VSEVILLE FAIR

THE GIRALDA, SEVILLE.

and left us. We took Concepcion home; an hour later Pemberton joined us.

“There was nothing to do; of course she was quite dead. One leaps to certain death from the top of the Giralda. You remember that woman with the bruised face who spoke to the Archbishop? It was she;hisname, you see, was not written on one of those decrees of pardon!”

Later in the afternoon, Concepcion appeared, a black chenille dotted mantilla of the old style over her head, a whitemanton de mantillaworked with purple grapes, draped, Andaluz fashion, over her shoulders.

“Are you ready?” she cried. Her eyes flashed, her cool, olive cheeks were flushed. She smiled more than usual, for the mere pleasure, it seemed, of showing teeth that were as matched pearls on a string.

“Are you ready?” she repeated. “Tengo mucha prisa” (I am in a great hurry).

“Ready—for what,—where are we going?”

“A los torros, los torros(to the bulls)! Did he not tell you? My husband has taken seats for us alla la sombre” (in the shade).

So this week of vigil, penitence, and prayer was all a preparation for the Easter bull-fight!

“I have seen Bombito, the matador, ride by onhis way to thecorrida,” said Concepcion, “it is time,vamonos a la calle!”

There was a disappointment in store for Concepcion; she was met at the entrance with the announcement, “No bull-fight to-day on account of the picadors’ strike.”

THE Guadalquiver was a swollen, tawny flood, whirling dead leaves and dry branches down to the sea.

“Look,” said Pemberton, “the river has piled enough firewood against the piers of Triana bridge to keep a thrifty family a month.” A small boat, sculled by an old fisherman with gold earrings and a blue jersey, crept slowly towards the largest pile of brushwood at the middle pier. “I’m glad Isidro comes in for that bit of luck; he is a good sort, brings us fish every fast day, and doesn’t know I have abula de cruzadaand may eat meat o’ Fridays. We shall see him at the house soon; when the river is at the flood we sometimes get shad,—an advantage of living in Seville.”

As he roped the driftwood to the stern, the old fellow sang in a high, quavering voice a popularcopla:

“Antiquamente eran dulces todas las aguas del mar;se baño mi amor en ellas y se volvieron salas.”

(Once on a time all the waters of the sea were sweet;My love bathed in them and they turned salt.)

Other women are praised as sweet, the Andaluz as salt! Andalusian salt is the supreme quality, wit, sparkle, humor, grace combined.

A white yacht, a fine lady of the sea, lay alongside the river bank near the Paseo de las Delicias. Sailors were busy polishing brass that shone before, scrubbing decks already clean as starched damask. A blond viking sitting aft, mending a sail, sang a stave that told where he and the yachtPeerlesshailed from.

“I wish I was in Baltimore, O, O, O, O,A dancing on the sanded floor a long time ago!”

By the Torre del Oro, theBuenaventura, from Malaga, a rusty freight steamer, was taking on cargo. The stevedores, like busy brown ants, trotted to and fro, stooping under bales of cotton from the Isla Mayor in the delta. The mole smelt tarry and sea-faring; looked prosperous, bustling, alive. Watching sailors, stevedores, longshoremen, we tried to visualize our emotions, but alas, the set pieces of sentimental fireworks, prepared beforehand, wouldn’t go off! We reminded ourselves that here, in this port of Seville, the Tribunal of the Indies, the whole trade of theAmericas once centred. From the shadow of that old Moorish tower of gold, the Spanish galleons sailed for the new world, carrying the yeast and ferment of young adventurous blood, bringing back—a poor exchange—the ingots of the Incas. Alas! No ghost, not even of Columbus sailing up the Guadalquiver that Palm Sunday of his triumph, could materialize in that vital atmosphere of oozing kegs, fish-nets, and oakum. A swart gypsy dropped a line into the river, a crane flapped across the sky, a fish leaped, flashing silver in the sun; the wonderbook of life was still to read; history and its ghosts must wait for old age and winter fireside.

It had rained for three days and nights, to the discomfort of flocks, herds, dealers, breeders, gypsies, andcompradores. From Ronda and Utrera in the south, from Huelva in the west, from Aguilar, Lerida, from all over Andalusia, the animals were being driven in for theFeria, the great animal fair that follows thefiestasof Holy Week.

The thrifty ones, early on the ground, were already settled in the city of tents and cottages, that had sprung up on the Prado de San Sebastian. The laggards fared badly; the downpour had made the roads worse than ever. The inns were crowded, for even those who usually slept, cooked, and ate in their covered carts struggled to get under shelter while that torrential rain lasted. Then,just in time to save the situation, the sun came out.

From the quay we drove along the bank of the Guadalquiver, through orange groves washed clean and smelling of rain, and olive groves where the little, silvery leaves were still dark with the wetting. From a rise in the sodden road we saw the entire horizon, felt the sky like a fiery blue cup overhead; at the edge, where it rested on the earth, there was warm, colorless light; in the middle, deep cobalt. It was impossible, early as it was, to look at the sun; there was not a fleck of cloud anywhere. Though the earth was drying as quickly as sun and soft air could contrive, the middle of the road was still a lake of mud.

“Arré, arré!dog of a horse!” the sounds of blows and curses shattered the crystal silence. A brave, blind horse again and again made a mighty effort, stretching its lean neck and straining its poor body to pull acarretaout of the muddy rut where the wheels stuck fast. His master encouraged him by striking him over the head; his companion, a starved dog, by snapping at his heels. Pemberton’s hand tightened nervously on his whip, as if he would have liked to lay it about the man’s ears: Patsy was over the wheel like a flash, and out in the muddy road.

“What a pity, my friend, your wife and childrenmust get out to lighten the load,” he said; “it is the only way; I have had great experience in such matters. You help them, while I——” he had the bridle in his hand, and was petting the panting horse as he talked. A gaunt woman suckling an infant sat in the back of thecarreta; a little girl leaned against one knee, at the other crouched a boy shaking with fever; a raven drooped in a battered cage, near a big drum half hidden by a heap of spangled and velvet rags; a pair of castanets and a tambourine lay in the girl’s lap. By these poor possessions, their tools of trade, we knew them for what they were.

“Mountebanks, on their way to the fair,” said Pemberton; “poor things, one can hardly hope they will add much to the gaiety of nations!”

“See you later,” said Patsy, waving his free hand to us. We drove on and left him haranguing, hectoring, but helping, always helping, that forlorn family offeriantes(fairgoers).

