out shooting,' she said, 'and two others are in Cuba, fighting the
rebels.'
'God protect them!' muttered another.
'All our sons go to Cuba now,' said the first. 'Oh, I don't blame the
Cubans, but the government.'
An angry light filled her eyes, and she lifted her clenched hand,
cursing the rulers at Madrid who took her children. 'They're robbers and
fools. Why can't they let Cuba go? It isn't worth the money we pay in
taxes.'
She spoke so vehemently, mumbling the words between her toothless gums,
that I could scarcely make them out.
'In Madrid they don't care if the country goes to rack and ruin so long
as they fill their purses. Listen.' She put one hand on my arm. 'My boy
came back with fever and dysentery. He was ill for months--at death's
door--and I nursed him day and night. And almost before he could walk
they sent him out again to that accursed country.'
The tears rolled heavily down her wrinkled cheeks.
* * *
Luisiana is a curious place. It was a colony formed by Charles III. of
Spain with Germans whom he brought to people the desolate land; and I
fancied the Teuton ancestry was apparent in the smaller civility of the
inhabitants. They looked sullenly as I passed, and none gave the
friendly Andalusian greeting. I saw a woman hanging clothes on the line
outside her house; she had blue eyes and flaxen hair, a healthy red
face, and a solidity of build which proved the purity of her northern
blood. The houses, too, had a certain exotic quaintness; notwithstanding
the universal whitewash of the South, there was about them still a
northern character. They were prim and regularly built, with little
plots of garden; the fences and the shutters were bright green. I almost
expected to see German words on the post-office and on the tobacco-shop,
and the grandiloquent Spanish seemed out of place; I thought the Spanish
clothes of the men sat upon them uneasily.
The day was drawing to a close and I pushed on to reach Ecija before
night, but Aguador was tired and I was obliged mostly to walk. Now the
highway turned and twisted among little hills and it was a strange
relief to leave the dead level of the plains: on each side the land was
barren and desolate, and in the distance were dark mountains. The sky
had clouded over, and the evening was grey and very cold; the solitude
was awful. At last I overtook a pedlar plodding along by his donkey, the
panniers filled to overflowing with china and glass, which he was taking
to sell in Ecija. He wished to talk, but he was going too slowly, and I
left him. I had hills to climb now, and at the top of each expected to
see the town, but every time was disappointed. The traces of man
surrounded me at last; again I rode among olive-groves and cornfields;
the highway now was bordered with straggling aloes and with hedges of
cactus.
At last! I reached the brink of another hill, and then, absolutely at my
feet, so that I could have thrown a stone on its roofs, lay Ecija with
its numberless steeples.
XXIX
[Sidenote: Ecija]
The central square, where are the government offices, the taverns, and a
little inn, is a charming place, quiet and lackadaisical, its pale
browns and greys very restful in the twilight, and harmonious. The
houses with their queer windows and their balconies of wrought iron are
built upon arcades which give a pleasant feeling of intimacy: in summer,
cool and dark, they must be the promenade of all the gossips and the
loungers. One can imagine the uneventful life, the monotonous round of
existence; and yet the Andalusian blood runs in the people's veins. To
my writer's fantasy Ecija seemed a fit background for some tragic story
of passion or of crime.
I dined, unromantically enough, with a pair of commercial travellers, a
post-office clerk, and two stout, elderly men who appeared to be retired
officers. Spanish victuals are terrible and strange; food is even more
an affair of birth than religion, since a man may change his faith, but
hardly his manner of eating: the stomach used to roast meat and
Yorkshire pudding rebels against Eastern cookery, and a Christian may
sooner become a Buddhist than a beef-eater a guzzler of _olla podrida_.
The Spaniards without weariness eat the same dinner day after day, year
in, year out: it is always the same white, thin, oily soup; a dish of
haricot beans and maize swimming in a revolting sauce; a nameless
_entrée_ fried in oil--Andalusians have a passion for other animals'
insides; a thin steak, tough as leather and grilled to utter dryness;
raisins and oranges. You rise from table feeling that you have been
soaked in rancid oil.
My table-companions were disposed to be sociable. The travellers desired
to know whether I was there to sell anything, and one drew from his
pocket, for my inspection, a case of watch-chains. The officers surmised
that I had come from Gibraltar to spy the land, and to terrify me, spoke
of the invincible strength of the Spanish forces.
