The Firebrand

wild beast. Yet he smiled as he blinked into the midnoon heat, under his shag

smitten hard and eager, so soon as he had seen Rafael de Flores-Rafael, the pretty boy, the cousin of his young wife, between

e place under the flap at the left side where he had often wipe

s lips slowly and smiled. A tiger does that when after a full meal he moves the loose skin over h

man as men go; had his house, his garden, his vines, a quintaine of olive-trees, was accounted quite a match

n then) and now-he had his knife and the long, well-balanced gun w

y than he had expected, his cattle following after in the herdsman's care, the thought of pretty Dolóres making his horse's fee

ess window-space splashed the white. Here and there a hint of vivid colour flung itself out almost defiantly-a woman's red petticoat drying on a cord, the green slats of a well-to-do window-blind. There came to the ears of Ramon Garci

peace and well-accustomed pleasan

ocks of the Montblanch on the borde

iron," and clung a-tip-toe to the window-bars of little Dolóres, who lent him such a shy attenti

er to a rough old fellow like him, one who had endured the t

, there was little told at confession that she did not know. Ramon smiled again, a wicked, knowing smile. For if Manuela owned the legitimate fifty years which qualified her for a place in the Presbytery

ero! Do

d rose-glow had deepened to the smoky ruby of a Spanish gloaming, as it lingered along the western hill-tops. These last shone, i

ait-I would s

ed forward to Dolóres, and overleaped boundaries as a dog leaps a wall, stil

ood news up at the house, is there no

rness in her tones. "You will frighten Dolóres if you blunder it upon her all u

on slurred his speech in his eag

s if she had been recovering a shaken equa

to know! But a fool is always a fool, Don Ramon, even if he owns

"but I did not know. I am the father of all donkeys.

ountenance su

quietly, very quietly. He walks far who begins slowly. He who treads upon eggs does not dance the bolero. You will bide here and talk to the holy Father, and I myself will go to the house of Ramon of the Soft Heart and the Lumbering

in him. He looked down into Manuela's black eyes that hid emotion as a stone is hidden at the bottom of a mountain tarn. Manuela smile

sist him after that? And what was a hand thrust through the rejas? What a kiss if the bars of the grille happened to be broken. A glass that is drunk from, being washed, is clean as before. And when Ramon Garcia, that great Aragonese oaf, kissed little Dolóres, what knew he of pretty Don Rafael de Flores, the alcalde's son? They had been lovers since childhood, and there was no harm

lculated by long experience to reach the father in his study. "Co

e, not to speak of well-buttered trout in a lordly dish, and with rappee coloured red with the umber of Carthagena to give timbr

mpatiently. "If you will tap your snuff-box a little less often, y

step at a time. To do this he held his body a little sideways and let himself down as if uncertain of the s

been buttering this oaf." Then he spoke aloud. "Ah, Ramon, back already! We thought you had been buying beeves in the Cerdagne. I suppose the little Dolóres dragged you back. Ho, ho, you young married men! Your hearts make fools of your feet. 'Tis only celibacy, that most sacred and wi

a man to and fro on his verandah, Manuela with a quick hitch of her muffling man

best of souls, our good Manuela and a pearl of price-a very Martha in the house, a woman altogether above rubies! Is she quite gone? Sit you down then, Ramon, here is the wine-skin, under the seat to the left, and tell me of your journey, spe

and bit, but neither the priest nor yet Ramon minded them in the least. They were men of Sarria, bred of the reed-fenced villages of the Aragonese border, blood

coo-rooing of a rock pigeon, suddenly there rose out of the tangle of roses and vine leaves behi

nt and spellbound in the dusk, "go home, shamed one. Your

laiting and replaiting his f

are alike in the dark. A fair maid is surely worth a farthing candle to kiss her by. Not that I know aught about the matter, being a clerk and a man of years and bodily substance. But a wise man learns many thin

again. Ramon had not moved. His great hand lay along the stone balu

each other thereat and calling sweet names-these two, the cousin whom she lov

bled backward before he had even time to cross himself. And Ramon was over the parapet with his l

breath, so he vanished into the night, blown away by Ramon's rush o

between his teeth, furiously, and he threshed through

ds of the viper fermented i

father's sister-avenged truly, but still a tale told in whispers in the twilight. God's truth, could it be e

hing this way and th

e the proverb, 'Who sees his wife crane her neck thro

hite feet. They were pink-yes, pink on the instep as the heart of a sea-shell. And he, Ramon, would set the arched

a young man going to market driving his father's oxen, he had seen Rafael rushing about the orchard

sometimes. He knew a way, a quicker road than Manuela dreamed of-up the edge of the ravine, across by the pine tree w

og of

om whose grille, bent outward at the bottom like s

earest-my

peaker was within

ulk of Ramon Garcia, henceforw

convulsively as a clasp knife opens and shuts again. There was a spurt of something hot on Ramon's hand tha

er, the man of means, became El Sarria, the man wit