XIX THE END OF THE ROAD

THERE was still a big lump under Rafael’s hat when, a few afternoons later, our travellers, after a brief siesta, started out on the last stage of their long journey. The muleteers were in the wildest spirits, tossing coplas from one to another and often roaring out in chorus:

Even Tia Marta could not deny the charm of the landscape,—ranges of wooded mountains, reaches of green meadow and of farmlands waving with wheat, cozy farm-houses with broad, overshadowing roofs and a wealth of vines creeping up the white-washed walls, but she waxed ever more indignant at sight of the sturdy peasant-women working in the fields, driving the ploughs, wielding old-fashioned hoes and spades, loading bullock-carts with produce, and carrying boxes, barrels, bales, all manner of heavy and unwieldy burdens, on their heads.

“So that is what a woman’s head is good for in Galicia,” she remarked tartly. “And I’ll warrant that the husbands of these women are spending, out of every four and twenty hours, five and twenty at the tavern.”

Uncle Manuel, who had insisted on having the whole Andalusian party ride at the head of the train with him, that he might point out to them the first view of the pilgrim city, shook his head over this arithmetic, and Pedrillo, festive in a fringed fire-red scarf, ventured to remonstrate:

“Not so, Doña Marta. The husbands emigrate to South America, that they may grow rich there. Some of them die of the Galician homesickness, but others come back with their wallets full of gold. And there are many fishermen, who are oft casting their lines and nets.”

Grandfather caught only the last word, for Carbonera was in a laggard mood, but one word was bait enough to land a riddle:

“We have lost the first day of the feast, but we shall be in early enough for the fireworks, I hope,” said Uncle Manuel. His eyes were shining with an eagerness that made quite another man of him. “Look well to that rogue of a Blanco,” he added to Bastiano, who had come up with a peach for Pilarica. “We must not have any mishaps to detain us this afternoon.”

“Never fear!” growled Bastiano. “If we fall in with a wild boar, we have Don Juan Bolondron and his popgun to defend us.”

Rafael, who had been praised and petted (and forgiven) for his exploit on the mountainside until he was in no small danger of self-conceit, detected something that he did not like in this allusion and looked up sharply.

“Who is Don Juan Bolondron?” he inquired.

“Ask Pedrillo. He’s the story-teller,” replied Bastiano. “I’m taking his place at the rear, and I know why, too.

“Once there was a poor shoemaker named Bolondron,” began Pedrillo in a great hurry. “All day he would sit cobbling at his bench and as he cobbled he would sing coplas about his craft, as this:

“Or this,” struck in Grandfather.

“One day when he was sitting on his bench, taking a bowl of porridge,” continued Pedrillo, “it happened that a few drops were spilled, and flies swarmed upon them, and he slapped at the flies and killed seven. Then he began to shout: ‘I am a great warrior and from this time on I will be called Don Juan Bolondron Slay-Seven-at-a-Blow.’ Now there was in the region about the city a forest, and in the forest a wild boar that liked the people so well he would eat several of them every week. The king had sent many hunters out to take him, but always they ran away or he devoured them, for he was the fiercest of the fierce. One day it came to the king’s ears that he had in his city a man called Don Juan Bolondron Slay-Seven-at-a-Blow.

“ ‘This must be a terrible fighter,’ he said. ‘Bring him hither to me.’

“So Juan was brought into the royal presence. He wore his best shoes, but he trembled in them, though the king only looked at him out of two eyes, quite like anybody else, and said:

“ ‘They tell me, my man, that you are mighty in battle. Is it true that you slay seven at a blow?’

“ ‘It is true, your Sacred Royal Majesty,’ answered the cobbler, who could only guess how people talk at court.

“ ‘Well and good,’ said the king. ‘I happen to have, as kings usually do, a very beautiful daughter, and to you will I give her if you kill the wild boar that makes such havoc in my city. If you fail, by the way, you will lose your head. Choose from my armory the weapons that you like best, and kill the boar the first thing after breakfast to-morrow.’

“So in the morning Don Juan Bolondron, who had armed himself as well as he knew how, went out to the forest, his knees shaking with fright, to slay the monster. But he went so slowly, wondering how, if he should be so lucky as to escape from the boar, he could escape from the king, that it was past dinner-time when he arrived, and the beast, who could not bear to be kept waiting for his meals, rushed out upon him, bristling all over with rage and hunger. When Don Juan Bolondron saw this horrible, flame-eyed creature coming, he began to run with all his might back to the king’s palace and the boar came after, so that it was written down in history as the swiftest race ever known. Don Juan reached the palace first and hid behind the door, while the boar, losing sight of him, dashed on into the patio, where were stationed the royal guards. The soldiers, glad of something to do, discharged their muskets all at once, and the boar, much to his surprise, fell dead as a stone. Don Juan Bolondron, who had peeped out to see how matters were going on, now popped into their midst, drawn sword in hand, upbraiding them with having slaughtered the monster that he was driving in from the forest to give for a pet to the king.

“The king, who was sitting, greatly bored, on his throne upstairs, ran down to see who had called, and when he found that Don Juan had been bringing the boar as a present to his feet, he was so touched that he married him to the princess before supper.

“Unluckily, Don Juan dreamt of his bench and, as he had a way of talking in his sleep, he called to the princess:

“ ‘Here, wife! Hand me my last, will you! The pincers, too! And my awl, wife, my awl!’

