Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  As to what those were, I could only guess; and would rather not. I thought the woman was probably right when she said they meant to kill me. I hoped they did not kill her, instead, for letting me loose.

  What use killing me would be for their bees or their goats, I could not fathom.

  As the mule hurried grumbling down the narrow rocky pass, while the rain sluiced over my bare head, I slowly struggled out from the strange, dreamlike mood which had held me in its power for what, now, seemed a very long time; I could not remember when it had begun; only that when the old man had told me I would walk the path of cloud, it had seemed a perfectly sensible suggestion.

  After a while I realised with dismay that I had left my hat and one of the saddle-bags in the hut; luckily it was the bag that held my two pistols and most of the food, not the more precious one which contained my father’s papers and his book. I was sad about the pistols – but nothing in the world would have made me go back to that place, even if there had been no danger. I had conceived a mortal horror at the very thought of it; I could hardly bear to remember the hours passed in that disgusting fetid smell of that round hut, nor the food and drink I had been given; indeed, I have recalled those events only two or three times, with the greatest reluctance, up to this very day.

  After an hour or so, we came to a mountain brook, where the mule and I both drank thirstily; then I was obliged to vomit, ridding myself of that evil liquor and disgusting food; then I drank again, washed my head, and felt a little better. Resolving to try and put the whole occurrence out of my mind, I climbed back into the saddle and rode on; and presently, as the clouds parted when we reached the top of a long, slow climb over a stony hillside, I was hugely relieved to discover again, far, far off, the thin silver line of the sea. By that I realised how very far I must have come out of my way in the fog; I would have almost a day’s journey to regain the lost ground. This made me resolve, if caught in a mountain mist again, to stay still and wait patiently, no matter how long the mist took to shift, for there is no gain or sense in travelling on the wrong road.

  Then I began to notice that the mule was walking lame, and, dismounting, I discovered with concern that she had cast a shoe, and had picked up a stone in her fore-hoof. The stone I was able to remove with my knife, but the shoe was a serious loss, for it might have been thrown off leagues back, there was no hope of coming by it once more. I therefore dismounted and walked by the mule, leading her, in hope mixed with dread: hope that we might find a village where a smith would provide another shoe; dread that if we found a village it would be another of the sort from which we had fled.

  However no village of any kind did we discover until the day was well advanced, and we had descended from the high peaks and slowly made our way across a wide region of barren, desolate uplands. At last we did come within sight of one or two scattered hamlets. These, I was relieved to find, were composed of ordinary houses, a few barns, dovecots – not the round huts, thatched with turf, of that place; but these villages were poor and tiny, none of them boasting a smithy, or even the rudest kind of inn.

  A farmer, whom I overtook, riding his burro loaded with so enormous a mound of hay that one could see only its legs and his hat, told me that I would find both a smith and a posada at Llanes, a village on the coast about three leagues farther on.

  Those last three leagues seemed a weary way! Both I and the mule were limping by now, for one of my shoes had split, and chafed my foot at every step, though I tried to pad it with grass.

  Llanes, when at length we reached it, proved to be a fair-sized little port, of prosperous-looking timbered houses set on either side of a rocky river which dashed through and then wound its way to a harbour between two claws of cliff, where small brightly-coloured fishing-vessels lay moored.

  Now, however, I came up against a new difficulty, which was that all my stock of money – scanty enough, God knows – had been in the bag that was left behind. I and the mule were hungry, tired, thirsty, low-spirited, and footsore; I felt somewhat unwell; we both needed new shoes and a good dinner; and we had no money to pay for any of our needs.

  Flogging my weary wits in vain to think of an escape from this predicament, I tethered the mule to a roadside tree, and sat down, dispiritedly, on the parapet of the bridge which crossed the river in the middle of the town. To add to my vexation, I could see a smithy on the quay, down below; I caught the glow of the smith’s fire and could hear the roar of his bellows and the clang of his anvil. But he was a dour-looking, bracket-faced fellow, who worked at his task without a smile or a word to the passers-by; it did not seem to me at all likely that he would be prepared to shoe my mule in exchange for a spinning-top or a wooden flute.

  (I was mistaken about the smith, as it turned out, but that I did not discover until later.)

  There I sat on the bridge, so tired out and dejected that I was quite unable to decide what would be best to do next. About the previous night I did not dare let myself think; that was just a blind patch, to be ignored; but I was somewhat concerned in case the alguacils from Oviedo might have come this way inquiring after me, or have sent word about me here; I glanced nervously at the passers-by, in case one should suddenly exclaim:

  ‘That is the boy who escaped from the jail in Oviedo – seize him!’

  But nobody spared me a look. The mule shook her head and snuffled as if to remind me of my duty to her. I supposed drearily that it would be a practical measure to sell her, for by now it was not too great a distance to Santander to be covered on foot; but, to tell the truth, I had not the heart; I could not bring myself to sell so staunch a comrade until the last possible minute. Likewise I could, I thought, have sold the parrot; but then the parrot had, in some measure, saved my life; it would have seemed too ungrateful to dispose of her for cash.

