_Of our merry journeying to Alicante._
We turned into the first posada we came to--a poor, mean sort of an inn
and general shop, to be sure, but we were in no condition to cavil about
trifles, being fagged out with our journey and the adventures of the
day, and only too happy to find a house of entertainment still open. So
after a dish of sausages with very good wine, we to our beds and an end
to the torment of fleas I had endured from the moment I changed my
French habit for Spanish rags.
The next morning, when we had eaten a meal of goats' milk and bread and
paid our reckoning, which amounted to a few rials and no more, Don
Sanchez and I, taking what rested of Moll's two pieces, went forth into
the town and there bought two plain suits of clothes for ourselves in
the mode of the country, and (according to his desire) another of the
same cut for Dawson, together with a little jacket and petticoat for
Moll. And these expenditures left us but just enough to buy a good
guitar and a tambourine--indeed, we should not have got them at all but
that Don Sanchez higgled and bargained like any Jew, which he could do
with a very good face now that he was dressed so beggarly. Then back to
our posada, where in our room Jack and I were mighty merry in putting on
our new clothes; but going below we find Moll still dressed in her
finery, and sulking before the petticoat and jacket we had bought for
her, which she would not put on by any persuasion until her father fell
into a passion of anger. And the sight of him fuming in a short jacket
barely covering his loins, and a pair of breeches so tight the seams
would scarce hold together, so tickled her sense of humour that she fell
into a long fit of laughter, and this ending her sulks she went upstairs
with a good grace and returned in her hated petticoat, carrying her fine
dress in a bundle. But I never yet knew the time when this sly baggage
would not please herself for all her seeming yielding to others, and we
were yet to have more pain from her than she from us in respect of that
skirt. For ere we had got half way through the town she, dawdling behind
to look first in this shop and then in that, gave us the slip, so that
we were best part of an hour hunting the streets up and down in the
utmost anxiety. Then as we were sweating with our exercise and trouble,
lo! she steps out of a shop as calm as you please in a petticoat and
jacket of her own fancy (and ten times more handsome than our purchase),
a red shawl tied about her waist, and a little round hat with a bright
red bob in it, set on one side of her head, and all as smart as a
carrot.
"Da!" says she, "where have you been running all this time?"
And we, betwixt joy at finding her and anger at her impudence, could say
nothing; and yet we were fain to admire her audacity too. But how, not
knowing one word of the language, she had made her wants known was a
mystery, and how she had obtained this finery was another, seeing that
we had spent all there was of her two pieces. Certainly she had not
changed her French gown and things for them, for these in a cumbrous
bundle had her father been carrying up and down the town since we lost
the minx.
"If you han't stole 'em," says Dawson, finding his tongue at last,
"where did you find the money to pay for those trappings, slut?"
"In my pocket, sir," says she, with a curtsey, "where you might have
found yours had you not emptied it so readily for the robbers yesterday.
And I fancy," adds she slyly, "I may still find some left to offer you a
dinner at midday if you will accept of it."
This hint disposed us to make light of our grievance against her, and we
went out of Ravellos very well satisfied to know that our next meal
depended not solely upon chance. And this, together with the bright
sunlight and the sweet invigorating morning air, did beget in us a
spirit of happy carelessness, in keeping with the smiling gay aspect of
the country about us.
It was strange to see how easily Moll fell into our happy-go-lucky
humour, she, who had been as stately as any Roman queen in her long
gown, being now, in her short coloured petticoat, as frolicsome and
familiar as a country wench at a fair; but indeed she was a born actress
and could accommodate herself as well to one condition as another with
the mere change of clothes. But I think this state was more to her real
taste than the other, as putting no restraint upon her impulses and
giving free play to her healthy, exuberant mirth. Her very step was a
kind of dance, and she must needs fall a-carolling of songs like a lark
when it flies. Then she would have us rehearse our old songs to our new
music. So, slinging my guitar in front of me, I put it in tune, and Jack
ties his bundle to his back that he may try his hand at the tambourine.
And so we march along singing and playing as if to a feast, and stopping
only to laugh prodigiously when one or other fell out of tune,--the most
mad, light-hearted fools in the world;--but I speak not of Don Sanchez,
who, feel what he might, never relaxed his high bearing or unbent his
serious countenance.
