[Footnote 1: These hitherto unpublished _Scenes in Campillo_ are from
a new edition (now in press) of the “Year in Spain.” We are indebted
for them to the kindness of the author and of the Messrs. Harpers.]
The Andalusian village of Campillo is built on a plain, with regular
and well-paved streets, houses in good repair and neatly whitewashed,
each with its stone seat at the door, and grated cage projecting from
the window and garnished with shrubs and flowers, the scene of many a
tender parley and midnight interview. Everything in Campillo, to the
village church and village posada, bespeaks a pervading spirit of
order and cleanliness, and the little room into which I was installed,
partook largely of these qualities. It looked upon the principal
square of the village, having in front the church, with its Gothic
tower surmounted by the simple emblem of our faith, and embellished
with the unwonted decoration of a clock, under whose promptings a
hoarse old bell muttered forth the passing hours. On another side of
the square was the hotel of the Ayuntamiénto, which contained the
offices of the municipal authorities and police; while opposite was a
guard-room, in which were a few ill-fed soldiers, shabbily accoutred
in dirty belts and rusty muskets. In the middle of the square was a
plain granite fountain, surrounded by a kerb, which formed a reservoir
for watering cattle.
For want of better occupation, I passed a great part of the day in
gazing from my window upon the moving scene below. Sometimes a stable
boy would bring a train of jaded mules to the fountain, give them
water, and wash their backs where they had been galled by the
pack-saddles. Next would come a party of mules, heavily laden; each
muleteer having his carbine slung securely beside him. These would
pause a moment, refresh their cattle at the fountain, and then pass on
and leave the arena again solitary, until some modern Sancho came
ambling across the square, sitting upon the end of a mouse-colored
ass, which he would guide at pleasure by means of a staff, touching
the animal first on one side of the neck, then on the other. He too
would pause at the fountain, renew his journey, and then have a
contest with the animal about stopping at the open door of the posada,
disappearing at length in a rage, and at a full gallop.
While the middle of the square seemed given up to passing travellers,
the sides were more exclusively occupied by the native worthies of
Campillo. In the guard-house, the soldiers were all sleeping away the
heat of the day upon wooden benches in the interior; while the one on
post sat under the shade of the portico, with his musket leaning
against the wall beside him, occupied in cutting up tobacco on a board
to make paper cigars. Immediately under my window was a group of the
village notables, seated upon the stone bench that ran along the whole
front of the building, or gathered round the more important personages
of the assemblage. I amused myself in assigning to each a character,
and in guessing at the import of his discourse.
That well-fed royalist, with silver shoe and knee buckles, and the red
cockade in his hat, is doubtless the Alcalde of Campillo. He is
declaiming upon the {541} late successes of the insurgent royalists in
Portugal; and of those two who listen to him, and seem to catch the
words that fall from his lips, the one is our own innkeeper paying his
court to the powers that be, and the other, with the thin legs and
long nose, who is followed by a half-starved dog, equally miserable
with his master, is certainly the village doctor, the Sangrado of
Campillo. He is evidently looked on contemptuously by the rest of the
assembly, who are aware of his ignorance, and know that he owes his
situation, and the right to kill or cure the good people of Campillo,
rather to two ounces of gold opportunely bestowed on the Alcalde, than
to any acquaintance with the healing art. The thick-set man in the
oil-cloth cocked hat, with scowling look and bushy whiskers, who is
fingering the hilt of his sabre, is the commandant of the royalist
volunteers. He has become terrible to the “negros,” who will tell you
that he is no better than he should be, that he began the world after
the manner of Robin Hood, and passed in due season to the command of a
royalist guerrilla. But who is that tall sharp featured individual,
walking across the Plaza, with the village curate on one side and a
capuchin on the other? That is doubtless the intendant of police, who
has just received intelligence of some pretended revolutionary plot,
and who will soon go with a force in search of persons and papers.