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IN SUNNY SPAIN
[Illustration: THE GYPSY KING]
IN
SUNNY SPAIN
WITH PILARICA AND RAFAEL
BY
KATHARINE LEE BATES
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON:
J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES BY
The Knickerbocker Press, New York.
To
ELIZABETH KEITH
CONTENTS
Introduction by the Editor of the Series
CHAPTER PAGE
I PILARICA IN THE MOORISH GARDEN 1
II THE MAGIC CAP 12
III FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES 25
IV RAFAEL IN DISGRACE 38
V A BEAUTIFUL FEVER 51
VI HEROES AND DONKEYS 67
VII THE GEOGRAPHY GENTLEMAN 81
VIII ONLY A GIRL 93
IX CHOSEN FOR THE KING 106
X TIA MARTA’S REBELLION 119
XI UP AND AWAY 132
XII THE OPEN ROAD 147
XIII THE CITY OF DREAMS 160
XIV TRAVELING BY MULE-TRAIN 175
XV THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 191
XVI BY THE WAY 205
XVII PILGRIMS OF ST. JAMES 217
XVIII RAFAEL’S ADVENTURE 229
XIX THE END OF THE ROAD 239
XX THE TREE WITH TWELVE BRANCHES 252
XXI WORK AND PLAY 267
XXII THE PORCH OF PARADISE 278
LIST OF SPANISH WORDS, PRONOUNCED
AND DEFINED 291
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GYPSY KING _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
TIA MARTA SCOLDS 2
WITH HIS FACE TO SHAG’S TAIL 160
THE CHILD OF HUNGER 194
PILGRIMS ON THE WAY TO SANTIAGO 220
FOREWORD
The verses in this story, with the exception of the two snatches, in
chapters 6 and 14, of ballads of the Cid, I have translated directly out
of Spanish folk-song. Some of these, especially riddles, and others,
especially those sung in the circle-dances, have previously appeared in
_The Churchman_ and in my _Spanish Highways and Byways_ and are used
here by the courtesy of _The Churchman_ publishers and of the Messrs.
Macmillan Company.
KATHARINE LEE BATES.
The Scarab. June 3, 1913.
IN SUNNY SPAIN
I
PILARICA IN THE MOORISH GARDEN
At last, at last, that tiresome stint of embroidery was done. The
threads, no longer white, had tangled so often under the impatient tugs
of those rosy little fingers that it was fully half an hour later than
usual before Pilarica could jump up from the threshold, run back through
the house to Tia Marta, display those finished three inches of “labors”
and plead:
“Tia Marta, with your kind permission I will now go out to play.”
Tia Marta was stooping over a great, open chest in the inner room whose
only other furniture was a wide, low bedstead and two canvas cots. All
the family slept there except Pilarica’s big brother, Rodrigo, who was a
student in the Institute of Granada and so, being a person of dignity,
had the curtained box-bed in the kitchen. This outer room, like the
bedroom behind it, was all of stone and so dim that the light from the
doorway showed only a glimmer of copper and pewter on the side where the
cooking was done. The bedroom had a window, so narrow that it seemed
hardly more than a slit cut in the thick stone of the wall. There was no
glass in the window and there were no rugs nor carpets on the cold,
tiled floors.
Tia Marta, huddled over the big chest in the duskiest corner of all,
could not have seen the embroidery well, even though Pilarica’s
eagerness thrust it close against the squinting red eyes; but she
scolded, for Tia Marta enjoyed scolding, quite as sharply as if every
moist little stitch had been measured and found wanting.
“Worse and worse! The very gypsies would be ashamed to wear it. The
donkeys would bray at it. What is to become of a girl born without the
needle-gift? The saints take pity! But get you out into the sunshine,
child, and play! This house is as dark as a wolf’s mouth. Out of doors
with you!”
[Illustration: TIA MARTA SCOLDS]
And Tia Marta thrust the strip of linen back to Pilarica with such a
jerk that the needle flew off the thread, slid to the floor and, after a
merry hop or two, hid itself in a crack. This was fun for the needle,
but it kept Pilarica away from the garden for ten minutes more while her
small palms rubbed over the worn, uneven tiles in anxious search. But as
soon as she knelt down and prayed to Santa Rita, the clever saint who
can find anything that is lost, the needle gave her knee a saucy prick
and consented, after its run-away frolic, to be stuck into the cloth
again. For, you see, the needle had been working hard, too, and wanted
its bit of holiday as much, perhaps, as Pilarica wanted hers.
But the loss of those ten minutes out of her golden afternoon was a sore
trial to the little girl and she dashed like a tiny whirlwind through
the house to fling herself, sobbing and laughing both at once, into the
arms of Grandfather. He sat, white-haired and dreamy-eyed, his guitar on
the mosaic bench beside him, under the olive-tree before the door. It
was so comforting to feel the tender clasp of the old, trembling arms
and to hear the slow and broken but still sweet old voice that had
crooned over Pilarica since her earliest memory.
“What’s this? What’s this? Dew on my red rosebud? Hush, Heart of Honey,
hush! I have a new riddle for you.
“‘Little glass boxes
That sometimes leak,
But open and shut
Without a squeak.’”
Pilarica promptly pointed her two forefingers at her still tearful eyes.
“That is easy,” she said, slipping to her knees upon the ground and
leaning against the end of the bench. “Please tell me one, a bad, rude
one, about a needle. I do hate needles so.”
