Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  Our path now lay along the coast, with a mighty range of mountains rising to the south of us; since the day was clear and brisk, every crack and seam of their rocky slopes appeared as close as if they were but a stone’s throw from us, though in truth they were some three or four leagues distant.

  At first we passed by orchards and vineyards; then we reached a bare and dismal region of rock and stone, with no tree and hardly a blade of grass on the hard bare ground.

  This was one of the most melancholy sections of my journey – as regards the aspect of the country – and yet, looking back, I cannot recollect any happier time in my whole life than those hours, as we travelled along, with the sea on our left and the great rampart of mountains on our right, singing ballads, inventing new melodies for old words, trying different harmonies for old tunes, reminding each other of our favourite airs. Even the mule seemed quite pleased with our music; she put back first one ear, then the other, arched her neck, and picked up her feet as if she had been trained by the Mamelukes.

  Sam, who had travelled this way before, told me that the mountains hereabouts are all seamed with caves, many of huge size and going for miles underground. The local people put them to all manner of uses, from storing hay to holding religious services. This recalled to me my adventure at the round-hutted village and, with a shudder, I changed the subject, asking Sam how long he thought he would remain in Llanes.

  ‘All my life, if God permits it,’ he said gravely.

  I inquired if there was any person in England to whom I should give news of him – was there nobody who might be gladdened by the knowledge that he was alive and well, and prospering in foreign parts? But he said no, his parents being dead, while his uncle would only be displeased by the news; and all his friends were sailors and no doubt scattered about the sea.

  By dusk of that day we reached the town of San Vincente, which is approached by a great grey bridge of thirty-two arches, across a deep, wide inlet; the bridge was very ancient and crumbling; in some parts the footway was only just wide enough to cross, and at that, with considerable danger. The town, though larger than Llanes, proved very poverty-stricken and miserable: the port was almost silent, with green, barnacled, rotting timbers on the wharfs, and very few boats. We found the largest posada, and played our music there, but it was a dark and dismal place; the main room had an earth floor where travellers slept on sacks of straw in among the goats and poultry of the household; a fire burned in one corner where we might cook our own food; none was provided. We got but little money from our music; it seemed that in San Vincente nobody had any money to spare; however that did not trouble us, since we had sufficient for our needs, and plenty of food provided by Juana – ham, eggs, olives, cheese, and bread. We therefore played for our own pleasure.

  People retired to bed early in that town, and we did too, but slept badly, tormented by fleas. We were later roused entirely by a terrific raging thunderstorm which broke out over the mountains to the south of us; flashes of blue-white lightning followed one after another, with a glare hardly to be described, accompanied by such deafening peals of thunder that many of the guests at the posada stuffed their ears with hay lest their eardrums should crack. The rain rattled down with such violence that soon the streets of the town were awash with water, which began to flow under the door of the posada, and soon, since the level of the floor was lower than the street, we found ourselves lying in a pool.

  Since nobody could sleep in such conditions, presently Sam proposed that we should rise up and continue on our way. By now the storm had died down, and the moon shone out, clear as if it had been washed by the rain; travelling on by its light seemed greatly preferable to lying in half an inch of dirty water and sodden straw. So we paid our small bill and went on our way, leaving the town of San Vincente without regret.

  Now for some leagues we travelled along the seashore, with the moon above us and the waves thundering in white majesty on our left hand. From time to time a shallow river ran down across the beach, which we must ford, but none of these gave too much difficulty. After an hour or so the sky began to lighten, and at last the sun rose, dazzling our eyes with its brilliance, for since we travelled eastwards it lay directly ahead of us and spread a flashing path across the wet sand of the shore. Indeed so blinding was the light in our eyes that we resolved to turn inland for a space, and so left the beach and made our way into a thick wood of wild fig and cork trees and tangled vines; among the trees there were also rocks and gorges and the dark clefts of caverns. Sam told me that this forest had a bad name, which was why the path ran along the shore; robbers were supposed to lurk here, and evil deeds to be committed in its dark depths; but the hour of sunrise seemed an unlikely one for robbers to be abroad, and indeed we saw no persons of that sort, and passed on our way undisturbed.

