Four Months Afoot in Spain Part 15

"No se, senor," she answered.

"Don't know! When your town has only nine houses?"

But she only stared dully at me through the gloom, and I carried my inquiry elsewhere. With no better result, however, for each one I asked returned the same laconic, "I don't know." I had sat down on a boulder in the center of the hamlet to puzzle over this strange ignorance when a strapping mountaineer approached through the darkness and led me with few words to the house of the head man. The latter was in bed with a broken leg, having had the misfortune to fall off his farm a few days before. I was taken before him as he lay propped up with pillows and, after a few brief questions, he commanded his family to make me at home.

Only at a distance are these mountain hamlets of northern Spain inviting. For the good people live, indoors and out, in peace and equality with their pigs and chickens, not because they are by nature unclean, but because they know no other life than this, nor any reason why their domestic animals should not be treated as equals. The wife of the village chief led me into the living-room and kitchen. I knew it was that, for she said so. The place was absolutely dark. Since leaving Lugo I had not seen a pane of gla.s.s, and lamps of any sort appear to be unknown in these hamlets of the Sierra de Ranadoiro. There was, to be sure, a bit of fire in one corner, but it gave not the slightest illumination, only a thick smoke that wandered about looking for an exit, and unsuccessfully, for there was nothing whatever in the way of chimney, and the door had been closed as we entered. Smoker though I am, I began to weep and did not once leave off while I remained in the room.

The mustiness of a dungeon a.s.sailed the nostrils; the silence was broken by a continual droning. The floor was stone. In the room were six or eight men and women, as I discovered little by little from their voices.

Supper was announced, and a match I struck showed an indistinct group of which I was a part humped over a steaming kettle in the center of the floor. Into this all began to dip their bread. I hung back, which the wife discovering by some instinct, she made an exclamation I did not understand and soon after there was thrust into my hands a private bowl of the concoction.

It turned out to be a "caldo gallego"--an all but tasteless thick soup of which the chief ingredient, besides water, is the long-stemmed cabbage indigenous to the region. A spoon was then handed me. It was of wood, homemade, and flat as a canoe-paddle. What most aroused my wonder was the bread. A glimpse I had caught of it in the flicker of my match seemed to show a loaf of about the size of a large grindstone--though I charged this to optical illusion--from which wedges were cut, one of them being laid in my lap. It was coa.r.s.e as mortar, yet as savory, and proved later to be as sustaining a bread as I have yet run across on the earth. This and the caldo being no match for a mountain-climbing appet.i.te, I asked the privilege of buying a bowl of milk. From my unseen companions arose many e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of wonder that I could afford such a luxury, but a bowl of it was soon put in my hands. A better milk I never broke bread in.

Still I was at a loss to account for the incessant droning in the room, like the croak of a distant ox-cart. Since my entrance, too, I had been struck a thousand times lightly in the face, as with bread crumbs or the paper-wads indigenous to the old country schoolhouse. When it occurred to me to put the two mysteries together both were solved. The flies were so thick in the room that they made this sound in flying blindly back and forth.

But once upstairs the dwelling a.s.sumed a new rating. Here was, it is true, no luxury; but the rough-fashioned chamber, partly store-room and partly spare bedroom, was capacious and clean, of the rough, unused sort of cleanliness of a farmer's "best room," opened only on extraordinary occasions. The one sheet of the ma.s.sive bed was as stiff as any windjammer's mainsail, the blanket as rough as the robe of a Cistercian monk. Among a score of multiform articles stored in the room was a stack of bread such as I had eaten below, some forty loaves each fully as large as a half-bushel measure. It is baked from four to six months ahead, twice or thrice a year, and has a crust hard and impervious as a glazed pot, which keeps it fresh and savory for an almost unlimited period.

As I bade farewell to my host next morning I held out to him two pesetas. He resented the offer as an Arab or a Castilian might have, but being of those accustomed to express themselves less in words than in actions, did so laconically. When I offered it again he rose half up on his elbows and bellowed "No!" His gruffness was in no sense from anger, but merely his mode of speaking emphatically, and a way of hiding that bashfulness so common to mountaineers, who are usually, as here, a shy and kindly people with much more genuine benevolence than grace of manner. I protested that I should at least be permitted to pay for my extravagance, the milk, arguing that even a wanderer on his feet was better able to spare a peseta than a village chief on his back. But he roared "No!" again, and furthermore commanded his wife to cut me a wedge of the longevious bread, "to carry me over the day."

