In Sunny Spain with Pilarica and Rafael

“Ay de mi! That I, an Andalusian of Seville, must go to Galicia, to the ends of the earth, to serve in the house of strangers!” she cried chokingly. “How shall I bear the ways of a mistress? Whether the pitcher hit the stone, or the stone hit the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.”

Then there fell upon the group a silence that awakened Grandfather.

“Is the coach rolling over sand,” he asked, “or are the wings of an angel shedding hush as he passes overhead?”

Pedrillo, who had fallen into a deep muse, roused himself with a laugh.

“We have all been dreaming,” he said in his gruffest tone. “It is because we are so near to Cordova, the City of Dreams. And yet we are three hours away. But he who goes on, gets there.”

As the muleteer was paying the modest charge, the children watched the swineherd who, in his tattered cloak and sugar-loaf hat, was passing down the street, while the pigs, without pausing to say good night, scurried off every one to his own threshold. A goatherd, too, whose cloak was faded and whose leather gaiters flapped in rags, was milking his goats from door to door.

“People of the brown cloak!” murmured Rafael thoughtfully.

It was already cooler and the beasts they mounted were refreshed as well as the riders.

“Go on your way with God!” called the old dame from the threshold.

“And do thou abide with God!” chorused the travellers.

Not until the evening was well advanced did they find themselves at last treading the stone lanes of Cordova, a mysterious, Oriental city, whose narrow streets were empty at this time except for a few cloaked, gliding figures and silent except for the tinkling of guitars. It was dark between the high walls of the houses, yet the children caught an occasional glimpse through some arched doorway, as the tenant came or went, of an enchanted patio, its marble floor and leaping fountain transformed by the moonlight into the unreal beauty of a dream. In every street at least one cavalier stood clinging to the grating of a Moorish window, whispering “caramel phrases,” or, his gaze lifted to some dim balcony, pouring forth his soul in serenade.

“If to these iron bars
Thou wilt not bend thine head,
This very night yon shining stars
Shall see me lying dead.”

“Ah, this is like my Seville. So long as lovers ‘eat iron,’ we are in Andalusia yet,” sighed Tia Marta.

“Though Murillo leans from Heaven
And his brush in the sunset dips,
He cannot paint the blushes
Of your face beneath my lips.”

“I know about Murillo. He painted a whole skyful of Virgins and cherubs. Grandfather told me,” piped up Pilarica.

“O these brunettes! Their velvet eyes
Most terrible appear,
For they slay more men in one short hour
Than Death slays in a year.”

“Yet I warrant you he’ll eat a good breakfast to-morrow morning,” chuckled Pedrillo.

“If San Rafael should offer me
His wings to scale the sky
– O my love! my love! —
I’d refuse, and the wise Archangel
Would know the reason why.
– O my love! –  ”

“That is my saint,” said Rafael proudly.

“Ay, and the Guardian of Cordova and the Patron of Travellers,” added Pedrillo. “His image stands high on the bell-tower yonder and it would be well for you to thank him for our good journey.”

“Does he take care of travellers on the ocean, too?” asked Rafael, remembrance of his father and brother tugging always at his faithful little heart.

But Pedrillo did not answer, for suddenly the three mules, quickening their tired pace, whisked about and made for a familiar portal.

The children let Shags and Don Quixote pick their own way through the great, dirty courtyard, crammed with carts and canvas-covered wagons, with bales, baskets and packages of all sorts, with horses, mules and donkeys and with sleeping muleteers outstretched on the rough cobblestones, each wrapped in the manta of his beast, his hat pulled down over his face and his head pillowed on a saddle.

“But their beds are as hard as San Lorenzo’s gridiron,” exclaimed Tia Marta.

“And much colder,” added Pedrillo. “Yet hear them snore! There’s no bed like the pack-saddle, after all. Here! I will tie up these friends of ours for a minute, while I take you in to see Don Manuel.”

So he hastily fastened the animals to iron rings set in a wall, on which hung huge collars and other clumsy pieces of harness as well as festoons of red peppers strung up there to dry.

Crossing a threshold, they were at once in a large room, so smoky that the children fell to coughing. An immense fireplace, where a big kettle hung by a chain over the glowing embers, occupied all the upper end. Stone benches were built into the wall on either side of this enormous hearth, and from one of them a man arose and came slowly forward.

“In a good hour, Don Manuel,” was Pedrillo’s greeting.

“In a bad hour,” returned his employer bluntly. “You are two days late and I was minded, if you did not turn up by to-morrow morning, to go on without you.”

Uncle Manuel was of robust figure and weather-beaten face. He wore, like Galician carriers in general, a black sheepskin jacket, but his was fastened in front by chain-clasps of silver. His manners were not Andalusian, for he did not embrace even Pilarica. He looked the children over keenly and not unkindly, led Grandfather to his own seat near the fire, on which the inn keeper had thrown a heap of brushwood to welcome the newcomers, and paid no attention whatever to Tia Marta, who felt herself ready to burst with rage. It was Pedrillo who found a place for her at the very end of the opposite bench and even this slight courtesy called out a noisy burst of laughter from his comrades.

“And see what a dandy he has made of himself,” mocked Hilario, who resented, in behalf of his own ginger-colored blouse and cowhide sandals, Pedrillo’s new finery.

“Dress a toad and it looks well,” taunted Tenorio, so long and lean and bony that Pilarica quietly held up her doll to get a good view of him.

“If it only had wings, the sheep would be the best bird yet,” put in 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.”