The glad lady

“Not a perrono will I give to a man who treats his beast so,” said Patty. “I should think you would be ashamed to beg, anyhow, a great strong man like you. What has your donkey done that you should abuse him? He looks thin enough, goodness knows.”

“He is an obstinate beast,” replied the man; “he threw me off in the dust.”

“I don’t blame him for being an obstinate beast with such a master,” returned Patty with spirit, “and I am glad he threw you off, poor creature.”

The man cast a baleful glance at her and fell to belaboring the donkey with redoubled energy. “Oh dear, oh dear!” Patty wrung her hands and looked right and left for someone to appear to whom she could appeal. Then out of a cloud of dust suddenly issued a horseman, a little spruce old man on a black horse. “Don Felipe!” cried Patty, eagerly.

“Señorita!” exclaimed Don Felipe drawing up short. “What is the matter?” he asked as he alighted.

“This man is beating his donkey unmercifully, and will not stop.”

Don Felipe smiled. “Only a donkey, señorita. You are too tender-hearted. The man is but a beggar and is not fit for you to speak to. Here,” and he threw the man a copper which was received obsequiously and with whining thanks.

“Won’t you tell him not to abuse his donkey?” begged Patty. “It has to work hard and looks so thin.”

“What would be the use, my dear young lady? As soon as our backs were turned he would do it again; it is the way of these people; they are ignorant and one must make some difference between man and beast. No doubt the man is likewise hungry. Come, my dear young lady, let us go on toward the village and leave this wretched beggar.”

“I am not going to the village,” said Patty determinedly.

“And may I not accompany you on your walk? Surely you will not go far alone.”

“I shall go a little further,” said Patty evasively.

“On an errand of mercy? Ah, yes, you are always like that, so tender-hearted. Then I shall go with you. I cannot permit a lady to be alone upon the carretera.”

But Patty did not budge, she simply looked at the donkey which the beggar was preparing to mount. “If I could only buy him,” she murmured. “Are donkeys expensive?” she asked.

“Very cheap,” Don Felipe told her. “But this is laughable. What would you do with a scrubby beast like that? Fancy your sister and brother when you should appear with your purchase.”

Patty made no reply. She had not a penny with her and was helpless in the face of such superior scorn. Don Felipe waited with ill-concealed impatience. It was not the correct thing for a young lady to do such wayward things. It was strictly unconventional to start off unaccompanied, in the first place, and he would see that she went home properly escorted, even though it meant an exercise of his legs to which he was not accustomed.

But this necessity was obviated by the approach of another actor in the drama, for who but Robert Lisle should suddenly alight from Victor’s cart which was on its way to Ribadesella.

“Oh, Mr. Lisle!” Patty ran toward him. “I am so glad it is you. I know you will try to make this man promise not to beat his poor little donkey. Such cruel blows and it is so thin, the poor patient little creature. If I could only buy him I would do it in a minute, but I have no money with me.”

“It is the glad lady!” exclaimed the young man. “My dear Miss Patty, I have money with me. Would you like me to buy the burro?”

“Oh!” The lovely eyes, half filled with tears, cast him a grateful look. “Please, please. I know Tina and Juan will let me have him, and I have the money at home. I would be willing to go without anything if only I may have him.”

“But there is no need to do that, you see. I should like nothing better than to be the means of allowing him to exchange a hard master for a tender mistress,” said the young man. He stepped up to the beggar who cunningly perceived that it was to his profit to remain near by. “Cuanto?” said Robert, laying his hand on the donkey.

“One hundred pesetas,” answered the man, thinking to drive a fine trade.

“Bah!” exclaimed Robert, expressively, as he took out his purse. “I will give you forty and not a penny more.”

The man’s greedy eyes devoured the money, the sight of which was too much for his cupidity, and he held out the bridle of the donkey with one hand, extending the other for the cash.

Robert counted it out gravely, took the donkey by the bridle and led it over to where Patty stood.

By this time Don Felipe had remounted his steed and with a supercilious smile as watching the transaction. “Seeing that I am of no use I will go on and leave you to follow with your valuable purchase,” he said in an amused tone, and the next minute he was clattering along the road.

Patty gently stroked the donkey’s soft nozzle. “He will soon learn that there is such a thing as kindness in the world,” she said.

