"What do you allude to?" she asked.
"A French traveler, it is said, as he entered Castile, met a shepherd guiding his flock. Curious to know all the circumstances which give to the Spanish wool its inimitable qualities, he asked the shepherd an hundred questions: 'If his flock belonged to that district? What sort of food was given it? Whether he was on a journey? From whence he came? Whither he was going? When he would return?' In short, he asked every question a prying Frenchman could think of. The shepherd listened coldly to them all. Then, in the sententious style of a true Castilian, replied, 'aqui nacen, aqui pacen, aqui mueren,' (here they breed, here they feed, here they die,) and went his way without a word more."
The party spent some time here, dining and resting under the shade of these prickly oaks, the tree that yields the famous botolas, so largely used for food by men and swine, and on tasting which we are less surprised that in "the primal age,"
"Hunger then
Made acorns tasteful; thirst each rivulet
Run nectar."
Mrs. Shortridge had contrived to snatch a short siesta, in spite of her fears. Their horses were led up, ready for them to mount and proceed on their journey, when Lady Mabel, plucking a twig from a branch overhead, observed on it several specimens of the kermes. She could not resist this opportunity of displaying her scraps of scientific lore, and detained the party while she delivered a discourse on the coccus arborum, "which," she said, "infests this tree; the quercus cocci. This furnishes what the ignorant-learned long called grains of kermes, looking like dried currants, which they mistook for the fruit of a tree, while it is, in truth, the dried body of an insect. It affords a vermilion dye, not so brilliant, but far more durable than the cochineal of Mexico. There are in the Netherlands," she continued, "rich tapestries dyed with kermes, known to be three hundred years old, which still retain their pristine brilliancy of color. Only think, Mrs. Shortridge, of having carpets, shawls and cloaks of such unfading hues!"
"They would be of no use to me," yawned Mrs. Shortridge, "I would be even more tired of myself than of my cloak, before the end of three hundred years."
"Why," exclaimed L'Isle, "this indestructible dye must be the very stuff with which the old lady of Babylon dyed her petticoat; for it has not faded in the least since she first put it on, as we may see in this country, where she wears it openly, without even a decent piece of lawn over it, to suppress the brightness of its hues."
"As our lives are not so lasting as the dye Lady Mabel talks of," said the commissary, "let us make the most of them by taking horse at once, and hastening on, for we must pass through Villa Vicosa, and sleep several miles beyond it to-night."
Returning to the road, they presently reached a cultivated valley, and passed through a hamlet, scarcely seen before it was entered, so completely were the low stone walls of the houses hidden by the olive, orange, almond, and other fruit-trees surrounding them. The only inhabitants visible were two or three squalid children, playing in the road, and a woman lounging at her door, eyeing the party with mingled curiosity and suspicion, while a stout yearling calf pushed unceremoniously past her into the house, thus asserting his right as a member of the family.
L'Isle paused before the little church, just beyond the village, and pointed out to Lady Mabel a curious cross, the first of the kind she had met with, though common enough in the peninsula. It was composed of human skulls, on a pedestal of thigh bones, the whole let into the wall, and secured by a rough kind of stucco.