Go Saddle the Sea by Aiken Joan

Author:Aiken, Joan [Aiken, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780152060640
Publisher: Graphia
Published: 1977-01-02T07:00:00+00:00

7. I hear startling news at the convent in Santander; I am angry with Sam; and find a ship

On the following morning, my clothes being dried and returned to me (cleaner, indeed, than they had been since I was given them), we made ready to depart and asked Don Manuel what was to pay. He said, nothing at all, and when we protested, told us that we had brought more custom to his inn last night than he could normally expect in four or five days. Besides, we were friends of his cousin Enrique.

"Come again whenever you wish!" he invited us. Sam therefore agreed to spend a night there on his way back to Llanes from Santander.

This talk of Sam's return made my heart heavy, for it reminded me that our parting was now not far distant. However, there was no profit in dwelling on this sad thought, and so we walked along to the church, where, we were entertained to observe, what must have been every soul in the village had now assembled to watch Father Ignacio setting off his morning rockets for mass.

"Pepe's ox has won me a larger congregation than any of my preachings," he said to us cheerfully, after mass had been celebrated. "But all is corn that comes to God's mill! I hope you are none the worse for your adventure, my boy?"

I said that I was a little stiff, but the ride to Santander would soon put that right.

At breakfast, Father Ignacio asked where we would lodge in Santander, supposing that I could not immediately find a ship that was about to embark for England. This thought cheered me. Perhaps I might have to wait some days, even a week!

We said we had given the matter of accommodation no thought, but would probably find some sailors' lodging house; Sam knew of several. Father Ignacio suggested instead that we stay at a monastery on the outskirts of the town, and he wrote us a note of recommendation to the prior. This reminded me of my promise to the duelist on the mountains above Oviedo. I still had the note he had given me for his stepdaughter in the Convent of the Esclavitud, and I asked Father Ignacio if he knew of its whereabouts.

"To be sure I do, my son; it is not a stone's throw from the monastery."

Having given us instructions how to find them both, he bade us a cordial farewell, saying to Sam, "I shall hope to see you again very soon," and to me, "God watch over you during all your adventures, my son, and give you always as stout a spirit as you showed yesterday."

With which blessing we departed.

Santillana is no great distance from Santander—six leagues at the outside—and we reached the port before noon. What a different scene we found here from the small places we had hitherto visited! Santander seemed greater by far even than Santiago de Compostela, which was the largest town I had seen up to now, and indeed Sam told me that he believed thirty or forty thousand persons dwelt there.

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