"No," laughed the boy, "though I'm afraid if we were that would not stop me. What we are doing is quite allowed. It is the custom of the country. Anyone may take the overlooked bunches in a vineyard just as they may glean in a corn-field. If I had not picked these, they would have withered. The owner, if he came in at this moment, would wish us good appetite and digestion and probably hunt for another bunch or two to present to us. Not a bad dessert after luncheon."
Higher up the road we found a settlement, where in summer people flock to the hotels to drink the waters and enjoy the country. To-day all was closed for the approaching winter. A few years ago the place had no existence beyond a few scattered farm cottages with latticed windows and thatched roofs, surrounded by small orchards. These still exist. The place looked light and primitive, as though life might here pass very pleasantly. It was too far from the monastery to intrude upon its solitude, and the whole settlement seemed deserted. Not a creature crossed our path until on the down-hill road on the other side we came upon an old woman struggling with an obstinate donkey. Approaching, we heard groans and lamentations: now the animal was threatened, now implored. He was equally indifferent to both appeals. Looking very sagacious, his ears working to and fro and his feet well planted upon the ground, as wide apart as possible, he would not budge an inch.
The old woman would certainly never see eighty again. She was wrinkled and shrivelled and looked a black object; her old face so tanned by the sun that she might almost pass for a woman of colour. Her black hair was wiry and untidy, and a rusty black gown hung about her in scanty folds. We stopped to inquire the cause of her sorrows.
"Ah, señor, this wretched animal will one day be the death of me. But no, you wretched brute," suddenly turning to rage and anger, "I will be the death of you. I know that one of these days I shall take a knife to its throat, and there will be an end of it. And there will be an end of me, for I have no other living. All I can do is to go about gathering sticks and begging halfpence from charity. But this miserable donkey is worse than a pig. A pig will go the wrong way, but my donkey won't go at all. Sometimes for an hour together he doesn't move an inch. I have known him keep me a whole afternoon within ten yards of the same spot. I have beaten him till I'm black and blue"—the old woman had evidently got mixed here—"until my arm has ached for a week and I hadn't a breath left in my body; and all he does is to kick up his hind legs and bray in mockery."
All this time the donkey was switching its tail as though it understood every word that was said and thoroughly appreciated its bad character. And apparently to emphasise the matter, at this moment it suddenly gave a bray so loud, long and à propos that we were convulsed with laughter, in which the old woman joined. The donkey looked round with a ridiculously comical expression upon its face that was evidently put on.
"Ah, señor, it is all very well to laugh, but I am a poor wretched old woman," said this sable donkey-owner. "I never know one day whether I shall not starve the next. My husband died forty years ago. I have one daughter, but she left me. For twenty years I have not heard of her. Mine has been a hard life."
"How often do you wash?" we could not help asking out of curiosity.
"Wash, señor?" opening very wide eyes. "I am too poor to buy soap, and water is scarce. And I am so thin that if I washed, my bones would come through the skin. Señor, if you will bestow your charity upon me I promise not to waste it upon soap."