Poor Folk in Spain Part 11

"The house and all that is in it is at your service," he said in the phrase of Spanish courtesy.

I was patting the dog.

"That dog," said the little Senor, "is a very valuable dog. It is unique in the province and possibly is unique in the south of Spain. It has a romantic history. It is bred by the monks in high Switzerland, and when the snow is deep on the mountains it goes out to hunt for lost travellers. It is the only specimen of a San Bernar' in the south of Spain."

We looked at the setter; and drank some more beer.

"That bull," went on the Senor, pointing to the picture, "was painted by one of the best bull painters in Spain."

We looked at the picture and again took refuge in beer. Luis, who did not know about setters, but did know about pictures, drank in sympathy.

The Senor wound up his gramophone.

"Do you know 'Frou-Frou'?" he inquired.

"'Frou-Frou'?" we said.

"Yes, the French Comic Opera."

"But," said Luis, "have you not by chance a disc of Spanish music? You see," he added as excuse, "the Senors are foreign. It interests them to hear the national music, the Flamenco."

The little Senor pursed his lips.

"But," he said, "it is so vulgar. n.o.body wants to hear that."

He possessed, however, a disc or two which he turned on, to our delight.

But before we left him he insisted that we should sit through his favourite "Frou-Frou."

We went away. The strains of "Frou-Frou" which the little Senor had turned on once more followed us on the still air. The setter-St. Bernard walked with us to the beginning of the hill, from whence he turned sedately homewards.

We strode upwards--past cottages of all colours, past a large rambling monastery, which, perched on the far side of the Verdolay hill, very cubic in shape, is as romantic as it is possible for a building to be; past a watercourse, above which were dwellings hollowed out of the soft rock of the mountain-side, cave dwellings, and out on to the side of the mountains lying between Murcia and Carthagena. From here we could appreciate the width, flatness and verdure of the Murcian valley in the midst of which was the town, the campanile of the cathedral soaring into the air.

Here we had our first experience of a Spanish country walk. We were all wearing alpagatas, the canvas sides of which are not exceedingly thick.

The dried herbage of the hills was intermingled with all manner of p.r.i.c.kly weeds. The vegetation protects itself in this way from being eaten by anything less leather-tongued than a goat. The results are uncomfortable for the walker. The little hairlike spines pierce the shoes and break off, remaining as a continual irritant until the shoe is removed. Even then the spines, almost microscopic in size and almost flesh colour, are often difficult to find. The same uncomfortable fate is in wait for the unwary stranger who sits down without having carefully explored the place where he is going to seat himself. Indeed the fate is worse, because the thorns thus encountered cannot with decency be extracted in a public place and the victim is condemned to a lot similar to that of the naughty schoolboy.

The sun poured the full of its summer power on to the hill-side, which reflected both heat and light with overpowering intensity. Though it was almost four o'clock in the afternoon we felt that our salamandrine limits were being put to a test. A broad white road, mounting up the hill, crossed our path and we turned into it.

"We are going to the monastery of La Luz," said Luis. "I have heard that they sometimes take visitors for short periods. It would be interesting for you to spend a fortnight in a monastery."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The road climbed up beneath high black cliffs. The other side of the valley was coloured orange and red upon which the sun was s.h.i.+ning with all its force. The side of the hill was dotted with aloes, some having upright flower stems fifteen feet high in the air, around the flowers of which the bees were swarming in harmonious halos. A stately stone pine overshadowed a medley of old buildings which sprang from the top of a precipice out of which sprouted the weird branches of the p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus. The road circled round the foot of this cliff, and still mounted till, making a full semicircle, it brought us on to a platform.

On one side of the flat s.p.a.ce was an open cistern into which led a pipe.

From the pipe a deliberate trickle of water fell. Two women and two men sat about this pipe slowly filling their amphoras of Grecian form, while donkeys waited patiently in the background bearing panniers for the water-vessels on their backs. On the other side of the platform the monastery showed a high wall with a large gate leading into a courtyard from which arose the face of the church, painted a Cambridge blue.

We could find no bell. The water-carriers shouted instructions to us.

The bell clanged with an empty sound, as though echoing through miles of untenanted corridors. We rang again. No response. We rang three or four times before we heard the sound of shuffling steps. A peep-hole, shaped like a cross, opened and an eye examined us. The door swung slowly open, revealing a small obsequious man dressed in peasant costume. Through pa.s.sages we came into a cloister which was built around a small courtyard full of flowers. In the middle of the courtyard was a high statue of the Virgin. It was framed and almost hidden by a creeper which offered to it a tribute of gorgeous purple bell-shaped flowers. At the foot of the figure was stretched a large cat. A strange thought came to me that the cat did not bother itself about the Virgin other than as something which threw a grateful shadow.