'Are you aware,' said the elder, whose adiposity prevented his outward
appearance from corresponding with his warlike heart, 'Are you aware
that in the course of history our army has never once been defeated, and
our fleet but twice?'
He mentioned the catastrophes, but I had never heard of them; and
Trafalgar was certainly not included. I hazarded a discreet inquiry,
whereupon, with much emphasis, both explained how on that occasion the
Spanish had soundly thrashed old Nelson, although he had discomfited the
French.
'It is odd,' I observed, 'that British historians should be so
inaccurate.'
'It is discreditable,' retorted my acquaintance, with a certain
severity.
'How long did the English take to conquer the Soudan?' remarked the
other, somewhat aggressively picking his teeth. 'Twenty years? We
conquered Morocco in three months.'
'And the Moors are devils,' said the commercial traveller. 'I know,
because I once went to Tangiers for my firm.'
After dinner I wandered about the streets, past the great old houses of
the nobles in the _Calle de los Caballeros_, empty now and dilapidated,
for every gentleman that can put a penny in his pocket goes to Madrid to
spend it; down to the river which flowed swiftly between high banks.
Below the bridge two Moorish mills, irregular masses of blackness, stood
finely against the night. Near at hand they were still working at a
forge, and I watched the flying sparks as the smith hammered a
horseshoe; the workers were like silhouettes in front of the leaping
flames.
At many windows, to my envy, couples were philandering; the night was
cold and Corydon stood huddled in his cape. But the murmuring as I
passed was like the flow of a rapid brook, and I imagined, I am sure,
far more passionate and romantic speeches than ever the lovers made. I
might have uttered them to the moon, but I should have felt ridiculous,
and it was more practical to jot them down afterwards in a note-book. In
some of the surrounding villages they have so far preserved the Moorish
style as to have no windows within reach of the ground, and lovers then
must take advantage of the aperture at the bottom of the door made for
the domestic cat's particular convenience. Stretched full length on the
ground, on opposite sides of the impenetrable barrier, they can still
whisper amorous commonplaces to one another. But imagine the confusion
of a polite Spaniard, on a dark night, stumbling over a recumbent swain:
'My dear sir, I beg your pardon. I had no idea....'
In old days the disturbance would have been sufficient cause for a duel,
but now manners are more peaceful: the gallant, turning a little,
removes his hat and politely answers:
'It is of no consequence. _Vaya Usted con Dios!_'
'Good-night!'
The intruder passes and the beau endeavours passionately to catch sight
of his mistress' black eyes.
* * *
Next day was Sunday, and I walked by the river till I found a plot of
grass sheltered from the wind by a bristly hedge of cactus. I lay down
in the sun, lazily watching two oxen that ploughed a neighbouring field.
I felt it my duty in the morning to buy a chap-book relating the
adventures of the famous brigands who were called the Seven Children of
Ecija; and this, somewhat sleepily, I began to read. It required a
byronic stomach, for the very first chapter led me to a monastery where
mass proceeded in memory of some victim of undiscovered crime. Seven
handsome men appeared, most splendidly arrayed, but armed to the teeth;
each one was every inch a brigand, pitiless yet great of heart,
saturnine yet gentlemanly; and their peculiarity was that though six
were killed one day seven would invariably be seen the next. The most
gorgeously apparelled of them all, entering the sacristy, flung a purse
of gold to the Superior, while a scalding tear coursed down his sunburnt
cheek; and this he dried with a noble gesture and a richly embroidered
handkerchief! In a whirlwind of romantic properties I read of a wicked
miser who refused to support his brother's widow, of the widow herself,
(brought at birth to a gardener in the dead of night by a mysterious
mulatto,) and of this lady's lovely offspring. My own feelings can never
be harrowed on behalf of a widow with a marriageable daughter, but I am
aware that habitual readers of romance, like ostriches, will swallow
anything. I was hurried to a subterranean chamber where the Seven
Children, in still more elaborate garments, performed various dark
deeds, smoked expensive Havanas, and seated on silken cushions, partook
(like Freemasons) of a succulent cold collation.