“The princess, startled awake by his impatient cries, was naturally much shocked to think that her father might have mistaken a cobbler for a hero. So in the morning she went to the king before he had finished shaving and asked him to look into it.

“The king had Don Juan Bolondron Slay-Seven-at-a-Blow summoned to his chamber at once and thundered, waving his frothy razor:

“ ‘Fellow, are you a cobbler or a king’s son-in-law? You certainly can’t be both, even if I have to cut off your head, after all, to set this blunder straight.’

“ ‘High-and-Mighty Father-in-Law,’ replied Don Juan, ‘give yourself no concern. Her Highness, the Princess, my honorable Lady, though very beautiful, has only a woman’s wit. She was confused with sleep, too, and misunderstood what I said. I was again in my dream taunting the wild boar, as I taunted him when I was dragging him by his ears up the palace steps, telling him that his face was flat as a last, his teeth dull as pincers, and his bite no more to be dreaded than a cobbler’s awl. You see, sire, how a woman, unused to deeds of valor, would fail to understand.’

“ ‘They are such impulsive creatures,’ sighed the king. ‘It is very troublesome. Do you not see, my daughter, how rashly you jumped to a conclusion? Now go in peace, both of you, and don’t come bothering me again with your domestic quarrels.’

“And so,” concluded Pedrillo, “my story ends with bread and pepper and a grain of salt, and I’ve no more to say.”

“I do not care for that story,” said Rafael, who had grown very red in the face.

“But the Princess was right,” protested Pilarica, with a puzzled little pucker of her forehead.

“If the Devil had not invented lying, that shoemaker would,” observed Tia Marta. “But your tiresome tale has not been quite useless, Don Pedrillo. It has put Juanito fast to sleep.”

“And Grandfather, too,” added Pilarica.

“The better for them,” remarked Uncle Manuel, patting the glossy neck of his offended mule, for Capitana had just been so rude as to frisk past Coronela and take the lead.

Pedrillo was quite disconcerted by these frank criticisms and croaked dolefully, pushing Peregrina on beside the impudent, triumphant Capitana:

“What on earth is the matter with the man?” queried Tia Marta.

“There is something I would say to you before we come to the city,” faltered Pedrillo.

“Say it now,” bade Tia Marta briskly. “Of what art afraid, heart of butter?”

“My mother’s son has no wife,” ventured Pedrillo wistfully. “I know,” he went on to say, with his old twinkle, “that choosing a wife is as risky as choosing a melon. I know that there is in heaven a cake kept for husbands who never repented of their choice, and into which, up to this day, no one has ever set tooth—”

“Bah!” interrupted Tia Marta. “That is because no husbands ever went to heaven.”

“My house is only a cottage,” pursued Pedrillo humbly, “and Don Manuel’s house is large and fine. It was a pilgrim inn once and still has the sacred shell of St. James carved over the door. But ‘little bird, little nest.’ ”

“And what would I be in Don Manuel’s grand house?” asked Tia Marta bitterly. “A cook of cabbage broth, without a place of my own to scold in or anybody of my own to scold, not even allowed to keep for myself this child as harmless as a crust of bread, this innocent as pure as a water-jar.”

And she kissed the baby head that nestled so confidingly against her shoulder.

“There will always be room in my cottage and in my heart for Juanito,” promised Pedrillo.

Tia Marta, dropping her look to Capitana’s inquisitive, pricked-up ears, made answer in an Andalusian copla:

“I know I’m not much to look at,” admitted Pedrillo, a trifle aggrieved by the comparison.

“No, you are not,” assented Tia Marta. “Truth is God’s daughter. But you are a handy little piece of a man, and since I have a loaf of bread, I’ll not ask for cheese-cakes. The poor should be contented with what they find and not go seeking for truffles at the bottom of the sea.”

The two were so absorbed in each other that they failed to notice Pilarica, who had ridden up on Don Quixote and was now charging joyously down the line, telling everybody that Don Pedrillo and Tia Marta, while both making believe to kiss Juanito, had really kissed each other. The news was received with peals of laughter, and all the carriers ran forward, voicing saucy congratulations:

“No summer like a late summer,” mocked Bastiano.

“You would better take me, Doña Marta,” advised Tenorio, whose legs looked longer than ever, attired in their festival garb of chestnut-colored breeches, with rows of glass buttons down the sides, “for I have a nose, at least.” And then, turning back, he sang over his shoulder at Pedrillo:

“Don’t trust him, Doña Marta,” teased Hilario, whose shabby suit was set off for the occasion by a red and gold handkerchief. “He loses his heart to somebody every trip.

“A truce to your nonsense!” called Don Manuel, who had urged Coronela on to the crest of the long rise they had been slowly ascending. “Look! Look! Yonder is Santiago de Compostela.”

All gazed in silence upon the pilgrim city, set upon a hill in a circle of hills, its many groups of towers and spires tending upward on every side toward its crowning cathedral of St. James.

Don Manuel beamed upon the group of Andalusians.

“Will you not be happy here?” he asked, his iron face all quivering with joy and love, while the honest Hilario wept aloud and the other three carriers, even Bastiano, did not restrain their tears. “Listen! Where there are church bells, there is everything. Even at this distance I can hear them ringing,—the five-score and fourteen holy bells of Santiago.”