When we returned to the house Pepe, swathed in his blanket, was still deep in the slumber of the man of tranquil mind: but the mistress of the house was at hand. Approaching, she greeted us with grave courtesy. She had the remains of much beauty. The soft bloom of girlhood lingered on her matronly cheeks, and the retrospective look of one accustomed to deep solitude was in her fine dark eyes.
On her invitation we entered the house, whose tall sides surrounded an inner courtyard. One end of the big cool kitchen was partitioned off with high-backed settles, and right on the middle of the floor of the "cosy corner" thus formed a pile of logs was glowing. Looking up, we saw that overhead the roof contracted until it became a wide chimney, through which a glimpse of blue sky was visible. A gun hung on the whitewashed wall, and on one of the seats which was thickly spread with skins a shepherd lad was resting.
Returning to the mirador, we watched the sun sink in a golden glory over the misty blue sea. Then, lamenting the inevitable close of another perfect day, we drove back down the vagrant deviating way, feeling as though we had for a brief space been translated to a new and inspiring world.
It was with sincere regret that on the morning of Holy Thursday we bade the Good Fairy farewell and, with Pepe again as charioteer, started on our drive back by way of Deyá, Miramar, and Valldemosa to Palma, where we had an afternoon engagement.
The scenery of this coast road must rank with the finest in the world, and on that March morning it was looking its loveliest. There was no wind, and both sea and sky were of that deep warm azure that makes so fitting a background to Balearic Island vistas.
On reaching the first houses of Deyá, we stopped the carriage, and alighting, climbed the easy ascent to the church. Halfway up the slope a French artist was painting, filling in his canvas with a delicate mosaic of heliotropes and pinks and purples.
He was enthusiastic about the pictorial quality of his surroundings. "Deyá," he declared, was "un paradis pour les peintres."
When we peeped into the church Mass was being celebrated, and from the dusk of the interior the eyes of young communicants looked gravely at us from under their white wreaths.
Amid the clustered houses halfway down the hill a quaint old building proclaimed itself the Casa Consistorial. A worm-eaten stair led to the town hall. The iron-barred door of the dungeon opened at a touch, revealing its abandonment to the base uses of a lumber-shed. As far as we could see, the sole person in charge of the municipal chambers of Deyá was a year-old infant who occupied a low chair in the wide-roofed porch. He, however, maintained a magisterial dignity of demeanour throughout our cursory inspection of the premises.
As we left the valley the lofty crags and olive-clad slopes of Miramar rose about us. Their appearance was already familiar, and it was with a positive thrill of pleasure that we saw them again. Across the smooth surface of the Mediterranean a liner was passing, and we wondered what impression the passengers would get of the island.