  Towards the eastern edge of the wood (which was very large) we did, however, come across a surly-looking fellow driving a large ox before him into a gully which led to a cave-entrance.

  The man gave us an unfriendly look as we approached him, and did not seem best pleased when Sammy – who would fall into chat with the devil himself – gave him a cheerful greeting.

  ‘Good day, friend! Are you intending to plough the floor of that cave?’ For the man carried a ploughshare over his shoulder.

  ‘No!’ replied the man shortly, and gave the ox a thump with the wooden plough, to hurry it on its way.

  ‘Then,’ said Sam teasingly, ‘I can only suppose that you are taking the ox to shelter. Perhaps you have not noticed that the storm is over and the sun is drying the ground?’

  ‘I am not taking the ox to shelter,’ replied the exasperated man. ‘I do not know why you are prying into what is none of your business! However, as you are strangers, I will tell you that I am hiding the ox in the cave because the priest is anxious to borrow it to plough his land; he has no beast of his own, and the miserable cadge never loses a chance to sponge on somebody else; he has had a day’s labour from every beast in the village except mine, and I’m determined he shan’t get his hands on it. Get on, you!’ And he gave his ox another tremendous whack on its bony quarters which made it start hurriedly forward and disappear into the dark cave, where he followed it.

  We went on our own way, and Sammy remarked,

  ‘Lord ‘a mercy, if that isn’t a prime case of cutting off his nose to spite his face!’

  ‘How do you mean, Sammy?’ said I.

  ‘Why, that surly fellow will very likely spend the day in the cave with his ox – losing its labour as well as his own – he might just as well have lent it to the priest and done something useful at least.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I said, ‘but’ (thinking of Father Tomas), ‘if the priest is really a scoundrelly sponging sort of a fellow I don’t know that I blame him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ agreed Sammy, ‘though most of the priests I have dealt with have been good enough men.’

  In fact we were soon to encounter that same priest, and were much surprised at our first sight of him.

  We had now come within sight of the little town of Santillana, which lies about a league inland from the sea, among green hills, and fertile farmland, all planted with walnut trees, apple trees, palms, and patches of maize and blue-flowering flax. Santillana is a small, pretty place, of cobbled streets and thick-beamed stone houses.

  As we walked up the main street the cows were being milked in the stables under the houses. We bought a cup of milk from a pretty girl and asked her the way to Don Enrique’s cousin’s house. She directed us to the seaward end of the village. Here we saw the church, at the top of a sloping open square. In front of the church grew a huge ash tree, and as we approached this, we saw the priest come out of the church door, carrying what looked like a bundle of sticks. He was followed by a boy in a white acolyte’s robe who carried a lighted taper. Priest and boy passed out of sight behind the thick bushy trunk of the ash tree, and apparently came to a stop there; we heard the priest say:

  ‘Than
k you, my child; very good; now pass me the taper; excellent; now step well back and cover your eyes!’

  To our great astonishment we then heard a series of loud reports as several rockets shot up into the air and exploded, one after another, with sharp claps of sound; a huge cloud of starlings, who had been roosting in the ash tree, left it and circled frenziedly about the sky above the church tower, screaming and complaining, while down below the mule snorted with fright, and Sam and I stared at one another in wonder.

  ‘Do you think he did it to scare away the starlings?’ said I in a low voice. ‘ – For if so, I do not think he is going to be successful.’ (Indeed the birds were already beginning to return to their perches.) ‘And why should he wish to do so?’

  ‘Fair has me in a puzzle,’ agreed Sammy, grinning and scratching his head.

  At this moment the priest came round the thicket tree and, seeing us stand so amazed, burst out laughing. He was a merry-looking little dumpling of a man, round and brown as a chestnut, very different from tall pale Father Tomas.