After those three last days of Holy Week, when from one end of Seville to the other we never met wagon, carriage, or beast of burden, it came like a surprise to find the streets crowded with all sorts of interesting vehicles. The heavy traffic is carried in big, picturesque carts drawn by bulls, oxen, donkeys, and mules. The cattle are magnificent, especially the bulls, who answer easily to the goad.The backs of these draft animals are shaven in patterns, the work of gypsyesquiladores. In the cold weather a blanket covers the shaven part, its limits outlined by a neatly cut border. A monogram, a coat-of-arms, even a sentence describing the owner’s virtues, is sometimes shaven on the rump. The yoke is bound to the horns of the cattle, as you see it in the old Greek vase pictures; the beasts pull with the head, all the weight and strain coming on the neck. This has a fine pictorial effect, but is far harder on the creatures than yoking at the shoulders.

An ox cart, with a cruel load of stone, drawn by two patient, cream-colored bulls, lumbered along on archaic solid wheels that shrieked for axle grease. The bulls, strong, beautiful, worthy to draw the car of Dionysius, moved their heads restlessly from side to side. As the cart jounced over a loose cobble, their poor noses trembled with pain. A street porter stood waiting till the cart had passed to cross the road. He carried a heavy load on his back, secured by a strap fastened round the forehead; he trembled, too, and seemed, like the bulls, to be working at great disadvantage.

Pemberton shook his whip at the bulls. “Cowards,” he cried, “failures, outcasts of the ring; too timid or too kind to fight,—unworthy theshort, merry life of the fighting bull, good for nothing but work!”

A blue cart with ochre stripes creaked by, behind a tandem of four mules led by a white donkey, all jingling with little bells, the harnesses gay with red tags, tassels, and brass nailheads.

“Firmé, firmé macho!” The muleteer, a jolly young chap with a proper “going to the fair” look to match his team, cracked his long whip over their heads. A dog tied to the bridle of a tiny donkey, almost hidden by his load of cabbages, cleverly piloted the ass through the crowd; the owner, a stalwart woman laden with vegetables, followed at a distance.

“And some people say animals can’t reason!” Pemberton exclaimed. “That dog has got more sense than many men I know. The woman is Costanza, Isidro’s wife, who brings us our vegetables every day; that boy tagging behind is Concepcion’s godson.”

We were now close to the Feria, and the way was crowded withferiantesand cattle.

There was a sense of joyous life in the air. Everybody was in holiday humor, as if the sun had dried all tears, driven away blues and vapors, if such exist in golden Seville.

“During the three days of theFeria,” Pemberton explained, “Seville is deserted; life centreshere, in the Prado San Sebastian; trade, business, society are bodily transported from city to fair ground. It’s really a democratic festival; a great annual outing for all classes. The morning is the time to see the business end; the evening, the social. We’ll begin with the market, where the animals are bought and sold.”

At the mule mart business was brisk, handsome carriage mules as well as pack mules changing hands at good prices. To know what a carnation or a mule can be, you must go to Spain, where both grow larger and handsomer than anywhere else. There is a legend of a mule belonging to the first Don Carlos, over fifteen hands high. Theoretically, the mule has the privilege of drawing the royal carriages. Though Don Alfonzo prefers an automobile, the little children of the late Princess of the Asturias take their airing every day behind a spanking four-in-hand of swift, black mules.

Up and down the middle of the Prado San Sebastian rode the jockeys, showing off their horses. A tall, black stallion, with red nostrils, curvetted past. The man on his back—he rode like a centaur, man and beast seeming one piece—had a familiar look; where had we seen that ruddy face, those handsome legs, that striped blanket before? The fretting stallion jostled a white horse ridden by a weather-beaten old trader.

“Perdone Vd. amigo mio!” said the youngchalan, lifting his gray felt sombrero. Then we recognized the Sibyl’s friend, the bridegroom of Ronda.

“No es nada amigo,” answered the man on the white, as politely; the exhibition of good manners was as fine as the horsemanship.

“I will give you twelve thousandrealesfor the black,” said a gentleman in a cloak, to the man from Ronda.

“Caballero, if I could only afford to make you a gift! Try him, he has the perfectpaso Castellano!”

“Twelve thousand, not arealmore.”

“Antes muerto que cansado!” (He’d die sooner than tire.)

“Twelve thousand, not another maravedi.” The bargain was finally struck,chalanandcaballerogoing off together to bind it.

“The pace of these Andalusian horses,” Pemberton pointed out, “is easy as a rocking-chair; there is nothing like it. It comes from their galloping with the fore feet and trotting with the hind. Arabian blood? Ah! there is the mystery of the Cordova breed. Where did they get it? De Soto took out a lot of the stock to America; they ran wild on the western plains: our bronchos are their descendants. Though the build has changed, you recognize the family traits in the American mustang.”

The white, a beautiful fiery creature, with floss-silk mane hanging to his knees, a tail that would have swept the ground had it not been knotted up, Patsy was convinced must be an Arabian.

“He looks it,” Pemberton “allowed.” “The Arab horse, unfortunately, is not what it once was; it has been spoiled—by what, do you think? The Mauser rifle! In the old days a Bedouin’s safety depended on his horse’s speed; to outride his enemy and the reach of his enemy’s spear was his prime need. Then it was a matter of life and death to keep up the breed. The old order changeth, even in the desert. Now, the Bedouins are armed with rifles; no horse can travel as fast as a rifle bullet flies; the Bedouin grows careless, his horse deteriorates. In England, where they’re all mad, there’s one man mad, or sane enough, to put his heart and his money into trying to save the noble race from extinction, the sort of a thing only a poet like Wilfred Blunt would try to do.”

“Tres, ocho, todos,” from behind a gypsy tent came the staccato cry of themorraplayers. Two men faced each other, throwing out the hand with a quick movement, each crying at the same moment his guess of the total number of fingers shown; a dangerous old game, ending, too often, in a fight.

There was great animation in the pig market;the prices were the highest in years; the demand for sucking pigs was larger than the supply. A magnificent old Mother Grunt, with a litter of black piglets snuggling about her, wore the blue ribbon of the prize winner round her fat neck. The owner, a well-dressed young farmer, stood beside the likely family.

“May I have a photograph of the pig?” I asked.

“The honor is great,” said the farmer, “but the photographer lives far from here, and to-morrow I put the earth between us.”

“How foolish thou art!” explained a shrewd old farmer, carrying a white lamb in his arms. “It is the little black box of the stranger lady that makes the picture.” They all struck attitudes, the kodak snapped, I set the film for the next shot; the farmer wished to look into the kodak where he thought he could see the photograph of the prize pig. The matter was explained to him, and the offer made to send him a photograph when the film should be developed. J. handed him his pencil and note-book, and asked him to write his name and address.