One thing I remember of him on this journey. Having gone about five
miles, we sat us down on a bridge to rest a while, and there the Don
left us to go a little way up the course of the stream that flowed
beneath, and he came back with a posey of sweet jonquils set off with a
delicate kind of fern very pretty, and this he presents to Moll with a
gracious little speech, which act, it seemed to me, was to let her know
that he respected her still as a young gentlewoman in spite of her short
petticoat, and Moll was not dull to the compliment neither; for, after
the first cry of delight in seeing these natural dainty flowers (she
loving such things beyond all else in the world), she bethought her to
make him a curtsey and reply to his speech with another as good and well
turned, as she set them in her waist scarf. Also I remember on this road
we saw oranges and lemons growing for the first time, but full a mile
after Moll had first caught their wondrous perfume in the air. And these
trees, which are about the size of a crab tree, grew in close groves on
either side of the road, with no manner of fence to protect them, so
that any one is lief to pluck what he may without let, so plentiful are
they, and curious to see how fruit and blossom grow together on the same
bush, the lemons, as I hear, giving four crops in the year, and more
delicious, full, and juicy than any to be bought in England at six to
the groat.
We got a dinner of bread and cheese (very high) at a roadside house, and
glad to have that, only no meat of any kind, but excellent good wine
with dried figs and walnuts, which is the natural food of this country,
where one may go a week without touching flesh and yet feel as strong
and hearty at the end. And here very merry, Jack in his pertinacious,
stubborn spirit declaring he would drink his wine in the custom of the
country or none at all, and so lifting up the spouted mug at arm's
length he squirts the liquor all over his face, down his new clothes and
everywhere but into his mouth, before he could arrive to do it like Don
Sanchez; but getting into the trick of it, he so mighty proud of his
achievement that he must drink pot after pot until he got as drunk as
any lord. So after that, finding a retired place,--it being midday and
prodigious hot (though only now in mid-April),--we lay down under the
orange trees and slept a long hour, to our great refreshment. Dawson on
waking remembered nothing of his being drunk, and felt not one penny the
worse for it. And so on another long stretch through sweet country, with
here and there a glimpse of the Mediterranean, in the distance, of a
surprising blueness, before we reached another town, and that on the top
of a high hill. But it seems that all the towns in these parts (save
those armed with fortresses) are thus built for security against the
pirates, who ravage the seaboard of this continent incessantly from end
to end. And for this reason the roads leading up to the town are made
very narrow, tortuous, and difficult, with watch-towers in places, and
many points where a few armed men lying in ambush may overwhelm an enemy
ten times as strong. The towns themselves are fortified with gates, the
streets extremely narrow and crooked, and the houses massed all together
with secret passages one to another, and a network of little alleys
leading whither only the inhabitants knew, so that if an enemy do get
into them 'tis ten to one he will never come out alive.
It being market day in this town, here Jack and his daughter gave a show
of dancing, first in their French suits, which were vastly admired, and
after in their Spanish clothes; but then they were asked to dance a
fandango, which they could not. However, we fared very well, getting the
value of five shillings in little moneys, and the innkeepers would take
nothing for our entertainment, because of the custom we had brought his
house, which we considered very handsome on his part.
We set out again the next morning, but having shown how we passed the
first day I need not dwell upon those which followed before we reached
Barcelona, there being nothing of any great importance to tell. Only
Moll was now all agog to learn the Spanish dances, and I cannot easily
forget how, after much coaxing and wheedling on her part, she at length
persuaded Don Sanchez to show her a fandango; for, surely, nothing in
the world was ever more comic than this stately Don, without any music,
and in the middle of the high road, cutting capers, with a countenance
as solemn as any person at a burying. No one could be more quick to
observe the ludicrous than he, nor more careful to avoid ridicule;
therefore it said much for Moll's cajolery, or for the love he bore her
even at this time, to thus expose himself to Dawson's rude mirth and
mine in order to please her.