  Lost in these unhelpful reflections I dawdled on the bridge, my stomach rumbling with hunger, my head weak with sickness, watching the customers enter a nearby posada, and sniffing the good smells that came out from it.

  Then my notice was attracted by the sound of music, and a voice singing a very lively song. Looking to find the source of this heart-warming melody, I observed a man seated on the quay near the blacksmith’s shop. He it was who sang, and at the same time played on a small kit, or traveller’s fiddle.

  The song he sang was one I knew very well, one that Bob had often sung me. It was in English: it was called The Faithful Farmer’s Son’.

  5

  My happy stay at Llanes

  The words of the street-singer’s ballad came floating up in snatches to me, where I sat on the bridge:

  Come all you pretty maidens

  And listen to my song …

  I knew the music so well that it made my heart swell inside with sorrow. It was a ballad that Bob had sung to me many and many a time.

  I live on yonder river-side

  Where fishes they do swim

  And you may gather lilies there

  Beside the water’s brim …

  It was the tale of a girl refusing all her suitors, because she loved a lad who had been dragged away by the Press Gang to fight the French at sea.

  I have a sweetheart of my own

  And he my heart has won

  He lived in yonder village

  And was a farmer’s son …

  At last a stranger shows her the other half of a broken ring, and declares that he is her long-lost sweetheart.

  Though I was prest away to sea

  And many a battle won,

  From you my heart did ne’er depart –

  I’m your faithful farmer’s son!

  I used to think, though, when Bob sang me the ballad, that the girl must have been a great simpleton not to recognise her lover at the first; if she had really loved him, I thought, however long he had been gone, surely there would have been something so familiar in his step, his air, his voice, his whole bearing, that she must have known him? – Besides, what did the half of a broken ring prove? He might have r
eceived it from a dying shipmate, or taken it from an enemy. If I did not recognise the man himself, I used to think, I would need more proof than that!

  While these familiar thoughts raced through my head, I had slipped off the bridge, and, without considering what I did, walked down on to the quayside, to get a closer glimpse of the singer. He had placed himself not far from the smithy, where the surly-looking smith was still clanging away with his hammer. The singer, seated on an upturned dinghy, was a lanky-looking fellow, clad in a velveteen jerkin and canvas pantaloons. His hair was brownish-fair, his eyes grey; his face was ugly, with a wide mouth, snub nose, and big ears that spread out so wide you could see the light through them, like those of burros. Despite all this, there was something very taking and likeable about his looks; he kept glancing up and smiling at the people passing by, as if this town had taken his fancy more than any other in the world; and he had such an honest, simple, hopeful air, as he sang his music, with his hat before him on the ground, that I could not help hoping with him that folk would be generous; so far, though, I saw, the hat held only a few copper coins, which very likely he had put there himself to encourage business.

  Then he began to sing another song that I knew very well, ‘Hodge told Sue’.

  Hodge told Sue that he loved her as his life,

  And if she would be kind, he would make her his wife …

  This one was a catch, that is, the tune went round and round, so that different singers, could come in, one after another, all singing the same tune, like men who jump into a cart as it rolls along the road; and all the different bits of the tune would mix together into a pleasing harmony.

  As the street singer was but one, he said the words, and played a second singer’s part on his little fiddle, very cleverly I thought.

  I could not resist moving nearer to him and joining in.

  ‘Hodge – Hodge – Hodge told Sue – ’

  Between us, we made quite a rousing sound of it, and quite a few passers-by turned to look and listen. Several people laughed and clapped when we came, breathless, to a finishing-point, and a few more coins were tossed into the hat.

  Then the singer, with a smiling glance at me, struck into another ballad. This had words I did not know –

  Come my dearest, come my fairest,

  Come my sweetest unto me

  Will you wed with a poor sailor-lad

  Who has just returned from sea?

  but the tune was someway familiar to me, so I pulled out my pipe from my pocket, and began playing alongside of his singing. This, with the voice and the fiddle, went very well, and several people called out, ‘Bravo!’ Also many children gathered – evidently it was the hour when school ended, for most of them carried their books and slates – and stood staring with their fingers in their mouths.

  His ballad finished, the singer broke into a lively Asturian country dance, and all the children began hopping and skipping about like so many grasshoppers. I knew this one too, for it was a tune the servants danced to at Villaverde, so I kept him company on my pipe, with a few extra flourishes, and presently not only the children but quite a few townsfolk as well were dancing gaily on the quay.

  Now there nearly occurred a mishap which might have landed us in deep trouble.

  The level of the water where the boats were moored was some twelve feet down below the quayside; this, as I discovered later, was due to the fact that the tide was low at that time. And the quay itself, as they mostly are, was littered with piles of nets, upturned boats, wicker pots for catching lobsters, iron mooring-posts, and the offal where the vendors who sold fish from their boats had gutted and boned the catch for buyers.

  Close to where I stood was a big, foul-smelling heap of these fish-scraps, with gulls screaming down to it, and, as the crowd on the quay-side grew bigger and spread outwards, a little child, dancing past, trod on some pieces of fishy slime and slid, helpless, towards the edge of the dock.