The sun shone down with comfortable warmth, and I stretched my legs. My
pipe was out and I refilled it. A meditative snail crawled up and
observed me with flattering interest.
I grew somewhat confused. A stolen will was of course inevitable, and so
were prison dungeons; but the characters had an irritating trick of
revealing at critical moments that they were long-lost relatives. It
must have been a tedious age when poor relations were never safely
buried. However, youth and beauty were at last triumphant and villainy
confounded, virtue was crowned with orange blossom and vice died a
miserable death. Rejoicing in duty performed I went to sleep.
XXX
[Sidenote: Wind and Storm]
But next morning the sky was dark with clouds; people looked up
dubiously when I asked the way and distance to Marchena, prophesying
rain. Fetching my horse, the owner of the stable robbed me with peculiar
callousness, for he had bound my hands the day before, when I went to
see how Aguador was treated, by giving me with most courteous ceremony a
glass of _aguardiente_; and his urbanity was then so captivating that
now I lacked assurance to protest. I paid the scandalous overcharge with
a good grace, finding some solace in the reflection that he was at least
a picturesque blackguard, tall and spare, grey-headed, with fine
features sharpened by age to the strongest lines; for I am always
grateful to the dishonest when they add a certain æsthetic charm to
their crooked ways. There is a proverb which says that in Ecija every
man is a thief and every woman--no better than she should be: I was not
disinclined to believe it.
I set out, guided by a sign-post, and the good road seemed to promise an
easy day. They had told me that the distance was only six leagues, and I
expected to arrive before luncheon. Aguador, fresh after his day's rest,
broke into a canter when I put him on the green plot, which the old
Spanish law orders to be left for cattle by the side of the highway. But
after three miles, without warning, the road suddenly stopped. I found
myself in an olive-grove, with only a narrow path in front of me. It
looked doubtful, but there was no one in sight and I wandered on,
trusting to luck.
Presently, in a clearing, I caught sight of three men on donkeys,
walking slowly one after the other, and I galloped after to ask my way.
The beasts were laden with undressed skins which they were taking to
Fuentes, and each man squatted cross-legged on the top of his load. The
hindermost turned right round when I asked my question and sat
unconcernedly with his back to the donkey's head. He looked about him
vaguely as though expecting the information I sought to be written on
the trunk of an olive-tree, and scratched his head.
'Well,' he said, 'I should think it was a matter of seven leagues, but
it will rain before you get there.'
'This is the right way, isn't it?'
'It may be. If it doesn't lead to Marchena it must lead somewhere else.'
There was a philosophic ring about the answer which made up for the
uncertainty. The skinner was a fat, good-humoured creature, like all
Spaniards intensely curious; and to prepare the way for inquiries,
offered a cigarette.
'But why do you come to Ecija by so roundabout a way as Carmona, and why
should you return to Seville by such a route as Marchena?'
His opinion was evidently that the shortest way between two places was
also the best. He received my explanation with incredulity and asked,
more insistently, why I went to Ecija on horseback when I might go by
train to Madrid.
'For pleasure,' said I.
'My good sir, you must have come on some errand.'
'Oh yes,' I answered, hoping to satisfy him, 'on the search for
emotion.'
At this he bellowed with laughter and turned round to tell his fellows.
'_Usted es muy guason_,' he said at length, which may be translated:
'You're a mighty funny fellow.'
I expressed my pleasure at having provided the skinners with amusement
and bidding them farewell, trotted on.
I went for a long time among the interminable olives, grey and sad
beneath the sullen clouds, and at last the rain began to fall. I saw a
farm not very far away and cantered up to ask for shelter. An old woman
and a labourer came to the door and looked at me very doubtfully; they
said it was not a _posada_, but my soft words turned their hearts and
they allowed me to come in. The rain poured down in heavy, oblique
lines.
The labourer took Aguador to the stable and I went into the parlour, a
long, low, airy chamber like the refectory of a monastery, with windows
reaching to the ground. Two girls were sitting round the _brasero_,
sewing; they offered me a chair by their side, and as the rain fell
steadily we began to talk. The old woman discreetly remained away. They
asked about my journey, and as is the Spanish mode, about my country,
myself, and my belongings. It was a regular volley of questions I had to
answer, but they sounded pleasanter in the mouth of a pretty girl than
in that of an obese old skinner; and the rippling laughter which greeted
my replies made me feel quite witty. When they smiled they showed the
whitest teeth. Then came my turn for questioning. The girl on my right,
prettier than her sister, was very Spanish, with black, expressive eyes,
an olive skin, and a bunch of violets in her abundant hair. I asked
whether she had a _novio_, or lover; and the question set her laughing
immoderately. What was her name? 'Soledad--Solitude.'
