Daybreak the next morning found them issuing forth from the ancient
city of Tarifa on a couple of respectable-looking hacks, hired from
the innkeeper. Frank had, with his accustomed generalship, managed to
secure a position at the off-rein of the Senorita Juana, who was
mounted on a beautiful little white barb. Under her side-saddle, of
green velvet studded with gilt nails, was a Moorish saddle-cloth,
striped with vivid red and white, and fringed deeply. From the
throat-lash of the bridle hung a long tassel, as an artificial
auxiliary to the barb's tail in the task of keeping the flies off,
further assisted by a tuft of white horse-hair attached to the butt of
her whip. She wore a looped hat and white plume, a riding-skirt, and
an embroidered jacket of blue cloth, fastened, as was the wrought
bosom of her chemise, with small gold buttons. Frank could not keep
his eyes off her, now riding off to the further side of the road to
take in at once the whole of the beauteous vision, now coming close
up to study it in its delightful details.
In front of the pair rode the little Governor, side by side with a
Spaniard of about thirty, the long-betrothed lover of Juana--so long,
in fact, that he did not trouble himself to secure his authority in a
territory so undeniably his own, but smoked his cigar as coolly as if
there were no good-looking Englishman within fifty miles of his
mistress. He wore garments of the Spanish cut, made of nankeen--the
jacket frogged with silver cords, tagged with little silver XXXX
fishes--the latter appended, perhaps, as suitable companions to the
frogs. A hundred yards ahead was an escort of four horse-soldiers with
carbines on their thighs, their steel accoutrements flashing ruddily
in the level sunlight. Behind Frank came Major Flinders, clean shaved,
and with jack-boots and regimental coat restored to something like
their pristine splendour: by his side rode another lady, the Senorita
Carlota, Juana's aunt, somewhere about thirty years old, plump and
merry, her upper lip fringed at the corners with a line of dark down,
quite decided enough for a cornet of eighteen to be proud of--a
feminine embellishment too common for remark in these southern
regions, and, in the opinion of some connoisseurs, rather enhancing
the beauty of the fair wearers. She talked incessantly, at first,
to my grandfather, who did not understand a word she said, but
whose native politeness prompted him to say, "Si, Senorita," to
everything--sometimes laying at the same moment his hand on his heart,
and bowing with considerable grace. Behind this pair came another
interesting couple--viz. two servants on mules, with great saddle-bags
stuffed to extreme corpulence with provisions.
It was a glorious morning--a gentle breeze sweeping on their faces as
they mounted the hills, but dying into silence in the deep valleys,
fresh, and glistening with dew. Sometimes they rode along a rocky
common, yellowed with a flowering shrub like furze--sometimes through
unfenced fields--sometimes along broad plains, where patches of
blossoming beans made the air rich with scent, and along which they
galloped full speed, the Governor standing high in the stirrups of his
demi-pique, the Senorita's white barb arching his neck till his muzzle
touched his chest under the pressure of the long bit, and my
grandfather prancing somewhat uneasily on his hard-mouthed Spanish
entero, whose nose was, for the most part, projected horizontally in
the air. The Major was not a first-rate seat--he rode with a long
stirrup, his heel well down, his leg straight, and slanting a little
forward, body upright, and elbows back, as may be seen in the plates
to ancient works on equitation--a posture imposing enough, but not
safe across country: galloping deranged it materially, for the steed
was hard-mouthed, and required a long, strong pull, with the body
back, and a good purchase on the stirrups. The animal had a most
voracious appetite, quite overcoming his sense of what was due to his
rider; and, on seeing a tuft of juicy grass, down went his nose,
drawing my grandfather, by means of the tight reins, well over the
pummel. On these occasions, the Major, feeling resistance to be in
vain, would sit looking easily about him, feigning to be absorbed in
admiration of the prospect--which was all very well, where there was a
prospect to look at, but wore a less plausible appearance when the
animal paused in a hollow between two hedges, or ran his nose
into a barn-door. But whenever this happened, Carlota, instead of
half-smothering a laugh, as a mischievous English girl would, ten to
one, have done, sat most patiently till the Major and his steed came
to an understanding, and would greet him, as they moved on again, with
a good-natured smile, that won her, each time, a higher place in his
estimation.
