Bastiano, whose voice was not merely gruff, as all those Galician voices
were, but surly, too.
Tia Marta looked to see Pedrillo take vengeance for these insults, but
when the flat-nosed little fellow only laughed good-humoredly, her wrath
broke loose.
“The lion is not so brave as they tell us,” she snapped, squinting worse
than ever because of the smoke.
And at once the rough jests of the muleteers, diverted from Pedrillo,
were brought to bear on her.
“But here is a woman with a temper hot enough to light two candles at.”
“Sourer than a green lemon.”
“Long tongues want the scissors.”
“A goose’s quill hurts more than a lion’s claw.”
And still Pedrillo stood sheepishly smiling, even when Tia Marta rounded
on him and on them all with the hated _copla_:
“A Galician is like the mule
That he prods with his stick,
--Only duller than the mule
Because he will not kick.”
A growl went up from the benches, but Uncle Manuel interposed:
“And what wonder that her patience has lost the stirrup? Tired and
hungry, and then baited like a bull by your rusty wits! Out to the
courtyard with all of you and help Pedrillo curry the beasts.”
But Tia Marta dropped scalding tears of vexation into her bowl of
_puchero_, though that delectable mixture of boiled meat, chickpeas and
all manner of garden stuff, was already quite hot enough with red pepper
and garlic.
Uncle Manuel, having seen to it that the food was prompt and plentiful,
did not speak to any of them as they ate, but busied himself with adding
up columns of figures in a much-worn account book that he drew from an
inner pocket. When they had finished, however, he took from the inn
keeper’s hand a little iron lamp, shaped like a boat, and helped
Grandfather up the ladder that led to the loft. There he conducted them
to two small rooms, roughly boarded off, with a low partition between
them. Hanging the lamp by its ring from a nail, he opened the beds to
make sure that the coarse sheets were fresh, and left them with a grave
“Sleep in peace.”
The mattresses were stuffed with cornhusks of an especially lumpy sort,
and that, perhaps, as well as the spell of Cordova, had something to do
with the fact that they all slept restlessly, dreaming homesick dreams.
Tia Marta heard the hawks wheel and whistle above the Giralda, and their
faces were like the face of Pedrillo. Pilarica, nestling beside her,
moved her little white feet, dancing for Big Brother, who held one hand
hidden as if to surprise her with a gift when the dance was done. And
beyond the partition Grandfather murmured the pet name of his twin
sister who had died in childhood, more than threescore years ago, while
Rafael’s red lips curved in a happy smile, for he stood with his father
in the roaring heart of a swift battle-ship, which changed in an instant
to a beautiful stillness, and they stood in the heart of God.
XIV
TRAVELING BY MULE-TRAIN
The boy was wakened by Grandfather’s voice. The only man, lying on his
back, was conversing with a spider whose long cobweb floated from a
rafter.
“‘Weaver, why do you weave so high?’
‘I take my pattern from clouds in the sky.’”
“And it _is_ cloudy,” announced Rafael, who had jumped up and thrust his
head through an opening, that could hardly be called a window, in the
wall. “How did you know, Grandfather?”
“Oh, I can feel the sky without seeing it, and this morning it is
“A patchwork counterpane in which
Not a hand has set a stitch.”
“So it is,” assented Rafael. “I believe we are going to have a rainy
day.”
Yet any kind of a day is interesting to a child, and Rafael, having
quickly disposed of a cup of chocolate as thick as flannel, was soon out
in the courtyard, where horses were snorting, donkeys braying, and
mule-drivers, called _arrieros_ in Spain, bawling out guttural
reproaches to their beasts. They were nearly all Galicians, these
_arrieros_, with honest, homely faces. All wore peaked caps that
increased their resemblance to a company of little brown gnomes. Among
them Tenorio looked more tall and gaunt than ever. He was leading out a
graceful, spirited mule, sheared all over except on the legs and the tip
of the tail and decorated not only with the usual red tufts and tassels
and fringes, but with a profusion of tinsel tags. She carried
saddle-bags, but nothing more except a copper bell as large as a
coffee-pot which dangled under her neck and marked her out as the leader
of the train.
Several strings of mules had gone already and others were just getting
away, their bells jingling merrily and their drivers in full cry. “Arre,
ar-r-r-e, ar-r-r-r e!” rent the air to the accompaniment of cracking
whips and thwacking cork-sticks. The courtyard was so nearly cleared
that Rafael easily made his way over to Tenorio.