“Ojalá, if I only knew how to write!” he sighed. “It is greatly to be lamented. I should value a portrait of my sow; she is without peradventure the finest I have raised. I shall not meet her again, for I have sold her to alabradorof Jimena.”

“Tell me your name; I will write it in this book, where it will not be forgotten.”

“I call myself Basilio, name of baptism, Miquel; name of father——”

“That is not necessary; from what town?”

“Pueblo of birth, Escacena del Campo, Provincia de Huelva.”

Finding us interested in live stock, Miquel showed his other animals, and led the way to the roped-in corral, where a bunch of his sheep stood hanging their patient heads, as if shy to find themselves so much admired. The merinos were superb, with fine, silvery fleeces; the horns of the old wether might have inspired the Ionic order! The mere rumor of such splendid creatures would account for the cruise of the Argonauts. As handsome in their way were the small, brown sheep, with black faces and adorable, close-curled, black horns. While Miquel and J. exchanged views on sheep, a seedy, shabby gentleman in shiny clothes and a frayed shirt joined us. He took off his hat with a flourish, and made me a deep bow.

“Missis, I am Renaldo Lopez, ex-ofeecial de marina,” he said, in a bass voice, deep as a lion’s. “I offré my service to accompany and visit monuments; gib Spanish lessons (spik vero Castellano, no Andalusian) in pupils resident or in professor home, prices moderates.” He recited the wordsas if repeating a lesson. I thanked him, accepted his card, and turned back to handsome Miquel, who was explaining to J. that besides raising the best wool in the province, he was not behind the rest of the world in the matter of wheat; he would dare say his was the best grown within a hundred leagues. If we passed near Escacena del Campo we must stop at his farm. He could show us the sister of the prize pig, whose photograph wewouldremember to send? The poor, shabby-genteel ex-ofeecial de marina, could not believe that Miquel, grower of the best wheat, raiser of the fattest pigs and the finest sheep in the province was more interesting to us than he was! Though he could not read or write, Miquel could carry on civilization’s two great basic industries—provide for the clothing and the feeding of man, and do it well! The professor of Castilian clung to us until an appointment was made for a lesson, then he departed, and we wandered off to the refreshment stands.

A group of handsome girls were gathered round a huge cauldron outside a neat booth, from which floated a delicious odor of fried cakes.

“Who’s hungry?”

“Everybody!”

“Soledad!” A tall girl in a clean, print dress, a scarlet shawl pinned across her shoulders, ageranium in her coarse black hair, answered Pemberton’s call.

“Servebuñuelosfor all.”

I asked Pemberton why he had used the second person instead of the third, in speaking to Soledad—what a name! It means solitude.

“It is the custom. The poorest Spaniard addresses the richest gypsy as ‘thou,’ on the ground that the Gitano is the inferior race. These people arebuñoleras; they travel all over Spain from fair to fair, frying thesebuñuelos, a sort of sublimated fritter, their specialty. No one else has the art. I know this family; the women are a good sort; the men,—lazy rascals! Last summer they stole two of my sheep; lassooed them, lifted them clean out of the fold. I traced them to their camp. What do you suppose I found? Instead of my white sheep, two black sheep; they had the stuff all ready, and clapped the creatures in; by the time I got there they were already dyed.”

An elderly woman, vigorous, bronzed, with the bold, unwinking eyes of the Romany, stood beside the cauldron making mysterious passes with a long spoon. Soledad waited by her side with a hot dish, and in a twinkling a pile of golden bubbles was before us, light, dry, exquisite as only fritters fried in pure olive oil can be.

“Fried air, with a trifle of pastry around it,

BULL-FIGHTERS.SPANISH GIPSIES.

is not exactly filling at the price,” said Pemberton; “let us try some of thosebocas de la isla, another specialty of theFeria.” Thebocasare a sort of shell fish of peculiar shape, tasting rather like a shrimp. Soledad, watching us cautiously taste them, said to reassure us:

“But—they are the most exquisite—what a flavor! They are the claws of lobsters that have been torn off and thrown back into the sea, where they turn intobocas!”

“Cocoanuts, dates,torronesof Alicante!” a bright-eyed Levantine, smelling trade, hurried up to us. We bought a handful of large dark Tetuan dates, a green cocoanut, a long thin bottle of attar of roses, and—atorrone—a paste of blended honey and almonds, that should be reserved for saints, since none others can be good enough to deserve it!

Luncheon over, we took leave of Soledad, and made our way to one of the humbler streets of theFeriain search of side shows. There was a choice of attractions, all of them decent. In one tent we saw a tame gorilla and a fat woman; in another a troupe of trained fleas shown off by an Italian. An air from Rigoletto, played by an orchestrion with drums, horns and cymbals drew a crowd of rustics. From a large tent came the twang of a guitar, the crack of castanets. A groupof saucy gypsy lasses laid violent hands upon us Gorgios, whose palms, whether or no, they were bound to read.

“Brazen hussies,” said Pemberton good-naturedly, buying them off; “a cut below those others, but virtuous,—who doubts it may get a knife thrust in the back!”

Outside the last and poorest amusement tent, we found Patsy’s mountebanks. An old carpet was spread on the ground before the tent door; the woman in a spangled, maroon velvet robe, a gilt filet in her faded hair, beat the big drum. The raven, with the aid of the little girl and a pack of cards, was ready to tell fortunes. The man in pink tights balanced cleverly on a rolling ball: the boy stood with outstretched arms, first on the father’s shoulders, and then climbed dizzily to his head. The turn ended in a clever somersault.

“Ollé, ollé!” the crowd encouraged.

“Que te hace trabajar?” cried the mountebank, the clown’s strident voice is the same the world over, “Que te hace trabajar?” (What makes you work?)

“El hambre!” (hunger), answered the pinched child.

“Tiene razon!” (he is right), laughed Miquel, the farmer. The crowd applauded; a few coppers rattled in the girl’s tambourine.

We came upon Patsy, lost since morning, outside a booth of primitive farming tools. The sickles, the rakes, the spades, shaped properly like spades in a pack of cards, even the hoes, had a certain rustic beauty that woke the Adam in every boy that passed, and made his fingers itch to handle them. Patsy balanced a mighty scythe knowingly, as one who has known the trick of mowing.

“That is just what I want for my picture of ‘Time and the Woman,’”said J.; he looked with longing at the scythe.

“Of course, it is the very thing,” said Patsy; “it has a lot of character. It doesn’t look as if it had been turned out by a machine with a thousand others. Listen to this bell!” He tinkled the clapper of a beaten-copper sheep bell. “What a silver note! One wouldn’t mind being wakened by this, when the cows go to pasture at daylight!”