Thus they proceeded till the sun rose high in the heavens, when, on
reaching a grove on the edge of one of the plains, they halted
under a huge cork-tree, near which ran a rivulet. The cavalcade
dismounted--the horses were tethered, the mules disburthened of the
saddle-bags, and the contents displayed under the tree; horse-cloths
and cloaks were spread around on the ground, and a fire of dry sticks
was lit on the edge of the stream with such marvellous celerity that,
before my grandfather had time to take more than a hasty survey of the
eatables, after seating himself on the root of a tree, a cup of
steaming chocolate was placed in his hand.
"Confess, Major," said Garry, speaking with his mouth full of
sausage, "that a man may lose some of the pleasures of existence by
leading the life of a hermit. Don't you feel grateful to me for
dragging you out of your cobweb to such a pleasant place as this?"
"'Tis an excellent breakfast," said my grandfather, who had just
assisted the Senorita Carlota to a slice of turkey's breast, and
himself to an entire leg and thigh--dividing with her, at the
same time, a crisp white loaf, having a handle like a teapot or
smoothing-iron--"and my appetite is really very good. I should be
perfectly easy if I could only understand the remarks of this very
agreeable lady, and make suitable replies."
"Let me interpret your sentiments," said Garry; "and though I may not
succeed in conveying them in their original force and poetry, yet they
shall lose as little as possible in transmission. Just try me--what
would you wish to say?"
"Why, really," said my grandfather, pondering, "I had a great many
things to say as we came along, but they've gone out of my head. Do
you think she ever read Shakespeare?"
"Not a chance of it," said Owen.
Here the Senorita laughingly appealed to Frank to know what my
grandfather was saying about her.
"Ah," quoth my grandfather, quoting his friend Shakespeare--
"'I understand thy _looks_--the pretty Spanish
Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens
I am _not_ perfect in----'
"She's an extremely agreeable woman, Frank, I'll be sworn, if one only
understood her," quoth my grandfather, casting on her a glance full of
gallantry.
The Ensign was not so entirely occupied in prosecuting his own
love affair as to be insensible to the facilities afforded him for
amusing himself at the Major's expense. Accordingly, he made a
speech in Spanish to Carlota, purporting to be a faithful translation
of my grandfather's, but teeming, in fact, with the most romantic
expressions of chivalrous admiration, as was apparent from the
frequent recurrence of the words "ojos" (eyes), "corazon" (heart),
and the like amatory currency.
"There, Major," said the interpreter, as he finished; "I've told her
what you said of her."
The Major endorsed the compliments by laying his hand upon his heart,
and bowing with a tender air. Whereupon Carlota, laughing, and
blushing a deeper red, made her acknowledgments.
"She says," quoth Frank, "that she knew the English before to be a
gallant nation; but that if all the caballeros (that's gentlemen) of
that favoured race are equal to the present specimen, her own
countrymen must be thrown entirely into the shade."
"Delightful!" cried my grandfather; but it is doubtful whether this
expression of pleasure was called forth by the sentiments attributed
to the Senorita, or by the crisp succulent tenderness of a mouthful of
sucking-pig which was at that moment spreading itself over his palate.
Following up his idea, the mischievous Ensign continued to diversify
the graver pursuit of prosecuting his own suit with Juana, by
impressing Carlota and the Major with the idea that each was
disposed to think favourably of the other. In this he was tolerably
successful--the speeches he made to Carlota, supposed to originate
with my grandfather, had a very genuine warmth about them, being, in
fact, very often identical with those he had just been making, under
immediate inspiration, to his own divinity; while as for the Major, it
would have been an insult to the simplicity of that worthy man's
nature to exert any great ingenuity in deceiving him; it would have
been like setting a trap for a snail. So they journeyed on, highly
pleased with each other, and occasionally, in the absence of their
faithful interpreter, conversed by means of smiles and courteous
gesticulations, till my grandfather felt entirely at his ease, and was
almost sorry when, on the evening of the second day, they got to
Cadiz.