bridle, was proceeding to thump her well with a piece of Tia Marta’s
broom, broken in the course of the mule’s antics, when Pilarica, putting
Don Quixote to his best paces, bore down upon the scene in such distress
of pity that the beating had to be given up. But Pedrillo twisted the
halter around Capitana’s muzzle and so tied her to the tail of
Peregrina. Thereupon Capitana, all her mulish obstinacy enlisted to
maintain her leadership, began to bray and plunge in such wild
excitement that even the decorous Carbonera danced in sympathy. Finally
Capitana flung herself back with all her weight and pulled until it
seemed that Peregrina’s tail must be dragged out by the roots, but,
happily, the halter broke, and again Capitana, trumpeting her triumph,
came to the front.
“Child of the Evil One!” groaned Pedrillo, rubbing his wrenched
shoulder, while Tia Marta swayed on her pinnacle, and Peregrina
cautiously twitched the martyred tail to make sure it was still on. And
after Capitana’s escapades, Don Quixote still further delayed the
progress of the train by a determination to turn in at every courtyard
where he had been accustomed to deliver charcoal and pay a parting call.
Some of the ruder gypsy children scampered alongside, jeering at
Pedrillo’s ugliness and Tia Marta’s plight, but at last even the
fleet-footed Leandro had dropped back and the prolonged sound of
Pepito’s bellow of affectionate lament came but faintly on the breeze.
Then Grandfather, lifting his eyes to the dazzling mountain peaks from
which the sunrise glow had vanished, began to sing in fuller voice than
usual:
“The hood of Lady Blanche
--You’re free to guess it, if you will--
It does not fit the restless sea,
But how it suits the hill!”
“Did you ever see the ocean, Grandfather?” asked Rafael, with a longing
in his uplifted eyes that the old man understood.
“Ay, laddie, and so have you, for the first four years of your life were
lived in Cadiz. Don’t you remember how the great billows used to break
against the foot of the sea-wall? But I like better the waves that play
on the shore at Malaga.”
And again Grandfather sang gaily, for it made the blood laugh in his old
veins to feel the strong motion of a mule beneath him once more:
“How shall we feed these choir-boys,
Drest in white and blue,
Always coming and always going?
Sandwiches must do.”
“I don’t remember the sea as well as the ships,” said Rafael.
“Ah, the ships!” responded Grandfather.
“It is a sight the saints peep down from the windows of heaven to see--a
ship under full sail.
“‘Curtsies like a lady,
Rocks like a gammer,
Cuts without scissors,
Tacks without a hammer.’”
Carbonera and Shags had now come up with the rest of the cavalcade,
which had halted at a wayside fountain to wash out dusty throats, and
while Pedrillo was watering the mules and donkeys, Tia Marta, who had
regained her breath after her jolting, struck into the conversation with
the zest of a tongue that would make up for lost time.
“Bah! Why are you asking your grandfather about ships? He will tell you
nothing but rhymes and nonsense. Did I not dwell at Cadiz for a baker’s
dozen of years and what is there about ships I do not know? Live with
wolves and you’ll learn to howl. Live in Cadiz and you’ll soon know the
difference between the sailing-vessels, that spread their white wings
and skim over the water like swans, and the battle-ships, dark and low
like turtles. God sends his wind to the sailing-ship, but it’s the
devil’s own engines, roaring with flame and steam deep down in the iron
lungs of them, that drive on the man-of-war.”
“And my father is the master of those roaring engines,” thought Rafael
with a thrill of pride, as Capitana started on again with a lunge that
nearly dismounted Tia Marta, taken off her guard as she was. Falling
back to the end of the train, the boy gave his red cap an impatient
twirl, but its magic did not avail to show him what he so yearned to
see,--Cadiz, the white city rising like a crystal castle at the end of
the eight-mile rope of sand; Cadiz, the Silver Cup into which America,
once upon a time, had poured such wealth of gold and gems and marvels;
Cadiz, that its lovers liken to a pearl clasped between the parted
turquoise shells of sea and sky, or to a nest of sea-gulls in the hollow
of a rock. Just then--could Rafael’s hungry gaze have reached so far--a
grim battleship was lying like a stain upon those azure waters and from
her turret a stern-faced officer, with the stripes of a Chief Engineer,
was watching through a spy glass a herd of conscripts, driven like
cattle down the wharf to the waiting transports.
Don Quixote began to droop as the midday heats came on, and Pedrillo,
still trudging along on foot, swung Pilarica up to Peregrina’s back.
“And how does our little lady like the open road?” asked the muleteer.
