CHAPTER XIX.

LERIDA.

Picturesque country--Approaching Lerida--Rambling inn--Remarkable duenna--Toothless and voiceless--Smiles upon H. C.--Nearly expires--Civilised chef--A procession--Lerida Dragon--City of the dead--Night study--Charging dead walls--A night encounter--Armed demon--Wise people--Watchman proves an old friend--No promotion--Locked out--Rousing the echoes--Night porter appears on the scene--Also El Sereno--Apologetic and repentant--The charming Rose--Porter congratulates himself--Cloudless morning--H. C.

confronted by the Dragon--In the hands of the Philistines--A Lerida fine art--Boot-cleaner in Ordinary--Remarkable character--H. C.

hilarious--Steals a march.

No sooner had we left Manresa than the rain ceased, and though the sky remained grey, the clouds lifted.

As far as Cervera the country we pa.s.sed through was evidently picturesque, and only wanted the contrast of sun and shade to make it charming. Conspicuous amidst the landscape for many and many a long mile was the wonderful mountain of Montserrat with its peaks and pinnacles, about which the white mists still rolled and wrapped themselves. The scenery was diversified by many a wide ravine, where tangled bushes grew over the hard rock; many a fertile vale rich in fruit trees, pines, olives, oak and cork trees, intermixed their various shades of green.

Beyond Cervera, the country was cold and barren and abounded in rock-strewn plains, to which the grey skies gave a still more sad and sombre tone. We approached Lerida when the shades of night were falling, and could just discern its grand outlines rising out of the great plain.

These seemed to yield in interest only to Manresa, whilst the town itself proved far more attractive.

We found the place sufficiently civilised to possess an omnibus, which transported us bag and baggage to the hotel. The long straight thoroughfare in which we found ourselves looked in the darkening night like the f.a.g end of a village, unfinished and unpaved; almost like the street of some far away colonial settlement. It was wide and lined with trees, and beyond the trees on one side, a row of large houses; amongst them our inn; a rambling, cheerless sort of building, too new to be peopled with ghosts or distinguished by artistic outlines. Anything more opposite to the ghostly element could not be imagined. Still, in spite of frightful drawbacks it was some degrees better than Manresa.

We were conducted by a curious but amiable duenna to a large lofty sitting room with a bedroom opening on each side: evidently the state apartments. The place looked empty and neglected, and our candles hardly lighted the obscurity. The electric bells were all broken, and we soon found that if we rang till doomsday no one appeared.

Our duenna was toothless and apparently voiceless, for when she opened her capacious mouth and began to talk, no sound came forth. The mouth worked up and down in absolute silence, and the effect was creepy and peculiar. It almost felt as though a mummy had been galvanised into life minus the voice. Her costume had nothing redeeming about it. An impromptu turban placed over a shock head of hair, petticoats of the shortest, revealing feet and ankles that would have supported a substantial Dutch vrouw. We afterwards found she was the laundress of the establishment, and this was the costume in which she presided at the wash-tub. She smiled sweetly upon H. C. and her face looked like a huge, amiable cavern. With an imagination full of the lovely face of that young novice in Manresa, he shuddered, dropped into the furthest chair, and begged us to complete the arrangements without him.

There was nothing to arrange, and the Dragon soon withdrew with her cavernous smiles and voiceless words. Then from a distant corner we heard an anxious murmur: "What about dinner?" H. C.. had not expired; the Dragon had evidently not frightened away all earthly desires.

Fortunately dinner was forthcoming, though when we had finally settled down and removed the stains of travel, and H. C. had recovered his nerves, the night was growing apace. We plunged into wide pa.s.sages, and after half a dozen wrong turnings at length found ourselves in the dining-room, large, lofty and well lighted. The chef sent up a civilised bill of fare, and the landlord himself waited upon us; whilst under the influence of fortifying dishes and refined wines the charms of the Manresa novice faded into the background, and H. C. felt almost equal to challenging the Lerida Dragon to single combat as a libel upon her s.e.x.

We were conducted back to our rooms by quite a procession, including the thin landlord and imposing landlady, headed by the Dragon bearing a flambeau.

Once on our balcony, we found the night had changed for the better.

Clouds had disappeared, stars shone, the trees before us were rustling gently in the wind, calmness and repose had fallen upon the world. It was past ten o'clock; the place seemed still and deserted as a city of the dead; not a sound broke the silence as we went forth for a night-study of Lerida.