Once escaped from the tangle of inhabited stone-piles, I strode away down rock-jumbled ravines, one close succeeding another and carrying me all but headlong downward. In the depths of the third I risked a plunge into a mountain brook, though the water was icy and the air still almost wintry cold. The day was warming, however, by the time I descended upon the hamlet of Berducedo, where I got fried eggs and a new highway.

To chronicle the vagaries of the latter during the rest of the day would be a thankless task. For miles it wound around and upward, ever upward on the face of bare stony mountains like a spiral stairway to heaven.

Then suddenly from each giddy height it dived headlong down into deep-wooded, fertile valleys; then up again round and round another mountain shoulder far beyond the last stunted shrub. Later in the day it took to rounding these peaks almost on the level, coming a score of times so close to itself that I could all but toss my bundle across, only to buckle back upon itself for miles around some narrow but apparently bottomless gulley.

Somewhere during the previous afternoon I had crossed the unmarked boundary between Galicia and the still more rugged kingdom of Asturias, to-day the province of Oviedo. A new style of architecture gradually became prevalent. The buildings were of two stories, the lower, of stone, housing the animals, while the dwelling proper was of wood and perched a foot or more above the lower story on four cone-shaped cornerstones, like some great awkward bird ready to take flight.

But for this peculiarity the village in which night overhauled me differed but little from that of the evening before, except in being many hundred feet nearer sea level. It was called San Fecundo. As before, my inquiry for an inn was each time answered by a terse "I don't know." I found the head man in good health, however,--a stalwart fellow little past thirty who was shoveling manure in his front yard. Yet so local is the dialect of every village in this region that I tried for some time in vain to make known my wants to him.

"Can't you speak Spanish, senor?" I cried out.

"No, senor," he replied like the report of a gun, and apparently angered at the allegation. We managed nevertheless by patience and repet.i.tion to establish communication between us, and I found out at last why my inquiry for a posada had evoked so surprising an answer. Public hostelries being unknown among them, the mountaineers understand the question "Is there an inn in town?" to mean "Do you suppose any resident will furnish me accommodations?"

The head man did in this case, in spite of my unfortunate blunder in calling him a gallego. So great is the sectionalism in these Cantabrian ranges that a man from one village deeply resents even being taken for a resident of another a mile distant; while the Asturians, a blending of the aboriginal Iberian and the Goth, in whose caves of Covadonga was kept alight the last flicker of Spanish liberty and Christianity, consider themselves free and independent hidalgos infinitely superior to the submissive gallego. There were in truth some noticeable differences of character and customs, that were to increase as I advanced.

We spent the evening in another ventless, smoky, fly-buzzing kitchen, though this time the fireplace gave a bit of blaze and from time to time the rugged faces of the eight or ten men, who had gathered at the invitation of the village leader, flashed visible. I entertained them with such stories of America as are most customary and popular on such occasions. This was no light task. Not only were there many words entirely indigenous to the village, but such Castilian as my hearers used would scarcely be recognized in Castille. The expression "For alla" (over there) they reduced to "Pa ca"; "horse" was never "caballo,"

but either "cabalo" or "cabayo." Worst of all, the infinitive of the verb served indifferently for all persons and tenses. "Yo ir" might mean "I go," "I was going," "I shall go," "I should go" and even "I would have gone" and "I should be going."

Most taking of all the stories I could produce were those concerning the high buildings of New York. I had developed this popular subject at some length when a mountaineer interposed a question that I made out at length to be a query whether those who live in these great houses spend all their time in them or take an hour or two every morning to climb the stairs.

"Hay ascensores, senores," I explained, "elevators; some expresses, some mixtos, as on your railroads."

A long, unaccountable silence followed. I filled and lighted my pipe, and still only the heavy breathing of the untutored sons of the hills about me sounded. Finally one of them cleared his throat and inquired in humble voice:

"Would you be so kind, senor, as to tell us what is an elevator?"