Pilarica had not words to tell him how much she liked it,--how strange
and how enchanting every league of the way, rough or smooth, was to her
senses. Under that violet sky all the world, except for the snowy
mountain-tops, was green with spring,--the emerald green of the fig
trees, the bluish green of the aloes, the ashen green of the olives.
Every fruit orchard, every vineyard, the shepherds on the hills with
flocks whose fleeces shone like silver in the sun, the gleam of the
whitewashed villages, all these made the child’s heart leap with a
buoyant happiness she knew not how to utter. The stranger it all was,
the more she felt at home. As here and there, for instance, they passed
an unfamiliar tree, it became at once a friend, and almost a member of
their caravan. The hoary sycamores were so many grandfathers reaching
out their arms to Pilarica; the locusts clapped their little round hands
like playmates, and the pepper-trees, festooned with red berries,
seemed to rival the gaudy trappings of the mules. Every turn in the road
was an adventure. But the child could find no better language for her
thoughts than the demure question:
“Do you think, Don Pedrillo, that we shall meet a bear?”
“Surely not,” the Galician hastened to answer; “there are no bears left
in Spain to trouble the king’s highways. But if one should peep out from
under the cork trees there, all I would need to do would be to fling a
hammer or a horseshoe at him, and whoop! Off would amble Señor Bear,
whimpering like Diego when his wife first ate the omelet and then beat
him with the frying-pan. For, you see, the bear was once a blacksmith,
but so clumsy at the forge that he scorched his beard one day and
pounded his thumb the next, till he growled he would rather be a bear
than a blacksmith, and our Lord, passing by with Peter, James and John,
took him at his word. And the bear is still so afraid of being turned
back into a blacksmith that if you throw the least piece of iron at him,
he will run away like memory from an old man.”
“Grandfather remembers,” protested Pilarica.
Pedrillo twisted his head and laughed to see how erect the white-haired
rider was sitting upon his pack.
“He is only fifty years old to-day,” he said, “but it is high time for
our nooning. We’ll not squeeze the orange till the juice is bitter. Eh,
señora?”
And Tia Marta replied quite affably: “You are right, Don Pedrillo. Fifty
years is not old.”
“It is the very cream of the milk,” gallantly assented the muleteer,
helping down first Tia Marta and then Grandfather, for their muscles
were yet stiff, however young their spirits might have grown.
How glad the mules and donkeys were to browse in the shade! And how
briskly Tia Marta sliced into her best earthenware bowl, the drab one
with dull blue bands, whatever was brought her for the salad in addition
to her own contribution of a crisp little cabbage! Pedrillo produced
from one of his striped saddle-bags a handful of onions, so fresh and
delicate that a Spanish taste could fancy them even uncooked, and
lifting one between finger and thumb, croaked the _copla_:
“This lady has many petticoats,
But she has little pride,
For the coarsest of her petticoats
She wears on the outside.”
Then Grandfather, not to be outdone, held up to general view a scarlet
pepper full of seeds, reciting:
“The church where the tiny people
Pray all the week is not
Cold marble and soaring steeple,
It is round and little and hot;
And red it is as a ruby crown,
This queer little church of Fairytown.”
Pilarica, meanwhile, to whose guardianship Tia Marta had entrusted three
hard-boiled eggs that morning, brought them safely forth from the
satchel, where they had been hobnobbing with the doll, the fan and the
castanets, and passed them over one at a time, to prolong the game. She
herself remembered a rhyme to the purpose and sang it very sweetly to a
tune of her own, dancing as she sang:
“A little white box
All can open, but
Once it is open,
None can shut.”
Pedrillo made sport for them, when the second egg appeared, by trying to
follow Pilarica’s example, but it was an uncouth dance that his short
legs accomplished in time to the _copla_:
“My mamma built me a pretty house.
But without any door at all;
And when I wanted to go to walk,
I had to break the wall.”
But Grandfather’s verse, for the third egg, was voted quite the best of
all:
“A yellow flower within white leaves,
White without a stain,
A flower precious enough to give
To the King of Spain.”
Only Rafael, who had slipped away for a reason that could be guessed at,
when he reappeared, by certain clean zigzags down his dusty cheeks,
missed the fun, but at least he did his share in making away with the
salad, when Tia Marta had given it the final deluge of olive-oil. It was
a pleasant sight for the branching walnut tree that shaded their
feast,--the five picnickers all squatting, long wooden spoons in one
hand and crusty hunches of bread in the other, about that ample bowl
where, in fifteen minutes, not even a shred of cabbage was left to tell
the tale.