I looked somewhat anxiously at the weather, I feared the shower would
cease, and in a minute, alas! the rain passed away; and I was forced to
notice it, for the sun-rays came dancing through the window,
importunately, making patterns of light upon the floor. I had no further
excuse to stay, and said good-bye; but I begged for the bunch of violets
in Soledad's dark hair and she gave it with a pretty smile. I plunged
again into the endless olive-groves.
It was a little strange, the momentary irruption into other people's
lives, the friendly gossip with persons of a different tongue and
country, whom I had never seen before, whom I should never see again;
and were I not strictly truthful I might here lighten my narrative by
the invention of a charming and romantic adventure. But if chance brings
us often for a moment into other existences, it takes us out with equal
suddenness so that we scarcely know whether they were real or mere
imaginings of an idle hour: the Fates have a passion for the unfinished
sketch and seldom trouble to unravel the threads which they have so
laboriously entangled. The little scene brought another to my mind. When
I was 'on accident duty' at St. Thomas's Hospital a man brought his son
with a broken leg; it was hard luck on the little chap, for he was
seated peacefully on the ground when another boy, climbing a wall, fell
on him and did the damage. When I returned him, duly bandaged, to his
father's arms, the child bent forward and put out his lips for a kiss,
saying good-night with babyish pronunciation. The father and the
attendant nurse laughed, and I, being young, was confused and blushed
profusely. They went away and somehow or other I never saw them again. I
wonder if the pretty child, (he must be eight or ten now,) remembers
kissing a very weary medical student, who had not slept much for several
days, and was dead tired. Probably he has quite forgotten that he ever
broke his leg. And I suppose no recollection remains with the pretty
girl in the farm of a foreigner riding mysteriously through the
olive-groves, to whom she gave shelter and a bunch of violets.
* * *
I came at last to the end of the trees and found then that a mighty wind
had risen, which blew straight in my teeth. It was hard work to ride
against it, but I saw a white town in the distance, on a hill; and made
for it, rejoicing in the prospect. Presently I met some men shooting,
and to make sure, asked whether the houses I saw really were Marchena.
'Oh no,' said one. 'You've come quite out of the way. That is Fuentes.
Marchena is over there, beyond the hill.'
My heart sank, for I was growing very hungry, and I asked whether I
could not get shelter at Fuentes. They shrugged their shoulders and
advised me to go to Marchena, which had a small inn. I went on for
several hours, battling against the wind, bent down in order to expose
myself as little as possible, over a huge expanse of pasture land, a
desert of green. I reached the crest of the hill, but there was no sign
of Marchena, unless that was a tower which I saw very far away, its
summit just rising above the horizon.
I was ravenous. My saddle-bags contained spaces for a bottle and for
food; and I cursed my folly in stuffing them with such useless
refinements of civilisation as hair-brushes and soap. It is possible
that one could allay the pangs of hunger with soap; but under no
imaginable circumstances with hair-brushes.
It was a tower in the distance, but it seemed to grow neither nearer nor
larger; the wind blew without pity, and miserably Aguador tramped on. I
no longer felt very hungry, but dreadfully bored. In that waste of
greenery the only living things beside myself were a troop of swallows
that had accompanied me for miles. They flew close to the ground, in
front of me, circling round; and the wind was so high that they could
scarcely advance against it.
I remembered the skinner's question, why I rode through the country when
I could go by train. I thought of the _Cheshire Cheese_ in Fleet Street,
where persons more fortunate than I had that day eaten hearty luncheons.
I imagined to myself a well-grilled steak with boiled potatoes, and a
pint of old ale, Stilton! The smoke rose to my nostrils.
But at last, the Saints be praised! I found a real bridle-path, signs of
civilisation, ploughed fields; and I came in sight of Marchena perched
on a hill-top, surrounded by its walls. When I arrived the sun was
setting finely behind the town.