It was by no means easy. Long explanation gave them only the conception of a train that ran up and down the walls of the building. How this overcame the force of gravity I did not succeed in making clear to them; moreover there was only one of the group that had ever seen a train.

In the morning the head man accepted with some protest two _reales_--half a peseta. The highway again raced away downward, describing its parabolas and boomerang movements as before, and gradually bringing me to a realization of how high I had climbed into the sky. On every hand rocky gorges and sheer cliffs; now and again a group of charcoal-burners on the summit of a slope stood out against the dull sky-line like Millet's figures--for the sun was rarely visible. As I descended still lower, more pretentious, red-roofed villages appeared, and by mid-afternoon I entered the large town of Tineo. As I was leaving one of its shops a courtly youth introduced himself as a student in the University of Valladolid, and as he knew a bit of English it was with no small difficulty that I resisted his entreaties to talk that tongue with him in the mile or two he walked with me. That night for the first time since leaving Lugo I paid for my lodging in a public posada.

Salas, a long town in a longer green valley, was so far down and sheltered that figs sold--by number here rather than weight--nine for a cent. Beyond, the highway strolled for miles through orchards of apples and pears, while figs dropped thick in the road and were trodden under foot. For the first time I understood the force of the expression, "not worth a fig."

In the wineshop where I halted for an afternoon lunch I got the shock of that summer's journey. Casually I picked up the first newspaper I had seen in a week; and stared a full moment at it unbelieving. The entire front page was taken up by a photograph showing Posadas lying in bed, his familiar face gaunt with pain, and about him his father, a priest, and a fellow-torero.

"Carajo!" I gasped. "What's this; Posadas wounded?"

"Mas," replied the innkeeper shortly. "Killed last Sunday. Too bad; he made good sport for the aficionados."

An accompanying article gave particulars. The Sevillian had been engaged to alternate with a well-known diestro in the humble little plaza of San Lucar de Barrameda on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir. The end of the day would have seen him a graduate matador.

The bulls were "miuras" five years old. As he faced the first, Posadas executed some pa.s.s that delighted the spectators. For once, evidently, he forgot his one "secret of success"; he turned to acknowledge the applause. In a flash the animal charged and gored him in the neck. He tried to go on, poised his sword, and fainted; and was carried to the little lazaret beneath the amphitheater, while the festival continued.

Toward morning he died.

All this had pa.s.sed while I was climbing into the cloud-cloaked village of Fonsagrada, two weeks to an hour since I had last seen the skilful Sevillian in the ring. The article ended with the vulgarity common to the yellow journal tribe:

"We have paid the dying Posadas one thousand pesetas for the privilege of taking this picture, which is almost all the unfortunate torero left his sorrowing family."

I trudged on deep in such reflections as such occurrences awaken, noting little of the scene. At sunset I found myself tramping through a warmer, less abrupt country, half conscious of having pa.s.sed Grado, with its palaces, nurse-girls, and conventional costumes. As dusk fell I paused to ask for an inn. "A bit further on," replied the householder.

I continued, still pensive. Several times I halted, always to receive the same reply, "A bit further, senor." Being in no sense tired, I gave the matter little attention until suddenly the seventh or eighth repet.i.tion of the unveracity aroused a touch of anger and a realization that the night was already well advanced. A lame man hobbling along the dark road gave me once more the threadbare answer, but walked some two miles at my side and left me at the door of a wayside wineshop that I should certainly not have missed even without him.

The chief sources of the boisterousness within were three young vagabonds who were displaying their accomplishments to the gathering.

One was playing tunes on a comb covered with a strip of paper, another produced a peculiarly weird music in a high falsetto, while the third was a really remarkable imitator of the various dialects of Spain. With the three I ascended near midnight to the loft of the building, where a supply of hay offered comfortable quarters. For an hour he of the falsetto sat smoking cigarettes and singing an endless ditty of his native city, the refrain of which rang out at frequent intervals:

"Mas bonita que hay, A Zaragoza me voy Dentro de Ar-r-r-rago-o-on."