“These juggets,” Pemberton led the way to a booth where coarse glazed pottery was displayed, “are nice in color, aren’t they?”

“The green and yellow bowls are just the thing to put about the Cornish place for the birds to drink and take their baths from,” said Patsy. “Let us have a lot sent home with the scythe and the bell. How you feel the Moorish influence in the design,—you can’t get away fromthat, canyou? You might as well try to subtract the Norman from the English, as to subtract the Moor from the Spaniard; you come across him every moment, in the manners, in the language—all the words beginning withalare Moorish; in the dress,—the mantilla is the survival of theyashmak; in the sense of color and design, that flat, blue dish is a thing of beauty and absolutely Moorish in spirit.”

“I can’t enthuse about it any more than I could about the Alhambra, the Alcazar, or anything else that recalls the presence of those brutes in Spain,” interrupted a small, keen-eyed man who had been listening to the talk.

Patsy was the first to recover his speech.

“That is a new point of view and very interesting,” he said. “Does all Oriental art affect you so, or only Moorish?”

The little gentleman answered with another question: “You are Protestants?”

We could not deny the fact. The stranger sighed impatiently. “Ah well, that explains many things! No traveler who is not a Catholic can understand or appreciate Spain.”

“You can enjoy a lot you don’t understand.” Patsy stood to his guns.

“You miss the history, lose the background of the tapestry,” the stranger went on testily. “I am tired of this fool talk about Moorish art; theMosque of Cordova spoiled by being turned into a Christian church, and all the rest of it. Rubbish! I say it was a good thing to do!” His eyes shone, his cheeks burned, he held up a hand enforcing attention. “Listen to what I tell you,—Hell is not too hot, nor eternity too long to punish the sins of the Moors against the Christians of Spain.”

“Do you know where you are standing?” Pemberton struck the earth with his heel as he said it. “This is the oldquemadero, the burning-ground of the Inquisition. On this spot two thousand persons, many of them Moors, were tortured and burned alive in one year. Is there any circle in your Inferno for the Grand Inquisitors?”

“What is the use of remembering such disagreeable things? They are much better forgotten!” cried the stranger, irritably. “I took you for persons of more sense!” and he went off in a huff.

“I wish he had liked us better, I liked him so much,” murmured Patsy. “It’s the first rule of travel, isn’t it?—talk with people you would not be likely to know at home, and learn their creeds.”

“The second rule,” said Pemberton, “is, visit different epochs as well as different countries. I have visited in the Middle Ages, the DarkAges, the Ages of Stone and of Iron; only the Golden Age I have not found. Seville comes nearest to it! Follow the old trade routes, go where the bagmen go, make friends with traders and drummers. The gods of Greece came into Rome in the chapman’s pack. Avoid, on your life, the smug hotels, the tourist tickets that make the great pleasure route of the world so comfortable, so safe, so dull. Take the checker and chance of travel. There is as much adventure left in the world as is good for a man, if he will take a risk or two!”

“The third rule is, buy no thing; spend all your money on impressions; they will be good as new when mementos are lost, stolen, or in the dust bin!”

“The fourth rule,” said J., “is go slow. Yesterday three hundred tourists saw Seville in four hours. They were driven all over the place in batches, each man and woman of them tagged with the card of the hotel where they were billeted to dine. TheLiberalsaid this morning that it was better to be four hundred years behind the world than to be in such a hurry. I am not sure theLiberalis not right.”

That afternoon, Concepcion called for us in a smart two-seated cart drawn by fawn-colored mules with silken ears, varnished hoofs, andjingling bells. It was “up to her,” Pemberton said, to show us the social end of theFeria.

“Estoy vestida de maya!” she cried gleefully; “does it please them?”

“How well dressed she is, a preciosity!” Patsy’s vocabulary was growing. To bevestida de mayameans to wear the lovely old Andalusian costume, still good form forFeriaand bull-fights. Concepcion wore a yellow crapemanton de Manilla(the fringe was ten inches long) embroidered with butterflies and roses; a white, blond lace mantilla, gold satin skirt with overdress of black net and chenille dots, lace mittens and tiny gold shoes. She carried the sort of fan collectors outside of Spain keep in a glass case,—the sticks of delicately carved mother-of-pearl; the painting, charming, eighteenth century miniature work. The artist had represented the two serious affairs in woman’s life: religion,—illustrated by a scene from sacred history, Jerusalem with David standing before Saul; and love-making,—illustrated by an Arcadian vale, where a patched and powdered shepherdess and a silk-stockinged shepherd looked fondly at each other.

Concepcion took us first to the Parque Maria Luisa, once royal property; now a people’s pleasure ground, more garden than park, with thickets of camelias, white, red, and pink, and wildernessesof roses climbing over rustic arbors, hiding dead trees, or blooming sedately in well-trimmed beds. We would have lingered in this paradise among the palms and orange trees—from an ilex grove the long, trilling cadence of a nightingale gave warning that the evening service of song was beginning—but Concepcion objected that there was nobody there, and gave the order: “To Las Delicias.”

Four lines of carriages moved at a foot pace up and down the widepaseo. Groups of horsemen, officers and civilians picked their way through the throng. The promenades on either side were crowded with pedestrians. The defile of beauty was dazzling; theseñoritaswere all smiles and animation, using their eyes to deadly purpose; in Andalusia flirtation is not a lost, even a decadent art. Patsy, wounded on every side, groaned aloud, “I wish I was a Turk, I wish I was the Sultan of Turkey!”

“In his heart, every man is a Turk!”

“Starts so,—some learn that the best of all is to come home from a flower show, and find the single rose in the flower-pot on the window-sill, sweeter than all the rest.”

So they gossipped in the carriage, while the mouse-colored mules fretted at the slow pace!

The west end, the fashionable quarter of thetoy city of theFeria, has neat toy streets, daintycasetaslike dolls’ houses, cafés, and clubs. From Conception’s account, it would seem that the Alcalde had merely waved his wand, and from the bare ground of the oldquemaderothe fairy city had sprung complete.