But the siesta was a short one for Grandfather, and he rocked drowsily
on Carbonera through the heats of the afternoon, though never losing his
balance. Tia Marta, who was now as bent on leading as Capitana herself,
had a fearsome time of it, despite Pedrillo’s ready hand at the bridle,
for the way had grown hilly, and the mule, having a sense of humor,
scrambled and slid quite unnecessarily, on purpose to hear the shrieks
from the top of her pack.
“In every day’s journey there are three leagues of heart-break,”
encouraged the muleteer, but Tia Marta answered him in her old tart
fashion:
“Better it is to stay at home
Than ride a stumbling mule to Rome.”
They had covered barely a dozen miles of their long way to Cordova when
they put up at a village inn for the night, all but the Galician too
tired to relish the savory supper of rabbit-pie that was set before
them. Tia Marta and Pilarica slept on a sack of straw in the cock-loft
over the stable. Grandfather and Rafael were less fortunate, getting
only straw without a sack, but that, as Rafael manfully remarked, was
better than a sack without straw. Pilarica, too, proved herself a good
traveller, enjoying the novelty even of discomfort. Drowsy as she was,
she did not fail to kneel for her brief evening prayer:
“Jesus, Joseph, Mary,
Your little servant keep,
While with your kind permission
I lay me down to sleep.”
The floor of the loft was fashioned of rough-hewn planks so clumsily
fitted together that the sleepers had a dim sense, all night long, of
what was going on in the stable below,--the snoring of Pedrillo, the
munching of the donkeys, the jingling of the mule-bells and the capers
of Capitana.
With the first glimmer of dawn, Pedrillo began to load the mules.
“Waking and eating only want a beginning,” he shouted up to his comrades
of the road.
“Your rising early will not make the sun rise,” groaned Tia Marta. “Ugh!
That mule born for my torment has made of me one bruise. There is not a
bone in my body that hasn’t an ache of its own. Imbecile that I am! Why
should I go rambling over the world to seek better bread than is made of
wheat?”
“Don’t speak ill of the journey till it is over,” returned Pedrillo. “I
declare to you, Doña Marta, that the world is as sweet as orange
blossoms in this white hour when the good God dawns on one and all. And
as for Capitana, she is fine as a palm-branch this morning, but as meek
as holy water, and will carry you as softly as a lamb.”
And Capitana, hearing this, tossed her head, gay with tufts of scarlet
worsted, and kicked out at Don Quixote in high glee.
XIII
THE CITY OF DREAMS
[Illustration: WITH HIS FACE TO SHAG’S TAIL.]
It was the sultriest afternoon since they had left Granada and the
little company rode languidly, wilted under the heats that poured down
upon them from that purple sky which, the Andalusians say, God created
only to cover Spain. Pedrillo had slung his gay jacket across one
shoulder and cocked his hat against the sun. The faithful Carbonera
stepped more carefully than ever because she knew that Grandfather was
dozing in his seat, and even Capitana was so far appeased by the shady
olive spray that Tia Marta had fitted into the headstall as to leave
that much-teased rider free to screen herself with a green umbrella
bordered with scarlet, a gift from the Galician. Rafael’s red fez had no
rim, so that, to escape the sun, he had turned himself about on his
donkey and was riding, quite at his ease, with his face to Shags’
tail. There was no danger that Shags would run away with him! Indeed, it
would have been hard to tell which of the two was the drowsier, the
little gray ass with ears a-droop, or the nid-nodding boy who rode him
in such curious fashion. But as for Pilarica, although she held her
dainty fan unfolded over her forehead, the shaded eyes were as bright
and eager as ever and missed nothing of the sights along the way. It
seemed to her that she could never tire of those orchards rich in the
pale gold of lemons or the ruby of pomegranates, of the reaches of
sugarcane shimmering in the sun, of the rows of mulberries, the bright
mazes of red pepper, the plantations of sprawling figs, the bristling
hedges of cactus, the rosy judas trees and the pink almonds, the white
farm-buildings all enclosed, with their olive presses or their threshing
floors, in high walls set with little towers and pinnacles. Whether it
was a beggar munching a cabbage stalk in the shadow of a palm, or an old
woman in her doorway plaiting grass cordage, or a fruit-seller sitting
beside his green and golden pyramid of melons, or a kneeling group of
washer-women, with skirts well tucked up, beating out clothes in a
rivulet, to each and all she flirted her fan with a coquettish
Andalusian greeting.
And now she saw that they were nearing a village. They passed a group of
children leading a pet lamb adorned with blue ribbons, that had
evidently been taken out into the fields for a frolic and was bringing
in its supper, for on the woolly back bobbed up and down a little basket
filled with grass, of which Don Quixote attempted to taste. A swineherd
strode down from the hills blowing a twisted cow’s-horn, and a huddle of
curly-tailed pigs came scrambling after, full fed with acorns and ready
for home.