It was intensely dark. Here and there an oil lamp glimmered, making darkness visible. Presently we found ourselves on the bridge, looking down upon the waters of the river that runs so closely to the town as to reflect its outlines. To-night it was too dark to reflect anything, excepting here and there a faint track of light thrown by a distant star. The surface was not disturbed by any sort of craft.

To the right rose the houses of the town, and above them faint and shadowy against the night sky, the outlines of the wonderful old cathedral, perched on its rock 300 feet above the town itself.

We tried to reach it, climbing and stumbling up the narrow ill-paved thoroughfares, that seemed to wind and twist about like the contortions of a snake. The darkness might be felt. There was not a solitary light to guide our feet, and every now and then we found ourselves charging a dead wall as Don Quixote charged the windmills.

Once H. C. plunged against the door of a low cottage, and before he could turn round there rushed out a demon in light attire with a torrent of hard words and a blunderbuss-sort of weapon. Fortunately for H. C. a dog also rushed out at the moment between the man's legs, bringing him to the ground, where he and his blunderbuss lay motionless. All the dogs in the neighbourhood set up a howl and a bark, and the place was fast turning to pandemonium.

We were evidently on dangerous ground, where strangers were not expected and made welcome; doors opened above us and voices inquired who pa.s.sed that way so late. Our lives were in jeopardy amongst these wild Catalonians, howbeit they have not the sword-and-dagger temperament of the more impulsive Spaniards. We had fallen amongst thieves. Discretion being the better part of valour, we glided back like phantoms, pa.s.sing safely through the ranks of the enemy, and found ourselves on the great square which is the market-place, and where we breathed freely.

No one followed in pursuit. It seemed as though, their own territories abandoned, they cared nothing what became of intruders. Presently the dogs ceased to bark, silence once more fell upon the night. We hoped our friend of the blunderbuss had not been seriously wounded, but under the circ.u.mstances it was impossible to make anxious inquiries.

It was difficult to get even a faint impression of the town. Here and there we caught a vision of promising arcades, and apparently ancient outlines of houses and gabled roofs, but everything was in tenebrous gloom. Hardly a single window reflected the faintest ray; the streets were deserted. Only from a solitary cafe came forth, as we pa.s.sed, a small band of some half dozen men, who quietly went up a side street and disappeared. It was only a little past eleven, but the people of Lerida are wise and know nothing of midnight oil, wasting energies, and burning the candle at both ends.

"We are doing no good," said H. C. whose head had been rather damaged by coming in contact with doors and walls in the narrow lane. "I think it would be as well to follow the example of these people and retire, reserving our energies for to-morrow. In this darkness we might charge another cottage door without a friendly dog to deliver us from a murderous blunderbuss."

So we turned back in the long narrow street of which Lerida seemed chiefly composed, and presently found ourselves in the broad hotel avenue.

In the very centre of it was an old watchman with his staff and lantern. He threw his light upon us as we approached, then gave a "Buenas noches" and turned down the spear of his staff in friendly token.

We thought we recognised both face and voice. Where had we met?

"You are late, gentlemen. It grows towards midnight. In a few minutes I must call the hour and the weather. The people of Lerida are even earlier than those of Burgos, where I was watchman until six months ago."

Then the mystery was solved. This was the very old watchman who had piloted us to the hotel the night we had lost ourselves in that most uncomfortable of Spanish towns, with the worst of Spanish inns.

"Have you forgotten us?" we asked. "Do you not remember taking two strangers through the streets of Burgos more than a year ago, and seeing them safely to their door?"

The watchman put down his lantern deliberately and struck the ground with his spear. "Is it possible, senor! Santa Maria! A plague upon memory and eyesight! But the night is dark, and my lantern burns dim.

Indeed I remember it well. Can I ever forget your largesse on that occasion? I have often wondered how you fared in Spain and whither you wandered. Often wished I might meet you again."

"But what brings you here? Surely Burgos is more important than Lerida, and you have progressed backwards. This hardly looks like promotion."

"Oh, senor, there is no promotion for us poor watchmen. One town is much as another. I earn as much in Lerida as I did in Burgos, and the saints know either pays little enough."

"Were you, then, sent here for any special reason?"

"A reason of my own, senor. My wife's old parents live here and she wanted to be near them; so I pet.i.tioned to come here and it was granted.

On the whole I am better off than in Burgos."