“Is that Uncle Manuel’s mule?” he asked.
“Ay, his Coronela, and a pampered beast she is,” answered the Galician.
“The master loves her so well that he would give her white bread and eat
black himself. But what do you think of our cavalry here?”
Then Rafael saw that Pedrillo and Hilario were getting a bunch of
pack-mules into line. Their loads were piled high, but they were stolid,
heavy beasts, unlike the riding mules, and though they grunted under the
burden and tried to get rid of their packages by rubbing against one
another, they were so docile that a touch of the staff would send each
to its place. But Bastiano, he of the surly voice, was having
difficulties with a new mule, white and sleek, that he was lading.
Blanco’s head was roped up; the two bales, having been carefully poised
to make sure that they were of equal weight and would balance each
other, had been slung over his back, but as Bastiano was about to lash
them on, Blanco plunged and the load was tumbled to the ground.
“Ha, Tough-Hide!” snarled Bastiano. “That is the trick you would play
on me, is it?”
And plucking up a large stone, he struck the animal cruelly on the side
of the head.
“No, no!” cried a childish voice, and Pilarica was clinging to his arm.
“You mustn’t hurt the poor mule like that. Oh, you mustn’t! You
mustn’t!”
“It’s the only talk he understands,” muttered Bastiano, his lean brown
face slowly flushing under the horror in those dusky eyes. “You can’t
treat mules like bishops.”
“Why not?” asked Pilarica.
“The world is coming to a pretty pass when a man can’t bang his beast,”
growled Bastiano, dropping the stone, while Blanco planted his four feet
wide apart in stubborn resistance to anything and everything that might
be demanded of him.
At that point there pierced through all the tumult of the courtyard the
shrill tones of Tia Marta.
“Pilarica! Rafael! What have you bandits done with my children? Smoked
sardines of Galicia that you are! Of all the rascally--”
A roar of laughter cut her sentence short.
“Here Aunt Anna Hardbread comes again to throw a cat in our faces.”
“Look out for her! Old straw soon kindles.”
“Call us names and you’ll be sorry. Though we wear sheepskin, we’re no
sheep.”
“Is it true that Dame Spitfire is going with us?”
“Bad news is always true.”
“Give her civil words, then. A teased cat may turn into a lion.”
“Señora, may your joys increase--and your tongue shorten!”
“May you live a thousand years--that is, nine hundred and ten years
more!”
“Ruffians!” gasped Tia Marta, as soon as she could get her voice for
fury. “_Cheese-rinds!_ If only there was a man, an Andalusian, here!”
And she glared on Pedrillo, who, more embarrassed than he had ever been
in his life, was standing on one foot and scratching his bushy head.
“An Andalusian!” taunted Bastiano. “Much good that would do you.
Everything with the Andalusians passes off in talk. They are all mouth.
Crabs with broken claws could fight better than your Andalusian
fiddlers.”
“What is Andalusia?” mocked Hilario. “A Paradise where the fleas are
always dancing to the tunes played by the mosquitoes.”
Thereupon something like a diminutive battering-ram took Hilario in the
stomach and he sat down so unexpectedly that he tripped up the long legs
of Tenorio, who bit the dust beside him. Then Rafael, his black eyes
blazing, leapt on Bastiano, who, stumbling back in his surprise against
Blanco, was dealt a well-deserved mule-kick that sent him, too,
sprawling on the cobblestones.
“Now they will kill me,” thought Rafael and drew his small figure erect
to meet his fate like a hero. At least, if he had not captured five
Moorish kings, he had brought three Galician _arrieros_ low, and perhaps
his prowess would be sung in ballads yet to be. But to his astonishment,
and somewhat to his discomfiture, the courtyard rang with friendly
laughter and applause, in which Hilario and Tenorio, quickly regaining
their feet, heartily joined.
“Good for young Cockahoop!”
“Bravo! Bravo!”
“As valiant as the Cid!”
Even Bastiano, still sitting on the ground and rubbing his bruised
shin, regarded the fiery little champion of Tia Marta and of Andalusia
with an amused respect.
But Uncle Manuel, hurrying back from business in the city and expecting
to find his string of mules ready and waiting, bent his brows on the
scene in evident perplexity.
“It is not too late,” he said to Pedrillo, “to let you take the woman
and little girl and the old man on to Santiago by railroad. My nephew
may choose for himself, but I think he will like to ride with us.”
