could, and when they captured Cabesang

Tales he had organized an expedition and brought into the town, with

their arms bound behind them, five or six rustics who looked

suspicious, so if Cabesang Tales did not show up it was because he was

not in the pockets or under the skins of the prisoners, who were

thoroughly shaken out.

The friar-administrator shrugged his shoulders: he had nothing to do

with it, it was a matter of tulisanes and he had merely done his duty.

True it was that if he had not entered the complaint, perhaps the arms

would not have been taken up, and poor Tales would not have been

captured; but he, Fray Clemente, had to look after his own safety, and

that Tales had a way of staring at him as if picking out a good target

in some part of his body. Self-defense is natural. If there are

tulisanes, the fault is not his, it is not his duty to run them

down—that belongs to the Civil Guard. If Cabesang Tales, instead of

wandering about his fields, had stayed at home, he would not have been

captured. In short, that was a punishment from heaven upon those who

resisted the demands of his corporation.

When Sister Penchang, the pious old woman in whose service Juli had

entered, learned of it, she ejaculated several ’Susmarioseps, crossed

herself, and remarked, “Often God sends these trials because we are

sinners or have sinning relatives, to whom we should have taught piety

and we haven’t done so.”

Those sinning relatives referred to Juliana, for to this pious woman

Juli was a great sinner. “Think of a girl of marriageable age who

doesn’t yet know how to pray! Jesús, how scandalous! If the wretch

doesn’t say the Diós te salve María without stopping at es contigo, and

the Santa María without a pause after pecadores, as every good

Christian who fears God ought to do! She doesn’t know the oremus

gratiam, and says mentíbus for méntibus. Anybody hearing her would

think she was talking about something else. ’Susmariosep!”

Greatly scandalized, she made the sign of the cross and thanked God,

who had permitted the capture of the father in order that the daughter

might be snatched from sin and learn the virtues which, according to

the curates, should adorn every Christian woman. She therefore kept the

girl constantly at work, not allowing her to return to the village to

look after her grandfather. Juli had to learn how to pray, to read the

books distributed by the friars, and to work until the two hundred and

fifty pesos should be paid.

When she learned that Basilio had gone to Manila to get his savings and

ransom Juli from her servitude, the good woman believed that the girl

was forever lost and that the devil had presented himself in the guise

of the student. Dreadful as it all was, how true was that little book

the curate had given her! Youths who go to Manila to study are ruined

and then ruin the others. Thinking to rescue Juli, she made her read

and re-read the book called Tandang Basio Macunat, [17] charging her

always to go and see the curate in the convento, [18] as did the

heroine, who is so praised by the author, a friar.

Meanwhile, the friars had gained their point. They had certainly won

the suit, so they took advantage of Cabesang Tales’ captivity to turn

the fields over to the one who had asked for them, without the least

thought of honor or the faintest twinge of shame. When the former owner

returned and learned what had happened, when he saw his fields in

another’s possession,—those fields that had cost the lives of his wife

and daughter,—when he saw his father dumb and his daughter working as a

servant, and when he himself received an order from the town council,

transmitted through the headman of the village, to move out of the

house within three days, he said nothing; he sat down at his father’s

side and spoke scarcely once during the whole day.