The apologetic little peasant monk, who had let us in was evidently an underling. He murmured something about Brother Juan and went away.

Brother Juan came groaning along the corridor with rheumatic steps. He had a tiny head and large-framed body; dressed in peasant's clothes, white s.h.i.+rt, black c.u.mmerbund, short knee trousers, long white drawers to the ankle and sandals on bare feet. He was rather like a dear old gardener who has been in the family for years, and who has supported the teasings of generations of children. Age and a sweet nature had carved his face with horizontal wrinkles of kindliness; rheumatism and pain had crossed these with downward seams of depression.

Luis introduced the object of our visit. Brother Juan doubtingly shook his head. They did have visitors, yes, but those were always well-known to the monastery. Introductions would be necessary. But, in any circ.u.mstance, the Father Superior was in Murcia at the moment, and nothing could be done without him.

I, made conceited by the praise of the clerkly man in the carriage, then tried to charm Brother Juan by a series of apposite remarks in my most careful Spanish.

Brother Juan scratched his head.

"Doubtless, what the Senora says is very interesting." He raised his hands and eyes in pantomimed dismay. "But, oh, these languages! I can't understand a word!"

Brother Juan, groaning with rheumatism, led us to the gate. By some means an old woman dressed in black had joined us. As Juan was taking his leave of us his eyes suddenly lit up with a merry twinkle.

"If you will excuse me," he said to Luis, "it would be better, when you see the Father Superior, if the woman would dress rather less indecently. You see, we are monks and are not used to it."

We went down the hill accompanied by the old woman in black, who was chuckling at Brother Juan's last remark.

"If only the woman would ... he ... he ... we are monks and aren't used to it ... ho ... ho."

I was surprised. It had not seemed to me that I was indecent. I was wearing an ordinary English midsummer walking dress. Luis said:

"I think it was the opening at your neck that worried him. You see we haven't really taken up the open neck in Murcia as yet."

Directed by the old woman, we scrambled down steep paths to the bottom of the orange-coloured ravine, and up the other side past the aloes; we went through an olive grove, and again up a steep zigzag road to the second monastery. Here lived the clerkly man, but we did not know his name. This monastery began with a terra-cotta-coloured Gothic church with three tall towers and a cupola of blue glazed tiles, and rambled on up the ridge of a long hill to end in a tall building which looked like an overgrown Turkish bath. A grey building with a huge entrance door was pointed out as the _pension_ of the monastery. We wandered into a large courtyard and to us came a fat priest wearing a biretta. He was courteous but firm.

"We have no room," he said.

But we remembered that the clerkly one had said that there was room. I suppose again my dress was the real objection.

We went back towards the village of the little Senor. On our way we again crossed the dusty road which led to La Luz. A carriage was driving along it. In the carriage were two priests. Luis said:

"There probably goes the Father Superior. Shall we ask him now?"

After a moment's hesitation we turned and strode up the hill. We had to walk fast to catch the carriage, but at last the driver, perceiving that we were following him, halted.

"No," said one of the priests, "we are not the Superior of La Luz.

Indeed, at this moment he is behind you. There."

He pointed out an old man in the costume of a peasant, who, bent with age, was toiling up the hill aided by his staff. The Father Superior was still some distance away. Hastily, with a brooch, we pinned my blouse up close around my throat.

The Father Superior had the face of one designed to be an ascetic, but his expression was inscrutable. He was very suave. He felt honoured, he said, by the request of the Senors, but there was no room. Now Brother Juan had said that there was room.

Luis tried to urge the matter: he instanced our Red Cross work in Serbia. The Father Superior said it was very praiseworthy of us, but ... and bowing unfelt regrets he left us.

We went back to our little Senor.

He found for us a woman with the usual pound's weight of keys and conducted us to two bright red houses. Both were one story in height, but one was for three months' tenancy only. We decided to take the other. It was occupied to its limits by a Spanish family, so we took but the most cursory of glances into it. Then, our business settled, we said au revoir to the little Senor, who in Spanish fas.h.i.+on offered us his services whenever they should be needed.

We walked down a road and, in a short while, came to the village of Alverca. This was the first typical Spanish village we had pa.s.sed through. It was long, stretched on the edge between the bare mountain and the fertile valley. The houses were low, one-storied for the most part, and the dust was all-prevalent. In the dusty street boys were playing football, which in Spain seems to be a summer game. In the middle of the village was a shop, which advertised itself as a Tobacco Agency, for tobacco is a Spanish government monopoly and can be sold only in licensed places. We went in to get a drink and to ask if by chance they had some tobacco, for all the while we were in Spain there was a famine of tobacco.