He was
the life and soul of the fortress; when his work was over, he would
sit on one of the stone benches of the esplanade, strum his guitar,
and sing long ditties about the Cid, and Bernardo del Carpio, and
Fernando del Pulgar, and other Spanish heroes, for the amusement of
the old soldiers of the fortress, or would strike up a merrier tune,
and set the girls dancing boleros and fandangos.
Like most little men, Lope Sanchez had a strapping buxom dame for
a wife, who could almost have put him in her pocket; but he lacked the
usual poor man's lot- instead of ten children he had but one. This was
a little black-eyed girl about twelve years of age, named Sanchica,
who was as merry as himself, and the delight of his heart. She
played about him as he worked in the gardens, danced to his guitar
as he sat in the shade, and ran as wild as a young fawn about the
groves and alleys and ruined halls of the Alhambra.
It was now the eve of the blessed St. John, and the holiday-loving
gossips of the Alhambra, men, women, and children, went up at night to
the mountain of the sun, which rises above the Generalife, to keep
their midsummer vigil on its level summit. It was a bright moonlight
night, and all the mountains were gray and silvery, and the city, with
its domes and spires, lay in shadows below, and the Vega was like a
fairy land, with haunted streams gleaming among its dusky groves.
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