fishing-rods menacingly. He stood nearly two metres high and the keys clanked loudly at his belt as he sprang towards us through the rosemary and mastic, his beard blowing wildly in the dawn breeze. They gave up their pistols like little boys caught in an act of naughtiness. He tossed one over the cliff in a high arc and handed the other to me. “Accompany me back to your car,rogues,” he said, “lest I cast the pair of you where I cast that pistol!”
‘They stumbled back, the Saint not saying a word but flogging them atintervals with his rods while I kept them covered with the pistol. He was red with wrath. When we reached the road there was the Mayor, barefooted but with the motor-cycle, waiting by Don Pablo’s car, and we were three to one. So the Mayor left the motorcycleon this side of the wall, and climbed into the car, and drove us straight to the District Barracks, where he demanded to see the Commanding Officer at once. From that moment everything went very well indeed. The Commandant knew the Saint well, and knew the Mayor by name and reputation, and had once bought a cob from me which fortunately had proved as sound and sweet-tempered as I had guaranteedit to be. When the gunmen had made a full confession and had been put into the guardroom, the Saint said to the Commandant: “Don Pablo of Ca’n Sampol, when he hears of this, will laugh with one side of his face only.”
‘Believe it or not, that was precisely what happened. When the Civil Guards came later in the day to arrest him, he suffered a sort of paralytic stroke, which screwed up the lefthalf of his face in a grin which has not since left him. After he had spent some months in the Grand Hotel, waiting his turn, he was sentenced to death for conspiracy against the life of an innocent man, but by the influence of Doña Binilde’s relations, one of whom was the Vicar-general of Palma, the sentence was commuted to life-imprisonment, and they let him out after three years.
Está en sucasa.
And I am in mine. But ever since then I have had recurrent nightmares of the
mirador,
and have felt myself tossed in a high arc over the cliff by a furious Saint whom I suppose, by the portfolio of documents at his side, to be St Paul. It comes upon me just before dawn and afterwards I cannot sleep a wink.’
It is one of the beauties of Majorcan story-telling that the point is never laboured.Don Pedro counted on my knowledge of local affairs to supply the details which he omitted. The gunmen, being newcomers to the district, were unaware that in the ruined Moorish Tower on the rock pinnacle high above the coast road, lives a Hermit, who just before dawn every morning – Sundays and important feasts excepted – locks his great nail-studded Hermitage door, scrambles through the evergreenoak glades and olive groves, crosses the road close to the
mirador
and climbs down by the smugglers’ track to his boat-house at the bottom. There he says his matins, attends to his lobster pots in season, collects driftwood and sometimes gathers samphire from the cliff face, or caper buds for pickling, and goes fishing with rod and line. He is a very tall, strong, quick-tempered man, formerlya sailor, and disdains to wear shoes or sandals. Pilgrims visit his Hermitage often, to leave little gifts when they know he will be at home. They kiss the rope that girds his rough brown habit and sometimes consult him about difficult matters with which they do not wish to trouble the parish priest who, they say, is a good man but inexperienced in the ways of the world.
‘Come, friend Pedro,’I said. ‘You have recovered from your lameness. Up with you to the
mirador
! Lean right over and you will be able to tell Doctor Guasp from what a fall you were saved. Here is my arm.’
‘A thousand thanks, friend. If you will pardon me, I can dispense with help.’
He went leisurely up the steps to the
mirador
and leaned over the parapet with bowed head, humbly making his peace with the
‘They stumbled back, the Saint not saying a word but flogging them atintervals with his rods while I kept them covered with the pistol. He was red with wrath. When we reached the road there was the Mayor, barefooted but with the motor-cycle, waiting by Don Pablo’s car, and we were three to one. So the Mayor left the motorcycleon this side of the wall, and climbed into the car, and drove us straight to the District Barracks, where he demanded to see the Commanding Officer at once. From that moment everything went very well indeed. The Commandant knew the Saint well, and knew the Mayor by name and reputation, and had once bought a cob from me which fortunately had proved as sound and sweet-tempered as I had guaranteedit to be. When the gunmen had made a full confession and had been put into the guardroom, the Saint said to the Commandant: “Don Pablo of Ca’n Sampol, when he hears of this, will laugh with one side of his face only.”
‘Believe it or not, that was precisely what happened. When the Civil Guards came later in the day to arrest him, he suffered a sort of paralytic stroke, which screwed up the lefthalf of his face in a grin which has not since left him. After he had spent some months in the Grand Hotel, waiting his turn, he was sentenced to death for conspiracy against the life of an innocent man, but by the influence of Doña Binilde’s relations, one of whom was the Vicar-general of Palma, the sentence was commuted to life-imprisonment, and they let him out after three years.
Está en sucasa.
And I am in mine. But ever since then I have had recurrent nightmares of the
mirador,
and have felt myself tossed in a high arc over the cliff by a furious Saint whom I suppose, by the portfolio of documents at his side, to be St Paul. It comes upon me just before dawn and afterwards I cannot sleep a wink.’
It is one of the beauties of Majorcan story-telling that the point is never laboured.Don Pedro counted on my knowledge of local affairs to supply the details which he omitted. The gunmen, being newcomers to the district, were unaware that in the ruined Moorish Tower on the rock pinnacle high above the coast road, lives a Hermit, who just before dawn every morning – Sundays and important feasts excepted – locks his great nail-studded Hermitage door, scrambles through the evergreenoak glades and olive groves, crosses the road close to the
mirador
and climbs down by the smugglers’ track to his boat-house at the bottom. There he says his matins, attends to his lobster pots in season, collects driftwood and sometimes gathers samphire from the cliff face, or caper buds for pickling, and goes fishing with rod and line. He is a very tall, strong, quick-tempered man, formerlya sailor, and disdains to wear shoes or sandals. Pilgrims visit his Hermitage often, to leave little gifts when they know he will be at home. They kiss the rope that girds his rough brown habit and sometimes consult him about difficult matters with which they do not wish to trouble the parish priest who, they say, is a good man but inexperienced in the ways of the world.
‘Come, friend Pedro,’I said. ‘You have recovered from your lameness. Up with you to the
mirador
! Lean right over and you will be able to tell Doctor Guasp from what a fall you were saved. Here is my arm.’
‘A thousand thanks, friend. If you will pardon me, I can dispense with help.’
He went leisurely up the steps to the
mirador
and leaned over the parapet with bowed head, humbly making his peace with the
Similar Books
