The Fortunate Isles Part 4

His skin was deeply bronzed, his garments were of blue cotton that sun and sea air had faded to a delicate hue. A scarlet sash was wound about his waist. His naked brown feet were thrust into string-soled green shoes.

Catalina, who had been watching for his arrival, ran out with a slender-spouted bottle of wine and three wooden spoons. Her mother followed close with an earthenware pipkin of the thick Majorcan soup that we had declined.

Grouped in an amicable trio, they ate from the same dish, and in turn drank from the slender spout of the green gla.s.s bottle. The pale girl remained pensively silent, but the other continued to talk, punctuating her conversation with dramatic movements of her hands. How we wished we could have understood what she was saying!

When the combined efforts of the three wooden spoons had searched the red earthenware vessel to its depths, the man who came from the sea rose and, lifting it in his hand without a word, walked to the edge of the water and threw the pipkin far into the Mediterranean.

Then returning, he resumed his seat.

No one made any comment upon this inexplicable proceeding. Had the inoffending pipkin not been empty it might have seemed as though he were offering a libation to some unseen spirit of the water. But the actively plied spoons had succeeded in scooping out the last vestige of the soup.

In the meantime we had been occupied with our second course, which consisted of lengths of orange-coloured sausage, served hot with fried potatoes. And a new-comer, an old man, was eating a big plate of macaroni.

The nimble Catalina, flas.h.i.+ng out, set a flat dish, heaped with some sort of stew, before the trio. What its contents were we could only guess. The lively maiden and the man were already poking among them with their wooden forks. The pensive girl had produced a silver fork and was delicately helping herself, fastidiously turning over the ingredients. The handsome reticent man sat motionless but observant.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Supper Party]

They ate in leisurely fas.h.i.+on--n.o.body hurries in Palma. The gay girl rattled on in her musical voice, gesticulating with her pretty hands the while, only occasionally dropping the thread of her dramatic recital to send her fork foraging with the others, or to throw back her head and let the red wine trickle down her throat.

"Will he throw that dish away when it is empty?" we were wondering, when the senora, who was making a special effort on our behalf, appeared in person carrying a tempting combination of sweet peppers and young pork.

The question answered itself. When they had finished, the dish stood empty and ignored. The wine flask was refilled, and when we had paid our score--wine included, it came to about sevenpence each--we left the quartette still sitting under the flickering light by the edge of the unseen waves: the charming girl still lively, the pretty one distraite, the fisherman amiable, and the handsome listener still silently attentive.

It had been an odd little interlude--nothing to relate, indeed, but one of those petty excursions beyond one's own stereotyped world that make the observers feel, for the moment, as though they were living in somebody else's life, not in their own.

We finished the evening at what chanced to be the popular entertainment. If I remember correctly, it combined the attractions of a cinematograph and a variety show.

We were again out in the starlight, and walking briskly westwards towards Son Espanolet, when the Boy said abruptly:--

"I wish I knew why that man threw the pipkin into the sea!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Sat.u.r.day Market, Palma]

IV

HOUSEKEEPING

Although, at Son Espanolet, we were subject to no police or other rate, a small weekly tax was levied with extreme punctuality, on behalf of himself, by a functionary called the _vigilante_.

The most onerous labour of this alleged guardian of the public would appear to have been the collection, on Sunday mornings, of a penny from each householder. I trust I do not malign a worthy citizen, when I hint that these periodic visits were the only occasions on which most of his supporters were made conscious of the _vigilante's_ existence.

His professed duties were to protect the interests of the residents in the district by prowling about at night, to escort timid wayfarers home by the light of his lantern, and, like the _sereno_, to call those who wished to be roused at an early hour. But what manner of need a community already rich in police, _serenos_, _carabineros_, and _consumeros_, had of a _vigilante_, was hard to imagine.

n.o.body seemed to know who appointed the _vigilantes_. The Boy had a theory that our _vigilante_ had a.s.signed himself to the post, and that his sole exertion lay in calling to collect the fees.

On the morning of our first Sunday at the Casa Tranquila an imperative knock sounded at the front door. It was the _vigilante_, a good-looking white-bearded man clad in blue cotton. His designation was inscribed in bold letters on his cap-band. Having been forewarned of the custom, I handed over the expected ten centimos, which he accepted with the dignified courtesy of one who receives a right, and departed.

Two hours later the Boy, who had been out at the time of the visit, answered a second summons.

"It's the _vigilante_," he said, returning to the veranda where we were sitting. "Has anybody got a copper?"

"But I gave the _vigilante_ his penny this morning," I said, hastening to the door.

At my approach the applicant, recognizing me, waved the matter aside, as though the mistake had been mine, and he was graciously pleased to ignore it.

"The houses are so many--one forgets," he said, and strutted off without loss of dignity.

On Christmas Day he paid us an extra visit, and, sending in a card with his best wishes, awaited, not in vain, a monetary expression of our good-will.

The card, which was resplendent in rainbow tints, and richly emblazoned in gold, bore a representation of a young, dapper, and exquisitely dressed _vigilante_ who was smoking a cigar. At his feet were portrayed a n.o.ble turkey, several bottles of champagne, and other seasonable dainties. A side tableau showed the _vigilante_, armed with his staff of office and a huge bunch of keys, opening a street door to a belated couple who, presumably, had been locked out.

