The
monarchists study it with a jealous interest. I fell into conversation
with Senor - - - , one of the best minds in Spain, an enlightened though
conservative statesman. He said: "It is hard for Europe to adopt a
settled belief about you. America is a land of wonders, of
contradictions. One party calls your system freedom, another anarchy. In
all legislative assemblies of Europe, republicans and absolutists alike
draw arguments from America. But what cannot be denied are the effects,
the results. These are evident, something vast and grandiose, a life and
movement to which the Old World is stranger." He afterwards referred
with great interest to the imaginary imperialist movement in America,
and raised his eyebrows in polite incredulity when I assured him there
was as much danger of Spain becoming Mohammedan as of America becoming
imperialist.
We stopped at the little station of Villalba, in the midst of the wide
brown table-land that stretches from Madrid to the Escorial. At Villalba
we found the inevitable swarm of beggars, who always know by the sure
instinct of wretchedness where a harvest of cuartos is to be achieved. I
have often passed Villalba and have seen nothing but the station-master
and the water-vender. But to-day, because there were a half dozen
excellencies on the train, the entire mendicant force of the district
was on parade. They could not have known these gentlemen were coming;
they must have scented pennies in the air.
Awaiting us at the rear of the station were three enormous lumbering
diligences, each furnished with nine superb mules, - four pairs and a
leader. They were loaded with gaudy trappings, and their shiny coats,
and backs shorn into graceful arabesques, showed that they did not
belong to the working-classes, but enjoyed the gentlemanly leisure of
official station. The drivers wore a smart postilion uniform and the
royal crown on their caps.
We threw some handfuls of copper and bronze among the picturesque
mendicants. They gathered them up with grave Castilian decorum, and
said, "God will repay your graces." The postilions cracked their whips,
the mules shook their bells gayly, the heavy wagons started off at a
full gallop, and the beggars said, "May your graces go with God!"
It was the end of July, and the sky was blue and cloudless. The fine,
soft light of the afternoon was falling on the tawny slopes and the
close-reaped fields. The harvest was over. In the fields on either side
they were threshing their grain, not as in the outside world, with the
whirring of loud and swift machinery, nor even with the active and
lively swinging of flails; but in the open air, under the warm sky, the
cattle were lazily treading out the corn on the bare ground, to be
winnowed by the wandering wind.
