fruit, and other trees, but no pomegranate. But then that was many
years past, and the trunk of the pomegranate-tree might long ago
have been burnt on that wide hearth in the kitchen.
Speaking of the matter to the good doctor, we found our uncertainty
shared. Throwing out his hands he said humorously:--
"Who knows? There is no record. It was _one_ of the cells. That much
is certain. And this was the house of the Superior. If not this
house, it was another. That is enough."
But as we descended the slope from the monastery we agreed that,
whether or not the great French _artistes_ ever lived within the
walls of that particular cell, there could be no question that they
had breathed the sweet air of these terrace-gardens, and had known
the enchantment of that wonderful panoramic view. And that made
their personalities very real to us.
Bartolome awaited us smiling, and, insinuating ourselves among our
medley of belongings, off we set along the three miles of road that
led to Miramar.
On the outskirts of Valldemosa we saw, for the first time in
Majorca, vines climbing over tall trees by the wayside, their grapes
in purple bunches suspended in profusion from the branches. The
effect was so beautiful that we almost regretted the more prosaic
vineyards near Palma, with the carefully trained vines that
resembled well-pruned blackberry bushes.
As we advanced, passing through a succession of olive plantations
that rose above us towards the grand craggy mountains and fell
beneath us to the blue sea, glimpses of which we caught over the
foliage, the beauty of the scene that gradually unfolded surpassed
all that we had yet seen.
The Man groaned a little, as during the next three days he was fated
to groan often, and for the same reason.
"This is _too_ grand," he said. "It's hopeless. One could never
paint it!"
Turning a bend of the road, Bartolome drew rein with a flourish
before a quaint dwelling by the wayside; and we realized that we had
reached the Hospederia.
"I say! We ought to have sent word we were coming. I hope the house
isn't full. I hope they'll have room for us," said the Boy, voicing
the sudden apprehension of us all. But so far from being crowded
with visitors, the Hospederia seemed totally deserted. The great
door was shut and, except for a vagrant cat and a clucking hen,
there was no sign of life about the place.
Shouting lustily for "Fernando," Bartolome jumped down and, running
to the door, knocked loudly. Receiving no reply, he did not stand
upon ceremony but, pushing open the door, went in, beckoning us to
follow.
Entering, we found ourselves in a large outer hall with a cobbled
floor and a long well-scrubbed table and benches. Following our
charioteer, who had opened an inner door, we went into a large
dimly-lit room which, when the window-shutters had been opened,
revealed itself as a long narrow dining-room of severely ascetic
appearance. Tables extended down its length, chairs with seats of
interwoven string stood round the walls.
"Look, senora!"
Running to a cupboard, Bartolome had thrown open the door,
disclosing shelves laden with china and crystal.
Again--"Look! senora."
Hastening to the opposite side of the room, he had opened the doors
of a big _armario_, and was pointing to piles of clean table-linen.
It was as though we had strayed into some enchanted castle where all
had been prepared for our coming by invisible hands. Going off to
explore further, we found our way into a snug kitchen. The whole of
one side was occupied by a brown-tiled charcoal stove, on which many
dinners could have been cooked simultaneously. The shelves were
laden with cooking-pots and pans, of every description; the walls
shone with an array of well-polished utensils. Over charcoal embers
a huge earthenware pot, that for its better preservation had been
encased in a strait-waistcoat of wire-netting, was slowly bubbling.
Essaying to mount the stair leading from the hall, we peeped into
closely shuttered apartments in which we could see the dim outlines
of beds. And what we saw assured us of one thing--that there were no
other guests at the Hospederia.
From the perfect order of the house, and the fact that the fire was
burning, it was clear that someone must be close at hand. But we
had come a long way, and in the meantime we were famishing.
Hastening to our aid, the ubiquitous Bartolome spread the table,
putting out plates and glasses, and finding wooden spoons and forks
in the drawer of a side-table. Opening our packets of sandwiches and
fruit, we invited him to join us.
We were all seated at table, busily eating, when a swift clatter of
feet sounded on the cobble stones of the outer hall; and a brisk
little brown woman ran into the room, voluble with apology for the
temporary absence of the keepers of the Hospederia. Netta, she
explained, was away. Fernando was working at the farm. In their
absence could she be of any service to our excellencies?