  Had she fallen over she must infallibly have done herself severe injury, perhaps broken her neck, for the drop here was as much as fifteen feet, and on to jagged rocks below.

  By the mercy of providence I was close enough to save her; in spite of my sore foot I ran like a hare, grabbed her, and tossed her to safety on a pile of nets. But my own foot slipped in the offal and as my hands let go of her I fell headlong. My head crashed against something hard, and the world went black about me; I knew no more. When I next regained consciousness, I was greatly surprised to find that I was not on the windy quayside, but lying in a bed.

  I attempted to sit up, crying out anxiously, ‘My mule, my mule! I left her tied to a tree – ’

  ‘Be easy about your mule, hijo,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘She is cared for, don’t fret. In front of her, at this very moment she has the biggest rack of hay in Llanes, and some barley good enough to make broth for the King of Portugal!’

  Reassured by this statement – which was made in the most cheerful, cordial voice imaginable – I lay back again, for indeed my head felt hot and strange, as if it might split in half. I had struck it on one of those iron mooring pillars in falling, I afterwards learned, and was considered lucky not to have dashed my brains out.

  Then followed nine or ten days of fever and sickness, in which I tossed about, very wretched and half out of my mind, with a tongue like a bolster, and hands and feet that seemed separated from my body and quite beyond my control. Sometimes I thought that Father Tomas was beating me, for my back ached cruelly; sometimes that I was still in the terrible round hut being forced to drink poison. Even when my eyes were open I could not see with any distinctness, nor could I eat; the very thought of food sickened me; the most I could do was swallow a little whey with wine in it, and the juice of lemons.

  However, on the tenth day I began to mend, and felt very ashamed of my weakness. (Though it was later suggested by some that I had been given poison, up on the mountain, and that this had caused my illness.) Now, looking about me, I was able to see that I lay in a big, pleasant room with a great gabled window, outside of which gulls were flying and shrieking. I pushed myself up on one elbow so as to see better.

  ‘Ola! Now you look more like the boy who saved our Conchita!’ said the same cheerful voice that had reassured me about the mule. ‘And that is good, for she wishes to come and thank you herself. A moment, till I prop you on a pillow.’

  Abashed at not being able to help more, I suffered myself to be hoisted up, and found that I was wrapped in a fine linen shirt, much too big for me. The sheets, also, were very good cloth.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, senora,’ I muttered. ‘I am sorry to be such a trouble.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ she replied good-humouredly. ‘Trouble? Think of the trouble you have saved us! To replace Conchita, Father would have had to marry again!’

  Not at all understanding her, I looked towards the door, where, now, to my great surprise, who should enter but the gloomy-faced smith. He did not look so gloomy today, though; indeed his unshaven face wore a most friendly smile, as he came up to the bedside and gripped me by the hand, with a grip like that of his own tongs. On his other arm sat the little lass I had saved from falling, who could not have been more than three at the most; she stared at me with great wondering black eyes until her father set her down on the polished wood floor and urged her to thank the young Senorito.

  Then she performed a little curtsey and exclaimed, ‘Muchas gracias, senor! Muchas, muchas gracias!’ after which, turning to her father, she exclaimed in a loud whisper,

  ‘Papa! He is exactly like a canary!’

  ‘Conchita!’ said my nurse. ‘That is not polite.’

  ‘No, but it is true! Is it not, Papa?’

  My nurse laughed at that – a beautiful bubbling laugh – and I turned my head to smile at her, seeing her clearly for the first time. She was a big handsome girl with curly black hair drawn up at the back in a knot, from which ringlets fell; she wore a brown stuff bodice, quite low-necked, after the Madrid fash
ion, and a red petticoat; she was so like the little Conchita that at first I took her for the child’s mother, and then, when she too addressed the smith as ‘Father’ realised that they were sisters. Their mother had recently died, I learned later.

  ‘I am sorry to have been such a burden to your household, senor,’ I said feebly to the smith. ‘It is very kind of you to have taken me in.’

  ‘We would have done more than that for the one who saved our little wretch from tumbling off the dock,’ he said. The scowling look returned to his long grizzled countenance. ‘If I have told that Jose Galdos once, about leaving his refuse there, I have told him twenty times! Anybody might have fallen and broken their leg, or their neck. However now he heeds me at last. After my child might have died! But how are you now, lad, on the mend, eh? We’ll have you downstairs tomorrow, eating man’s food again, if my daughter, Juana, allows it?’

  I said I hoped so, and my smiling nurse exclaimed, ‘We shall see!’

  ‘And don’t trouble your head about the mule,’ added the smith. ‘She is out in my yard, eating like a Bishop’s secretary. A fine beast, eh? But you had come a weary way, you and she; she was as lame as my grandmother. I have given her a fine new shoe, tightened up the rest, and rubbed her cut leg with brandy.’

  ‘Oh, how can I thank you, senor,’ I said, angry at my own weakness. ‘When I am better I will be glad to do any work that you ask.’