“You hire yourcasetafor the week,” Pemberton explained, “and send out what furniture you need from your town house.” As it grew dark, garlands of many-colored lights festooned the way; firefly lamps twinkled among the shrubbery, lanterns like great, illuminated fruits bloomed out from the dark trees; it seemed that we were wandering in Aladdin’s palace. Between the Moorish arches of the Circole de Labradores we caught a glimpse of a pretty ball-room, where a crowd of waltzers swayed to the music of the Thousand and One Nights. Outside a privatecasetapainted like a Japanese tea house, Patsy halted and stood immovable, till, as one by one the crowd moved on, we edged our way to the front. Thecasetawas open to the street. Across a tiny verandah we saw the charming interior. An elderly, bald gentleman sat at a piano playing the letter air from La Perichole. In a corner a group of ladies talked together; a little girl in white came and hung over the piano, watching the musician’s fingers.

A tall young officer with a roving blue eye and gold hair lying in crisp little curls on an ivory forehead, stood leaning against the wall, talking with a small, dark youth with a hawk nose, and black, impenetrable eyes where the fire smouldered but did not flash.

“That good-looking boy is Martin O’Shea,” said Pemberton; “Irish—need you ask? The family has been settled here a hundred, perhaps three hundred years; his eye has not lost the Celtic light, or his tongue the edge. The other is Benamiel, Moorish descent, of course; they’re both dangling after a certain girl, a friend of Concepcion’s. Oh! that is part of the fascination of this wonderful, aloof, old Spain; you can trace the races here so clearly; somehow the strains don’t seem to have become so blurred, so mixed, as in most parts of Europe.”

The two young men cast impatient looks at a curtained door at the back. “Pronto,” the signal came from the inner room. The music changed to a throbbingseguidilla, the curtain trembled, and out tripped two pretty girlsvestida de maya.

“Do you see who it is?” whispered Patsy.

The taller was Luz, the other could only be her sister. Their castanets clicked, almost as naturally as fingers snap, as they took the first pose of the dance. One foot advanced, the other behindsupporting the weight of the body; the right arm raised, the left extended, just as you see it in the dancing faun of Herculaneum. O’Shea took down a guitar from the peg where it hung, and swept the chords with that curious ringing touch of the Spaniard; Benamiel marked time by beating with his feet, clapping with his hands. The dance began. It was very graceful, above all very expressive, that was the great quality; it seemed the natural, spontaneous expression of those two lovely young creatures’ joy in life, of their super-abundant vitality, of the young blood coursing through their veins. Though every posture, each bold advance and timid retreat was old as Egypt, the dance had all the beautiful freshness of a primitive art.

“Viva la gracia!” The cry came from a man in the crowd, Miquel, the farmer of Huelva.

“Good work for amateurs,” said Pemberton, “but wait till you’ve seen the Imperio, then you will have an idea of what Spanish dancing is!”

“Why,” Patsy asked, “doesn’t that other girl dance?”

“Just because she is not a girl; she was married two years ago. It would not be good form; she has had her turn, now she must take a back seat and give the others a chance. Thank God we’re still at that stage of social development.” Theyoung woman, a smallmorena(brunette) with a skin like a creamy magnolia blossom just beginning to turn brown, was very little older, and quite as pretty as the twin dancing stars; her foot tapped the floor, while her sisters danced and she sat talking with the elders.

“I think this could not happen outside of Spain, the most democratic of all countries,” Pemberton went on. “Here every man is equal, not merely in the law’s eye, but—what’s far more important—in his own eyes, and proves it by allowing no other man to show better manners than he. These girls, the fine flower of Seville, may safely take their part, add their beauty and their grace as the crowning attraction of theFeria, because the man in the street will be as polite to them as the gentleman in the drawing-room.”

“Bendita sea la madre que ti pario,” blessed be the mother that bore thee. It was Miquel’s parting compliment to the señoritas, as he made his way out of the crowd. In thecasetavisitors came and went; Luz was surrounded by admirers. An old man servant handed a tray withagraz, a drink made of pounded unripe grapes, clarified sugar and water, andbolardos, little sugar cakes to dissolve in this nectar of Andalusia. Theseguidillawas followed by asevilliana. When the buoyant feet seemed tired O’Shea sangcoplaaftercopla: the last he might have learned from his mother. It is at least as old as he:

RODRIGO, Pemberton’s son, a grave child with eyes of brown fire, met us at the gate of the patio; by his side stood a white lamb, with a wreath of yellow primroses round its neck.

“You recognize the fleece of Huelva?” said Pemberton, “this is one of Miquel’s flock; every child must have its pet lamb at Easter, you know.” He opened the ancient iron gate,—the bars were lilies, tenderly wrought as if of a more precious metal,—and we passed through theZaguan(vestibule) into the patio paved with marble, surrounded on all four sides by a corridor like a cloister. Behind the Moorish columns, graceful as palm trees, were walls lined withazulejos, blue, green, yellow glazed tiles of fascinating design, bewildering color. In the middle of the patio a jet of water leapt from an urn, danced in the sun, broke into a shower of living diamonds, fell laughing to a marble basin.

“In summer we practically live in this patio, that long bamboo chair is my favorite place. Ilie there and read, or puzzle out the designs on those tiles,—they’re over a hundred,—and listen to the fountain and the birds. What more does a man want in hot weather? Take care, Rodrigo, don’t drown him!”

The child was trying to make the lamb drink; the gold fish darted from side to side in fright as its pink nose ruffled the water.

“We’re still living up-stairs; by Corpus Christi we shall haveembajado, as they say here. That means, moved down-stairs. It’s the universal custom—the poorest house in Seville has two stories, the upper for cold weather, the lower for hot; you can’t fancy the difference in the climate. When moving day comes, the awning is drawn over the patio, we bring all the furniture from the upper to the lower rooms—exactly the same size and shape, so everything fits—hang pictures and mirrors in the corridor; put the piano here, the plants from the terrace there between the columns. We’ll have a look at the summer quarters, if you like; it may give you some idea of how we live in Seville in hot weather.”

We followed him through large, dark rooms, high-ceiled and airy; caught glimpses of a mighty marble bath in a cool green chamber, of a kitchen where they cook with charcoal, and finally halted in a place mysterious as an alchemist’s laboratory.There were cauldrons of beaten copper, measures for wet and dry, an antique balance with brass weights, strange glass vessels, a press, an old still. As we stood admiring a huge marble mortar, Concepcion came into the laboratory. She wore a short white dress and apron, and, on her chatelaine, a bunch of big keys.

“Always on time!” Pemberton exclaimed. “At half past nine every morning Concepcion unlocks thedespensa, and gives out whatever is needed for the day.”

“The grapes for theagrazare pounded in that mortar,” said Concepcion, who saw I was interested in the strange vessels, “and those big stone rollers are used for crushing and grinding the chocolate.”

“Do you remember how good the smell of chocolate is, when they are making you a cup at home?” said Pemberton. “Imagine what it must be to have the whole house filled with it! Ah! the making of the chocolate is an important event. Rodrigo and I are always impatient for it to begin.”