Grandfather did not have to think long, for he was the wisest man in
Spain, as all the children on the Alhambra hill would have told you, and
he knew more rhymes and riddles than all the professors in all the
universities and all the preachers in all the pulpits put together. So
presently he began to repeat in the soft, singsong tone that always
soothed Pilarica like the murmur of running water:
“‘I have only one eye, like the beggar who sits
In the great church porch at Cadiz;
My temper is sharp, and yet I am
A favorite with the ladies.’
Will this do?” he asked. “For there is another, and I see that just now
the needle is no favorite at all with my little lady here.”
“I would like, please, to hear the other,” replied Pilarica promptly,
for surely one could not know too many riddles, especially about
anything so vexatious as a needle.
And Grandfather, after letting his fingers wander for a minute over the
strings of the guitar to refresh his memory, chanted this other:
“‘I’m little, but do me no wrong,
For my temper is sharp and spry;
I’m not a man, but my beard is long,
And it grows right out of my eye.
I’m as small as a spear of wheat in spring,
And yet it is I who dress the King.’”
“One more, dear Grandfather, if you will do me the favor,” coaxed the
child.
“One more,” assented Grandfather, lightly kissing the red carnation
which Pilarica, like a true little Andalusian, had tucked into her
rippling mass of soft dark hair. “One more, but not about the needle
this time.
“‘O bright long paths to Fairytown!
What shining paths do I mean?
They are not gray, nor black, nor brown,
Nor blue, nor white, nor green.’”
Dear me! What paths _did_ he mean? Pilarica sprang to her feet and
looked about her on a scene of wonderful beauty. For the two gloomy
rooms in which the family ate and slept were all that remained of an old
Moorish palace, once as dazzling in its strange and delicate splendor as
if it had been carven out of moonlight and jeweled by the frost. Time
had destroyed those silvery walls and towers, those airy arches and
columns, but it had dealt gently with the lordly pleasure-garden, which
only grew lovelier and lovelier through the centuries of neglect. When
the Christian armies, long ago, drove the grave, dark-faced, turbaned
Moors down from the Alhambra hill, out of Spain, and back over the
narrow strip of sea to the north coast of Africa, the household that had
to flee from this fair home must have turned at the garden gate and
sighed as they looked their last on their lost Eden. Now the roses
clambered over the broken marble basins of the seven fountains, but the
sparkling jets of water were as limpid as ever and, when they were all
playing, Pilarica could bathe under the spray of a different fountain
every day in the week.
What paths did he mean? “Not gray, nor black, nor brown,” for there were
no hues so dull as these in this rainbow wilderness. “Nor blue, nor
white”? There had been walks of sky-tinted porcelain and creamy marble
once, and other walks of many-colored tiles, set in patterns of stars
and crescents and circles, but the myrtle hedges had sent out rambling
sprays of yellow blossoms to clamber over these, and fallen orange
flowers and jasmine petals, acacia blooms and drifting leaves of all
sorts helped with their fragrant litter to hide the pavement of those
winding ways. “Nor green”? There were trees upon trees in the garden,
solemn cypresses and soaring palms, magnolias with their great, sweet
blossoms, cedars with level boughs, banana trees and lemon and citron
and pomegranate, oleanders with their clusters of snowy flowers, and the
leafless coral tree, blooming in brilliant scarlet. Only the birds,
whose wings went flashing from one beckoning branch to another, knew
how many, many green paths there were amidst the leafage of those
marvellous boughs. And while Pilarica was still gazing with happy eyes
right up and away into that waving world of twinkling sprays and glowing
blossoms, a sudden ray of sunlight struck across a pink-plumed almond
and slanted down to Pilarica’s swinging feet.
“Sunbeams! Yellow paths!” cried Pilarica, clapping her hands.
The sunbeam danced a little, just a little, but enough to awake in those
small sandalled feet an irresistible desire to run and play. So the
child slipped away from Grandfather’s knee and left him to doze again,
one withered hand still straying on the strings of his guitar and
calling out notes of dreamy music even as he slept.
Pilarica tripped along by a hedge of boxwood, in which Rodrigo had
amused himself by cutting out, some five feet apart, queer shapes of
peacocks and lions and eagles. To each of these she gave a swift caress
in passing, for they seemed, in a way, like playmates, and their
rustling green faces were very pleasant to kiss. A shade of anxiety was
gathering in her eyes, for her other brother, Rafael, was a seeker for
hid treasure. The boy had often annoyed some ancient snail in its
hermitage and sent the lizards scampering like flashes of green light by
his groping about the bottom of cracked marble cisterns and
flower-choked baths, but he had never yet found any riches of the Moors,
not one alabaster jar full of rubies and emeralds nor even a single nest
of pearls as large as hen’s eggs,--no, not although he had dug by
moonlight with a spade dipped three times in the Sultana Fountain and
rubbed dry with bunches of pungent rosemary. Perhaps Rafael might have
been more successful if the Sultana had been less dilapidated. She was
now merely a slender foot poised on the basin rim and a white arm
clasping the central shaft of porphyry. All else had been broken away
ages since, but this mainly missing Sultana was none the less the lady
of Rafael’s homage and he would not allow Pilarica, never once, to kiss
that uptilted marble heel.
But although Rafael was not fortunate in finding the buried treasure of
the Moors, he was always coming upon buried treasure of Pilarica’s, to
her great indignation and concern. All over the garden were hidden her
little hoards of such childish wealth as Tia Marta’s well-worn broom
would send spinning out of the house,--fragments of ruddy pottery, bits
of sunrise-hued mosaic, choice feathers shed by the garden birds,
feathers that might some day be fashioned into a fan, beads and ribbons
that had come traveling up the Alhambra hill in Rodrigo’s pocket when
there chanced to be a fair going on in Granada.
