The Mule himself, it is known, buys more matches than he can ever burn, so much as six boxes at a time, of those cheap sulphurous wooden matches that are made at Barcelona, and the next day will buy more. The Mule, however, is such a silent man that those who are “in the mountains” make no concealment with him, but meet him (wild, unkempt figures that appear quietly from behind a great rock) as he passes on his journeys, and ask him if he has a match upon him. They sometimes look at the mail-bags slung across the stubborn back of Cristofero Colon with eyes that have the hunted, hungry look which Caterina has.
“There is, perhaps, money in there,” they say.
“Perhaps,” answers the Mule, without afterthought.
“It may be a thousand pesetas.”
“Perhaps.”
And the Mule, who is brave enough where Caterina is not concerned, quietly turns his back upon a man who carries a gun, and follows Cristofero Colon. It sometimes happens that he trudges his nineteen miles without meeting any one, with no companion but his mules and his dog. This last-named animal is such as may be met in Spain or even in France at any street corner—not a retriever, nor a foxhound, nor anything at all but a dog as distinguished from a cat or a goat, living a troubled and uncertain life in a world that will always cringe to a pedigree, but has no respect for nondescripts. It was on these journeys that the Mule had so much leisure for thought. For even he could think, according to his dim lights. He was only conscious, however, of an ever-increasing feeling of a sickness—a physical nausea (for he was, of course, a mere earthy-creature)—at the thought of a possible life without Caterina. And it was at the end of a grilling day that the schoolmaster beckoned to him as he passed the school-house, and told him that it was settled—that Caterina would marry him.
“Would you like to see her? She is indoors,” inquired the bearer of the tidings.
“No,” answered the Mule, after a dull pause. “Not to-night. I have my mail-bags, as you see.”
And he clattered on down the narrow street with a dazed look, as if the brightness of Paradise had flashed across his vision.
So it was settled. Caterina and the Mule were to be married, and there had been no love-making, the old women said. “And what,” they asked, “is youth for, if there is to be no love-making?”