“Yes, yes!” urged the muleteers.
“We need a protector,” chuckled Hilario.
“And so do I,” cut in Tia Marta. “The boy is the only man among you. As
to that Pedrillo, Don Manuel, I tell you once for all that we will not
journey in his care. I would not trust him with a sack of scorpions.”
“Tut, tut!” protested Don Manuel. “One can accomplish more with a
spoonful of honey than with a quart of vinegar. But if not Pedrillo,
then who? The railroad is dangerous at the best, and there are several
changes to be made from train to train and from train to diligence. I
cannot send you on by yourselves and I can not go with you. Besides, it
would be wasteful. The mules and donkeys are already provided, but the
railroad will cost much money,--the railroad that has so hurt the
business of us Galician carriers.”
“We are well enough off as we are,” said Tia Marta curtly, “if only we
need not have speech with these sons of perdition.”
So Uncle Manuel arranged the order of march with care. He was to lead
the way on Coronela, and the string of pack mules, fastened, as usual,
muzzle to tail, would follow, with Tenorio, Bastiano and Hilario on the
tramp beside them. The necessity of detaching, every now and then, one
or another of the mules that might be carrying packages for some hamlet
off the main route, made so large a number of men necessary. At a
considerable distance, in order to avoid the dust kicked up by those
forty hoofs, Grandfather, Tia Marta and the children were to follow, and
Pedrillo was to act as rear-guard for the entire cavalcade.
The second detachment gave the first so good a start that the mule-train
was quite out of sight, when our little troop rode in single file, under
a pelting shower, through those narrow Moorish streets. Pedrillo paused
at a mat-shop, where the prentices and their master, all squatted on the
floor, were weaving the red, brown and yellow fibres of the reeds, to
bargain for flexible strips of matting to wrap about Tia Marta and
Pilarica, but Tia Marta haughtily declined the attention, although the
rain had already run the green and scarlet hues of her umbrella into an
unwholesome looking blend. Neither would she accept, for herself, his
suggestion that they take refuge, till the shower be past, in the famous
Moorish mosque, but she let him hurry Grandfather and Pilarica through
the Court of Oranges, whose feathery palms and ancient orange trees were
almost as dripping wet as the five sacred fountains, and into the
strangest building of all Spain. On this gloomy morning the interior was
dimmer than ever and in that weird half-light the marvellous forest of
pillars,--hundreds of columns, granite, serpentine, porphyry, jasper,
marbles of every kind and color,--seemed to be dreaming of those pagan
temples, in Rome, in Athens, in Carthage, from which, in the days of
Arab splendor, they had been pilfered by the victorious Caliphs of
Cordova.
Rafael had manfully chosen to stay by Tia Marta and, when the others
came out, the little fellow was having his hands full with the two
donkeys and the two mules left in his charge, while Capitana, who,
jealous of Coronela’s honors, had been vixenish from the start, was
backing into a pottery shop and threatening with destruction a whole
floorful of ruddy water-pitchers, green-glazed pots, buff plates and
amber pipkins. Pedrillo sprang to her bridle and dragged her out again
before she had done more damage than crush that unlucky umbrella against
the lintel, so that rivulets of green and scarlet trickled freely over
Tia Marta’s face, which still, despite this gallant rescue, had not the
least flicker of a smile for poor Pedrillo.
And so it was day after day as the mule-train, leaving behind luxuriant
Andalusia, crept across the rolling pasture lands of Estremadura, Don
Quixote’s province, and the sunburnt steppes of Castile. Tia Marta
regarded Pedrillo no more than if he were one of the infrequent figures
they met on those lonely plains,--an elf-haired shepherd clad in the
woolly skins of his own sheep, an old crone with a basket of turnips on
her head, a milkmaid balancing on either shoulder a jar wrapped in
leaves, a bare-legged peasant with a gaudy handkerchief twisted about
his forehead and streaming down the back of his neck. To these she
would, indeed, say “Good day” or “God be with you,” in response to the
grave courtesy of their Castilian greetings, but Pedrillo might as well
have been a gargoyle on a Gothic cathedral for all the heed she paid to
his hangdog blandishments.
