“In Granada!”
And the madcaps, wild with glee, flashed about the fragrant garden more swiftly than the swallows, whose chirurrí, chirurrí, chicurrí, Beatriiiiíz, Pilarica mocked so truly that her father could not always tell which was child and which was bird.
“What, what, gentlemen! What, what, what! What, what, ladies! What, what, what! As the old duck quacks when the barnyard gets too lively,” called Grandfather, who was trimming one of the boxwood hedges. Even his physical energies seemed to have been somewhat restored in these three eventful weeks since Don Carlos had come home.
“Save your strength, you little spendthrifts,” bade their father. “It’s a long road to Granada, and a longer road back. And now run to Tia Marta to be made fine.”
“May Shags go with us?” shouted Rafael.
“And Don Quixote, please,” begged Pilarica.
“Not all the way,” replied Don Carlos, “but Grandfather, if he will be so kind, may bring the donkeys to meet us at the Gate of the Pomegranates an hour before sundown.”
“With much pleasure,” assented Grandfather, while the children scampered off to be arrayed in their simple best.
Such a joyous day as it was! They walked down slowly, with frequent rests, in which Don Carlos would tell them still more stories of the Cid, and of Bernardo del Carpio, the valiant knight who loved his father even better than he loved his country.
“And so do I,” said Rafael shyly, and Don Carlos, though he shook his head, pinched the square chin, so like his own, and did not look displeased. But at their next rest he began to tell them what a glorious history their country had,—how the Spanish Peninsula, after the Romans, once masters of the world, had occupied and ruled it for nearly seven centuries, was possessed by the Goths, one of the wild, free races from the north of Europe that poured down upon the sunny southern lands and wrested them from the grasp of Rome, then weakened by luxury and unable to resist.