The Cabin Part 2

It was a requirement of her business to change her name, as well as to speak with an Andalusian accent. And she began to imitate the voice of the virago upstairs with a species of rough humour.

But in spite of her mirth, she was in a hurry to get away. She was afraid of those upstairs. The owner of the rough voice or the gentleman who wanted the milk might give her some memento of the delay. So she hurried up after urging Pepeta to stop again some other time to tell her the news of the _huerta_.

The monotonous tinkling of the bell of La Rocha continued for more than an hour through the streets of Valencia; the wilted udders yielded up their last drop of insipid milk, produced by a miserable diet of cabbage-leaves and garbage, and Pepeta finally was ready to start back toward the _barraca_.

The poor labouring-woman walked along sadly deep in thought. The encounter had impressed her; she remembered, as though it had just happened the day before, the terrible tragedy which had swallowed up old Barret and his entire family.

Since then, the fields, which his ancestors had tilled for more than a hundred years, had lain abandoned at the edge of the high road.

The uninhabited _barraca_ was slowly crumbling to pieces without any merciful hand to mend the roof or to cast a handful of clay upon the c.h.i.n.ks in the wall.

Ten years of pa.s.sing and re-pa.s.sing had accustomed people to the sight of this ruin, so they paid no further attention to it. It had been some time since even Pepeta had looked at it. It now interested only the boys who, inheriting the hatred of their fathers, trampled down the nettles of the abandoned fields in order to riddle the deserted house with rocks, which split great gaps in the closed door, or to fill up the well under the ancient grape-arbour with earth and stones.

But this morning Pepeta, under the spell of the recent meeting, not only looked at the ruin, but stopped at the edge of the highway to see it the better.

The fields of old Barret, or rather, of the Jew, Don Salvador, and his excommunicated heirs, were an oasis of misery and abandonment in the midst of the _huerta_, so fertile, well-tilled, and smiling.

Ten years of desolation had hardened the soil, causing all the parasitic plants, all the nettles which the Lord has created to chasten the farmer, to spring up out of its sterile depths. A dwarfish forest, tangled and deformed, spread itself out over those fields in waving ranks of strange green tones, varied here and there by flowers, mysterious and rare, of the sort which thrive only amid cemeteries and ruins.

Here, in the rank maze of this thicket, fostered by the security of their retreat, there bred and multiplied all species of loathsome vermin, which spread out into the neighbouring fields; green lizards with corrugated loins, enormous beetles with sh.e.l.ls of metallic reflection, spiders with short and hairy legs, and even snakes, which slid off to the adjoining ca.n.a.ls. Here they thrived in the midst of the beautiful and cultivated plain, forming a separate estate, and devouring one another. Though they caused some damage to the farmers, the latter respected them even with a certain veneration, for the seven plagues of Egypt would have seemed but a trifle to the dwellers of the _huerta_ had they descended upon those accursed fields.

The lands of old Barret never had been destined for man, so let the most loathsome pests nest among them, and the more, the better.

In the midst of these fields of desolation, which stood out in the beautiful plain like a soiled patch on a royal robe of green velvet, the _barraca_ rose up, or one should rather say fell away, its straw roof bursting open, showing through the gaps, which the rain and wind had pierced, the worm-eaten framework of wood within.

The walls, rotted away by the rains, laid bare the clay-adobe. Only some very light stains revealed the former whitewash; the door was ragged along the lower edge which rats had gnawed, with wide cracks that ran, full length, from end to end. The two or three little windows, gaping wide, hung loosely on one hinge exposed to the mercy of the south-west winds, ready to fall as soon as the first gust should shake them.

This ruin hurt the spirit and weighed upon the heart. It seemed as though phantoms might sally forth from the wretched and abandoned hut as soon as darkness closed in; that from the interior might come the cries of the a.s.sa.s.sinated, rending the night; that all this waste of weeds might be a shroud to conceal hundreds of tragic corpses from sight.