“I wouldn’t put too much faith in his good qualities; they can be nasty little beasts,” Robert told her.

“Because they are often so badly treated. I know this one will be good. You must let me pay for him, you know.”

“No, if you refuse to take him as a gift I shall keep him myself, and the beggar’s treatment of him won’t be a patch upon my abuse.”

“Tell that to the marines. I will take him if Tina will let me, but very likely she will not.”

“Why should you not accept from me a scrubby little donkey, worth less than eight dollars, as well as a silver cup, worth much more, from Don Felipe?”

“Because that is a horse of another color, or rather, I should say donkey. However, we shall see.”

“Do you want to take the burro home now?”

“No, I think I should first like to take him to the chapel of Our Lady of Pity where I was going. I shall ask her to bless him.”

“Is there a need? He has already been blessed by a lady of pity, though I could wish she would not confine her compassionate acts to donkeys.”

“There are donkeys and—”

“Donkeys, you would say. I admit that, but why be kind to one variety and cruel to another?”

“When was I cruel?”

“Didn’t you promise to go to the cave of the inxanos with me, and then only perform half of what you said?”

“I kept my promise. I said I would go with you, but I didn’t say I would come back in your company.”

“Oh, I see. It was the donkey in me which prevented my taking that in.”

“Please don’t cast reflections on the dear burros. They are really very clever.”

“And I am not?”

Patty laughed. “I can’t say that when you are so quick to draw conclusions. I had a good reason for not wanting to come home with you.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t tell you now.”

“Will you some day? On the day you tell me the wishes? By the way, when are we to look for our answers?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I shall have to ask Tomás about it. He knows a queer witch woman who tells him all sorts of curious things.”

“If I may inquire, how did you and the old don happen to be on the carretera in company with a beggar?”

“Oh, I was taking a walk. I met the beggar first. I was expostulating with him when Don Felipe came up. He is a mean old curmudgeon for he wouldn’t back me up about buying the donkey, and he hasn’t a drop of pity in his veins for he only laughed when I asked him to order the man not to beat his burro.” Her expressive face was very serious. “You were very good, Mr. Lisle. I haven’t thanked you for coming to the rescue. I might have known an American and a Kentuckian would do so. In fact, I was sure of it. Perhaps I have interrupted your morning’s excursion. Were you going far with Victor?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. There was a vacant seat in the cart and I thought I would go on to Ribadesella, perhaps, and come back by train. This is much more of an adventure. Your praise is very sweet and mine is all the pleasure. One doesn’t have an opportunity every day, even in Spain, to come to the aid of a lady in distress. Do we turn off here?”

“Yes, there is the chapel just ahead. I see someone there. Let us wait.”

The tiny chapel boasted a portico under whose shelter wayfarers might pause for protection from sun or rain, and incidentally invoke the good offices of the Virgin who smiled from her little shrine beyond the iron grating. On the stone floor of the porch a girl was kneeling with arms widely outstretched and face upturned.

“It is Perdita,” whispered Patty. “I wonder what she is asking for. Did you ever see such an earnestly beautiful face? I hope, oh, I do hope, she will get what she wants. She looks as if she wanted it so dreadfully. Now, she is going. Don’t let her see that we have noticed her.”

But Perdita did not turn her eyes as she arose from her knees, and, after making her reverence and devoutly crossing herself, she went in an opposite direction down a leafy road and was presently lost to sight.

“Now,” said Patty, “you can stay here and I will go and ask the Virgin to bless the donkey.”

“Are you a Roman Catholic?”

“No, but Guido is.”

“Guido?”

“Yes, that is the donkey’s name, I have decided. It is the Spanish for Guy and he does look such a guy, poor dear.”