After some further conversations, and with a substantial remembrance for auld lang syne, we left the old watchman and turned for our hotel.

We soon felt almost as lost as in that past time at Burgos. The houses were all exactly alike. Every light was out, every door closed. There was no especial lamp to indicate which was the inn, and we could discover neither sign nor name. At last in the darkness we managed to trace on a lamp, in small characters, the words _Fonda de Espana_. The great door beneath was shut, like every other door; but there was a ponderous knocker, to which we directed our energies.

It was all in vain, for no one responded. Knock after knock brought forth no result. The echoes we roused in the avenue were enough to wake the dead. Our watchman had gone to the far end, and by the gleam of his lamp we saw him turn and hasten. The habitable part of the inn was upstairs, a league of pa.s.sages separated it from the outer door. If everyone was in bed and asleep, we might knock away until daybreak.

We were growing concerned, when just as our old friend the watchman arrived upon the scene, up rushed another functionary in breathless agitation: the night porter of the hotel, and he carried great keys in his hand.

"A thousand pardons, gentlemen," he began, as far as want of breath would allow him. "I did not know any one was out and went for a short walk just to breathe the midnight air and contemplate the stars. I heard you knocking when quite a mile away. You have indeed the strength of Hercules. And there is also something peculiar in this knocker. You may hear it all over the town, but cannot hear it in the hotel unless you are in the porter's lodge. It has been said the house is bewitched, and I think it; for once, when the Bishop breakfasted here, as soon as he entered the doors a loud report was heard and the place trembled, just as if some evil spirit were frightened and had departed in a flash of lightning. If you only knew how I ran when I heard the knocker, you would pity me."

"I guessed what was up," said our watchman, "but waited, thinking you would be sure to arrive. Contemplating the stars with you, Juan, means taking an extra gla.s.s or two at your favourite bodega. You are too fond of leaving your post, and one of these days your post will leave you."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCADES: LERIDA]

This we thought highly probable, but the porter merely shrugged his shoulders, intimating that if he lost one place another would turn up. He applied one of the great keys to the lock, and the great door rolled open.

We pa.s.sed into a dark vaulted pa.s.sage which rather reminded us of the gloomy entrance to the Hospederia at Montserrat. Upstairs every one had gone to bed, and they had not even left us a light. But for the night porter we might have sat all night upon chairs. When the candles threw out a faint illumination, H. C. looked round shudderingly as though he expected to see the Dragon lurking in some corner.

We had found out that this extraordinary creature rejoiced in the charming name of _Rose_, and mentioned the name aloud.

"Rose," said the night porter, "that is my wife. She is not a beauty, senor, but she can't scold--she has no voice. When I see other good-looking wives rating their husbands I say to myself, 'Ah ha, my fine fellow! after all beauty is only skin-deep. I wouldn't exchange my peace of mind for all your handsome wives put together.' I married her because she had no voice and also earns good wages. But though she is voiceless by day, she snores by night, and really becomes quite musical.

It is a singular contradiction, but nature is freaky."

He marshalled us to our rooms, a candle in each hand, striding along with great dignity and evidently thinking that he was the life and soul of the establishment. Putting the candles on the sitting-room table, he backed towards the door, made a low bow, once more apologised for being absent without leave and keeping us beating a midnight tattoo, and begged as a favour that we would not mention the circ.u.mstance to the landlord.

This we readily promised, and as it was utterly impossible to maintain any sort of gravity on the occasion, the night porter, wishing us refreshing slumbers, departed in great peace of mind--probably to resume his devotions at the untimely bodega. We heard his receding footsteps, and the house sank into repose.

The next morning there was not a cloud in the sky. Our study in grey had given place to more positive tones. H. C.'s rainy season had been a pure effort of the imagination. Sebastien was right after all, and in sheer grat.i.tude we sat down and wrote an epistle to his master that would have moved a heart of stone. We represented in glowing colours the happiness of the young pair that a word from him could make or mar; enlarged upon the moral question of conferring pleasure where it was possible, and wound up with a rash a.s.sertion, almost an undertaking, that Sebastien would prove a tower of strength to the well-being of the hotel. The result has been recorded.

We rose early. With that glorious sun shining, who could waste moments in sleep? Presently we heard a sort of alarmed shout from H. C., and on going into the sitting-room, and asking how he had slept, found him pale, agitated, and confronted by the Dragon.