So Pilarica’s eyes, those great, changeful Andalusian eyes, that gleam
like jewels but are in color nearest to the deep purple of pansies, grew
dark, like dusky velvet, with the fear that Rafael might have found her
latest gift from Big Brother, her castanets. Stepping softly from one
broken piece of paving to another, along a mere thread of a path that
wound in and out of the scented shrubbery, the child came to what had
once been a summer-house with silken awnings, enclosed by a low marble
colonnade. The blue sky roofed it now and only one of those graceful
white columns was still standing and still--O happy Pilarica!--keeping
safe watch and ward over the little yellow clappers, adorned with red
tassels, which had been buried at its foot under a drift of perfumed
leaves and petals. Pilarica caught them to her heart, those shells of
hollowed wood, with a gasp of joy. Running her thumbs through the loops
of red cord that bound each pair together, she flung her arms above her
head and, beating out with the middle finger a sharp, clicking music
from the castanets, began to dance. It was a wonderful sight to see
Pilarica dance, whirling about and about, her feet as light as her
heart, in the circle of the summer-house, but there was only one column
to look on, and he was not greatly impressed, for he was old and
weather-worn and tired and, besides, he had seen grand Moorish ladies,
with castanets of ivory and pearl, dancing very much like Pilarica,
hundreds of Aprils ago.
II
THE MAGIC CAP
“Whoop!” sounded suddenly from over Pilarica’s head, and a red Turkish
fez came flying down from the high garden-wall, alighting neatly on the
top of the solitary column. At the edge of that wall a sturdy,
square-chinned boy, by way of getting up his courage for the leap, was
chanting an old nursery rhyme:
“There was a Señor Don Cat.
In a chair of gold he sat.
In a suit of silk he was clad,
And pointed shoes he had.
His Godfather came and said:
‘If you would like to wed
A beautiful Moorish tabby,
Take a walk on the roof of the abbey.’
But when he saw her there,
He tumbled into the air,
And on the cloister stones
Arrived with broken bones.”
Thump! The boy was sitting on the ground, in the very center of the
summer-house, vigorously rubbing those portions of his body which had
suffered most in the adventure; but as Pilarica, with the deference due
to an athlete as well as to a brother, sprang up and handed him his cap,
he flung it on, cocked it jauntily and shook back the gilt tassels that
were tickling his ears.
“This is a magic cap and, when I wear it, I am anybody I choose to be,”
announced the new-comer, somewhat breathlessly. “I am now,” he
continued, still sitting on the ground but waving his arms suggestively,
“Rafael the Archangel.”
“You are welcome to your house, my lord Archangel,” faltered Pilarica,
not forgetting her manners, but holding her precious castanets tightly
clasped behind her back.
“What have you there?” queried Rafael, pulling off his hempen sandals
and anxiously inspecting the soles of his feet.
Poor little Pilarica, into whom courtesy had been instilled as the first
of all the virtues, winked hard, but held out the castanets toward her
brother.
“They are at your service,” she faltered. But Rafael, too, could
practise the Andalusian graces when he had a mind.
“They are very well placed where they are,” he returned affably in the
set phrase proper to the occasion and, giving his gay fez a twirl, he
added: “I am not the Archangel any more, but the high and mighty Moor
Abdorman Murambil Xarif, master of this palace. You are my Christian
captive and will now dance for me.”
“But I do not want to be a Christian captive,” protested Pilarica.
“Would you rather be a dog of an infidel, a follower of false Mahound?”
demanded Rafael, in a tone of shocked reproach. “If so, I shall have to
sweep you into the sea.”
“But ar’n’t you a dog of an infidel, too, since you are a Moor?” asked
Pilarica in that keen way of hers, which her brother often found
disconcerting.
Rafael caught off his red cap with a pettish gesture and tossed it
aside.
“Your tongue is too full of words, Pilarica,” he grumbled. “It is
unseemly to answer back. I am a year older than you. What’s more, I am
a boy and you are a girl. As Tia Marta says, the fingers of the hand are
not equal.”
Pilarica spread out the little brown fingers of her right hand and
considered them so seriously that Rafael was encouraged to go on.
“Besides, I have heard Rodrigo say that a woman who speaks Latin always
comes to a bad end.”
“But I do not speak Latin,” pleaded Pilarica. “Isn’t Latin the
gori-gori-goo that the priests sing in the church? I do not see why
anyone should learn it, for Grandfather says that in heaven the angels
all speak Spanish.”
“Of course they do,” assented Rafael proudly. “Spanish is the most
beautiful language that ever was spoken, just as the Spaniards are the
best and bravest people on the earth.”
“Who are the other people on the earth? Are they all followers of false
Mahound, like the Moors?” asked Pilarica.
Rafael frowned. There never was a girl like Pilarica for asking
inconvenient questions.
“Child,” he said, looking as ancient and impressive as any
eight-year-old could, “did Grandfather ever tell you the story of Juan
Cigarron?”
“Not yet,” replied Pilarica meekly, “but it would give me great pleasure
to hear it, if you please.”
“Grandfather tells me many more stories than he tells you,” boasted
Rafael. “You are all for riddles and verses, but he and I talk together,
like men, of the affairs of the world. Juan Cigarron, who lived a long,
long while ago, before you, and even I, had been born, made believe that
he was a great magician and could see anything, even if it was hidden in
the very depths of the earth, unless, to be sure, there was a blue cloth
wrapped around it.”
“Why blue?” asked Pilarica.