“When the time has come to make the chocolate,” Concepcion went on, “the cacao is bought. It comes in great sacks,—the best from the Havana, cinnamon from Ceylon—being sure it is the most fresh—sugar the finest, and supremevanilla. When all is ready, we call thechocolateros, two good men, who make the chocolate under my direction, according to a family recipe. When it all is finished, it is poured out into those large troughs to cool. Then it is cut in squares; each large square is just big enough to make a cup of chocolate for grown-up people; and the little squares to make the children’s chocolate. When hard, it is put away on these shelves; as the cupboard is airy it keeps itself for a year.” When she learned that some housekeepers bought their chocolate ready made, Concepcion was scandalized. “It will be mixed with flour of chestnuts, or other inferior things; there is no chocolate like the Andalusian!” she declared.

In thedespensa, a cool, stone grotto, hams, sausages, dried herbs, onions, and scarlet peppers hung from the roof; a dozen bloated goatskins leant against the wall.

“The oil,” Pemberton explained, “was brought in from the farm on mule-back this morning. When it settles, we shall draw it off in thoseamphoræ;” he pointed to a row of two-handled, red clay jars. “Thosetarrosare full of pork,—we killed a hundred pigs last November. The best of the meat is sent in town to us, the rest is kept at the farm for our work people; we feed our laborers in Andalusia, you know, and feed them well.”

Concepcion told us that she herself always gave out the day’s provisions; this was important, else disastrous things might happen. She stood by and saw cook take the pork from thetarro, where it was packed in the “butter of pig,” or the game from the smaller barrels. These lower ones were full of the partridges Pemberton shot last season; some days he got a dozen, some days twenty. Those that were not eaten or given away were slightly boiled and packed in the butter of pig. They would keep six months if great care were used in taking them out, and only the wooden spoon touched the pig butter. If, as had happened, a careless servant puts in her hand to take out a partridge or a bit of pork, the wholetarrois lost; nothing can save it from going bad. The same is true of olives, put up in those talltinajas. Once a human hand,—a metal spoon is almost as bad,—is dipped into that home-made pickle of vinegar, water, lemon, salt, and laurel leaves, the wholetinajais ruined.

“These nice comfortable-looking round jars are made especially to hold Manchegan cheeses,” said Pemberton. “They’re like Parmesan, only better, made of sheep and goats’ milk mixed. Once a year they bring them from La Mancha to sell; we always lay in a large stock; packed in those jars, with enough oil poured in to cover them, theykeep indefinitely. Here is the cook. The momentous council of the day is about to open. Come, I’ll show you the rest of the house, while Concepcion gives the orders. We’ll have a look at the roses first.”

Behind the patio was a second court, with orange and lemon trees; at one end grew an ancient cedar with hollow trunk and strange roots, like splay feet, that gripped the earth. A whiff of orange blossoms, the tinkle of a guitar, the voice of an unseen singer chanting a low wailingmalageñagreeted us as we entered. The walls were a living glory of roses; the yellow Bankshires hung in starry bunches; the white rose vines flung out floating banners of green, thick sprinkled with rose snow. A golden pheasant strutted and preened itself in the sun; from an aviary came the chatter of a happy family of birds.

“Hijo de mi alma,” Pemberton said to Rodrigo, “you may not take the lamb up-stairs; stay with him till we come down.”

Rodrigo, nothing disappointed, drew out a little cart, and seating himself in it turned the wheels so that the cart slid along the stone path in the middle of the garden, the lamb trotting beside; back and forth, back and forth, we heard the rattling of those wheels (I can hear them still) as the lonely boy and the lamb played together.

“Did you ever see a game of football?” Patsy asked the child. Rodrigo had only seen pictures of football, but he had seenpelota, and he could hit the bull’s-eye with his arrow three times out of five.

“Rodrigo is a Spaniard; he is going into the army,” Pemberton said, as he led the way up-stairs to the winter quarters. “My grandmother was a Spaniard; my parents called themselves ‘cosmopolitans’; some other people called them disgruntled Americans. I’m a man without a country,—one of that kind is enough in a family!”

He flared up with sudden passion. To make a diversion J. complimented him on the winter parlor, a bare, comfortable room with a few good pictures, the necessary furniture and a refreshing absence of junk.

“No little tables of jointed silver fish and jade idols here?” he said. “We’re still half Orientals in Seville; we don’t suffer from the dreadful ‘too much’ that is stifling you in America!”

The winter kitchen, all white marble and tiles, had a gas range, the most modern thing in the house, and deal tables scrubbed with soap and sand till you saw the grain of the wood. Something was said about the exquisite neatness of the house.

“Andalusians,” Pemberton assured us, “are remarkably clean people. Did you notice ourcalle? You don’t often see a street so well kept.Each householder is obliged to take care of the part before his house; competition is a good principle in street cleaning.”

The upper corridor, giving access to the winter rooms, was shut in with glass; it led to theazotea, a terrace that overhung the court of roses. The flowers here had more sun and air than in the patio; the carnations were as big as coffee cups, the damask roses as large as saucers. A second flight of stairs led up to the winter bed and dressing-rooms.

“These mattresses are of carded wool,” said Pemberton; “the blankets,—feel how light and soft they are,—were made at the farm, spun and woven by an old woman, the last survivor of my grandmother’s servants. These sheepskins are spread under the mattresses for warmth, for tiled floors are cold. The fleece is of three years’ growth; see, it is as fine as silk.”

Laundry, drying-room, and terrace for bleaching and airing, were at the top of the house. The keen smell of good gum camphor met us on the stair; it came from a brass-bound cedar chest, standing open on the terrace. A dozen of Concepcion’s feather fans dangled from a line.

“Now that you’ve seen the house in Seville God has given me,” said Pemberton, “look at the view; it’s the best thing about it!”

Below us lay the city with its narrowcalles, sunny plazas, shining houses. In every patio, on every terrace and roof garden were flowers and caged birds. The air was musical with bells, song, laughter. Outside the old Roman city walls, spread the green Andalusianvega, with the yellow river, gleaming, where the sun touched it, like clouded amber. In the distance thevegawas shut in by a circle of blue Sierras; snow lay on the shoulders of the hills, at whose feet the fruit trees were in blossom.

“Can anybody ever be sad in Seville?” cried Patsy. “Do people ever die or grow old here? Are there such things as tears?”

“There is a young lady down-stairs who must have shed a quart of tears since yesterday,” said Pemberton. “Come and help Concepcion comfort her.” He led the way down to the drawing-room. Sitting beside Concepcion, whose hand she had been holding, was a pretty girl, wearing a dress much too large for her.