Horrible were the visions which were conjured up by the contemplation of these desolate fields; and their gloomy poverty was sharpened by the contrast with the surrounding fields, so red and well-cultivated, with their orderly rows of garden-truck and their little fruit-trees, to whose leaves the autumn gave a yellowish transparency.

Even the birds fled from these plains of death, perhaps from fear of the hideous reptiles which stirred about under the growth of weeds, or possibly because they scented the vapour of abandonment.

If anything were seen to flutter over the broken roof of straw, it was certain to be of funereal plumage with black and treacherous wings, which as they stirred, cast silence over the joyful flappings and playful twitterings in the trees, leaving the _huerta_ deathly still, as though no sparrows chirped within a half-league roundabout.

Pepeta was about to continue on her way toward her farm-house, which peered whitely among the trees some distance across the fields; but she had to stand still at the steep edge of the highroad in order to permit the pa.s.sing of a loaded wagon, which seemed to be coming from the city, and which advanced with violent lurches.

At the sight of it, her feminine curiosity was aroused.

It was the poor cart of a farmer drawn by an old and bony nag, which was being helped over the deep ruts by a tall man, who marched alongside the horse, encouraging him with shouts and the cracking of a whip.

He was dressed like a labourer; but his manner of wearing the handkerchief knotted around the head, his corduroy trousers, and other details of his costume, indicated that he was not from the _huerta_, where personal adornment had gradually been corrupted by the fashions of the city. He was a farmer from some distant _pueblo_; he had come, perhaps, from the very centre of the province.

Heaped high upon the cart, forming a pyramid which mounted higher even than the side-poles, was piled a jumble of domestic objects. This was the migration of an entire family. Thin mattresses, straw-beds, filled with rustling leaves of corn, rush-seats, frying-pans, kettles, plates, baskets, green bed-slats: all were heaped upon the wagon, dirty, worn, and miserable, speaking of hunger, of desperate flight, as if disgrace stalked behind the family, treading at its heels. And on top of this disordered ma.s.s were three children, embracing each other as they looked out across the fields with wide-open eyes, like explorers visiting a country for the first time.

Treading close at the heels of the wagon, watching vigilantly to see that nothing might fall, trudged a woman with a slender girl, who appeared to be her daughter. At the other side of the nag, aiding him whenever the cart stuck in a rut, stalked a boy of some eleven years.

His grave exterior was that of a child accustomed to struggle with misery. He was already a man at an age when others were still playing. A little dog, dirty and panting, brought up the rear.

Pepeta, leaning on the flank of her cow, and possessed with growing curiosity, watched them pa.s.s on. Where could these poor people be going?

This road, running into the fork of Alboraya, did not lead anywhere; it was lost in the distance as though exhausted by the innumerable forkings of its lanes and paths, which gave entrance to the various _barracas_.

But her curiosity had an unexpected gratification. Holy Virgin! The wagon turned away from the road, crossed the tumbledown little bridge made of tree-trunks and sod which gave access to the accursed fields, and went on through the meadows of old Barret, crushing the hitherto respected growth of weeds beneath its wheels.

The family followed behind, manifesting by gestures and confused words, the impression which this miserable poverty and decay were making upon them, but all the while going directly in a straight line toward the ruined _barraca_ like those who are taking possession of their own.

Pepeta did not stop to see more; she fairly flew toward her own home. In order to arrive the sooner, she abandoned the cow and little calf, who tranquilly pursued their way like animals who have a good, safe stable and are not worried about the course of human affairs.

Pimento was lazily smoking, as he lay stretched out at the side of his _barraca_ with his gaze fixed upon three little sticks smeared with bird-lime, which shone in the sun, and about which some birds were fluttering,--the occupation of a gentleman.

When he saw his wife arrive with astonished eyes and her weak chest panting, Pimento changed his position in order to listen the better, at the same time warning her not to come near the little sticks.