Reassured on that point, the lady--Catalina was her name--remained
to enliven our picnic lunch by rallying Bartolome, who was an old
acquaintance of hers, on his unparalleled effrontery in sitting down
to table with us.
"You have no right to eat with their excellencies," she said. "You
are only a coachman."
"But if he is a good coachman?" asked the Man.
"Ah, no, senor. He is not a good coachman. He is a bad coachman.
And, besides, he cannot spread a table. See! he has given you no
table-cloth, no napkins, when he knows the cupboard is full of them.
No, he is a very bad coachman indeed!"
When our scrap meal was finished, Catalina proceeded to show us our
sleeping accommodation. Unlocking a door that we had not tried, she
led us through a pleasant room with two beds, to one with two
windows--one facing the highroad, where Bartolome's carriage still
waited, the other affording a beautiful view of the rugged coast.
Catalina explained that these rooms were usually allotted to
foreigners such as ourselves, the less attractively situated being
reserved for natives of the island, who were at liberty to share the
Archduke's hospitality, although the Hospederia was originally
intended for the use of other travellers. A handsome new
dining-room in process of construction, though during our stay no
one was actually working at it, was also planned for the
accommodation of those from far countries, but to us the
appointments of the older building seemed peculiarly in keeping with
the quaint idea of the Hospederia.
The bedrooms were simply but sufficiently furnished. Each had two
single beds, half-a-dozen chairs, a plain wooden table, and a tripod
washstand holding the smallest basin and ewer we had seen outside
France. The roofs were raftered. All was the perfection of austere
cleanliness.
Before our inspection was ended Fernando, the host, a good-looking
man with the gracious deportment of an operatic tenor, had returned.
His grandmother had been the original housekeeper of the Hospederia.
On her death, at the age of ninety-nine, her office had descended
upon Fernando and his young wife Netta.
We spent the all too short November afternoon and evening in
exploring the slopes about Miramar, looking at the glorious views
that perpetually presented some yet more glorious aspect. The
Hospederia was over a thousand feet above the sea, to which the
ground fell precipitously. Above the house the land rose up and up
until it ended in towering crags. Northward stretched the
Mediterranean. Elsewhere the eye met nothing but range upon range of
mountains.
The extensive grounds of Miramar are well shaded with olive and
carob trees, but at every point that affords a specially good view
of some part of the exquisite scenery the Archduke has caused to be
erected a _mirador_, or walled enclosure, where one can sit in
safety and glory in the beauty of the surroundings.
From one of these we watched the after-glow of the setting sun
illumine distant peaks, bringing into prominence heights whose
existence we had scarcely realized.
The darkness, falling swiftly, surprised us while a good distance
from the Hospederia, and we had to find our way back by untried
paths. But the fascination of the place held us captive, and when
the moon began to peep out from among the clouds we could not remain
indoors, as more sensible folks would have done. Wrapping up a
little, for it was colder on the northern coast of the island than
at Palma, we went out, determined to reach a headland by the sea, on
which from above we had caught tantalizing glimpses of a shining
white temple.
Except from a _mirador_ the temple was not visible, and we wandered
by many devious ways before we again came in sight of it, perched
above the sea on a high rock that is reached by a stone bridge
thrown over a deep gully.
As we felt our way along, for the elusive moon was again behind a
cloud, all was silent, mysterious. Surely Miramar at nightfall in
winter is one of the most silent places on the earth. We felt as
though there was not a human being alive but ourselves.
Crossing the bridge timorously, we found ourselves confronting the
ghostly white chapel. When we had told Catalina of our desire to
visit it, she had given us keys, but they did not fit. And as we
proceeded to fumble with the lock, the silence was so intense that I
could almost have imagined that someone within was holding his
breath to listen. Had we knocked upon that closed door I had an
eerie conviction that the spectre of some long-dead monk would have
opened it.
But we did not knock. And the moon favouring us with a glimpse of
her illumining power, we walked round the base of the temple, which
is securely railed in, and watched the moon outline with silver
finger-tips each point and pinnacle of the hills and shimmer softly
on the sea.