“Mi amiga, Señorita Trinidad Fulano,” Concepcion introduced her friend, who tried to look as if she had not been crying. Our hostess then bustled out of the room, and returned, followed by a neat maid with a tray of preserved sweet potatoes, somehuevos dulces, a sort of sweetmeat made of sugar and yolk of egg, a delicate decanter, and astraw basket containing twelve long thin glasses no bigger round than a walking stick.

“Acañaof manzañilla,” said Pemberton, pouring out a clear amber liquid. “It is light for Spanish wine, no headache in it.” Patsy, Concepcion and Trinidad were already chattering together like three magpies at the other end of the room. In the solemn silence that accompanied the tasting of the manzañilla, Concepcion’s voice rang clear.

“For a woman to call herself beautiful, she must possess the nine essentials of beauty. Three things must she have that be black,—the hair, the eyes, the lashes; three that be red,—the lips, the palms, the cheeks; three that be white,—the hands, the neck, and the teeth.”

Trinidad nodded. “Claro,” she said, “she has expressed it divinely.”

“Trinidad could hardly say less,” Pemberton observed, “seeing that she herself possesses the nine indispensables. That is a Moorish proverb, though Concepcion learned it from the nuns, like the saying that thesalamorenawastes in a minute would last a blonde a week and a half. It is a good thing you came in to-day; Trinidad is cheering up already. She has been tremendously harried—had a visit from an angry parent this morning, and a visit from a despairing lover last night. He stood in thecalleoutside her window,talking with her till past twelve o’clock. You see she’sen depositowith Concepcion.”

At this moment Concepcion glided across the room—she moved with that peculiar poetry of motion of the Spanish woman—and joined us.

“Trinidad is very distinguished, no?” This was always her highest praise. “And intelligent, and instructed;Ave Maria Purissima!she can speak three idioms.”

“You don’t understand what beingen depositomeans,” Pemberton went on, ignoring the interruption. “Having lately come of age, that is eighteen in Andalusia, Trinidad made application to a magistrate by means of an official document written and signed by herself stating that she wished to marry José Maria Benamiel; that her parents, with no sufficient reason, forbade the marriage; that——”

“Pobrecitos!” broke in Concepcion; “they have been making love these four years. He is a youth the most well-bred, the most distinguished——”

“Yesterday,” Pemberton continued, “the magistrate called on Trinidad’s father——”

“He came in a carriage,” Concepcion reminded him.

“And after a heated interview, took Trinidad away from her father’s house and brought her toours. Here she will stayen depositofor three months. During this time, Concepcion is responsible for her. Trinidad is free to see Benamiel, always in the presence of some responsible third person, and her parents are free to visit her. They——”

“They are people the most egotistical, the mostinterested!” Concepcion burst out. “Can you imagine? they denied her clothes,por Dios! it is the truth: that is my dress she is wearing! who ever heard of so great a shame? Not one handkerchief allowed those hard-hearted ones their daughter to take away from their accursed house!”

“It is true, they all lost their tempers,” said Pemberton lightly, “and behaved foolishly. I fancy we shall see a portmanteau before night; between ourselves, Trinidad might very well have kept on the dress she came away in yesterday. It is not a bad system, thedeposito; it gives time for both love and anger to cool off. The girl is out of coercion here; she has a chance to make up her mind whether or no Benamiel is really the man for her. At the end of the three months, if she still wants him, she may marry him without her parents’ consent.”

“Do you think she will?”

“Pretty safe to. The old people will give in; there is nothing really against Benamiel, only theypreferred O’Shea! Small blame to them. O’Shea did not know that Trinidad and Benamiel had already settled things between them. When he found it out he went back to Cordova, where he is stationed, and, Trinidad says, wanted to give to Benamiel a bracelet he had bought for her. Nice boy, O’Shea. Why is it that the nice girls always take the wrong—well, there’s no use opening that chapter, if you must be going—it is time for your Spanish lesson—we’ll tackle it some other time when we have the night before us!”

Don Renaldo, the ex-ofeecial de marina, was waiting to give Patsy and me our lessons invero Castellano. His method was simple; he talked, while we listened. He began by explaining his rusty mourning suit, as he drew off his worn old leather gloves. “It is the thirtieth anniversary of the death of my father,” he spoke slowly, so that we might follow him. “All the masses celebrated to-day in the church of San Sebastian will be applied to the repose of his soul.” Patsy said he would like to hear one of the memorial masses, but it was already too late, they were all over.

“He was the most kind of fathers, the most benevolent of men, his benevolence was the cause of all his misfortunes in this world! To oblige a friend he signed his name to a note, understandingthat it was a mere form. With those two strokes of the pen he signed away his fortune.”

“He did not have a benevolent friend!” Patsy ejaculated.

“Hombré!He was acaballero, a gentleman of distinction—but—it is the truth, of business he was as ignorant asmi pobre papa! The catastrophe that ruined both, killed my papa; his friend died soon after of shame. Then Tio Jorge, my rich uncle, took me and brought me up as if I were his heir. Every year we went to Paris together; we lived with great elegance on the Rue de Rivoli; we had a box at the opera; I had my own carriage; my clothes came from Poole; at that time I was very elegant, and not, people said, bad looking. I am old now, but then!” He sighed and rolled up his eyes at the recollection of his elegant youth.

“You’re not old, you’re in the prime of life,” said Patsy. Though Don Renaldo was not even elderly, he had given up the fight, went shabby and unshaven, with buttons missing from his frayed shirt.

“Suddenly Tio Jorge had a stroke of apoplexy,—I was at Monte Carlo at the time. I hurried to his bedside and took all care of him till he died. It was very sad, but it was my duty to see everything done as he would have wished. His funeral was the most luxurious ever seen in Valladolid. Hewas followed to the grave by the aristocracy, civil and military authorities, and whole communities of monks and nuns. There was a multitude of carriages, and to every coachman I gave apropinaof fiftypesetas. After the funeral the will was opened. Well, what do you think he left me?”

“That depends upon whether or not you were the only heir,” Patsy answered soothingly.

“He left me nothing! Money, palace, horses, plate, jewels, everything went to found a home for the widows and daughters of navy officers! the preference always to be given to the handsomest ones. The will was published; there followed ridicule the most painful from half the papers of Europe, from the Argentine, from all over the world. They called Tio Jorge a modern Don Juan Tenorio!”

“The old hunks deserved something worse than to be laughed at. I hope he’s getting it now,” murmured Patsy.