On the reverse side of the card was a long poem, which, on behalf of its presenter, claimed many good offices; notably, that he captured the evil-doer, and that, filled with fervent zeal, he watched over our repose. It concluded by stating:--

"_I try to be in all A perfect Vigilante._"

Apart from similar curious and amusing conventions, with which one has to become acquainted, the early days of housekeeping in Majorca find the foreign resident grappling with a succession of petty difficulties. Besides the differences of language, of coinage, of weights and measures, the dissimilarity of climate renders advisable, even necessary, a mode of living that would be quite unsuited to dwellers in Britain.

To begin with the morning--the customary Majorcan breakfast, which even at the best hotels consists of a gla.s.s of coffee, or a tiny cup of very thick chocolate, and tumbler of water taken with a single roll, or an _enciamada_, is a meal from which the ordinary Briton rises hungry. And one wonders why the Spanish landlord, whose table is so lavishly spread at other meals, should practise a false economy in the matter of breakfast. For, after all, a roll costs only a halfpenny. Dinner is invariably an early function, and an extensive one, for at their two later meals Spaniards make up for their abstinence at breakfast. Between the two o'clock dinner and supper, which is served at any time between eight and ten o'clock, there is a long blank, which the English visitor usually bridges with a cup of tea.

To return to the question of breakfast. At the Casa Tranquila we compromised the matter, and broke our fast on an unstinted quant.i.ty of coffee or chocolate and milk, taken with fruit, rolls and b.u.t.ter, and _enciamadas_. Majorcan breakfast rolls are of two kinds--the ordinary crisp ones, and, what we liked better, a soft species called _panecillos de aceite_.

Bacon is unknown in Majorca, though ham, of strong flavour and repellent aspect, may be had. It sells at twopence an ounce; and if you wish to astonish the vendor, you can do so by ordering more than a quarter of a pound.

We had been warned that we would be forced to do without b.u.t.ter while in the islands. But matters have progressed--in Palma at least--since the old b.u.t.terless days. Now the better cla.s.s grocers sell a peculiarly white b.u.t.ter that is made at Son Servera, near Arta; and almost every provision shop stocks a tinned salt b.u.t.ter that comes from Copenhagen. By the way, the purchaser must not be surprised when asked if it is "pig's b.u.t.ter" he wants. The salesman only means lard.

Cow's milk, another article of diet that used to be scarce in the islands, can easily be obtained. The price charged is almost the same as in London and the milk is much richer.

With the aid of a Spanish dictionary it had been a comparatively simple matter to make out a list of groceries with which to furnish the shelves of our empty larder. But I must confess that a first visit to a butcher's shop made me wonder if Majorcan sheep and oxen differed in construction from British animals, such odd forms did their dead flesh present.

Cold storage is unknown in Palma. The beasts are killed, cut up, and sold almost before they have had time to cool. And, if they were not invariably killed young, their flesh could hardly be so good as it is, the lamb especially being sweet and tender.

A fact that forcibly strikes anyone from a meat-eating country is the small quant.i.ties of animal food consumed. Where the wife of a British working-man might spend a s.h.i.+lling on beef, a Majorcan would spend twopence. Naturally the meat is sold in small pieces, and inspection is courted. The east-end butcher's printed command to his customers--"Keep your hands off the beef," would be scorned in the Balearic Isles. If you shop in native fas.h.i.+on, you walk about the shop, turning over and critically examining the pieces exposed within easy reach. When your selection is made you need not invest in any great quant.i.ty. If you fancy calf's head, custom does not compel you to buy a half head. You can have a pound, a half-pound, or even a slice.

If your taste turns to fowl, at your request the bird suspended by its heels is halved, quartered, or wholly dismembered. Its limbs may lack the n.o.ble proportions of a Surrey capon, but they will be well flavoured and succulent, and you can acquire a wing and slice of the breast, or a leg, or a yet smaller portion, as your fancy inclines.

We had heard that Majorcans were apt to tax foreigners by making them pay more than was customary for anything purchased, but such occurrences were quite outside our experience; though I did come across an example of Majorcan reasoning that was so amusingly illogical that I am tempted to repeat it here.

Finding in our picnicking style of housekeeping that a cold tongue was a useful thing to have in the larder, I frequently ordered one from the estimable butcher who served us. For a time the price charged was moderate. One day without warning it was increased by a half.

My Spanish unaided did not enable me to argue the matter, but Mrs.

Consul chancing to be with me next time I called at the shop, I got her to inquire the reason of this sudden and unexplained change of rate.

"Yes. The tongue was a small one, and the price high," admitted the plump wife of the butcher, who acted as his accountant. "But then I had charged the senora too little for those we had supplied her with at first. And though we have many customers, each ox we kill has only one tongue. And, as I had charged the senora too little for the others, to be just to myself I was obliged to ask more than the true price for the last one!"

The method of reasoning was so delightfully irrational and absurd that I cheerfully paid the confessed overcharge, and we left the shop laughing. Probably the worthy dame wonders to this day what we found entertaining in the situation.