When we returned to the Hospederia, Fernando had gone to fetch his
wife; and Catalina, who had been left in charge, bustled into the
dining-room to tell us that two _carabineros_ had come, and were
resting in the kitchen.
"Have they come after us?" cried the Man; and Catalina, who enjoyed
even the mildest of humour, wrinkled her brown face in delight.
The dining-room where we sat was large and dimly lit by oil lamps.
After the silence of those wooded slopes the prospect of even the
company of two _carabineros_ was alluring. So when I went into the
kitchen to cook the lamb cutlets and tomatoes that comprised our
modest supper, my men followed me.
[Illustration: Carabineros in the Kitchen]
The kitchen, which was the most picturesque part of the Hospederia,
was looking particularly snug and cosy. A fire of logs burned on the
open hearth, below the shining tin pans and the strings of red
peppers, and lit up the fine bronzed faces of the _carabineros_, who
sat close to its warmth.
They rose when we entered, to offer us their seats. One, spreading
his striped blanket on the low settle, invited the Man to share it;
and while I grilled the cutlets and Catalina washed dishes at the
sink, the men chatted as freely as their difference of language
would allow, the _carabineros_ talking of their long hours of
duty--for their patrol begins at five or six o'clock in the evening
and does not end until seven next morning--and of the constant watch
that has to be kept for smugglers on that lonely and seemingly
scarce accessible coast.
Leaving them to resume their night watch, we supped and went to bed,
to be roused in the early morning by voices. Netta, the
house-mistress, had returned, and thenceforward the lively Catalina
would relapse into the position of merely an obliging neighbour.
[Illustration: La Trinidad, Miramar]
VIII
MIRAMAR
When we went downstairs to breakfast Netta was setting the table;
setting it, too, after a fashion of her own which never varied, were
the meal breakfast, luncheon or dinner.
First she spread the cloth, whose lack at luncheon on the previous
day had so offended Catalina's sense of what was neat and proper.
Then she put before each place a big tumbler, a little tumbler, two
soup-plates, and a wooden spoon and fork.
Netta proved to be tall and nice-looking, with tragic dark eyes, and
a gravity of manner that was in striking contrast to her husband's
smiling bonhomie. She was an admirable housewife. We never caught
her at work; yet, without the slightest appearance of fuss and
flurry, she managed to keep everything the pink of perfection.
The weather was hardly promising. Rain had fallen in the night;
veils of mist smothered the crests of the near hills and completely
obliterated the more distant. But we were resolved to let nothing
short of an actual downpour keep us indoors. And as the Man wished
to sketch at Valldemosa, which had captivated us all on the previous
day, the Boy and I accompanied him thither. Perhaps it is unwise to
attempt to renew first impressions. Possibly the charm of Miramar
clouded our eyes to the undoubted beauty of Valldemosa. More likely
the fact that the sun only peeped out fitfully, and that the wind
was damp and the sky sullen, influenced our view: but somehow
Valldemosa seemed to have lost the glamour it cast over us when we
first saw it basking in the warm sunlight. Everybody seemed chilly,
and all the children looked as if they had colds in their noses.
Leaving the Man working at a water-colour of the old Carthusian
monastery from rising ground above a covered well, we set off with
the intention of augmenting our little stock of provisions from the
shops of the town.
The store we chanced upon sold every likely and unlikely commodity,
from green and orange boots to radishes. When we inquired where we
might find a butcher, the shop-mistress, with a majestic wave of her
hand, signed to us to follow her. And, walking in her footsteps, we
threaded our way through an apartment, which was partly kitchen and
partly an overflow stock chamber, into an inner room, where hung
garlands of black and yellow sausages and the carcasses of two
lambs.
This was the butcher's shop, she announced, and there was no beef,
only lamb. So perforce we added yet more cutlets to our diet, and
humbly craved bread. But the only loaves she had were so large that,
rejecting them, we went in search of a baker.
In the less important Majorcan towns, shops are difficult to find.
The fact that a tax is levied upon signs keeps all but the most
prominent vendors from exhibiting one. The room of an ordinary
house that opens directly to the street usually acts as the place of
business; and a cabbage, or a basket of striped haricot beans, set
casually on the doorstep, often serves to indicate the existence of
a general shop.
