The buttons were sewed on with Tia Marta’s stoutest thread, and so, with song and jest, with bustle and stir and the excitement of trifling mischances, the great departure was made. On each mule, already hung with saddle-bags, Pedrillo had fitted a round stuffed frame, covering the entire back. Over this he had spread a rainbow-hued cloth and roped on baggage until the mules, in protest, swelled out their sides so that the cords could not stretch over anything more. Then Pedrillo, after vainly remonstrating with each animal in turn, had strapped another gay manta over the whole. On Peregrina, whose harness boasted a double quantity of red tassels and strings of little bells, he had piled up the baggage so cunningly as to afford a support for Tia Marta’s back, but the Daughter of the Giralda, though undaunted by the loftiness of her proposed throne, had made her own choice among the mules.
“This is mine,” she declared perversely, laying her hand on Capitana, a meek-mannered beast that stood dolefully on three legs, her ears drooping, her eyes half-closed, and her head laid pensively upon the rump of the soot-colored Carbonera.
Pedrillo hesitated a moment, then grinned and helped Tia Marta scramble up to her chosen perch, where she crooked her right knee about a projection of the frame in front with an air that said she had been on mule-back many a time before.
“Now give me Roxa,” she demanded. “Do you suppose I would leave my gossip behind?”
But Roxa had her own views about that, and no sooner had Pedrillo, catching puss up by the scruff of her neck, flung her into Tia Marta’s arms, than she tore herself loose, bounded on to Capitana’s head and off again to the ground, where she had shot out of sight under the shrubbery in less time than Tia Marta could have said Bah. But Tia Marta had no chance to say even that, for Capitana, insulted at the idea of being ridden by a clawing cat, curled her upper lip, kicked out at Don Quixote, snapped at the heels of Grandfather who was just clambering to his station on the back of Carbonera, skipped to one side, dashed by the other mules and, with a flourish of ears and tail, took the head of the procession. Thus it was that, just as the full sunrise flushed the summits of the Sierra Nevada, a lively cavalcade burst forth from the garden gate. Capitana, utterly disdainful of Tia Marta’s frenzied tugs on the rope reins, pranced on ahead, her bells in full jingle. Pedrillo, dragging the reluctant Peregrina along by the bridle, ran after, shouting lustily. Grandfather followed on Carbonera, and the children on their donkeys brought up the rear. It was not a moment for tears. Rafael, as the head of this disorderly family, was urging Shags forward to the rescue of Tia Marta, and when Pilarica turned for a farewell look, what she saw was Roxa atop of the garden wall,—Roxa serenely washing her face and hoping that the new family would keep Lent all the year, so that there might be plentiful scraps of fish.
XII
THE OPEN ROAD
EARLY as it was, the Alhambra children were out in force to bid their playmates good-bye.
“A happy journey!” “Till we meet again!” called the better-nurtured boys and girls, while the gypsy toddlers, Benito and Rosita, echoed with gusto: “Eat again!”
By this time Pedrillo had overtaken Capitana and, seizing her by the bridle, was proceeding to thump her well with a piece of Tia Marta’s broom, broken in the course of the mule’s antics, when Pilarica, putting Don Quixote to his best paces, bore down upon the scene in such distress of pity that the beating had to be given up. But Pedrillo twisted the halter around Capitana’s muzzle and so tied her to the tail of Peregrina. Thereupon Capitana, all her mulish obstinacy enlisted to maintain her leadership, began to bray and plunge in such wild excitement that even the decorous Carbonera danced in sympathy. Finally Capitana flung herself back with all her weight and pulled until it seemed that Peregrina’s tail must be dragged out by the roots, but, happily, the halter broke, and again Capitana, trumpeting her triumph, came to the front.
“Child of the Evil One!” groaned Pedrillo, rubbing his wrenched shoulder, while Tia Marta swayed on her pinnacle, and Peregrina cautiously twitched the martyred tail to make sure it was still on. And after Capitana’s escapades, Don Quixote still further delayed the progress of the train by a determination to turn in at every courtyard where he had been accustomed to deliver charcoal and pay a parting call.