  ‘Are you wondering at my fusillade?’ he said. ‘I will explain it to you later – for I see you are strangers. But first come in to mass.’

  The bell was now being rung lustily in the tower, doubtless by the boy who had carried the taper. A number of townspeople began to appear, coming rather slowly down the street and across the square. We followed them into the church and heard mass. It was the first time I had done so since leaving San Antonio, and I was glad to be in a church again; I felt that I had a great deal to tell God about my adventures and about the world I was discovering outside Villaverde which was so very different from what Father Tomas had led me to expect. I wondered what this priest would say about that. God Himself had nothing to say at that time, but it seemed to me that He listened to me in a silence that was full of interest and sympathy. I felt much more comfortable with Him in that bare church than I had ever done in the richly furnished chapel of my grandfather’s house.

  After mass, the priest invited Sam and me to come and have coffee with him; he seemed delighted to entertain visitors. We found that he lived in a wretched little house on the edge of the village, where a thin old lady in a black shawl brought us dry bread-biscuits and some very good coffee.

  ‘Coffee is my one luxury,’ said the priest (he told us he was called Father Ignacio). ‘I came here from Pamplona where the French (when they were there), taught me to enjoy it more than chocolate.’

  He told us about his life in Pamplona, where he had been for ten years. He had lived there during the French wars and through a great battle when the British attacked the town and finally won it from the retreating French. He had many interesting tales of this terrible time, of eating rats and dandelion roots; and he told us about the spring festival which they celebrate in Pamplona with bulls running wild through the streets.

  ‘It must seem rather dull to you in Santillana,’ said I. ‘This seems a very quiet place.’

  ‘A little too quiet,’ Father Ignacio agreed. ‘The priest who was here before me, Father Jose, died at the age of a hundred and two. He had become so old that he was unable to perform most of his duties, and so the people in the village did as they liked; nobody bothered to dig Father Jose’s land, which was all grown over by bushes; and very few people ever came to mass, because they said that, when the wind blew from the west (which it generally does here) they could not hear the sound of the church bell.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ said Sammy laughing. ‘So that is why you let off the rockets and scare the starlings.’

  ‘Just so! Even if they are away in the fields, they cannot say they do not hear my rockets. And even if they were deaf they would see the puffs of smoke and see the birds whirling about in the sky, and know that it was time to come and pay their respects to God.’

  We took a great liking to Father Ignacio, and I felt certain that the farmer whom we had seen hiding his ox in the cave had done so entirely because of his own grudging, spiteful nature, and not due to any fault on the priest’s part.

  Father Ignacio told us that he made the gunpowder for his rockets out of pigeon dung (another thing he had learned from the French) and that he was gradually persuading the people of the town into better ways.

  ‘The children enjoy my fireworks,’ he explained, ‘so they come to visit me, and by degrees I make friends with their parents also.’

  Then he asked us about ourselves, and we told him our histories. Since I had told my full tale to Sam I could hardly do less to this good man. He asked me if I would like him to write a letter to my grandfather, just to say that he had seen me and that I was alive and well. I thanked him and said I would be grateful, especially if he would be so kind as to wait a few days, until I should have found a ship at Santander, and be safely embarked for England.

  At that he laughed, very kindly, and said,

  ‘So be it! I have run away from home myself – I suppose every boy has to do it once – I will not hinder you! But mind you write to your grandfather from England.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course I shall do that.’

  Father Ignacio was interested to hear that Sam was going to work for Don Enrique whom he said he had often heard spoken of as a worthy and honest man.

  Then the priest’s housekeeper came to say that a sick woman was asking for him, so, walking out on his errand, he accompanied us as far as the posada of Don Enrique’s cousin. This man, Don Manuel Colomas, was a big brawny fellow; he greeted us civilly but gave rather a gruff good-day to the priest, who bade us goodbye and went on his way.

