It was a relief as we slowly mounted upwards to come upon the perpetrator of the crime in the very act of further blocking our path. Taken thus red-handed, he was not one whit dismayed, but complacently stepped aside to let us pass.
The opportunity was not one to be missed. Half drawing up and turning round on the box, Pepe launched towards him a few objurgations in trenchant Majorcan. And the Good Fairy, putting her head out of the carriage, added the weight of her gentle reproach.
"What is this you do?" she asked in her pretty Spanish. "Placing stones on the road to welcome the strangers! Is this the way you show them the delicacy of the Spaniard?"
Thus doubly reproached, the caminero stood transfixed; and our emotions having found vent, we drove on, leaving him with his hand raised to his brass-bound hat, his mouth open but speechless.
Having reached the summit, we began the descent, losing sight of our grand mountains, but gaining a glimpse of the Mediterranean, which glowed in that warm blue that makes one wonder—until one tries the temperature—why sea-bathing should be confined to the summer months.
The tawny-roofed houses of Deyá cluster on a high rock that rises like an island from out a sea of valley which is girdled by precipitous mountains. Streams in cascades were rushing down in a joyful pell-mell, the cherry-trees were heavy with blossom, and the pomegranates were opening their first delicate copper-tinted leaves as we drove along the highroad that follows the curve of the valley.
The attentive chef of the Marina had made us independent of fondas, and Pepe had promised to find us a good place to lunch in. So when he drew up at a path that branched off from the highway on the Miramar side of Deyá, we took our hamper, from which the neck of a bottle protruded alluringly, and started to explore it.
The path ended at a gate that opened into private grounds. In any other country the most presumptuous among us would have hesitated before invading the garden of unknown owners. But we were in the Fortunate Isles and the charm of their unconventionality influenced us. Walking in, we found some conveniently placed stone seats under the shade of a huge lemon-tree, and there we spread our feast of lamb cutlets, potato omelets, cakes and fruit.