FROM time to time, while our travellers took their ease in the locust shade, other wayfarers came toiling up or down the steep and stony road and paused to drink at the stream. There were two strings of pack-mules during the hour, the muleteers passing the laconic greeting: “With God!” A freckled lad of a dozen years or so, in charge of a procession of donkeys nearly hidden under their swaying loads of greens, was too busy for any further salutation than an impish grimace at Rafael. There were boorish farmers, doubled up on side-saddles. There was a group of rustic conscripts, ruddy-cheeked, saucer-eyed, bewildered, their little all bundled into red and yellow handkerchiefs and slung from sticks over their shoulders. There was a village baker with rings of horny bread strung on a pole,—bread eyed so wistfully by a lame dog who was tugging along a blind old beggar that Uncle Manuel, quite shamefaced at his own generosity, gave Rafael a copper to buy one of those dusty circlets for the two friends in misfortune.

Here it was the children first heard the unforgettable squeal of a Basque cart. Far up the mountain road sounded vaguely a groan, a rumble, and then a rasping screech that startled Grandfather out of his nap and made Tia Marta, snatching up Baby Bunting, scramble to her feet in consternation. When at last the yoke of stalwart oxen, with a strip of red-dyed sheepskin draped above their patient eyes, came lumbering down the difficult descent into view, the children saw that they were attached to a rude cart, whose wheels were massive disks of wood, into which a clumsy wooden axle-tree was fitted, grating with that uncanny squeakity-squeak at every revolution. The cart had a heaping load of cabbages, together with a bundle of fodder for the oxen and a basket of provision for the driver, who plodded along beside them.

“What a hideous, horrible racket!” scolded Tia Marta, while Juanito, jealous of this unexpected rival, screamed his lustiest.

“Hush, baby, hush!” soothed Pedrillo. “Hush, or the Bugaboo will get thee. Nay, DoÑa Marta, that is the music of my homeland. We all love it here. The oxen would not pull without it. Besides, it scares away the wild beasts of the mountains and puts even the Devil to flight.”

“And see those cabbages, the bread of the poor,” exulted Hilario. “Ah, there is no dish in all Spain so good as our Galician cabbage-broth.”

The wail of the cart, that jolted by without stopping, was yet in their ears, when Pilarica, who was still gazing after it, began to dance with excitement.

“O Rafael! Rafael!” she cried. “Come and see! Come quick! These are the wonderfullest people yet.”

She had caught sight of a band of pilgrims on their way to Santiago, to the shrine of St. James, whose festival falls on July twenty-fourth and still attracts devotees from all over the Peninsula, especially the northern provinces and Portugal, and even from beyond the Pyrenees. It was a picturesque group that came footing it bravely up that hot, rocky road. The bright sunshine brought out the crude colors of their homespun petticoats, broidered jackets, blouses, sashes, hose. The women’s heads were wrapped in white kerchiefs, but over these they wore, like the men, broad hats whose rims were caught up on one side by scallop shells. Notwithstanding the mid-afternoon heat, most of them kept on their short, round capes, spangled all over with these pilgrim shells, sacred to St. James. Their staffs, wound with gaudy ribbons, had little gourds fastened to the upper end. Some carried leather water-bottles at their belts, but they had no need of knapsacks, for food was given them freely all along the route and, if charitable lodging failed, the pine groves made fragrant chambers.

The pilgrims paused to drink at the cascade, and the children, while careful not to intrude, ventured, hand in hand, a little nearer. One man came limping toward them and seated himself on a stone. He was making the pilgrimage barefoot, as an act of devotion, and a thorn had run itself into his heel.

PILGRIMS ON THE WAY TO SANTIAGO.
PILGRIMS ON THE WAY TO SANTIAGO.

“May I try, sir?” asked Rafael, as the stranger’s lean fingers fumbled rather helplessly at the foot, and instantly, with a twist and a squeeze and an “Out, if you please,” the boy had drawn the thorn. To prevent the embarrassment of thanks, Rafael turned to his sister.

“Sing the riddle, Pilarica,” he directed, and the little girl, Grandfather’s ready pupil, piped obediently:

The dreamy-eyed pilgrim paid no heed to the rhyme, but dropped to his knees, bowed his head to the ground and kissed Pilarica’s little worn sandal.

“For the sake of Our Lady of the Pillar, whose blessed name you bear,” he said, detaching from his cape—which, in addition to the scallop shells, was studded over with amulets of all sorts—a tiny ivory image of the Virgen del Pilar and pressing it into Pilarica’s hand. “Even so she keeps her state in her own cathedral at Saragossa. Ah, that you might behold her as she stands high on her jasper column, her head encircled by a halo of pure gold so thickly set with sparkling gems that the dazzle of their glory hides her face in light!”

A jovial old peasant, whose costume might have been cut out of the rainbow, pushed him rudely to one side.