After a little searching we succeeded in finding a _panaderia_, but
the loaves of the baker, in place of being smaller than those of the
grocer (which sounds Ollendorffian), were so huge that they
resembled cartwheels, or, to be more exact, perambulator wheels,
baked of rye.
For a moment the choice lay between possible starvation and the
prospect of trundling the mammoth rye loaf up and down the three
miles of highway that lay between us and the Hospederia.
While we hesitated, the baker lady, and the half dozen or so of her
intimate friends who had followed us into the shop to see what the
foreigners would buy, regarded us interestedly. Then a compromise
suggested itself.
"Would it be possible to ask the senora to divide the loaf?"
"Yes--without doubt."
The complacent senora already had the large knife in her hand. So,
clutching the half of the still steaming rye loaf, we returned to
the Man, with whom we had arranged to share an open-air luncheon.
Before we had reached him, the mist that had been threatening to
swoop down upon us resolved itself into a shower. Taking advantage
of the near vicinity of the covered well, we boiled our tea-kettle
under the archway, and drank tea, to the surprise of the people who
were constantly coming to fill their water-jars.
Then, the sun consenting, rather sulkily, to peep out again, the Man
returned to his work, while the Boy and I, feeling no further
temptation to linger at Valldemosa, took up our section of the
cartwheel and set off for Miramar.
On the way, not far beyond the outskirts of the town, we caught
sight of a notice-board, which stated that a Museum of Mallorquin
antiquities might be seen in a house on the side of the road
nearest to the mountains. Following the path indicated, we found
ourselves, after a few minutes walking, in the courtyard of what had
evidently been a fine old country seat.
The doors stood open to the world. Except for a beautiful flock of
cream-coloured turkeys, the place seemed utterly untenanted. There
was no sign of humanity until the Boy woke the echoes by smiting
lustily on a cow-bell that hung outside the kitchen door.
Then a little sun-dried old woman popped her head out, and with a
scared face fled up a broad flight of steps that led from the
courtyard to the floor above.
She had gone to warn the custodian of the Museum; and that dame,
quickly appearing, invited us upstairs to see the collection.
The house, Son Moragues, she told us, was one of the many owned by
the Archduke on the different estates he had bought. He had never
used it as a residence, and merely kept it as a receptacle for the
specimens of typical Mallorquin manufactures, such as pottery,
models of baskets, furniture, etc., he was collecting.
The object that interested us perhaps more than any other exhibit
was a jar that had been salved from the sea in Palma Harbour.
Although a genuine antique it was of the shape in use to-day; and
its unrecorded period of immersion had left it encrusted with a
marvellous decoration of barnacles and shells.
What really delighted us most in the Museum were the views from the
balconies; especially those obtained from a great old _terras_ with
a sloping floor, where we stood in the brilliant sunshine and
watched the showers sweeping along the mountain tops and up the
valley.
Down below us was a thick hedge of prickly pear, the edges of the
fleshy leaves ruched with scarlet fruit. And beside us, as we leant
on the edge of the balcony, was a wire tray on which a quantity of
figs, gathered presumably from the trees in the field beneath, were
drying in the sun.
The quaint old garden, which we saw on the way out, had tall box
hedges and a spreading magnolia, and crumbling stone seats
surrounded the fountain, whose waters have long run dry.
In the evening I had gone to bed early, leaving the others to follow
their own devices, and was sleeping the sleep of the woman who had
been all day in the open air, when an insistent calling of my name
aroused me back to semi-consciousness, and I gradually gathered that
I must descend to open the door. The men, who had gone out walking
in the moonlight, had returned to find that, inadvertently, the
house door had been locked and barred against them.
Had my room been less accessible, or my sleep more profound, they
might have knocked and called in vain, for although it was hardly
nine o'clock, Fernando and Netta were deep in the slumber of the
agriculturist in some unknown roof-chamber of the tall old house.
Although so isolated in position, Miramar is intimately connected
with the romantic life-history of Ramon Lull--rake, recluse,
scholar, fanatic, martyr, saint--what you will.