An inn stood at the entrance of the village,--a low house, freshly
whitewashed, half hidden in honeysuckle, with yellow mustard and sprigs
of mignonette springing up on the roof between the tiles that shone
green and red in the keen, quivering light. A lattice built in the open
space before the door supported the wandering stems of an old grapevine,
whose broad leaves made a canopy for the rush chairs and rickety tables
set out beneath. As the cavalcade advanced, a line of roguish boys, hand
in hand, ran down the street, barring the way, singing as they came:
“We have closed the street
And no one may pass,
Only my grandpa
Leading his ass
Laden with oranges
Fresh from the trees.
Tilín! Tilín!
Down on our knees!
Tilín! Tilín! Tilín! Tilín!
The holy bell of Sant Agustin.”
“And as good a tea-bell as any,” remarked Pedrillo. “It is three hours
yet to Cordova and supper. We may as well make it four. Eh, Doña Marta?”
“A sparrow in the hand is better than a bustard on the wing,” assented a
dusty voice from under the green umbrella.
So they all dismounted, while the hens, calling to one another: “Tk ca!
Tk ca! Take care!” scuttled before the mules and donkeys as these were
led into the path of shadow east of the house, where water and a few
handfuls of barley soon gave them a better opinion of life. The
travellers, seeking the shade of the rustic arbor, were served by a
stately, withered old dame with fig bread, made into rolls like
sausages, with cherries and aniseed water. Noting a row of beehives
along the garden hedge, Grandfather sang softly:
“A convent with many a cell.
But never a holy bell.
Little Latin they have for prayer,
But they make delicious sweetmeats there;”
and the old dame, comprehending, brought a piece of delicate honeycomb.
But from ground and trees there came such a lulling hum of insects, like
the whirr of fairy spinning-wheels, that Grandfather was fast asleep
before the honeycomb arrived. Rafael and Pilarica, however, saw to it
that the dainty was not slighted.
“It’s only a snack, this,” apologized Pedrillo, “but we’ll fare better
in Cordova.”
“Bread with love is sweeter than a chicken with strife,” said Tia Marta
gloomily. “I would our journey ended at Cordova.”
“Tell us about our Uncle Manuel, please, Don Pedrillo,” spoke up Rafael
suddenly. “Is he a good man?”
“Ay, as upright as the finger of Saint John. He is no common carrier,
your uncle. People trust him with packets of rare value, and he is
charged with affairs of importance, as the receipt and payment of
money.”
“Is money important?” asked Rafael.
“Your uncle thinks so, but I tell him that many a man gets to heaven in
tow breeches. Yet surely it fares ill in this world with the people of
the brown cloak. There is a saint, they say, called San Guilindon, who
is forever dancing before the throne of God and singing as he dances:
“‘May the prayers of the poor
Never rise to Heaven’s door!’
On that saint I, for one, shall not waste candles.”
“Does Uncle Manuel ever get angry with his mules?” asked Pilarica
anxiously, for she had not travelled the white road all these days
without hearing the curses of harsh voices and the thwack of heavy
blows.
“Not often, Little Canary of the Moon. Don Manuel is calmer than the
parish church.”
“And our Cousin Dolores?” pursued Pilarica. “Is she pretty?”
“Nothing is ugly at fifteen.”
“And our Aunt Barbara, my father’s own sister? She is lovely, of
course,” asserted Rafael, the wistful look crossing his brown face.
“‘There is no sea-wave without salt;
There is no woman without her fault,’
but Doña Barbara is one of the best.”
Suddenly Tia Marta beat her fist upon the table.
“_Ay de mi!_ That I, an Andalusian of Seville, must go to Galicia, to
the ends of the earth, to serve in the house of strangers!” she cried
chokingly. “How shall I bear the ways of a mistress? Whether the pitcher
hit the stone, or the stone hit the pitcher, it goes ill with the
pitcher.”
Then there fell upon the group a silence that awakened Grandfather.
“Is the coach rolling over sand,” he asked, “or are the wings of an
angel shedding hush as he passes overhead?”
Pedrillo, who had fallen into a deep muse, roused himself with a laugh.
“We have all been dreaming,” he said in his gruffest tone. “It is
because we are so near to Cordova, the City of Dreams. And yet we are
three hours away. But he who goes on, gets there.”
As the muleteer was paying the modest charge, the children watched the
swineherd who, in his tattered cloak and sugar-loaf hat, was passing
down the street, while the pigs, without pausing to say good night,
scurried off every one to his own threshold. A goatherd, too, whose
cloak was faded and whose leather gaiters flapped in rags, was milking
his goats from door to door.
