It did not take the muleteers a moment to tear away the stones that closed the entrance, but when Uncle Manuel stooped into the cleft and lifted out the inert little body, a dreadful silence fell upon the group,--a silence soon broken by Pilarica’s cheerful pipe: “Rafael! Wake up! It isn’t bed-time yet.” At that sweet, familiar voice the lids fluttered, and the black eyes, bewildered, brave, looked up into Uncle Manuel’s face. The Pilgrim of the Thorn, as Pilarica called him, instantly had his water-gourd at the white lips, and Rafael revived so rapidly that he was soon sitting upon his uncle’s knee. He even glanced at his watch, with his usual air of careless magnificence in performing this action, and was amazed to find that only one hour had passed since they left the rivulet. Every man of them wanted to carry him down to the road. The boy hesitated to make a choice, but when the vigorous old peasant-woman, who had puffed up the mountainside after the rest, put in her claim, he decided at once. “I’ll ride Shags,” he said. XIX THE END OF THE ROAD There was still a big lump under Rafael’s hat when, a few afternoons later, our travellers, after a brief siesta, started out on the last stage of their long journey. The muleteers were in the wildest spirits, tossing _coplas_ from one to another and often roaring out in chorus: “Galicia is the fairest land By God to mortals granted, Galicia, our Galicia, Galicia the enchanted.” `p/ Even Tia Marta could not deny the charm of the landscape,--ranges of wooded mountains, reaches of green meadow and of farmlands waving with wheat, cozy farm-houses with broad, overshadowing roofs and a wealth of vines creeping up the white-washed walls, but she waxed ever more indignant at sight of the sturdy peasant-women working in the fields, driving the ploughs, wielding old-fashioned hoes and spades, loading bullock-carts with produce, and carrying boxes, barrels, bales, all manner of heavy and unwieldy burdens, on their heads. “So that is what a woman’s head is good for in Galicia,” she remarked tartly. “And I’ll warrant that the husbands of these women are spending, out of every four and twenty hours, five and twenty at the tavern.” Uncle Manuel, who had insisted on having the whole Andalusian party ride at the head of the train with him, that he might point out to them the first view of the pilgrim city, shook his head over this arithmetic, and Pedrillo, festive in a fringed fire-red scarf, ventured to remonstrate: “Not so, Doña Marta. The husbands emigrate to South America, that they may grow rich there. Some of them die of the Galician homesickness, but others come back with their wallets full of gold. And there are many fishermen, who are oft casting their lines and nets.”