WITH HIS FACE TO SHAG’S TAIL.
WITH HIS FACE TO SHAG’S TAIL.

IT was the sultriest afternoon since they had left Granada and the little company rode languidly, wilted under the heats that poured down upon them from that purple sky which, the Andalusians say, God created only to cover Spain. Pedrillo had slung his gay jacket across one shoulder and cocked his hat against the sun. The faithful Carbonera stepped more carefully than ever because she knew that Grandfather was dozing in his seat, and even Capitana was so far appeased by the shady olive spray that Tia Marta had fitted into the headstall as to leave that much-teased rider free to screen herself with a green umbrella bordered with scarlet, a gift from the Galician. Rafael’s red fez had no rim, so that, to escape the sun, he had turned himself about on his donkey and was riding, quite at his ease, with his face to Shags’ tail. There was no danger that Shags would run away with him! Indeed, it would have been hard to tell which of the two was the drowsier, the little gray ass with ears a-droop, or the nid-nodding boy who rode him in such curious fashion. But as for Pilarica, although she held her dainty fan unfolded over her forehead, the shaded eyes were as bright and eager as ever and missed nothing of the sights along the way. It seemed to her that she could never tire of those orchards rich in the pale gold of lemons or the ruby of pomegranates, of the reaches of sugarcane shimmering in the sun, of the rows of mulberries, the bright mazes of red pepper, the plantations of sprawling figs, the bristling hedges of cactus, the rosy judas trees and the pink almonds, the white farm-buildings all enclosed, with their olive presses or their threshing floors, in high walls set with little towers and pinnacles. Whether it was a beggar munching a cabbage stalk in the shadow of a palm, or an old woman in her doorway plaiting grass cordage, or a fruit-seller sitting beside his green and golden pyramid of melons, or a kneeling group of washer-women, with skirts well tucked up, beating out clothes in a rivulet, to each and all she flirted her fan with a coquettish Andalusian greeting.

And now she saw that they were nearing a village. They passed a group of children leading a pet lamb adorned with blue ribbons, that had evidently been taken out into the fields for a frolic and was bringing in its supper, for on the woolly back bobbed up and down a little basket filled with grass, of which Don Quixote attempted to taste. A swineherd strode down from the hills blowing a twisted cow’s-horn, and a huddle of curly-tailed pigs came scrambling after, full fed with acorns and ready for home.

An inn stood at the entrance of the village,—a low house, freshly whitewashed, half hidden in honeysuckle, with yellow mustard and sprigs of mignonette springing up on the roof between the tiles that shone green and red in the keen, quivering light. A lattice built in the open space before the door supported the wandering stems of an old grapevine, whose broad leaves made a canopy for the rush chairs and rickety tables set out beneath. As the cavalcade advanced, a line of roguish boys, hand in hand, ran down the street, barring the way, singing as they came:

“And as good a tea-bell as any,” remarked Pedrillo. “It is three hours yet to Cordova and supper. We may as well make it four. Eh, DoÑa Marta?”

“A sparrow in the hand is better than a bustard on the wing,” assented a dusty voice from under the green umbrella.

So they all dismounted, while the hens, calling to one another: “Tk ca! Tk ca! Take care!” scuttled before the mules and donkeys as these were led into the path of shadow east of the house, where water and a few handfuls of barley soon gave them a better opinion of life. The travellers, seeking the shade of the rustic arbor, were served by a stately, withered old dame with fig bread, made into rolls like sausages, with cherries and aniseed water. Noting a row of beehives along the garden hedge, Grandfather sang softly:

and the old dame, comprehending, brought a piece of delicate honeycomb. But from ground and trees there came such a lulling hum of insects, like the whirr of fairy spinning-wheels, that Grandfather was fast asleep before the honeycomb arrived. Rafael and Pilarica, however, saw to it that the dainty was not slighted.

“It’s only a snack, this,” apologized Pedrillo, “but we’ll fare better in Cordova.”

“Bread with love is sweeter than a chicken with strife,” said Tia Marta gloomily. “I would our journey ended at Cordova.”

“Tell us about our Uncle Manuel, please, Don Pedrillo,” spoke up Rafael suddenly. “Is he a good man?”

“Ay, as upright as the finger of Saint John. He is no common carrier, your uncle. People trust him with packets of rare value, and he is charged with affairs of importance, as the receipt and payment of money.”

“Is money important?” asked Rafael.

“Your uncle thinks so, but I tell him that many a man gets to heaven in tow breeches. Yet surely it fares ill in this world with the people of the brown cloak. There is a saint, they say, called San Guilindon, who is forever dancing before the throne of God and singing as he dances:

On that saint I, for one, shall not waste candles.”

“Does Uncle Manuel ever get angry with his mules?” asked Pilarica anxiously, for she had not travelled the white road all these days without hearing the curses of harsh voices and the thwack of heavy blows.

“Not often, Little Canary of the Moon. Don Manuel is calmer than the parish church.”

“And our Cousin Dolores?” pursued Pilarica. “Is she pretty?”

“Nothing is ugly at fifteen.”

“And our Aunt Barbara, my father’s own sister? She is lovely, of course,” asserted Rafael, the wistful look crossing his brown face.

but DoÑa Barbara is one of the best.”

Suddenly Tia Marta beat her fist upon the table.

“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.

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

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

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

“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 growl went up from the benches, but Uncle Manuel interposed:

“And what wonder that her patience has lost the stirrup? Tired and hungry, and then baited like a bull by your rusty wits! Out to the courtyard with all of you and help Pedrillo curry the beasts.”

But Tia Marta dropped scalding tears of vexation into her bowl of puchero, though that delectable mixture of boiled meat, chickpeas and all manner of garden stuff, was already quite hot enough with red pepper and garlic.

Uncle Manuel, having seen to it that the food was prompt and plentiful, did not speak to any of them as they ate, but busied himself with adding up columns of figures in a much-worn account book that he drew from an inner pocket. When they had finished, however, he took from the inn keeper’s hand a little iron lamp, shaped like a boat, and helped Grandfather up the ladder that led to the loft. There he conducted them to two small rooms, roughly boarded off, with a low partition between them. Hanging the lamp by its ring from a nail, he opened the beds to make sure that the coarse sheets were fresh, and left them with a grave “Sleep in peace.”

The mattresses were stuffed with cornhusks of an especially lumpy sort, and that, perhaps, as well as the spell of Cordova, had something to do with the fact that they all slept restlessly, dreaming homesick dreams. Tia Marta heard the hawks wheel and whistle above the Giralda, and their faces were like the face of Pedrillo. Pilarica, nestling beside her, moved her little white feet, dancing for Big Brother, who held one hand hidden as if to surprise her with a gift when the dance was done. And beyond the partition Grandfather murmured the pet name of his twin sister who had died in childhood, more than threescore years ago, while Rafael’s red lips curved in a happy smile, for he stood with his father in the roaring heart of a swift battle-ship, which changed in an instant to a beautiful stillness, and they stood in the heart of God.