“People of the brown cloak!” murmured Rafael thoughtfully.
It was already cooler and the beasts they mounted were refreshed as well
as the riders.
“Go on your way with God!” called the old dame from the threshold.
“And do thou abide with God!” chorused the travellers.
Not until the evening was well advanced did they find themselves at last
treading the stone lanes of Cordova, a mysterious, Oriental city, whose
narrow streets were empty at this time except for a few cloaked, gliding
figures and silent except for the tinkling of guitars. It was dark
between the high walls of the houses, yet the children caught an
occasional glimpse through some arched doorway, as the tenant came or
went, of an enchanted patio, its marble floor and leaping fountain
transformed by the moonlight into the unreal beauty of a dream. In every
street at least one cavalier stood clinging to the grating of a Moorish
window, whispering “caramel phrases,” or, his gaze lifted to some dim
balcony, pouring forth his soul in serenade.
“If to these iron bars
Thou wilt not bend thine head,
This very night yon shining stars
Shall see me lying dead.”
“Ah, this is like my Seville. So long as lovers ‘eat iron,’ we are in
Andalusia yet,” sighed Tia Marta.
“Though Murillo leans from Heaven
And his brush in the sunset dips,
He cannot paint the blushes
Of your face beneath my lips.”
“I know about Murillo. He painted a whole skyful of Virgins and cherubs.
Grandfather told me,” piped up Pilarica.
“O these brunettes! Their velvet eyes
Most terrible appear,
For they slay more men in one short hour
Than Death slays in a year.”
“Yet I warrant you he’ll eat a good breakfast to-morrow morning,”
chuckled Pedrillo.
“If San Rafael should offer me
His wings to scale the sky
--O my love! my love!--
I’d refuse, and the wise Archangel
Would know the reason why.
--O my love!--”
“That is my saint,” said Rafael proudly.
“Ay, and the Guardian of Cordova and the Patron of Travellers,” added
Pedrillo. “His image stands high on the bell-tower yonder and it would
be well for you to thank him for our good journey.”
“Does he take care of travellers on the ocean, too?” asked Rafael,
remembrance of his father and brother tugging always at his faithful
little heart.
But Pedrillo did not answer, for suddenly the three mules, quickening
their tired pace, whisked about and made for a familiar portal.
The children let Shags and Don Quixote pick their own way through the
great, dirty courtyard, crammed with carts and canvas-covered wagons,
with bales, baskets and packages of all sorts, with horses, mules and
donkeys and with sleeping muleteers outstretched on the rough
cobblestones, each wrapped in the _manta_ of his beast, his hat pulled
down over his face and his head pillowed on a saddle.
“But their beds are as hard as San Lorenzo’s gridiron,” exclaimed Tia
Marta.
“And much colder,” added Pedrillo. “Yet hear them snore! There’s no bed
like the pack-saddle, after all. Here! I will tie up these friends of
ours for a minute, while I take you in to see Don Manuel.”
So he hastily fastened the animals to iron rings set in a wall, on which
hung huge collars and other clumsy pieces of harness as well as festoons
of red peppers strung up there to dry.
Crossing a threshold, they were at once in a large room, so smoky that
the children fell to coughing. An immense fireplace, where a big kettle
hung by a chain over the glowing embers, occupied all the upper end.
Stone benches were built into the wall on either side of this enormous
hearth, and from one of them a man arose and came slowly forward.
“In a good hour, Don Manuel,” was Pedrillo’s greeting.
“In a bad hour,” returned his employer bluntly. “You are two days late
and I was minded, if you did not turn up by to-morrow morning, to go on
without you.”
Uncle Manuel was of robust figure and weather-beaten face. He wore, like
Galician carriers in general, a black sheepskin jacket, but his was
fastened in front by chain-clasps of silver. His manners were not
Andalusian, for he did not embrace even Pilarica. He looked the children
over keenly and not unkindly, led Grandfather to his own seat near the
fire, on which the inn keeper had thrown a heap of brushwood to welcome
the newcomers, and paid no attention whatever to Tia Marta, who felt
herself ready to burst with rage. It was Pedrillo who found a place for
her at the very end of the opposite bench and even this slight courtesy
called out a noisy burst of laughter from his comrades.
“And see what a dandy he has made of himself,” mocked Hilario, who
resented, in behalf of his own ginger-colored blouse and cowhide
sandals, Pedrillo’s new finery.
“Dress a toad and it looks well,” taunted Tenorio, so long and lean and
bony that Pilarica quietly held up her doll to get a good view of him.