"Jan," I cried, "those goatherds are giving us a farewell serenade."
We hurried into our clothes. The goatherds had sat themselves down on the stone bench at the front door and were singing lustily at the moon. I don't know what the Spanish etiquette in such matters is, but we went out and took part in our own serenade. It was a lengthy affair. The time crept on, and we, shivering somewhat, for the night grew quite cold, sat ungratefully thinking of the sleep we were missing, and wondering how we were to awaken ourselves at four o'clock. At two o'clock they went away, and we rushed back to bed to seize the two hours of sleep which remained for us.
[Footnote 25: Crocodile is Spanish slang for a false lover.]
We came back to Murcia, to our headquarters in the Paseo de Corveras, at the beginning of October. Though the town was so far south, the cold weather had well begun. In the daytime the sun seemed as fierce as ever, but the dust that had lain inches deep during the summer was now an equal depth of semi-liquid mud, and the house, without fireplaces or any means of creating artificial warmth, had in it a faint though insidious chill. Save in the hottest weather, stone or cement floors are comfortless to live with. Marciana, the woman whose services we had shared with Antonio during Rosa's smallpox, returned to us. She was a woman of sixty years, bulky in figure, dressed in black of an eternal mourning, and was mother of the most talented sculptor of Murcia. She was an illustration of the inter-provincial jealousy of the Spaniard. She came from Don Quixote's country, La Mancha, and was never weary of chanting its praises.
"Ah, Señora," she exclaimed, "that is a wonderful land. Corn, oil and wine in abundance. Dancing and singing in the villages all night long. And what a wonderful people are those of mi pueblo.[26] My two sisters, they each weigh at least twice as much as do I. And then we are a civilized folk there, I can assure you. You saw how they treated it here when Rosa had the smallpox. No precautions, even though one died of it a few doors down the street. Now in mi pueblo they stretch sheets in front of the doors of warning; the necessaries of life are put on to the doorstep, and the money to pay for them is dropped by the hands of those who are in the house, and who are not allowed beyond the sheet, into pans of vinegar, so that they may be purified of the disease. Now that is real cleanliness."