“Why not?” retorted Rafael, quite angrily. “Will you listen to my story,
or will you be forever chattering? The King sent for Juan Cigarron and
asked him many questions and, by great good luck, he was able to answer
every one. Then the King, for a reward, promised to grant him whatever
he might wish, even though it were the gold crown on the King’s head,
but Juan Cigarron did not wish for the crown. He wished that His
Majesty might never ask him anything again. Oh! And that reminds me,”
exclaimed Rafael, jumping up quite forgetful of his bumps and bruises
and tossing on his cap once more, “that the Gypsy King is to tell me my
fortune this very afternoon.”
Pilarica clasped her hands in silent appeal, and her eyes grew so starry
with hope that Rafael, already beyond the limits of the summer-house,
looked back, swaying doubtfully on one foot.
“Tia Marta does not allow you to go over to the gypsy quarter,” he
objected.
“Nor you, either,” was on the tip of Pilarica’s tongue, but she wisely
bit it back, urging:
“The Gypsy King will not have gone home so early. He will be waiting
near the Alhambra, sitting on the fountain-steps, looking for tourists
who may buy his photograph for a peseta. And besides,” she added with
innocent tact, “Tia Marta knows that I am safe anywhere with you.”
Rafael swaggered.
“Of course you are,” he announced grandly. “You are my little sister,
and I, even though a bull should charge upon me, would stand before you
as strong as the columns in the temple of Solomon. Come on! I will ask
Tia Marta if you may go with me.”
So the children raced gleefully across the garden, dodging in and out
among geraniums, heliotrope and fuchsias that had grown into great
shrubs like trees, but paused at the fretted Moorish arch that now
performed the humble office of their kitchen door, to see what
Grandfather was doing. The old man, whom the circle of the years had
brought back near to childhood, was playing happily with a snail that
found itself halted in some important journey of its own by his
protruding foot.
“A riddle! a riddle for the snail!” coaxed Pilarica, throwing herself
down on the ground to lift the wee round traveller over that meddlesome
mountain; and Grandfather, after strumming a minute on his guitar,
recited:
“I was roaming in the meadow and there, upon my soul,
I met a little mansion out for a stroll.
The dignified Lord Mayor was sitting in his hall.
I said: ‘Come take a walk with me.’ He answered: ‘Not at all.
My office is so serious I never leave my chair,
But the city hall goes with me when I need to take the air.’”
Meanwhile Rafael, who felt himself quite too grown-up for riddles, had
dived into the darkness of the house, whence he soon came scampering
out, followed by the shrill tones of Tia Marta.
“The Gypsy King, indeed! And what sort of a king is that? Everyone is as
God has made him, and very often worse.”
“But may Pilarica go?” called Rafael.
“Ask her grandfather. Am I a donkey, to bear all the burdens of this
household?”
“May I go, Grandfather?” teased Pilarica. The old man nodded at least
twenty times and, catching up the word _donkey_, struck with his
quavering voice into a popular tune:
“Little I am, but everywhere
Blows and burdens I have to bear.
_Haw-hee!_
“That is why my voice of long protest
Has grown to be bigger than all the rest
Of me.”
“_Haw-hee!_” echoed Rafael, with such a good imitation of a bray that a
genuine ass made sonorous answer from the highroad beyond.
“Grandfather says I may go,” cried Pilarica joyfully into the arched
doorway.
“Bah!” responded Tia Marta. “His heart is softer than a ripe fig.”
But she did not take back the permission, and Pilarica had the rare
delight of an excursion with Rafael outside the garden.
Half ashamed of his condescension, the boy did not spare her, but tore
at his full speed along the dusty road, between giant hedges of aloes,
with their blue, sworded leaves, and lances tipped with yellow blossoms,
so that it was a very hot, panting little girl who arrived, hardly a
minute behind him, at the fountain on whose steps was enthroned the
Gypsy King.
This was a very splendid personage indeed, with his high, peaked hat
sparkling all over with pendants of colored glass that flashed back the
sun like crown jewels. His slashed jacket was wondrously embroidered and
spangled and his broad sash was of scarlet silk. Even his trousers and
stockings looked as if he had been wading in a sunset. Smiling on
Pilarica, he drew a bright cup from his wallet and, leaning toward the
fountain, filled it with water that could not have looked more
deliciously fresh and cold if the cup had been made of purest silver
instead of gypsy tin. But thirsty as she was, the little Andalusian
maiden handed the cup back to the giver.
“After you, please,” she said as sweetly as if her throat were not
almost choked with the white dust.
The Gypsy King bowed with much majesty and touched the cup to his lips,
but then she insisted on passing it to Rafael, who made short work of
draining its contents to the last drop. He did not fail, however, to
fill it again for his sister, so that, at last, Pilarica found herself
seated on the lowest step, at the feet of the fortune teller, quite cool
and comfortable.
But the picturesque old gypsy, although he could not help being kind to
Pilarica, was in a gloomy mood. He had sold only one of his photographs
all day long, and that to a rude young foreigner--we hope it was not an
American--who had laughed at his kingship to his face and spun him the
silver coin so carelessly that it had rolled into a crevice of the stone
work and joined the lost treasures of the Alhambra. And well the poor
old gypsy knew that, however much he might pose as a king in his
flaunting hat and gaudy jacket by day, with twilight he must make his
way back to the rows of human dens that burrow into the hillside across
the river Darro. And there, as soon as he should draw back the dirty
flap of cloth from the entrance of his own cave, his swarthy young wife,
Xarifa, would demand the amount of his day’s earnings and, when he
confessed to an empty wallet, would fly into such a passion that the
heavy silver earrings would pound against her raven hair and every
flounce on her bright orange petticoat would seem to bristle with rage.