We reached Barcelona the 25th of April, and there we stayed till the 1st
of May, for Moll would go no further before she had learnt a bolero and
a fandango--which dances we saw danced at a little theatre excellently
well, but in a style quite different to ours, and the women very fat and
plain. And though Moll, being but a slight slip of a lass, in whom the
warmer passions were unbegotten, could not give the bolero the
voluptuous fervour of the Spanish dancers, yet in agility and in pretty
innocent grace she did surpass them all to nought, which was abundantly
proved when she danced it in our posada before a court full of
Spaniards, for there they were like mad over her, casting their silk
handkerchiefs at her feet in homage, and filling Jack's tambourine three
times over with cigarros and a plentiful scattering of rials. And I
believe, had we stayed there, we might have made more money than ever we
wanted at that time--though not so much as Don Sanchez had set his mind
on; wherefore he would have us jogging again as soon as Moll could be
brought to it.
From Barcelona, we journeyed a month to Valencia, growing more indolent
with our easier circumstances, and sometimes trudging no more than five
or six miles in a day. And we were, I think, the happiest, idlest set of
vagabonds in existence. But, indeed, in this country there is not that
spur to exertion which is for ever goading us in this. The sun fills
one's heart with content, and for one's other wants a few halfpence a
day will suffice, and if you have them not 'tis no such great matter.
For these people are exceeding kind and hospitable; they will give you a
measure of wine if you are thirsty, as we would give a mug of water, and
the poorest man will not sit down to table without making you an offer
to share what he has. Wherever we went we were well received, and in
those poor villages where they had no money to give they would pay us
for our show in kind, one giving us bed, another board, and filling our
wallets ere we left 'em with the best they could afford.
'Twas our habit to walk a few miles before dinner, to sleep in the shade
during the heat of the day, and to reach a town (if possible) by the
fall of the sun. There would we spend half the night in jollity, and lie
abed late in the morning. The inns and big houses in these parts are
built in the form of squares, enclosing an open court with a sort of
arcade all round, and mostly with a grape-vine running over the sunnier
side, and in this space we used to give our performance, by the light of
oil lamps hung here and there conveniently, with the addition, maybe, of
moonlight reflected from one of the white walls. Here any one was free
to enter, we making no charge, but taking only what they would freely
give. And this treatment engenders a feeling of kindness on both sides
(very different to our sentiment at home, where we players as often as
not dread the audience as a kind of enemy, ready to tear us to pieces if
we fail to please), and ours was as great a pleasure to amuse as theirs
to be amused. I can recall to mind nothing of any moment occurring on
this journey, save that we spent some time every day in perfecting our
Spanish dances, I getting to play the tunes correctly, which at first I
made sad bungling of, and Dawson in learning of his steps. Also, he and
Moll acquired the use of a kind of clappers, called costagnettes, which
they play with their hands in these fandangos and boleros, with a very
pleasing effect.
At Valencia we stayed a week and three days, lingering more than was
necessary, in order to see a bull-fight. And this pastime they do not as
we with dogs, but with men, and the bull quite free, and, save for the
needless killing of horses, I think this a very noble exercise, being a
fair trial of human address against brute force. And 'tis not nearly so
beastly as seeing a prize fought by men, and not more cruel, I take it,
than the shooting of birds and hares for sport, seeing that the agony of
death is no greater for a sturdy bull than for a timid coney, and hath
this advantage, that the bull, when exhausted, is despatched quickly,
whereas the bird or hare may just escape capture, to die a miserable
long death with a shattered limb.
From Valencia we travelled five weeks (growing, I think, more lazy every
day), over very hilly country to Alicante, a seaport town very strongly
protected by a castle on a great rock, armed with guns of brass and
iron, so that the pirates dare never venture near. And here I fully
thought we were to dawdle away another week at the least, this being a
very populous and lively city, promising much entertainment. For Moll,
when not playing herself, was mad to see others play, and she did really
govern, with her subtle wiles and winning smiles, more than her father,
for all his masterful spirit, or Don Sanchez with his stern authority.
But seeing two or three English ships in the port, the Don deemed it
advisable that we should push on at once for Elche, and, to our great
astonishment, Moll consented to our speedy going without demur, though
why, we could not then discover, but did soon after, as I shall
presently show.