What was up now? Had the cow been stolen from her?

Pepeta, between weariness and emotion, was scarcely able to utter two consecutive words.

The lands of Barret, ... an entire family, ... were going to work; they were going to live in the ruined _barraca_,--she had seen it herself!

Pimento, a hunter with bird-lime, an enemy of labour, and the terror of the entire community, was no longer able to preserve his composure, the impressive gravity of a great lord, before such unexpected news.

_Cordons!_

And with one bound, he raised his heavy, muscular frame from the ground, and set out on a run without awaiting further explanations.

His wife watched him as he hurried across the fields until he reached a cane-brake adjoining the accursed land. Here he knelt down, threw himself face forward, crawling upon his belly as he spied through the cane-brake like a Bedouin in ambush. After a few minutes, he began to run again, and was soon lost to sight amid the labyrinth of paths, each of which led off to a different _barraca_, to a field where bending figures wielded large steel hoes, which glittered as the light struck upon them.

The _huerta_ lay smiling and rustling, filled with whisperings and with light, drowsy under the cascade of gold reflected from the morning sun.

But soon there came, from the distance, the mingled sound of cries and halloes. The news pa.s.sed on from field to field. With loud shouts, with a trembling of alarm, of surprise, of indignation, it ran on through all the plain as though centuries had not elapsed, and the report were being spread that an Algerian galley was about to land upon the beach, seeking a cargo of white flesh.

II

At harvest time, when old Barret gazed at the various plots into which his fields were divided, he was unable to restrain a feeling of pride.

As he gazed upon the tall wheat, the cabbage-heads with their hearts of fleecy lace, the melons showing their green backs on a level with the earth, the pimentoes and tomatoes, half-hidden by their foliage, he praised the goodness of the earth as well as the efforts of all his ancestors for working these fields better than the rest of the _huerta_.

All the blood of his forefathers was here. Five or six generations of Barrets had pa.s.sed their lives working this same soil. They had turned it over and over, taking care that its vital nourishment should not decrease, combing and caressing it with ploughshare and hoe; there was not one of these fields which had not been watered by the sweat and blood of the family.

The farmer loved his wife dearly, and even forgave her the folly of having given him four daughters and no son, to help him in his work. Not that he loved his daughters any the less, angels sent from G.o.d who pa.s.sed the day singing and sewing at the door of their farm-house, and who sometimes went out into the fields in order to give their poor father a little rest. But the supreme pa.s.sion of old Barret, the love of all his loves, was the land upon which the silent and monotonous history of his family had unrolled.

Many years ago, many indeed, in those days when old Tomba, an aged man now nearly blind, who took care of the poor herd of a butcher at Alboraya, went roaming about in the band of The Friar,[C] shooting at the French, these lands had belonged to the monks of San Miguel de los Reyes.

They were good, stout gentlemen, sleek and voluble, who were not in a hurry to collect their rentals, and appeared to be satisfied if when they pa.s.sed the cabin of an evening, the grand-mother, who was a generous soul, would treat them to deep cups of chocolate, and the first fruits of the season. Before, long before, the owner of all this land had been a great lord, who upon dying, had unloaded both his sins and his estates upon the bosom of the community. Now, alas! they belonged to Don Salvador, a little, dried-up old man of Valencia, who so tormented old Barret, that he even dreamed of him at night.

The poor farmer kept his trouble hidden from his family. He was a courageous man of clean habits. If he went to the tavern of Copa for a while on Sundays, when all the people of the neighbourhood were gathered there together, it was in order to watch the card-players, to laugh heartily at the absurdities and brutalities of Pimento, and the other strapping young fellows who played "c.o.c.k o' the walk" about the _huerta_; but never did he approach a counter to buy a gla.s.s; he always kept his sash-purse tight around the waist, and if he drank at all, it was only when one of the winners was treating all the crowd.