“Well do I know Our Lady of the Pillar,” he boasted, “and her jewelled shrine in Saragossa, for I am of Aragon, the bravest province in Spain.”

“My father used to live in Saragossa,” volunteered Rafael, with the shy pride that always marked his mentions of his father. “He has told us of Our Lady of the Pillar and of the leaning tower.”

“Ah, that swallow is flown. The tower fell a matter of eight years back. My old wife and I can give you a song about that, for this little honey-throat is not the only musician in Spain. Ay, you shall hear what we old birds can do. The children sing this song, you understand, in dancing rows, one row answering the other, but that wife of mine is equal to a baker’s dozen of children. Look at her! Is she not devoted to the good Apostle to trudge all this way on foot? A long, rough way it is, but many amens reach to heaven. Come forth, my Zephyr! Waft! Waft!”

And he began to troll as merrily as if he had not a sin in the world, cutting a new caper with every line:

Out of the applauding cluster of pilgrims a very stout but very robust old woman, her skirt well slashed so as to display her carmine petticoat, came mincing to meet him, taking up the song:

An ironic laugh broke from the listeners, while the husband, flourishing legs and arms in still more amazing antics, caught up the response:

The old dame flirted her canary-colored skirts and skipped as nimbly as he, replying in her rough but rich contralto:

At this the children looked so surprised and self-conscious that the shrewd peasants guessed at once from what province they came.

roared the man with special gusto, and frisked up to Pilarica, who dodged away in quick displeasure from those open arms.

But Rafael, to his utter horror, was captured by the monstrous matron, who grasped the boy in a pair of marvellously strong hands and swung him, blushing and struggling, up to her shoulder, while, gamboling still, she led the chorus of pilgrims in the final stanza:

Thereupon she enfolded Rafael in a smothering hug, smacked him heartily on each glowing cheek, and then let him drop as suddenly as the tower. Before he could fairly catch his breath, that astonishing old couple had started on with the rest of the Apostle’s devotees, leaving Rafael still crimson with shame and wrath at this outrage on his boyish dignity.

“But pilgrims behave no better than gypsies,” he declared hotly to Uncle Manuel, who had come up to protect the children in case the fun should go too far.

“For him who does not like soup, a double portion,” laughed Uncle Manuel. “You may not always find a kiss so hard to bear. She meant no harm, boy. These jolly peasants will make their offerings and do their penances piously enough at Santiago, even though they frolic on the trip. It is their holiday. There were wild doings along these roads in the old times, I’ll be bound,” went on the master-carrier, who grew more talkative and more genial with every day that brought him nearer home. “Then pilgrims from all over the world, in swarms and multitudes, sinners and saints all jumbled together, wearied their feet upon our stony ways. They say there were popes and kings among them. Be that as it may. There were scamps and fools by the plenty, I’ve no doubt. These mountains were infested with bandits then, who lay in wait to rob the pilgrims of the treasure they were bringing to help build the great church of St. James. Stealing a kiss is the worst that happens now. That is bad enough, eh? Well, well! What shall we do to cheer him up, Pilarica? Shall I let the two of you ride Coronela up this next steep bit? I like to feel Galicia under my feet. Coronela will count you no more than two feathers, while those little asses of yours, who are not used to these long mountain pulls, will gladly be rid of their riders.”

And this is how it happened that, some twenty minutes later, Rafael and Pilarica found themselves proudly leading the train, which they had already left so far behind that, at the second turn of the road, it was out of sight. Before them, however, stretched the straggling line of the pilgrims.

Rafael squared his chin.

“I’ll not risk passing that awful old woman; that I won’t,” he avowed, boldly turning Coronela out of the highway and urging her up the sheer side of the mountain. “Hold on to me tight, Pilarica, for Coronela will have to scrabble here.”

The spirited mule, invigorated by her hour of grazing, took the pathless slope lightly and steadily, but a tumult of calls and laughter showed that the children were recognized and the purpose of their daring detour surmised. Rafael, half expecting to see the rotund figure of the lively old dame leaping after him from crag to crag, recklessly pushed Coronela on. When at last she slipped and slid, struck a level ledge, regained her footing by a gallant effort and stood trembling, they were far up the mountainside, quite shut away from all view of the road by masses of ribbed and jagged rock. Such a wild, lonely place as it was! These rocks, all notched and needled and bristling, had a savage look. There was an angry rock with horns that threatened them, and an ugly rock with teeth that grinned at them. And out from behind the most wicked-looking rock of all peered a man, a red-eyed, haggard, desperate fellow, who had broken jail a week before and, hunted like a wolf, was skulking in the hills, waiting his chance to escape from Galicia and then from Spain. Those bloodshot eyes of his stared greedily at the superb mule and his hand shot out to clutch the bridle.