He could tell his own fortune, for that evening, only too well,--a
shame-faced old fellow perched on a stool in the corner, trying with
trembling hands to mend a cooking tin or a piece of harness, while
Xarifa’s furious voice went on and on, until at last he should be
suffered to fall asleep on the heap of ragged sheepskins that served him
for a royal couch.
So although on yesterday, when he had sold three photographs and had
three pesetas jingling in his purse, the Gypsy King had promised to
tell Rafael’s fortune as an act of friendship, to-day he was stubbornly
silent, holding out his palm to be crossed with silver. Rafael’s flush
met the red edges of his fez. The only silver he had was a little watch
and chain that his father had given him when, three years ago, that
gallant naval engineer left his children, whose mother had just died, in
the care of Grandfather and Tia Marta and sailed away, under the red and
yellow flag of Spain, to do his part for king and country. No one
guessed how deeply Rafael loved that absent father, the hero of all his
dreams, but the boy had even more than the usual share of Spanish pride
and, with a sudden gulp that was not far from a sob, he dropped the
watch and chain into that greedy palm.
And he could make nothing of the fortune, after all. The Gypsy King,
muttering strange words that only gypsies know, bent forward and with
his staff traced rude figures in the sand,--a train of mules, a
cockle-shell, a battle-ship; but suddenly he lifted his staff and
touched it lightly to Rafael’s magic cap.
“That is your fortune,” he declared. “It will turn toads into
nightingales and stones into bread. Don’t give that away, my little
gentleman, even to the gypsies.”
III
FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES
The eyes of the Gypsy King began to glitter like jet beads. He had
caught sight of an omnibus toiling up the Alhambra hill, and after the
first a second, and after the second a third. Tourists! A party of
foreign tourists! A host of golden, gullible tourists! Ah, Xarifa would
be pleased with him, after all. She would toss him off a panful of crisp
fritters for supper and then sit with him in the mouth of their cave,
enjoying all the gypsy jest and music. With surprising nimbleness he
climbed to the top step of the fountain, and there he stood, brandishing
his hat high above his head and bowing and beckoning and twisting and
bowing again until Pilarica turned quite giddy just from watching him.
“Come away!” ordered Rafael, tugging at her hand, and she followed her
brother to the ivied wall beneath that bell-tower on whose top the
first cross was lifted after the Christians had taken the Alhambra from
the Moors. Here Rafael busied himself in gathering together a few smooth
stones, as much in the shape of Spanish rolls as he could find, and
arranging them in a row.
“Count out!” he commanded Pilarica, and the little girl, dancing up and
down the line as she sang, proceeded to touch with an airy foot one
stone and then another and another in turn.
“The garden of our house it is
The funniest garden yet,
For when it rains and rains and rains,
The garden it is wet.
And now we bow,
Skip back and then advance,
For who know how
To make a bow
Know how to dance.
AB--C--AB--C
DE--FG--HI--J.
If your worship does not love me,
Then a better body may.
AB--C--AB--C,
KL--MN--OP--Q.
If you think you do not love me,
I am sure I don’t love you.”
Before the song was ended, Rafael had clapped his magic cap over the
stone designated by Q and stood, with red lips firmly pressed together,
abiding results.
“Sing something else, Pilarica,” he entreated, “or else I cannot, cannot
wait.”
And Pilarica, with a quick instinct for what would hold his attention,
piped up the song by which Spanish children keep in memory the name of a
true patriot. By the middle of the second line, Rafael’s fresh treble
was chiming in with hers, though his gaze never wavered from the
wonder-working fez.
“As he came from the Senate,
Men whispered to Prim:
‘Be wary, be wary,
For life and for limb.’
Then answered the General:
‘Come blessing, come bane,
I live or I die
In the service of Spain.’
“In the Street of the Turk,
Where the starlight was dim,
Nine cowardly bullets
Gave greeting to Prim.
The best of the Spaniards
Lay smitten and slain,
And the new King he died for
Came weeping to Spain.”
“Now! _now!_” cried Rafael, and whisked the red cap off the stone, which
looked--precisely as it had looked before. Not one flake of puffy crust,
not one white, tempting crumb betrayed whatever change might have come
to pass under that magic covering. The children fell flat on their
stomachs on either side of this doubtful substance and first Rafael,
then Pilarica, thrust out a red tongue and licked it cautiously. The
taste was gritty. Rafael tried to take a bite, but his white young teeth
slipped helplessly off the flinty surface. The boy squatted back on his
heels, his small fists clenched, and glared darkly out before him.
“Perhaps one of the others--” faltered Pilarica.
“They are all alike,” interrupted Rafael, in a voice harsh with mounting
anger. “They are stones, just stones, and they always will be stones. I
knew it all the time.”
“Our rolls are very, very hard once in a while,” ventured the little
girl again, but this remark was met with scornful silence.
“Or I might hunt for a toad,” she persisted, dismayed by Rafael’s sombre
stare. “Toads are much softer than stones, and perhaps--”
But the boy had bounded to his feet and was stamping furiously upon the
magic cap.
“The gypsy is a humbug, and the cap is a humbug,” he exclaimed
chokingly, “and I have been cheated out of my watch and chain,--my
silver watch and chain that my father gave me. I will not bear it. I am
going down the hill to meet Rodrigo, and he will make that lying old
thief give them back to me.”
And without another glance toward the little sister whom he had so
loftily taken under his protection, Rafael, bare-headed, dashed away and
disappeared down the steep avenue by which Rodrigo usually came home
from the Institute.
The tears trembled for a moment on Pilarica’s long eyelashes, as she
found herself thus forsaken, but she was a practical little person on
occasion, as the sisters of impulsive brothers needs must be, and so she
picked up the red fez, brushed away the dust, folded it neatly and hid
it in her bodice. Then she scattered the stones far and wide, so that
Rafael might not come upon that unlucky row again and be stung by the
reminder of his loss.
