was the wrought bosom of her chemise, with small gold buttons. Frank could not keep his eyes off her, now riding off to the further side of the road to take in at once the whole of the beauteous vision, now coming close up to study it in its delightful details.
In front of the pair rode the little Governor, side by side with a Spaniard of about thirty, the long-betrothed lover of Juana – so long, in fact, that he did not trouble himself to secure his authority in a territory so undeniably his own, but smoked his cigar as coolly as if there were no good-looking Englishman within fifty miles of his mistress. He wore garments of the Spanish cut, made of nankeen – the jacket frogged with silver cords, tagged with little silver fishes – the latter appended, perhaps, as suitable companions to the frogs. A hundred yards ahead was an escort of four horse-soldiers with carbines on their thighs, their steel accoutrements flashing ruddily in the level sunlight. Behind Frank came Major Flinders, clean shaved, and with jack-boots and regimental coat restored to something like their pristine splendour; by his side rode another lady, the Señorita Carlota, Juana's aunt, somewhere about thirty years old, plump and merry, her upper lip fringed at the corners with a line of dark down, quite decided enough for a cornet of eighteen to be proud of – a feminine embellishment too common for remark in these southern regions, and, in the opinion of some connoisseurs, rather enhancing the beauty of the fair wearers. She talked incessantly, at first, to my grandfather, who did not understand a word she said, but whose native politeness prompted him to say, "Si, Señorita," to everything – sometimes laying at the same moment his hand on his heart, and bowing with considerable grace. Behind this pair came another interesting couple – viz., two servants on mules, with great saddle-bags stuffed to extreme corpulence with provisions.
It was a glorious morning – a gentle breeze sweeping on their faces as they mounted the hills, but dying into silence in the deep valleys, fresh, and glistening with dew. Sometimes they rode along a rocky common, yellowed with a flowering shrub like furze – sometimes through unfenced fields – sometimes along broad plains, where patches of blossoming beans made the air rich with scent, and along which they galloped full speed, the Governor standing high in the stirrups of his demi-pique, the Señorita's white barb arching his neck till his muzzle touched his chest under the pressure of the long bit, and my grandfather prancing somewhat uneasily on his hard-mouthed Spanish entero, whose nose was, for the most part, projected horizontally in the air. The Major was not a first-rate seat – he rode with a long stirrup, his heel well down, his leg straight, and slanting a little forward, body upright, and elbows back, as may be seen in the plates to ancient works on equitation – a posture imposing enough, but not safe across country: galloping deranged it materially, for the steed was hard-mouthed, and required a long, strong pull, with the body back, and a good purchase on the stirrups. The animal had a most voracious appetite, quite overcoming his sense of what was due to his rider; and, on seeing a tuft of juicy grass, down went his nose, drawing my grandfather, by means of the tight reins, well over the pummel. On these occasions, the Major, feeling resistance to be in vain, would sit looking easily about him, feigning to be absorbed in admiration of the prospect – which was all very well, where there was a prospect to look at, but wore a less plausible appearance when the animal paused in a hollow between two hedges, or ran his nose into a barn-door. But whenever this happened, Carlota, instead of half-smothering a laugh, as a mischievous English girl would, ten to one, have done, sat most patiently till the Major and his steed came to an understanding, and would greet him, as they moved on again, with a good-natured smile, that won her, each time, a higher place in his estimation.
Thus they proceeded till the sun rose high in the heavens, when, on reaching a grove on the edge of one of the plains, they halted under a huge cork-tree, near which ran a rivulet. The cavalcade dismounted – the horses were tethered, the mules disburthened of the saddle-bags, and the contents displayed under the tree; horse-cloths and cloaks were spread around on the ground and a fire of dry sticks was lit on the edge of the stream with such marvellous celerity that, before my grandfather had time to take more than a hasty survey of the eatables, after seating himself on the root of a tree, a cup of steaming chocolate was placed in his hand.
"Confess, Major," said Garry, speaking with his mouth full of sausage, "that a man may lose some of the pleasures of existence by leading the life of a hermit. Don't you feel grateful to me for dragging you out of your cobweb to such a pleasant place as this?"
"'Tis an excellent breakfast," said my grandfather, who had just assisted the Señorita Carlota to a slice of turkey's breast, and himself to an entire leg and thigh – dividing with her, at the same time, a crisp white loaf, having a handle like a teapot or smoothing-iron – "and my appetite is really very good. I should be perfectly easy if I could only understand the remarks of this very agreeable lady, and make suitable replies."
"Let me interpret your sentiments," said Garry; "and though I may not succeed in conveying them in their original force and poetry, yet they shall lose as little as possible in transmission. Just try me – what would you wish to say?"
"Why, really," said my grandfather, pondering, "I had a great many things to say as we came along, but they've gone out of my head. Do you think she ever read Shakspeare?"
"Not a chance of it," said Owen.
Here the Señorita laughingly appealed to Frank to know what my grandfather was saying about her.
"Ah," quoth my grandfather, quoting his friend Shakspeare —
"'I understand thy looks– the pretty Spanish
Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens
I am not perfect in – '
She's an extremely agreeable woman, Frank, I'll be sworn, if one only understood her," quoth my grandfather, casting on her a glance full of gallantry.
The Ensign was not so entirely occupied in prosecuting his own love affair as to be insensible to the facilities afforded him for amusing himself at the Major's expense. Accordingly, he made a speech in Spanish to Carlota, purporting to be a faithful translation of my grandfather's, but teeming, in fact, with the most romantic expressions of chivalrous admiration, as was apparent from the frequent recurrence of the words "ojos," (eyes,) "corazon," (heart,) and the like amatory currency.
"There, Major," said the interpreter, as he finished; "I've told her what you said of her."
The Major endorsed the compliments by laying his hand upon his heart, and bowing with a tender air. Whereupon Carlota, laughing, and blushing a deeper red, made her acknowledgments.
"She says," quoth Frank, "that she knew the English before to be a gallant nation; but that if all the caballéros (that's gentlemen) of that favoured race are equal to the present specimen, her own countrymen must be thrown entirely into the shade."
"Delightful!" cried my grandfather; but it is doubtful whether this expression of pleasure was called forth by the sentiments attributed to the Señorita, or by the crisp succulent tenderness of a mouthful of sucking-pig which was at that moment spreading itself over his palate.
Following up his idea, the mischievous Ensign continued to diversify the graver pursuit of prosecuting his own suit with Juana, by impressing Carlota and the Major with the idea that each was favourably impressed with the other. In this he was tolerably successful – the speeches he made to Carlota, supposed to originate with my grandfather, had a very genuine warmth about them, being, in fact, very often identical with those he had just been making, under immediate inspiration, to his own divinity; while as for the Major, it would have been an insult to the simplicity of that worthy man's nature to exert any great ingenuity in deceiving him; it would have been like setting a trap for a snail. So they journeyed on, highly pleased with each other, and occasionally, in the absence of their faithful interpreter, conversed by means of smiles and courteous gesticulations, till my grandfather felt entirely at his ease, and was almost sorry when on the evening of the second day they got to Cadiz.
CHAPTER
