“May I try, sir?” asked Rafael, as the stranger’s lean fingers fumbled rather helplessly at the foot, and instantly, with a twist and a squeeze and an “Out, if you please,” the boy had drawn the thorn. To prevent the embarrassment of thanks, Rafael turned to his sister.
“Sing the riddle, Pilarica,” he directed, and the little girl, Grandfather’s ready pupil, piped obediently:
“It was this very morning,
When I was out at play,
I found it without seeking it,
I sought it without finding it,
And because I did not find it,
I carried it away.”
The dreamy-eyed pilgrim paid no heed to the rhyme, but dropped to his knees, bowed his head to the ground and kissed Pilarica’s little worn sandal.
“For the sake of Our Lady of the Pillar, whose blessed name you bear,” he said, detaching from his cape—which, in addition to the scallop shells, was studded over with amulets of all sorts—a tiny ivory image of the Virgen del Pilar and pressing it into Pilarica’s hand. “Even so she keeps her state in her own cathedral at Saragossa. Ah, that you might behold her as she stands high on her jasper column, her head encircled by a halo of pure gold so thickly set with sparkling gems that the dazzle of their glory hides her face in light!”
A jovial old peasant, whose costume might have been cut out of the rainbow, pushed him rudely to one side.
“Well do I know Our Lady of the Pillar,” he boasted, “and her jewelled shrine in Saragossa, for I am of Aragon, the bravest province in Spain.”