He remounted his horse as he approached the market-place, from which
the town climbed up; but he found his way blocked, for 'twas
market-day, and the great square, bordered with a colonnade that made
an Eastern bazaar, was thickly planted with stalls, whose white canvas
awnings struck a delicious note of coolness against the throbbing blue
sky and the flaming costumes of the peasants come up from the
environs. Through a corner of the _praça_ one saw poplars and elms and
the fresh gleam of the river. The nasal hum of many voices sounded
blithe and busy. At the bazaar entrance, where old women vended
flowers and fruit, Gabriel reined in his horse.
"How happy these simple souls!" he mused. "How sure of their
salvation! To count their beads and mutter their _Ave Marias_; 'tis
all they need. Yon fisher, with his great gold ear-rings, who throws
his nets and cuddles his Juanita and carouses with his mates, hath
more to thank the saints for than miserable I, who, blessed with
wealth, am cursed with loneliness, and loving my fellow-men, yet know
they are but sheep. God's sheep, natheless, silly and deaf to the cry
of their true shepherd, and misled by priestly wolves."
A cripple interrupted his reflections by a whining appeal. Gabriel
shuddered with pity at the sight of his sores, and, giving him a piece
of silver, lost himself in a new reverie on the mystery of suffering.
"Thine herbs sold out too!" cheerily grumbled a well-known voice, and,
turning his head, Gabriel saw that the burly old gentleman addressing
the wrinkled market-woman from the vantage-point of a mule's back was,
indeed, Dom Diego de Balthasar, late professor of the logics at the
University of Coimbra, and newly settled in Porto as a physician.
"Ay, indeed, ere noon!" the dried-up old dame mumbled. "All Porto
seems hungry for bitter herbs to-day. But thus it happens sometimes
about Eastertide, though I love not such salads myself."
"Naturally. They are good for the blood," laughed Dom Diego, as his
eye caught Gabriel's. "And thou hast none, good dame."
There seemed almost a wink in the professorial eye, and the young
horseman smiled in good-natured response to the physician's estimate
of the jest.
"Then are the eaters sensible," he said.
"Ay, the only sensible people in Portugal," rejoined Dom Diego,
changing his speech to Latin, but retaining his smile. "And the only
good blood, Da Costa," he added, with what was now an unmistakable
wink. But this time Gabriel failed to see the point.
"The only good blood?" he repeated. "Dost thou then hold with the
Trappists that meat is an evil?"
A strange, startled look flashed across the physician's face, sweeping
off its ruddy hue, and though his smile returned on the instant, it
was as though forced back.
"In a measure," he replied. "Too much flesh generateth humors and
distempers in the blood. Hence Holy Church hath ordained Lent. She is
no friend to us physicians. _Adeos!_" and he ambled off on his mule,
waving the young horseman a laughing farewell.
But Gabriel, skirting the market, rode up the steep streets troubled
by a vague sense of a mystery, and later repeated the conversation to
a friar at the college.