  Don Manuel led us into his house, received a note we had for him, and asked how he could serve us – Don Enrique’s friends were his friends also, and everything in his house was ours to command. Had we breakfasted? We said yes, at the priest’s house.

  ‘That one!’ he muttered. ‘Father Interference! I’ll wager you got scanty enough pickings under his roof.’

  But we said no, we had done well and that Father Ignacio had been very kind. However since, after travelling most of the night, we were now decidedly fatigued, we asked if we might lie down and sleep in some corner for an hour or two.

  Don Manuel hospitably provided us with a large bedroom overlooking the front courtyard of his posada, as well as a stall for the mule. We flung ourselves down on well-stuffed flock mattresses and were soon fast asleep.

  When I awoke I was amazed to find that the sun lay low in the west; almost the whole day had gone by, wasted in sleeping. Sam was already awake, leaning on the windowsill and watching the people and dogs in the courtyard.

  Very vexed at having slept so long, I asked him why he had not awakened me sooner. He said,

  ‘Eh, lad, ye needed the rest; why should I rouse ye? ’Tis not long yet since ye lay sick abed. And all life lies ahead; there’s time a-plenty! Besides, I’ve been well amused, looking out here.’

  I joined him and saw a group of village men who were watching with laughter and applause while a lively little hunchbacked fellow poured wine from a bottle which he held at a great height above his head, first into his mouth, and then into a whole trayful of cups without spilling a single drop. Then he handed the cups to all in the crowd.

  ‘Hollo!’ said Sammy. ‘Here comes our friend from this morning?’

  ‘You mean the priest?’

  ‘No, no – t’other fellow – the farmer who was so nice of his ox. He looks fair bewattled about something.’

  And indeed the man from the cave-mouth, who rushed through the yard gate just then, appeared to be in a perfect passion. We observed him with great interest as he launched into what seemed a furious tirade, waving his arms up and down, holding them out wide, bawling until he was red in the face, and stamping his feet. We were too far away to hear his words, but after a few moments Sammy said, laughing,

  ‘I tell ye what! ’Tis all Lombard Street to a china orange that his ox has got itself stuck fast in the cave – look at the way he holds his arms!’

  ‘I believe you are
right,’ said I. ‘Let us go down and find out.’

  We went down to the courtyard. Don Manuel was there too, now; he received us politely but absently – he was listening to the farmer’s indignant tale.

  The latter was shouting,

  ‘And it is all the fault of that meddling prosing aggravating officious busybody of a priest! – if it weren’t for him, I’d never even have thought of taking the beast into the cave. I say, damn the day he came to this town!’

  Some of the bystanders laughed unkindly, and one called out,

  ‘The priest has had the use of everybody else’s ox, Pepe! Fair play, now! Why should yours be the only one to escape? This must be the judgment of heaven – you might as well resign yourself!’

  ‘Ah, have a heart, neighbours!’ said Pepe indignantly. ‘I don’t come here to be laughed at – I need help! Who’ll come and help me drag the wretched animal out? For pity’s sake – it will die of cold and hunger in there!’

  Half-mocking, half-sympathetic, a crowd of them went along with him, over the fields, back to the wooded hillside where we had met him in the morning. Sam and I followed, curious to see what kind of fix the ox had got itself into, and how they would rescue it.

  Some of the men had brought ropes with them, and torches made from tarred bundles of rushes, and these last were needed, for the ox had gone quite a long way into the cavern. Pepe, foolishly, had not tethered it, but had simply tied a hurdle across the mouth of the cave so the animal could not get out. Consequently it had wandered farther and farther back, along a narrow passage, until its horns had jammed against the rock walls on either side. Then, struggling, pushing, terrified no doubt, the poor beast had become even more tightly wedged, and now stood rigid like a prisoner in the stocks, bawling and bellowing lamentably; in that rocky enclosed place its frantic noise, doubled in volume, sounded like the Trump of Doom.