_How Don Sanchez very honestly offers to free us of our bargain if we
will; but we will not._
The house, like nearly all Moorish houses of this class, was simply one
large and lofty room, with a domed ceiling built of very thick masonry,
to resist the heat of the sun. There was neither window nor chimney, the
door serving to admit light and air, and let out the smoke if a fire
were lighted within. One half of this chamber was dug out to a depth of
a couple of feet, for the accommodation of cattle (the litter being
thrown into the hollow as it is needed, and nought removed till it
reaches the level of the other floor), and above this, about eight feet
from the ground and four from the roof, was a kind of shelf (the breadth
and length of that half), for the storage of fodder and a sleeping-place
for the inhabitants, with no kind of partition, or any issue for the
foul air from the cattle below.
"Are we to live a year in this hutch?" asks Moll, in affright.
"Have done with your chatter, Moll!" answers Jack, testily. "Don't you
see I'm a-thinking? Heaven knows there's enough to swallow without any
bugbears of your raising."
With that, having finished his inspection of the interior, he goes out
and looks at it outside.
"Well," says Don Sanchez, "what think you of the house?"
"Why, Señor, 'tis no worse as I can see than any other in these parts,
and hath this advantage, which they have not, of being in a sweet air.
With a bit of contrivance we could make a shift to live here well
enough. We should not do amiss neither for furniture, seeing that 'tis
the custom of the country to eat off the floor and sit upon nothing. A
pot to cook victuals in is about all we need in that way. But how we are
to get anything to cook in it is one mystery, and" (clacking his tongue)
"what we are going to drink is another, neither of which I can fathom.
For, look you, Señor, if one may judge of men's characters by their
faces or of their means by their habitations, we may dance our legs off
ere ever these Moors will bestow a penny piece upon us, and as for their
sour milk, I'd as lief drink hemlock, and liefer. Now, if this town had
been as we counted on, like Barcelona, all had gone as merry as a
marriage bell, for then might we have gained enough to keep us in
jollity as long as you please; but here, if we die not of the colicks in
a week, 'twill be to perish of starvation in a fortnight. What say you,
Kit?"
I was forced to admit that I had never seen a town less likely to afford
a subsistence than this.
Then Don Sanchez, having heard us with great patience, and waited a
minute to see if we could raise any further objections, answers us in
measured tones.
"I doubt not," says he, "that with a little ingenuity you may make the
house habitable and this wilderness agreeable. My friend, Sidi ben
Ahmed, has offered to provide us with what commodities are necessary to
that end. I agree with you that it would be impossible to earn the
meanest livelihood here by dancing; it would not be advisable if we
could. For that reason, my knowledge of various tongues making me very
serviceable to Sidi ben Ahmed (who is the most considerable merchant of
this town), I have accepted an office in his house. This will enable me
to keep my engagement with you. You will live at my charge, as I
promised, and you shall want for nothing in reason. If the Moors drink
no wine themselves, they make excellent for those who will, and you
shall not be stinted in that particular."
"Come, this sounds fair enough," cries Dawson. "But pray, Señor, are we
to do nothing for our keep?"
"Nothing beyond what we came here to do," replies he, with a meaning
glance at Moll.
"What!" cries poor Moll, in pain. "We are to dance no more!"
The Don shook his head gravely; and, remembering the jolly, vagabond,
careless, adventurous life we had led these past two months and more,
with a thousand pleasant incidents of our happy junketings, we were all
downcast at the prospect of living in this place--though a paradise--for
a year without change.
"Though I promised you no more than I offer," says the Don, "yet if this
prospect displease you, we will cry quits and part here. Nay," adds he,
taking a purse from his pocket, "I will give you the means to return to
Alicante, where you may live as better pleases you."
It seemed to me that there was an unfeigned carelessness in his manner,
as if he would as lief as not throw up this hazardous enterprise for
some other more sure undertaking. And, indeed, I believe he was then
balancing another alternative in his mind.
At this generous offer Moll dashed away the tears that had sprung to her
eyes, brightening up wonderfully, but then, casting her eyes upon the
Don, her face fell again as at the thought of leaving him. For we all
admired him, and she prodigiously, for his great reserve and many good
qualities which commanded respect, and this feeling was tinged in her
case, I believe, with a kind of growing affection.
Seeing this sentiment in her eyes, the Don was clearly touched by it,
and so, laying his hand gently on her shoulder, he says:
"My poor child, remember you the ugly old women we saw dancing at
Barcelona? They were not more than forty; what will they be like in a
few years? Who will tolerate them? who love them? Is that the end you
choose for your own life--that the estate to which our little princess
shall fall?"
"No, no, no!" cries she, in a passion, clenching her little hands and
throwing up her head in disdain.
"And no, no, no, say I," cries Dawson. "Were our case ten times as bad,
I'd not go back from my word. As it is, we are not to be pitied, and I
warrant ere long we make ourselves to be envied. Come, Kit, rouse you
out of your lethargies, and let us consult how we may improve our
condition here; and do you, Señor, pray order us a little of that same
excellent wine you spoke of, if it be but a pint, when you feel disposed
that way."
The Don inclined his head, but lingered, talking to Moll very gravely,
and yet tenderly, for some while, Dawson and I going into the house to
see what we could make of it; and then, telling us we should see him no
more till the next day, he left us. But for some time after he was gone
Moll sat on the side of the well, very pensive and wistful, as one to
whom the future was opened for the first time.