With Grandfather often asleep, Tia Marta always cross and Pedrillo in
the dumps, the children found the advance guard more amusing. Rafael
liked to push Shags forward and ride with Uncle Manuel, although, to
tell the truth, he did not care much for his uncle’s talk. The
practical-minded Galician was not interested in the heroes of Spain and
only shrugged his shoulders when told of Rodrigo’s impulsive
self-sacrifice. Rafael, on the other hand, was soon bored by details of
profit and loss and by tirades against the railroads, fast doing away as
they were with the time-honored mule-express. Though now and then some
special business would take Don Manuel to one of the larger cities, as
to Cordova, in general he served only those remote districts which the
railroad had not yet invaded. Rafael would pore over his little
Geography and then look off wistfully to the east, till the tawny waste
was lost in the hazy blur, and dream of Toledo crowning the black
cliff’s above the yellow Tagus,--Toledo, of which his father had told
him so much, the ghost-city, now a mere white wraith of its once
imperial self. And he was not to see Madrid, either, nor have a chance
of taking off his red cap to the boy king. Still, it was grand to ride
at the head of the procession and it was only when Uncle Manuel would
begin to beguile the way by setting Rafael sums in arithmetic, that
Shags was allowed to fall back to a more humble station.
As for Pilarica, she was the pet of the caravan and as happy as the day
was long. A yellow butterfly on a scarlet poppy was enough to set her
blithe heart dancing. Where Tia Marta saw nothing but endless leagues of
arid, barren soil, Pilarica would find, in dips and dimples of that
parched tableland, patches of sage and rosemary, wild thyme and
lavender, that, trodden under foot and hoof, sent up a cloud of mingled
fragrances. The carriers vied with one another in coaxing the child to
ride beside them. There was not a mule in the train on whose back she
had not been perched, sitting crosslegged like a little Turk between the
two big bales. Tenorio would tempt her by gifts. Whenever they passed
through a village, and now the poorest hamlet was a welcome sight, with
its doorways full of gossiping groups, and its laughing girls, water-jar
on head, clustered about the fountain, his lank figure was to be seen
stooping over stall or garden-hedge buying sweeties made of almonds and
honey, a red carnation or, were there nothing better to be had, a bright
green beetle in a paper cage. The shabby Hilario hunted through his
ginger-colored blouse and trousers all in vain for one loose copper, but
his head was better stored than his pockets and he could allure both the
children by starting up a droning chant of some old ballad, as this:
“The Cid was sleeping in his chair with all his knights around;
The cry went forth along the hall that the lion was unbound.
“They pressed around the ivory throne to shield their lord from harm,
Till the good Cid woke and rose, our Cid, who never knew alarm;
He went to meet the lion, with his mantle on his arm.”
As for the cunning Bastiano, he had only to crack his whip high above
Blanco’s untroubled head, and a plump white donkey would charge down
upon him, bearing Pilarica to the rescue.
So one blue summer day followed another until--something happened.
It was at the edge of evening, when the still heated air was musical
with slow chimes from far-off convent-belfries, whose gilded crosses
stood out against the sky. Uncle Manuel was rebuking Rafael for having
failed to provide water enough for the needs of the day. Early in the
journey--too early, in Rafael’s opinion--Don Manuel had equipped Shags
with a wicker frame into which could be fitted four large water-jars,
two on a side. As the caravan traversed that central plateau where water
is scarce, Rafael was expected to fill the jars at every spring, well or
fountain, and give the travellers, especially the tramping muleteers,
drink as it was called for. At first the new responsibility pleased him,
but he soon grew tired of trudging along beside Shags, who had enough
to do with carrying the jars, or of begging a ride on mule-back, and of
late he had grown so negligent that more than once the supply of water
had been exhausted long before the lodging for the night was reached.
Under his uncle’s reprimand, Rafael flushed, but answered haughtily:
“I’m no donkey-boy.”
“Ah! You were born in a silver cradle, perhaps?” Uncle Manuel asked with
quiet but stinging irony. “Are you one of those whom God created too
good for honest work?”
“A kid-gloved cat
Catches no rat,”
sneered Bastiano, who had come up for a draught of water only to find
one tantalizing jar after another as dry as his own throat.