“May be—but that was not true; he was not an immoral man. He believed that beautiful ladies had greater difficulties to contend with than others.”

“He might have left you a life interest,” said Patsy; “the beautiful ladies could wait.” While Don Renaldo did not allow himself to criticise Tio Jorge, our sympathy was as balm to him.

“I gave up my home, I gave up Paris—where Iwas too well known. I had frequented the best society. I came to Seville where I have no friends, where many travelers come;” he dropped into English. “I offré my service to accompany and visit monuments, gib lessons, recommend the hotels!”

“Everybody is bothered about money one way or the other;” Patsy tried to encourage him; “as long as you live, you either have got to earn the money you spend, or spend money that other people have earned. Brace up,Amigo! Think how much more fun it is to earn your own money than to spend money some other fellow has had the fun of earning!”

Don Renaldo looked steadily at him, groping for his meaning. “At first I envied people who have money,” he confessed; “now I envy those who have work that they enjoy.” He took up a book Patsy had told him was written by a friend of ours. “Your friend must be a very rich man.”

“He just makes the two ends meet without lapping!”

“How could he afford to print this book? The binding is elegant, paper, print and engravings, superior; it must have cost a great deal!”

“So the publishers say.”

“Ojalá!If I could only write.”

Poor, pathetic soul, if he could only do any usefulthing. A fortune had been spent on his education. He could ride and shoot straight, he could dance, and fence, and play every game under the sun, but his life investment yielded a small, precarious income. His only dividend-bearing stock, all that stood between him and starvation, was a passable knowledge of the French and English languages, part of the accomplishments of his elegant youth.

The lesson over, Don Renaldo gone, Patsy summed up his case. “A spent shot!” he said, “a poor thing, as capable of taking care of himself as a year old baby; more coals to Tio Jorge!”

One happy day, when we had almost given up hope of ever seeing him again, Don Jaime strolled jauntily into the patio, his sombrero gallantly cocked on one side, his worn coat carefully brushed, his trousers newly creased, a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. He was greeted with shrieks and screams of joy. Black coffee andun poco de ginevra de campagna(his only vices) were immediately ordered for him.

“I arrive only at middle night yesterday,” he said, when accused of desertion. “I have made a loose, my brother-in-law, he is daid.” Patsy asked if it was the husband of his sister who had died.

“Ah, no! brother to my woman. Me, my father, my grandfather were all unique childs; Ihave no sister—only a half a sister, Candalaria,—no brother, no honkle, no haunt; I am a widow and a horphan.” We expressed sympathy for his loss. The Don assured us that his brother-in-law’s death was a release.

“Poor man! he was secluded in—how you say? an insanitorium these long years. When he was daid, he had himself embaumed and transported to Cadiz, where is the pantheon of himself and his wife.”

“We were just starting to drive to Italica,” said J. “You’ll go with us, Don? Where’s yourcapa? You’ll need it; it’s cold this afternoon.”

“Ah, no! I am warm inside, since I drinked theginevra,” he patted his stomach. “Ah well, it is heatier in Sevillia than in Cadiz, where I goed to escort the catafalque of my brother.”

After that J. and Patsy took the Don away from me, and all that afternoon they kept him to themselves. I followed in another carriage with Pemberton. Bursts of riotous laughter came to us from their cab, as they passed us on the Alameda of Hercules. At the foot of that pleasant, shady mall, our coachman drew up under a pair of tall, gray granite columns.

“The old columns are from a Roman temple,” said Pemberton. “These guardians of the town,” he pointed to the battered old statue that stoodon either column, “are Hercules the founder, and Julius Cæsar the second founder of Seville. Oh, yes! Hercules was here; he stopped and rested by the river, and founded Seville that time he wandered through the Peninsula, driving the lowing herds of Geyron before him.”

We had crossed the tawny Guadalquiver, and were driving through Triano, the potters’ suburb, named for the Emperor Trajan. An open doorway gave us a glimpse of a man working a wheel with his feet, and holding a newly moulded clay vase in his hands against the swiftly turning wheel.

“They still make theazulejos, and the pottery in Seville, as they did in the days of the Moors—how do I know? In the days of the Romans! Remember, when you come to build your house, that the tiles of Triano are the best, cheapest, and handsomest in the world; that Seville is a port; and that they can be shipped to you at a fair price. Shall we stop at the factory and see them? The place supplies the whole of Spain with crockery. Patsy would fall in love with the big garden pots, and the pretty jugs.”

The most interesting thing we saw in the factory was the potter himself. Behind the splendid showrooms, where the fine majolicas and the common wares of the common people are displayed, in a dark, dank little corner, sat aman, half his body out of sight, working the potter’s wheel. He sat on the edge of a square hole in the floor; his legs were hidden, but his feet were busy turning, turning the wheel. He was old and poor. His red hands had been in the wet clay who knows how many hours—how many days? He was spiritless and sad in face and bearing, but oh! the skill of those poor red hands! The shapeless lump of soft wet clay was thumped first upon the revolving stand, then as if by magic, though we saw it with our eyes, it took shape, grew lovely and alive under those hands that looked so sodden, and yet could turn that gray mud into shapes of beauty. A cup for a dying man’s broth, a vase for a bride’s rose, a basin to bathe a new-born child: as each was finished he held it up for a moment for us to see, then laid it down beside him with the others. I put a coin in the red, clayey hand. He gave a little mechanical nod, a word of thanks, and went back to his work. He earns less than an unskilled child would earn at home. It is doubtful if he can read or write. He works from dawn to dark—the sight of him gave me great pangs of homesickness! Pemberton could tell me of no movement to help this man to a freer life, to a day whose working hours do not absorb every heartbeat of power. There is only charity! Bread for the hungry, salve for thesick, almshouse for the worked-out human beast of burden. Oh! that I could help him to pass through the Gate of Hope into the Hospitable Land, where every one has his chance, where the ranks are always open.

Triano was already behind us, and we were out upon the Aracena road that runs to the north. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the sound of marching men came towards us out of a cloud of dust. A little farther on we passed a regiment of small brown soldiers; mere boys, most of them. They all wore sandals; some had stockings, some were without. They must have been on fatiguing work, they looked so tired and footsore. In the fields, a band of peasants were cutting the ruby alfalfa; the air was fragrant with the honey-sweet smell of it. The harsh whetting of scythes, the soft swish of sickles through the clover, the song of the leader of the mowers, an oldish man with a red handkerchief tied round his head, marked the time for the march of those weary soldiers,

One of the last of the soldiers, a superb blondman towering above the others, repeated the refrain of the mower’s song:

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