Within the friendly walls of the Hospederia any sojourner can for three nights find free accommodation, the Archduke providing house-room, linen, service, and fuel. The apartments are always ready, the guest need send no warning of his intended arrival. All he requires to do is to supply himself with food sufficient for the sustenance of his party throughout the visit, as there are no shops within several miles of Miramar, and the servants at the Hospederia are forbidden to sell to the guests.
Very early during our stay at Palma we had purposed journeying northwards to see the places of whose wonders we had heard; but we were so pleasantly interested in our new home and strange environment that it was nearing the close of November before we felt disposed to take the journey.
At stated times diligences run the twelve miles between Palma and Valldemosa, and the charge is only sevenpence-halfpenny. But the diligence goes no farther than Valldemosa, and that is three miles distant from the Hospederia. So, when we had decided to go on the Tuesday morning, we engaged Bartolomé, a good-looking bachelor charioteer, who stabled his carriage and pair of horses in Son Españolet, to drive us thither.
But Tuesday morning, when it came, brought a sudden change of weather. A strong easterly wind was blowing, and the temperature, for the first time since our arrival on these favoured isles, nearly approached cold. Bartolomé was warned that the journey was postponed for a day at least, and we spent the hours of uncertainty in grumbling at the weather, and in consuming the most perishable of the stock of provisions we had laid in for the expedition.
Judging the Majorcan climate by our knowledge of that of other countries, we were all secretly convinced that we had delayed too long, that the weather had probably changed for the winter, and that our little excursion might require to be postponed until spring.
But to our surprise and relief the succeeding morning proved calm and sunny. Having been duly instructed, Bartolomé drove up at ten o'clock precisely, with a jingling of bells that I am convinced set every feminine head in the Calle de Mas a-peer behind its discreetly closed venetian shutters. In appearance Bartolomé was the embodiment of buoyant geniality. His black hair curled in rings about his smiling face, and he had dressed for the occasion in a white suit, a pink shirt, and a pair of bright yellow elastic-sided boots.