"Ha, Friend! Ha, Doctor!"
We took our supper together in a wide, low room, looking
out upon the road. Don Francisco and Juan Lepe talked
and the young man listened. Juan Lepe talked but his
eyes truly were for this young man. It was not that he
was of a striking aspect and better than handsome, though
he was all that--but I do not know--it was the future in
his countenance! His father addressed him as Bartolome.
Once he said, "When my son was at the University at
Salamanca," and again, "My son will go out with Don
Nicholas de Ovando." Juan Lepe, sitting in a brown study,
roused at that. "If you go, senor, you will find good memories
around the name of Las Casas."
The young man said, "I will strive in no way to darken
them, senor."
He might be a year or two the younger side of thirty.
The father, it was evident, had great pride in him, and
presently having sent him on some errand--sending him,
I thought, in order to be able to speak of him--told me that
he was very learned, a licentiate, having mastered law,
theology and philosophy. He himself would not return to
Hispaniola, but Bartolome wished to go. He sighed, "I
do not know. Something makes me consent," and went
on to enlist Doctor Juan Lepe's care if in the island ever
arose any chance to aid--
The son returned. There was something--Juan Lepe
knew it--something in the future.
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