It was with genuine regret that I noted next morning the reapproach of civilization. Rough as is the life of these mountaineers of the north their entire freedom from convention, the contact with real men who know not even what pose and pretense are, the drinking into my lungs of the exhilarating mountain air had made the trip that was just ending by far the most joyful portion of all my Spanish experiences. Not since the morning I climbed into Astorga had I heard the whine of a beggar; not once in all the northwest had I caught the faintest scent of a tourist.

The trip had likewise been the most inexpensive, for in the week's tramp I had spent less than twelve pesetas.

A few hours more down the mountainside brought me into Oviedo, where I took up my abode in the Calle de la Luna. The boyhood home of Gil Blas is a sober, almost gloomy town, where the sun is reputed to shine but one day in four. Its inhabitants have much in common with the slow-witted Lugense, though they are on the whole more wide-awake and self-satisfied. Of window displays the most frequent was that of a volume in richly ill.u.s.trated paper cover ent.i.tled, "Los Envenenadores (poisoners) de Chicago." It was, possibly, an expose of the packing houses, but I did not find time to read it. August was nearing its close, and there was still a considerable portion of Spain to be seen.

Luckily my kilometer-book was scarcely half-used up; but of the joyful days of freedom on the open road there could not be many more.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LAND OF THE BASQUE

My knapsack garnished, I turned my back on Oviedo early on Sunday morning. The train wound slowly away toward the lofty serrated range that shuts off the world on the south. As we approached the mountains, the line began to tie itself in knots, climbing ever upward. In one section two stations seven miles apart had twenty-six miles of railroad between them. At the second of the two a flushed and puffing Spaniard burst into our compartment with the information that, having reached the former after the train had departed, he had overtaken us on foot.

Still we climbed until, at the turning of the day, high up where clouds should have been we surmounted the ridgepole of the range and, racing, roaring downward, were almost in a moment back in the barren, rocky, sun-baked Spain of old, dust swirling everywhere, the heat wrapping us round as with a woolen blanket, drying up the very tobacco in my pouch; a change almost as decided as from the forests of Norway to the plains of India.

Arrived in Leon at three, I set off at once tourist-fashion for the cathedral, with its soaring Gothic towers and delicate, airy flying-b.u.t.tresses the first truly inspiring bit of Christian architecture I had seen in Spain; the first indeed whose exterior was anything. Much of the edifice, however, was glaringly new, the scaffolds of the renovators being still in place.

But here again "if the house of G.o.d is rich that of man is poor,"

pauperous in fact. When once the traveler has forced himself to believe that Leon was not many centuries since the rich capital of a vast empire he must surely fall sad and pensive reflecting how mutable and fleeting indeed are the things of earth. The Leon of to-day is a large village, a dried-up, dirty, dilapidated, depopulated, cobble-streeted village of snarling, meretricious-minded inhabitants jumbled together inside a wall that with the cathedral is the only remaining proof of former importance. Here once more was the beggar with his distressing whine, his brow of bronze, and his all too evident injuries; not numerously but const.i.tuting a large percentage of the population. In all Spain the devise of insurance companies on the fronts of buildings is more than frequent; in Leon there was barely a hovel without one or more. Which could not but awaken profound wonder, for not only are there no wooden houses within her walls to make danger of fire imminent, but a greater blessing could hardly be imagined for Leon than a general and all-embracing conflagration.

It was, perhaps, because of the unbroken misery with which they were surrounded that the Leonese were individually crabbed and cynical. Not a courteous word do I remember having received in all the town, and in vitriolic remarks the keepers and guests of the tumble-down parador where I was forced to put up outdid all others.

I was off in the morning at the first opportunity, again by train, which, pa.s.sing in the early afternoon through a blinding sand-storm near the village of Cisneros, landed me soon after at Palencia. This was a counterpart of Leon; a trifle less sulky and universally miserable, but as sprawling, sun-parched, and slovenly. Its surrounding plains were utterly verdureless, their flanking hills ossified, its gardens, promenades, and Alameda past all hope of relief by sprinkling even had its river not long since gone desert-dry as the rest. I left the place quickly, riding into the night and descending at length to march to the inspiriting music of a military band along a broad, thick-peopled Alameda, at the end of which a giant statue of Columbus bulked ma.s.sive against the moonlit sky, into Valladolid.