Anon comes a banging at our garden gate, which Moll had closed behind
the Don; and, going to it, we find a Moorish boy with a barrow charged
with many things. We could not understand a word he said, but Dawson
decided these chattels were sent us by the Don, by perceiving a huge
hogskin of wine, for which he thanked God and Don Sanchez an hundred
times over. So these commodities we carried up to the house, marvelling
greatly at the Don's forethought and generosity, for here were a score
of things over and above those we had already found ourselves lacking;
namely, earthen pipkins and wooden vessels, a bag of charcoal, a box of
carpenters' tools (which did greatly like Dawson, he having been bred a
carpenter in his youth), instruments for gardening (to my pleasure, as I
have ever had a taste for such employment), some very fine Moorish
blankets, etc. So when the barrow was discharged, Dawson gives the lad
some rials out of his pocket, which pleased him also mightily.
Then, first of all, Dawson unties the leg of the hogskin, and draws off
a quart of wine, very carefully securing the leg after, and this we
drank to our great refreshment; and next Moll, being awoke from her
dreams and eager to be doing, sets herself to sort out our goods, such
as belong to us (as tools, etc.), on one side, and such as belong to her
(as pipkins and the rest) on the other. Leaving her to this employment,
Dawson and I, armed with a knife and bagging hook, betake ourselves to a
great store of canes stacked in one corner of the garden, and sorting
out those most proper to our purpose, we lopped them all of an equal
length, and shouldering as many as we could carried them up to our
house. Here we found Moll mighty jubilant in having got her work done,
and admirably she had done it, to be sure. For, having found a long
recess in the wall, she had brushed it out clean with a whisp of herbs,
and stored up her crocks according to their size, very artificial, with
a dish of oranges plucked from the tree at our door on one side, and a
dish of almonds on the other, a pipkin standing betwixt 'em with a
handsome posey of roses in it. She had spread a mat on the floor, and
folded up our fine blankets to serve for cushions; and all that did not
belong to her she had bundled out of sight into that hollowed side I
have mentioned as being intended for cattle.
After we had sufficiently admired the performance, she told us she had a
mind to give us a supper of broth. "But," says she, "the Don has
forgotten that we must eat, and hath sent us neither bread nor flesh nor
salt."
This put us to a stumble, for how to get these things we knew not; but
Moll declared she would get all she needed if we could only find the
money.
"Why, how?" asks Jack. "You know not their gibberish."
"That may be," answers she, "but I warrant the same language that bought
me this petticoat will get us a supper."
So we gave her what money we had, and she went off a-marketing, with as
much confidence as if she were a born Barbary Moor. Then Jack falls to
thanking God for blessing him with such a daughter, at the same time
taking no small credit to himself for having bred her to such
perfection, and in the midst of his encomiums, being down in the hollow
searching for his hammer, he cries:
"Plague take the careless baggage! she has spilled all our nails, and
here's an hour's work to pick 'em up!"
This accident was repaired, however, and Moll's transgression forgotten
when she returned with an old woman carrying her purchases. Then were we
forced to admire her skill in this business, for she had bought all that
was needful for a couple of meals, and yet had spent but half our money.
Now arose the difficult question how to make a fire, and this Jack left
us to settle by our own devices, he returning to his own occupation.
Moll resolved we should do our cooking outside the house, so here we
built up a kind of grate with stones; and, contriving to strike a spark
with the back of a jack-knife and a stone, upon a heap of dried leaves,
we presently blew up a fine flame, and feeding this with the ends of
cane we had cut and some charcoal, we at last got a royal fire on which
to set our pot of mutton. And into this pot we put rice and a multitude
of herbs from the garden, which by the taste we thought might serve to
make a savoury mess. And, indeed, when it began to boil, the odour was
so agreeable that we would have Jack come out to smell it. And he having
praised it very highly, we in return went in to look at his handiwork
and praise that. This we could do very heartily and without hypocrisy,
for he had worked well and made a rare good job, having built a very
seemly partition across the room, by nailing of the canes
perpendicularly to that kind of floor that hung over the hollowed
portion, thus making us now three rooms out of one. At one end he had
left an opening to enter the cavity below and the floor above by the
little ladder that stood there, and these canes were set not so close
together but that air and light could pass betwixt them, and yet from
the outer side no eye could see within, which was very commodious. Also
upon the floor above, he had found sundry bundles of soft dried leaves,
and these, opened out upon the surface of both chambers, made a very
sweet, convenient bed upon which to lie. Then Dawson offering Moll her
choice, she took the upper floor for her chamber, leaving us two the
lower; and so, it being near sundown by this time, we to our supper in
the sweet, cool air of evening, all mightily content with one another,
and not less satisfied with our stew, which was indeed most savoury and
palatable. This done, we took a turn round our little domain, admiring
the many strange and wonderful things that grew there (especially the
figs, which, though yet green, were wondrous pleasant to eat); and I
laying out my plans for the morrow, how to get this wilderness into
order, tear out the worthless herbs, dig the soil, etc., Dawson's
thoughts running on the building of an outhouse for the accommodation of
our wine, tools, and such like, and Moll meditating on dishes to give us
for our repasts. And at length, when these divers subjects were no more
to be discussed, we turned into our dormitories, and fell asleep mighty
tired, but as happy as princes.