She went to the chapel and knelt for a few minutes upon the stone floor, then she returned to her companion. “It is so lovely here that I always want to stay awhile,” she told him. “I like the way they have shelter and seats for the weary on these porches. Fasten Guido somewhere and come up on the porch. You can see the Virgin inside there. She is a very plain little person, for she is very ancient, and you can see she wears the Asturian dress. She seems such a nice, simple sort of body that I don’t wonder the peasants love her. You see,” she went on, after Robert had made his survey of the interior, “I have a great respect for the Roman Catholics, for I have lived with the sisters so long and they have told me many things. I know the stories of the saints by heart. Sometimes they used to bore me dreadfully, but after all I am glad to become acquainted with the legends of the church for they explain a great many things to you when you travel. I never dared to say how much I believed and how much I didn’t, but the dear sisters had faith enough for both. While I was at the convent I went always to chapel and am as much at home with the Roman Catholic services as with my own. Of course, here in Spain, one must be a Roman Catholic to be thoroughly respectable, but so far I have never had to discuss the question. Isn’t this a peaceful spot?”

There was no disputing the peacefulness. Far removed from the highway as the little chapel was, a stranger would come upon it quite unawares in its sheltering green. A small stream went singing upon its way near by; the birds called to one another from the grove; wild flowers nodded in the breeze. The far off creak of a cow-cart droned out once in a while from a distance.

“And you like it?” Robert turned to his companion. “You don’t find it wearisome, with no gayeties, no city sights? You don’t miss social entertainments?”

“Do you?”

“No, but I should think you would, glad lady.”

“That is where you are mistaken. Of course I like good times, and young companions. I like pretty gowns and all the whirl of entertaining and being entertained, but it isn’t everything. I’d far rather live the life we used to have with those I loved in the dear old home, with the neighbors we cared for and who cared for us, a visit to town once in a while, part of a winter, maybe, and the rest of the year the freedom, the peace, the joy of the country among green growing things, flying along down the country roads on horseback, sitting in the garden to watch the sunset, grubbing among the flowers. Oh!” She drew a long breath. “It is all over, what is the use of thinking and longing for what you cannot have back again? I shall try to be content wherever I am. There is too much misery in the world for one to whine who has enough.”

“That is a brave saying,” returned Robert, gravely. “The don and his palace do not loom up so largely then?”

“Dear me, no.” She gave a little laugh. Robert looked at her inquiringly.

“I am just thinking,” she said, “of what a good time Polly must be having with me away. I badger her to death, and his donship, too. I think he is disgusted with me for this morning’s actions.”

“He has poor taste, then. Do you think that Miss Paulette would like to be Mrs. Don?”

“I don’t know. A girl like that doesn’t wish to be left behind in a race. It may be she simply wants to prove her powers, yet, Polly is rather a canny person, I am beginning to think. I am fond of her but her French thrift does crop up once in a while and a practical marriage would have no fears for her. What a nice comfortable time they are all having, to be sure, Tina and all of them. The opinion that sister has of me is appalling.”

“I imagine it perhaps, a case of John Smith’s opinion of himself, his friends’ opinion, and the real John Smith. I fancy your real self is pretty well hidden under an assumption of character which belies you.”

“Is that flattery or not?”

“You just said your sister had an appalling opinion of you.”

“Then I begin to see the compliment glimmering through the obscurity of the setting. From certain signs which may be diagnosed as the pangs of hunger I think it is time to go back. Moreover, I am sure Guido ought to have a good and sufficient meal and be given a thorough cleaning. I wonder why the Lord bestowed anything so ludicrous and at the same time so heart-rending as a donkey’s bray upon the poor creatures, and is it because of that they are always objects of derision?”

“That is a puzzling question, and one for which I doubt if any answer can be found.”

“It will be hot on the carretera, but I have an umbrella and we can keep in the shade wherever there is any. That is one of the advantages of this delightful climate, no matter how hot the sun is one can always be comfortable in the shade.”

They trudged back over the dusty carretera. Few people were encountered, though the women were working in the fields and by the singing stream a company of laundresses were still at work rubbing their wash upon the stones.

Don Felipe had recounted the story of the donkey, so that Master Guido’s appearance was not unexpected, but at Patty’s recital of the tale her sister entirely sympathized with her and pledged herself to petition her husband that Guido be allowed to become Patty’s property.

“He will not grudge the poor little creature food and shelter,” Doña Martina said, “but whether he will think it proper for you to accept him from Robert Lisle is another thing.” However, Robert made much of the relationship, and upon these grounds Patty was allowed to accept the gift. But that was not till the following day. Don Juan was busy with guests when Guido arrived, so that Patty handed her charge over to the gardener, who promised to give him proper care.