It
Consisted Of An Immense Stable, From Which Was Partitioned A Kind
Of Kitchen And A Place Where The Family Slept.
The master, a
robust young man, lolled on a large solid stone bench, which stood
within the door.
He was very inquisitive respecting news, but I
could afford him none; whereupon he became communicative, and gave
me the history of his life, the sum of which was, that he had been
a courier in the Basque provinces, but about a year since had been
dispatched to this village, where he kept the post-house. He was
an enthusiastic liberal, and spoke in bitter terms of the
surrounding population, who, he said, were all Carlists and friends
of the friars. I paid little attention to his discourse, for I was
looking at a Maragato lad of about fourteen, who served in the
house as a kind of ostler. I asked the master if we were still in
the land of the Maragatos; but he told me that we had left it
behind nearly a league, and that the lad was an orphan and was
serving until he could rake up a sufficient capital to become an
arriero. I addressed several questions to the boy, but the urchin
looked sullenly in my face, and either answered by monosyllables or
was doggedly silent. I asked him if he could read. "Yes," said
he, "as much as that brute of yours who is tearing down the
manger."
Quitting Manzanal, we continued our course.
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