The father of Ramon Lull--the name is variously spelt: Raymund Lully
in the English; Ramundo Lulio in the Spanish; and Ramon Lull in the
Mallorquin, which has a bad habit of chipping the ends off
words--was one of those brave young knights of Aragon who fought
with their King during his invasion and conquest of Majorca. When
that war had ended happily for all but the Moors, the parent Lull,
in company with the other nobles who had supported King Jaime the
Conquistador, was rewarded with an estate in Majorca. And there,
about six years later, his son Ramon was born.
During his earlier manhood Ramon gave little hint of what he was
ultimately to become. His behaviour was by no means sedate. Nay,
more, it is on record that his love affairs were so numerous as to
become a public scandal, which reached a climax on his riding on
horseback into church in pursuit of a devout lady whom he madly
adored.
The fatal illness of this lady, by awakening his conscience and
rousing him to a sense of sin, changed the current of his thoughts,
and after a period of self-accusation and contrition, he decided not
only to lead a better life, but to spend that life in the
reformation of others.
King Jaime, on being applied to, supplied the funds necessary for
the carrying out of his project, and Lull erected a college at
Miramar, where close by the house of the Archduke a fragment of the
original chapel is still to be seen. His scheme was to teach
thirteen monks Arabic, so that they could go forth as missionaries
among the infidels. And Miramar, one of the most secluded spots on
earth, as well as one of the most beautiful, he deemed a suitable
place for study.
But the scheme failed. Why, the chroniclers do not say. Perhaps the
students, being merely human, wearied of the restrictions of
existence in that seminary perched on the hill-side between the
mountains and the sea, and pined for company.
The project was abandoned. A later record speaks of King Sancho,
grandson of the Conquistador, visiting Miramar in quest of relief
from the asthma with which he was afflicted, and residing at the
Arabic College.
Lull, nothing daunted by the defection of his pupils, alone put into
execution his plan of carrying the truth into other lands. We hear
of his preaching Christ in Africa and being rewarded with stripes.
Then we are told of his travelling in the Holy Land. Later he
appears in Paris, in Egypt, and even in England, writing books and
teaching.
In spite of besetting dangers, Lull's life of study and propagandism
lasted beyond the ordinary term of man. When he was an octogenarian,
and probably weary of the struggle, he desired to quit the world in
a blaze of glory; and, as the best means of attaining his end,
returned to Africa, where earlier he had been received with
contumely and severely beaten. There Lull met the fate he coveted:
for continuing to preach openly and persistently, he was stoned to
death at Bugia in June, 1315.
Some Genoese disciples who had begged for his bruised and broken
body brought it tenderly back to his birthplace. We had seen the
spot of its interment in the beautiful church of San Francisco, at
Palma, a Gothic temple of the thirteenth century, that vies in
antiquity with the Cathedral. One of the chapels in the transept to
the left of the high altar gives sepulture to the aged martyr. The
effigy shown is that of an old man lying on his side, as though to
signify that his unwavering and indomitable spirit had at last
gained rest.
We had spoken tentatively of Lull to Fernando, and Fernando had not
only admitted a knowledge of the old-world frequenter of his slopes,
but had volunteered to take us to visit his cave, a sanctuary high
on the mountain-side above Miramar, where Lull was wont to go when
he felt the need of seclusion. And at ten next morning we were
waiting, expectant.
But at ten Fernando, just returned from his morning's work on the
farm, was at breakfast. So we went to the _mirador_, below the
Hospederia, and spent the minutes of waiting enjoying the view that,
no matter how often we saw it, always wore a different aspect.
This morning, though the sun was shining on the sea and on the
olives that covered the lower slopes, the higher peaks were obscured
by filmy scarves of mist, and scarcely perceptible wisps were
floating about the mountain sides, giving an air of mystery and
grandeur to the lofty heights.
Then Fernando appeared wiping his moustached lips, which already
held the inevitable cigarette. Under his guidance we moved along the
highroad until we came to a gate where a cross fixed to the post
betokened monastery ground. A sandalled monk passing by gave us
grave greeting. There the ascent began at once, the path zigzagging
about on the terraced slopes that were thickly planted with olives.
The undergrowth was bright with the vivid green foliage and
brilliant scarlet berries of the winter cherry.