Rafael, knowing himself in the wrong, could not retort, but turned
abruptly, drew from the mouths of the jars the four fresh lemons he was
ingeniously using as corks, handed one to Uncle Manuel, another to
Bastiano and, with Shags trotting at his heels like a dog, ploughed back
through the deep dust along the train. He, too, was thirsty,--how
thirsty nobody should ever know; he was ashamed and wanted comfort. He
would join Pilarica who, only a girl though she was, had her values in
hours like this. She could always find excuses for him when he could
find none for himself. Sisters were made for that. But his clouded look
was lifted to mule after mule in vain. She was not with the “cavalry,”
for neither Tenorio nor Hilario, who accepted the remaining two lemons
as a matter of course, had seen her, as they complained, since the
nooning.
Rafael was too warm and weary for extra walking and he waited for the
riding party to come up, but when it came, though Grandfather, singing
softly to himself, and Tia Marta, in the act of repelling Pedrillo’s
humble efforts to ease her seat with the offering of a cinnamon pillow,
were there, he saw no Pilarica. Don Quixote, with empty saddle, was
plodding along demurely a few rods behind the rest, but when asked what
had become of his little mistress, he twitched his white ears with the
most non-committal air in the world.
XV
THE EVE OF ST. JOHN
While the caravan halted, all in consternation over the loss of
Pilarica, that glad-hearted little maiden was, as ever, on the best of
terms with life. To be sure, the nooning had not been quite as pleasant
as usual. Though the morning route had led past fields softly golden
with the early summer harvest, where reapers in wide hats were wielding
shining sickles, the travellers had found themselves by midday on a
parched upland, neither shade nor water to be had. After their frugal
luncheon of bread and cheese, flavored with onions for the muleteers and
with figs for the children, everybody but Pilarica had gone to sleep in
such scanty shelter from the sun as the pack-mules afforded. Pilarica
had loyally stayed by Don Quixote, who, though his sides were now well
rounded out, cast hardly a larger scrap of shadow than the birds of
prey hovering in the burning blue, so that the child, too hot to fall
asleep, had taken her doll and strolled a little away from the train.
Suddenly she saw stretched out at her feet a shabby cloak, propped up a
trifle by dry stalks and broken bits of brush, the brown of the cloak so
like the brown of the earth that it would hardly be noticed three yards
off. Under this homely tent was--of all wonders!--a baby, a really truly
baby wrapped in a little white kid-skin, a baby who blinked his black
eyes and gurgled drowsily as Pilarica and her doll cuddled down beside
him. And there they all three slept so soundly that the bustle attendant
on getting the train under way did not rouse them, while Grandfather,
supposing that Pilarica was riding with her uncle on Coronela or had
been tossed up by one of the muleteers to a pack-throne, himself untied
the rope that bound Don Quixote’s forelegs together and chirruped to the
donkey to follow Carbonera.
When Pilarica, so exhausted by the heat that her siesta lasted twice as
long as usual, finally awoke, a strange, wild-looking figure was
squatted close by,--a figure so tanned from the mat of shaggy hair to
the naked arms and legs that it looked as if it were only a queer shape
of the sunburnt soil. Pilarica, fearlessly creeping out from under the
cloak and sitting upright, saw at some distance beyond this unkempt
watcher a flock of goats.
The goatherd was devouring a piece of black bread which he dipped,
between bites, into a cow’s-horn half full of olive oil. He jumped back
as the little girl appeared and stared at her with stupid, frightened
eyes.
“Good-day, sir,” said Pilarica, who knew no reason why one should not be
as polite to a goatherd as to a grandee.
Scared peasant though he was, he had Castilian manners.
“Will your Grace eat?” he stammered, offering his humble fare.
Pilarica declined with a courteous gesture of her little hand, now
almost as brown as his own, and the customary Spanish phrase:
“May it do you good!”
He started again at the sound of her voice, but gulped down the rest of
his bread, corked the cow’s-horn, thrust it into his rough leather
wallet and then went to his flock, soon returning with warm milk in a
bottle. Not daring, apparently, to reach across Pilarica, he pointed to
the baby.
“Oh, may I!” exclaimed the little girl in ecstasy and, gathering that
kid-skin bundle into her lap, she administered the milk as best she
could, singing meanwhile, over and over, one of Grandfather’s lullabies:
“Recotín, recotón!
The bells of Saint John!
There’s a festival on!
Recotín, recotín, recotón!”
The goatherd, to whom Pilarica’s sweet treble had an unearthly sound,
crossed himself and backed still further away.
“What is the darling’s name?” she asked, too much engrossed in her new,
delightful occupation to notice the peasant’s fright.
[Illustration: “THE CHILD OF HUNGER.”]