Back Aa

Travelling Thirds

Close

<h2 class='c007'>VII</h2></div> <div class='c005'> <ANTIMG class='drop-capi' src='images/i-p073.jpg' width-obs='150' alt='' /></div> “Ah!” exclaimed Captain Over, “this is Spain! Who is going to sit with me in front?” Catalina made no reply, but she ran swiftly to the big, canvas-covered diligence, climbed over the high wheel before Over could follow to assist her, and seated herself beside the driver with the most ingratiating manner that any of her party had seen her assume. Over placed himself beside her, the others took possession of the rear, the driver cracked his whip, and the six mules, jingling with half a hundred bells, leaped down the dusty road towards the steep and rocky heights where Tarragona has defied the nations of the earth. Then it was that Over laughed softly, and the innocent Moultons learned what depths of iniquity may lie at the base 74of a ranch-girl’s blandishments. As they reached the foot of the bluff the delighted youth who was answerable to Heaven for his precious freight abandoned the reins. Catalina gathered them in one hand, half rose from her seat, and with a great flourish cracked the long whip, not once, but thrice, delivering herself of sharp, peremptory cries in Spanish. The mules needed no further encouragement. They tore up the steep and winding road, whisked round curves, strained every muscle to show what a Spanish mule could do. They even shook their heads and tossed them in the air that their bells might jingle the louder. Mrs. Moulton and Jane screamed, clinging to each other, the portmanteaus bounced to the floor, and Mr. Moulton would have grasped Catalina’s arm but Over intercepted and reassured him. And, indeed, there were few better whips than Catalina in a state notorious for a century of reckless and brilliant driving. She drove like a cowboy, not like an Englishwoman, Over commented, but he felt the exhilaration of it, even when the unwieldy diligence bounded 75from side to side in the narrow road and the dust enveloped them. In a moment he shifted his eyes to her face. Her white teeth were gleaming through the half-open bow of her mouth, tense but smiling, and her splendid eyes were flashing, not only with the pleasure of the born horsewoman, but with a wicked delight in the consternation behind her. She looked, despite the mules and the dusty old diligence, like a goddess in a chariot of victory, and Over, who rarely imagined, half expected to see fire whirling in the clouds of dust about the wheels. As they reached the top of the bluff the driver indicated the way, and they flew down the Rambla San Carlos, past the astounded soldiers lounging in front of the barracks, and stopped with a grand flourish in front of the hotel. Catalina turned to Over, her lips still parted, her eyes glittering. “That is the first time I have been really happy since I left home,” she announced, ignoring her precipitately descending relatives. “I feel young again, and I’ve felt 76as old as the hills ever since I’ve been in Europe. I’ll like you forever because you approve of me, and I haven’t seen that expression on anybody’s face for months.” “Oh, I approve of you!” said the Englishman, laughing. They descended, and she challenged him to race her to the parapet that they might limber themselves. He accepted, and, in spite of her undepleted youth, he managed to beat by means of a superior length of limb. The victory filled him with a quite unreasoning sense of exultation, and as they hung over the parapet and looked out upon the liquid turquoise of the sea, sparkling under a cloudless sky, its little white sail-boats dancing along with the pure joy of motion, he felt younger and happier than he had since his cricket days. “I think we had better not go to the hotel for a time,” he suggested. “I am afraid that Mr. and Mrs. Moulton are in a bit of a wax. Perhaps after they have rested and freshened up they will forgive you, and meanwhile we can explore.” So they wandered off to the old town until 77they stood at the foot of a flight of ancient stone steps, wider than three streets, that led up to the plaza before the cathedral. Crouching in the shallow corners of the stair were black-robed old crones who looked as if they might have begged of Cæsar. Passing up and down, or in and out of the narrow streets, to right and left were young women of languid and insolent carriage, in bright cotton frocks and yellow kerchiefs about their heads, young men in small clothes and wide hats, loafing along as if all time were in their little day, and troops and swarms of children. These attached themselves to the strangers, encouraged by the caressing Spanish words of the girl, followed them through the cathedral, and out into a side street, chattering like magpies. “You look like a comet with a long tail,” said Over. “I’ll scatter them with a few coppers.” He paused as she turned her head over her shoulder and regarded him with a wondering reproach. For the moment her large brown eyes looked bovine. “Do you want these little demons to follow 78us all over the place?” he asked, curiously. “Why not?” “Tarragona is theirs,” said Over, lightly. “They would annoy most women.” He hoped to provoke her to further revelation, but she made no reply, and they rambled with occasional speech through the ancient narrow streets, followed by their noisy retinue, the little Murillo faces sparkling with curiosity and foresight of illimitable wealth in coppers. But even Catalina forgot them at times, as she and her companion stopped to decipher the Roman inscription on the foundation blocks of many of the houses. Although the houses themselves may have been younger than the huge blocks with their legends of the Scipios and the Cæsars, they were old enough, and the steep and winding streets, with the women hanging out of the high windows and sitting before the doors, all bits of color against the mellow stone, were no doubt much the same in effect as when Augustus and his hosts marched by with eagles aloft. 79Catalina, who had the historic sense highly developed and had found her happiness in the past, infected Over with her enthusiasm, and he followed her without protest to the outskirts of the town, and looked down over the great valley beneath the heights of Tarragona, then up past the Cyclopean walls, those stupendous, unhewn blocks of masonry which still, for a sweep of two miles or more, surround the old town. “What a place to hide from the world!” said Catalina. They had turned into a little street just within the wall, and seated themselves on an odd block to rest, their exhausted retinue camping all the way along the line. Opposite them was a high and narrow house, its upper balcony full of flowers, and an arcade behind suggesting the dim quiet of patio with its palms and fountain, its shadows haunted with incommunicable memories of an ancient past. “The new town we drove through with its fine houses is too commonplace; but this—any one of these eyries—what a nest! I could live quite happy up there, couldn’t you?” “For a time.” He was too frankly modern 80to yield unconditionally. “But I must confess I can’t think what artists are about.” When they reached the plaza, Catalina turned to the children and solemnly thanked them for the great pleasure and service they had rendered two belated strangers. They accepted the tribute in perfect good faith and then scrambled for the coppers. <div class='chapter'> 81 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2