To the merriment of the vintagers the merriment of the guests responded like an echo. It was impossible to resist the influence of the Bacchic joyousness, the delirious gayety which seemed to float in the atmosphere. Among all the delightful spectacles which Nature has to offer, there is none more delightful than that of her fruitfulness in the vintage time, the baskets heaped full of clusters of ruddy or dark red grapes, which robust men, almost naked, like fauns, carry and empty into the vat or wine-press; the laughter of the vintagers hidden among the foliage, disputing, challenging each other from vine to vine to sing, a gayety which is followed by a reaction at nightfall—as is usually the case with all violent expressions of feeling in which there is a great expenditure of muscular strength; the merry challenges ending in some prolonged Celtic wail, some plaintive a-laá-laá. The pagan sensation of well-being, the exhilaration produced by the pure air of the country, the mere joy of existence, communicated themselves to the spectators of these delightful scenes, and at night, while the chorus of fauns and Bacchantes danced to the sound of the flute and the timbrel, the gentry diverted themselves with childish frolics in the great house.
The young ladies slept all together in a large, bare apartment, the Rosary-room, the male guests being lodged by Mendez in another spacious room called the screen-room, because in it was a screen, as ugly as it was antique; the arch-priest only being excluded from this community of lodging, his obesity and his habit of snoring making it impossible for any person of even average sensibility to tolerate him as a roommate; and the gay and mischievous party being thus divided into two sections, there came to be established between them a sort of merry warfare, so that the occupants of the Rosary-room thought of nothing but playing tricks on the occupants of the screen-room, from which resulted innumerable witty inventions and amusing skirmishes. Between the two camps there was a neutral one—that of the Comba family, whose slumbers were respected and who were exempt in the matter of practical jokes, although the feminine band often took Nieves as their confidante and counselor.
"Nieves, come here, Nieves; see, how foolish Carmen Agonde is; she says she likes the arch-priest, that barrel, better than Don Eugeniño, the parish priest of Naya, because it makes her laugh, she says, to see him perspiring and to look at the rolls of fat in the back of his neck. And say, Nieves, what trick shall we play to-night on Don Eugeniño? And on Ramon Limioso, who has been daring us all day?"
It was Teresa Molende, a masculine-looking black-eyed brunette, a good specimen of the mountaineer, who spoke thus.
"They must pay for the trick they played on us yesterday," added her sister Elvira, the sentimental poetess.
"What was that?"
"You must know that they locked Carmen up. They are the very mischief! They shut her up in Mendez's room. What is there that they won't think of! They tied her hands behind her back with a silk handkerchief, tied another handkerchief over her mouth, so that she couldn't scream, and left her there like a mouse in a mouse-trap. And we, hunting and hunting for Carmen, and no Carmen to be seen. And there we were thinking all sorts of things until Mendez went up to his room to go to bed and found her there. Of course they had that silly creature to deal with, for if it had been I——"
"They would shut you up too," declared Carmen.
"Me!" exclaimed the Amazon, drawing up her portly figure. "They would be the ones to get shut up!"
"But they entrapped me into it," affirmed Carmen, looking as if she were just ready to cry. "See, Nieves, they said to me: 'Put your hands behind you, Carmiña, and we'll put a five-dollar piece in them,' and I put them behind me, and they were so treacherous as to tie them together."