XXXI
[Sidenote: Two Villages]
Marchena was all white, and on the cold windy evening I spent there,
deserted of inhabitants. Quite rarely a man sidled past wrapped to the
eyes in his cloak, or a woman with a black shawl over her head. I saw in
the town nothing characteristic but the wicker-work frame in front of
each window, so that people within could not possibly be seen; it was
evidently a Moorish survival. At night men came into the eating-room of
the inn, ate their dinner silently, and muffling themselves, quickly
went out; the cold seemed to have killed all life in them. I slept in a
little windowless cellar, on a straw bed which was somewhat verminous.
But next morning, as I looked back, the view of Marchena was charming.
It stood on the crest of a green hill, surrounded by old battlements,
and the sun shone down upon it. The wind had fallen, and in the early
hour the air was pleasant and balmy. There was no road whatever, not
even a bridle-track this time, and I made straight for Seville. I
proposed to rest my horse and lunch at Mairena. On one side was a great
plain of young corn stretching to the horizon, and on the other, with
the same mantle of green, little hills, round which I slowly wound. The
sun gave all manner of varied tints to the verdure--sometimes it was
all emerald and gold, and at others it was like dark green velvet.
But the clouds in the direction of Seville were very black, and coming
nearer I saw that it rained upon the hills. The water fell on the earth
like a transparent sheet of grey. Soon I felt an occasional drop, and I
put on my _poncho_.
The rain began in earnest, no northern drizzle, but a streaming downpour
that soaked me to the skin. The path became marsh-like, and Aguador
splashed along at a walk; it was impossible to go faster. The rain
pelted down, blinding me. Then, oddly enough, for the occasion hardly
warranted such high-flown thoughts, I felt suddenly the utter
helplessness of man: I had never before realised with such completeness
his insignificance beside the might of Nature; alone, with not a soul in
sight, I felt strangely powerless. The plain flaunted itself insolently
in face of my distress, and the hills raised their heads with a scornful
pride; they met the rain as equals, but me it crushed; I felt as though
it would beat me down into the mire. I fell into a passion with the
elements, and was seized with a desire to strike out. But the white
sheet of water was senseless and impalpable, and I relieved myself by
raging inwardly at the fools who complain of civilisation and of
railway-trains; they have never walked for hours foot-deep in mud,
terrified lest their horse should slip, with the rain falling as though
it would never cease.
The path led me to a river; there was a ford, but the water was very
high, and rushed and foamed like a torrent. Ignorant of the depth and
mistrustful, I trotted up-stream a little, seeking shallower parts; but
none could be seen, and it was no use to look for a bridge. I was bound
to cross, and I had to risk it; my only consolation was that even if
Aguador could not stand, I was already so wet that I could hardly get
wetter. The good horse required some persuasion before he would enter;
the water rushed and bubbled and rapidly became deeper; he stopped and
tried to turn back, but I urged him on. My feet went under water, and
soon it was up to my knees; then, absurdly, it struck me as rather
funny, and I began to laugh; I could not help thinking how foolish I
should look and feel on arriving at the other side, if I had to swim for
it. But immediately it grew shallower; all my adventures tailed off thus
unheroically just when they began to grow exciting, and in a minute I
was on comparatively dry land.
I went on, still with no view of Mairena; but I was coming nearer. I met
a group of women walking with their petticoats over their heads. I
passed a labourer sheltered behind a hedge, while his oxen stood in a
field, looking miserably at the rain. Still it fell, still it fell!
And when I reached Mairena it was the most cheerless place I had come
across on my journey, merely a poverty-stricken hamlet that did not even
boast a bad inn. I was directed from place to place before I could find
a stable; I was soaked to the skin, and there seemed no shelter. At last
I discovered a wretched wine-shop; but the woman who kept it said there
was no fire and no food. Then I grew very cross. I explained with heat
that I had money; it is true I was bedraggled and disreputable, but when
I showed some coins, to prove that I could pay for what I bought, she
asked unwillingly what I required. I ordered a _brasero_, and dried my
clothes as best I could by the burning cinders. I ate a scanty meal of
eggs, and comforted myself with the thin wine of the leaf, sufficiently
alcoholic to be exhilarating, and finally, with _aguardiente_ regained
my equilibrium.