And what next? For a moment the child looked longingly down, from her
green nook, on the outspread city of Granada, with its clusters of gray
towers and spires that seemed to be talking together in the purple air
about the times that were. Rafael was allowed to go half-way down the
Alhambra hill to meet Rodrigo, and sometimes Rodrigo, on a holiday,
would take his little brother into the city with him for a whole
afternoon, but Rodrigo, who was a student and knew everything, said it
was best for girls to bide at home. Only yesterday Rafael had gone into
Granada with Rodrigo, to see a wonder-working troupe of jugglers, and
returned rejoicing in the red fez. An Arab peddler, who was, as well,
snake-charmer and sword-eater, pleased by the boy’s wide-eyed admiration
of his exploits, had tossed it to him with the laughing words: “Red is
the color of magic.” And Tia Marta went down to Granada sometimes with
the donkey Shags for the frugal family supplies, but she could not be
bothered with Pilarica, while Grandfather, who never found Pilarica a
bother, was too feeble now for the confusion of the city streets and
for the long climb back up the hill.
So the child lifted her wistful eyes from the proud old city to the far
sweep of the plain beyond, a plain rich in gardens and vineyards,
orchards and olive-groves, and then she looked out further yet to the
ranks of snow-clad mountains that shut in the view. Those glistening
summits made her lonely, and when a scamper of small feet came her way
and a cry of eager voices called her name, Pilarica leapt down from her
perch on the wall and let herself be swept along with the roguish little
rabble of the Alhambra hill.
Tia Marta always scolded when Pilarica was found playing with the
Alhambra children, for there were usually a few gypsies, rude and
lawless, in the group, and some even of the Spaniards were so ill-bred
as to make sport of strangers. But they were children, for all that,
with the blithe laughter of children, and all the more determined to
play with Pilarica because they knew that Pilarica was forbidden to play
with them.
“To the Alhambra!” cried Arnaldo. “There are many people there, ugly
people, with blue eyes, and hair the color of lemons, and faces flat
like pesetas. There are so many that Don Francisco is as flustered as a
fish in hot water and he has forgotten to lock the door after them. He
will not notice us at all if we are careful to keep a court or two
behind. But you must not run on and beg of the people, Zinga, and you,
Leandro, must not be slipping your sly fingers into the ladies’ bags, or
we shall all be driven out together.”
“I will do as I choose,” retorted the wild-haired gypsy girl, while the
hawk-eyed gypsy lad, barely in his teens but already a skillful
pickpocket, gripped the gay-handled knife in his belt and scowled
defiance at Arnaldo.
Pilarica, frightened by the fierce looks, fell back with the little
ones, Isabelita and Carmencita, chubby Pepito, and the gypsy
two-year-olds, Rosita and Benito, letting the bigger and rougher
children lead the way. So in two companies they tagged after the
tourists up into the Court of Myrtles, with its great pool enclosed by
myrtle hedges, and on to the Hall of the Ambassadors, whose walls are
like lace of rare design and whose domed ceiling, all white and gold and
blue, studded with starry figures, seems a bit of sky. When they had
come to the Court of the Lions, whose multitude of white marble columns
look, in their varied grouping, like guests frozen by some playful
enchantment just as they were chatting together or musing apart in this
exquisite throne-room of the Sultans, the smaller children began to lag.
Plump Pepito sat down firmly on the floor. Carmencita, startled by the
twelve marble lions that uphold the fountain-basin in the center,
puckered up her face for a cry, and Pilarica, to divert her, started one
of the circle-games in which Spanish children delight. Hand in hand, the
little dancers tripped about like a ring of fairies, until Pilarica’s
clear voice led them in the song of San Serení, the well-beloved Saint
of Gentleness. All but the wee gypsies knew every stanza, singing
lustily, and even Benito and Rosita acted out the gymnastic movements
with the rest, kneeling, sitting, lying back and jumping up again, as
the several verses directed.
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Our Saint of Courtesy,
I, as a good Christian,
Will drop upon my knee.
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the strong winds pass,
I, as a good Christian,
Will seat me on the grass.
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where the white clouds fly,
I, as a good Christian,
Upon the ground will lie.
“San Serení of the Mountain,
Where earth and heaven meet,
I, as a good Christian,
Will spring upon my feet.”
Their own games were much more interesting to the children than the
glories of the old Moorish palace, and they flocked about Pilarica, each
clamoring for a favorite dance.
“Little Bird Pinta,” teased Isabelita.
“Little White Pigeons,” whined Carmencita, who was always on the verge
of tears.
“Little Blind Hen,” shouted Pepito.
“Pin--Pige--Hen,” echoed the gypsy babies impartially.
“The Charcoal Woman,” wept Carmencita.
“Butterfly Tag,” coaxed Isabelita.
“Charcoal-Butter,” chimed in the obliging gypsy babies.
“Grasshopper! Grasshopper!” roared Pepito and thereupon began to skip
about, his fat hands clasped under his knees, gasping as tunefully as he
could:
“Grasshopper sent me an invitation
To come and share his occupation.
Grasshopper dear, how could I say no?
Grasshopper, Grasshopper, here I go!”
“Hush! hush!” urged Pilarica. “We will play _Larán-larito_, and Pepito
shall be the cheese.”
So Pepito, easily rolling himself up into a round, soft ball, proudly
occupied the center of the scene, while the others, suiting their action
to the words of the song, danced about him, ever drawing nearer and
nearer, ready for the final pounce.
