The day had been so lovely till now that we said we would stay many
days in Ronda, and we loitered in the sun admiring the garden; the young
landlady among her flowers said that all the soil had to be brought for
it in carts and panniers, and this made us admire its autumn blaze the
more. That afternoon we had planned taking our tea on the terrace for
the advantage of looking at the sunset light on the mountains, but
suddenly great black clouds blotted it out. Then we lost courage; it
appeared to us that it would be both brighter and, warmer by the sea and
that near Gibraltar we could more effectually prevent our steamer from
getting away to New York without us. We called for our bill, and after
luncheon the head waiter who brought it said that the large black cat
which had just made friends with us always woke him if he slept late
in the morning and followed him into the town like a dog when he walked
there.
It was hard to part with a cat like that, but it was hard to part with
anything in Ronda. Yet we made the break, and instead of ruining over
the precipitous face of the rock where the city stands, as we might have
expected, we glided smoothly down the long grade into the storm-swept
lowlands sloping to the sea. They grew more fertile as we descended
and after we had left a mountain valley where the mist hung grayest and
chillest, we suddenly burst into a region of mellow fruitfulness, where
the haze was all luminous, and where the oranges hung gold and green
upon the trees, and the women brought grapes and peaches and apples to
the train. The towns seemed to welcome us southward and the woods we
knew instantly to be of cork trees, with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
under their branches anywhere we chose to look.
Otherwise, the journey was without those incidents which have so often
rendered these pages thrilling. Just before we left Ronda a couple,
self-evidently the domestics of a good family, got into our first-class
carriage though they had unquestionably only third-class tickets. They
had the good family’s dog with them, and after an unintelligible appeal
to us and to the young English couple in the other corner, they remained
and banished any misgivings they had by cheerful dialogue. The dog
coiled himself down at my feet and put his nose close to my ankles, so
that without rousing his resentment I could not express in Spanish my
indignation at what I felt to be an outrageous intrusion: servants, we
all are, but in traveling first class one must draw the line at dogs, I
said as much to the English couple, but they silently refused any part
in the demonstration. Presently the conductor came out to the window
for our fares, and he made the Spanish pair observe that they had
third-class tickets and their dog had none. He told them they must get
out, but they noted to him the fact that none of us had objected
to their company, or their dog’s, and they all remained, referring
themselves to us for sympathy when the conductor left. After the next
station the same thing happened with little change; the conductor was
perhaps firmer and they rather more yielding in their disobedience. Once
more after a stop the conductor appeared and told them that when the
train halted again, they and their dog must certainly get out. Then
something surprising happened: they really got out, and very amiably;
perhaps it was the place where they had always meant to get out; but it
was a great triumph for the railway company, which owed nothing in the
way of countenance to the young English couple; they had done nothing
but lunch from their basket and bottle. We ourselves arrived safely soon
after nightfall at Algeciras, just in time for dinner in the comfortable
mother-hotel whose pretty daughter had made us so much at home in Ronda.