“The shepherdess rose lightly
--_Larán-larán-larito_--
The shepherdess rose lightly
From off her heather seat--O.
“Her goats went leaping homeward
--_Larán-larán-larito_--
Her goats went leaping homeward
On nimble little feet--O.
“With strong young hands she milked them
--_Larán-larán-larito_--
With strong young hands she milked them
And made a cheese for treat--O.
“The kitty watched and wondered
--_Larán-larán-larito_--
The kitty crept and pondered
If it were good to eat--O.
“The kitty sprang upon it
--_Larán-larán-larito_--
The kitty sprang upon it,
As we spring on Pepito.”
But just at the thrilling moment when all the five kitties flung
themselves upon the plump, indignant cheese, which struck out right and
left with pudgy fists and defended itself as never cheese was known to
do before, there arose a hubbub in the further halls of the Alhambra and
the larger boys and girls came rushing back, pursued by Don Francisco,
the guardian of the palace, and a purple-faced foreigner whose voice
sounded as if he were using bad language.
Arnaldo seized the hand of Isabelita, Zinga made a snatch at Rosita, and
even Leandro, flinging back a silver cigar-case as he ran, paused to
catch up the toddling Benito, while Carmencita wailed so piteously and
Pepito bawled so lustily that the big children who had no little
brothers and sisters to look after hustled these two clamorous waifs
along in the flight. But nobody took thought for Pilarica, who,
terrified by the hue and cry, turned and fled down one arched passage
after another, across dim chambers and through long galleries, until, at
last, she could hear nothing but stillness anywhere about her, and that,
queerly enough, frightened her more than all the noise had done.
IV
RAFAEL IN DISGRACE
If Rafael had waited for his brother at the Gate of the Pomegranates, as
usual, things might not have turned out quite so badly. For here the way
from Granada up the Alhambra hill opens into three avenues, and the boy,
in his impatience, having failed to meet Rodrigo on the shortest and
steepest, dashed up again by the second and down by the third, and so
managed to miss him altogether. For while Rafael, back once more at the
Gate of the Pomegranates, tired out by so much headlong running, was
cooling his parched throat at a runlet of sparkling water, Rodrigo was
already at home, opening the gate of the old garden.
A tall, dark, graceful lad of eighteen, a scholar’s satchel strapped to
his shoulders, he swung the gate wide and stepped back with much
deference to make way for his companion.
“After you, sir,” he said.
But this companion, a man of middle age, sturdy and square-chinned, clad
in the uniform of a naval engineer, stood motionless. His face, set in
stern lines, was under perfect control, yet, as the son beside him half
divined, it was harder for him to enter that fragrant, blossoming
enclosure than to face the enemy’s cannon. For it was here that,
something over three years ago, he had brought from their simple but
pleasant lodgings in Cadiz his tenderly loved wife, hoping that the air
of the hilltop might restore her failing strength. Half the savings of a
frugal lifetime had been spent to call a great physician from Madrid. He
prescribed little medicine, but an abundance of fresh eggs and pure
goat’s milk and bade them, to the horror of their devoted maid, always
known to the children as Tia Marta, set the invalid’s bed out in the
open. But not the restful cool of the evening air nor the living warmth
of the sunshine could avail, and to the man who halted at the gate this
beautiful garden was the place of sorrow. Recalled to his ship almost
immediately after his wife’s death, there had been no time to find a new
home for his children. So he had left them in this wild Paradise under
charge of his gentle father-in-law and of the faithful, though
sharp-tongued, Tia Marta. Since then he had not been able to visit them,
for his ship had been sent to the Pacific, and except for brief letters,
written to Rodrigo from time to time, and for the small but punctual
sums of money forwarded to a Granada bank for the family support, they
had heard nothing of him.
Rodrigo, too, left much to be desired as a correspondent, although his
handwriting blossomed out in bolder flourishes from year to year. He
wrote of his progress in his studies, his prizes in mathematics, his
interest in the new English sports, his ambition to enter an engineering
school and follow his father’s career, and added in a postscript that
the rest of the family were well. And all their talk on the homeward
climb, after the officer had astonished and rejoiced his son by calling
for him at the Institute, had still been of Rodrigo, his successes, his
amusements, his future. It would have amazed that vivacious youth to
know that under all the kindly responses, the father’s heart was
yearning toward the little daughter, longing to find in her face,
hardly more than a baby face as he remembered it, some image of her
mother’s. Of Rafael he scarcely thought at all. He recollected, without
interest, that the younger boy was said to take after him, while both
Rodrigo and Pilarica were held to resemble their mother, and it was that
resemblance which he craved. He himself recognized it in Rodrigo’s sunny
looks and charming manners, but the lad’s frank egotism was all his own.
The lingerer at the gate drew a long breath and entered the garden. In
spite of himself, his steps turned toward an open place among the orange
trees, the place where his wife’s bed had stood, but there was no bed
there now, only an old, old man, seated on the ground and idly piling up
the fallen fruit into a golden pyramid. As he went on with his building,
he was crooning over and over:
“Many laughing ladies
In a castle green;
All are dressed in yellow
And fit to serve the Queen.”
The new-comer, for all his self-control, gave a start of painful
surprise.
“Is that your grandfather?” he asked Rodrigo.
“Ay, sir, to be sure it is, and a grandfather as good as bread,”
answered the lad, with a sensitive flush, while, stooping quickly, he
fairly lifted the light, swaying figure to its feet.
“Never mind the oranges now, Grandfather,” he said brightly. “See! We
have an honored guest.”
The old man turned a dazed look upon his son-in-law.
“I am at your feet, sir,” he quavered, in the courteous phrase of
Andalusia. “The house is yours.”
“But surely you know me,--Catalina’s husband,” pleaded the stranger,
opening his arms.
The old man nodded many times, but drew back from the embrace.
“You are the young man from Saragossa who would wed my daughter
Catalina,” he answered slowly. “She is away just now--I forget
where--but when she comes home again, we will talk of these things.”
Then, moving his fingers as if he were touching the strings of a guitar,
he began to sing softly:
“Going and coming,
I lost my heart one day.
Love came to me laughing;
In tears Love went away.”
“How long has he been like this?” asked the officer, turning sharply on
Rodrigo. “And why have you told me nothing of it?”
“Your pardon, sir,” pleaded the lad, “but what was there to tell?
Grandfather is often confused by evening, when he is tired. He will be
quite clear-headed again in the morning. Perhaps he is not so active as
he was, but he does a little work about the garden and he will amuse the
children hour after hour with his stories and riddles and scraps of
song. He loves Pilarica better than his eyelashes.”
“Where is Pilarica?” asked the father.
“Where is Pilarica?” echoed the old man, speaking more alertly than
before. “I have played the airs that please her best, and there were no
dancing feet.”
“She may be helping Tia Marta with the supper,” suggested Rodrigo,
turning toward the house. “And there goes Tia Marta now. Oho! Tia Marta!
Tia Marta!”
“Ay, indeed! Tia Marta! Tia Marta!” came a mocking response from where
a wiry figure, arrayed in saffron kerchief and purple petticoat, was
seen hurrying in another direction through the shrubbery. “Always Tia
Marta, from cock-crow to pigeon-roost! Now it’s Shags that brays to Tia
Marta for his mouthful of chopped straw, and then it’s Roxa that mews to
Tia Marta for a morsel of dried fish. It’s not slave to every Turk I was
in the days when they counted me the fairest maid and the finest dancer
in Seville. But all make firewood of a fallen tree.”
“This is natural, at all events,” exclaimed the officer, with the first
smile since he had entered the garden. “My good Marta, I kiss your
hands.”
“Don Carlos!” screamed the old servant, her sharp brown face, so like a
walnut, shining with welcome as she scrambled toward him through bushes
that seemed, for very mischief, to catch at her skirts and hold her
back. She grasped him by the shoulders and, as he laughingly tried to
free himself, pulled down his head and gave him a resounding smack on
either cheek. “May all the saints be praised! To see you safe home again
is as sweet as God’s blessing. But to think--oh, I could beat my bones
for very rage!--that the supper to-night is not a supper of festival.”
“Never mind that!” protested Don Carlos. “Who but you taught me the
saying that no bread is hard to the hungry? Let me see the children.
Where is Pilarica?”
“The children! Can I have them forever like puppies under my feet?
Pilarica! Do you expect me to keep her shut up in a sugar-bowl for you?
She is off with Rafael, who promised to look well after her. Never fear!
He has, like every boy, a wolf in his stomach, and supper-time will soon
bring them home again.”
“Off with Rafael!” repeated Rodrigo, ridding himself of his satchel.
“That is why he did not meet me this afternoon at the Gate of the
Pomegranates. Ha! I hear him running now,--but he is alone.”
All three--for Grandfather had wandered away in search of his
guitar--turned to face a bareheaded little lad, drops of sweat standing
out upon his forehead and the dark red glowing through the clear brown
of his cheeks. Suddenly arrested in his rush, he stood gazing up with
wide, happy eyes at the father whom he recognized at once, the father
for whom he cherished in secret a passionate hero-worship.
“Where is Pilarica?” three voices asked in chorus. But Rafael heard only
the deep, stern tone of Don Carlos, and it struck him dumb with dismay.
“What have you done with your sister?” demanded that accusing voice
again.
“Why--I--I left her--I left her at the foot of the old Watch-Tower,”
faltered the culprit.
“I wanted--I wanted to meet Rodrigo. And then--and then--I--I forgot
Pilarica.”
Rafael’s voice sank lower and lower under his father’s gathering frown.
That father, accustomed as a naval officer to enforce strict discipline,
spoke again with such cutting rebuke that the child before him shivered
from head to foot.
“How long ago was it that you deserted your sister?”
“I--I don’t know,” murmured Rafael. “An hour. Two hours. I don’t know.
I--I gave my watch to the Gypsy King.”
“The thief that he was to take the poor boy’s treasure!” broke in Tia
Marta, nervously trying to divert the father’s wrath. “Those gypsies
would rob the Holy Child of his swaddling-clothes, and St. Joseph of his
ass. Ay, they would let the young Madonna walk the desert on foot and
wrap the Blessed Babe in--”
“Rodrigo,” interrupted Don Carlos, “we go to find Pilarica. And do you,
Marta, never again confide my little daughter to the care of a heedless
boy who cannot even guard his own pockets.”
For a moment Rafael stood as if stunned, his black head drooping. He had
dreamed so often of his father’s home-coming, but never, never had he
dreamed a scene like this. In the next moment Rodrigo, as he followed
his father’s impatient strides toward the gate, was passed, at the
Sultana Fountain, by a speeding little figure, and Don Carlos felt a
pair of small, hot hands fasten on his arm.
“Oh, do me the favor, sir, of letting me go with you. I can show you
exactly where I left her. She will not have gone far. She may be there
yet. I know that I can find her sooner even than Rodrigo. Father!
_Father!_”
But Don Carlos, thoroughly displeased, thrust the clinging hands away.
“We want no help of yours. Stay where you are. That is my command. If
you are not old enough to understand what it means to betray a trust, at
least it is time you learned obedience.”