Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

We soon came to one of these ascending streets with its endless flight. Far up, it was crowned by a church with a solitary square tower and a Renaissance west front. Houses on either side had wonderful ironwork windows; we cannot help reverting to this special feature; and many a gothic casement was rich in the remains of refined tracery and ornamented balconies; whilst from the deep overhanging eaves quaint waterspouts here and there craned their long necks like gargoyles of some ancient cathedral. Reaching the church and turning to the right down a narrow passage between high dead walls we found ourselves in an excited scene: no less than the building given up to the rites of conscription. The spot and its surroundings was one of the most picturesque in Gerona. A long, broad flight of steps led up to an ancient church now desecrated and turned into barracks. Groups of young soldiers were clustered together and sentinels paced to and fro. To the left, facing the long flight, low ancient houses wonderful in tone and construction were decorated with wrought ironwork windows, some of them almost Moorish in design, the upper floors terminating in round open arcades and tiled roofs with projecting eaves; one of those old-world bits only to be seen in these mediæval towns of Spain.

We climbed the steps and braved the sentinel, feeling there must or ought to be hidden cloisters attached to this old church of which nothing remained but the west front. But we were not to pass unchallenged. An inner sentry came up and asked our business. Hearing that we wished to see the cloisters, he beckoned to a further sentry who evidently belonged to the colonel or commandant of the regiment. Permission was soon brought, and pointing out the way, we were left to our own devices.

Instinct had not failed us. In a few moments we were standing in the midst of large lovely old cloisters with Gothic arcades resting on slender coupled marble columns. Above these rose a gallery of round arcades supported by single pillars with carved capitals, the arches, wider and more open than the pointed arches beneath them, presenting a fine contrast. A deep archway reached by some half-dozen steps led through the palace to the east end of the cathedral and the town walls beyond. In the square in front of palace and cathedral was an ancient and beautiful well. Above these again a slanting tiled roof fitly crowned the scene.

Here in days gone by monks and priests had paced the silent corridors. A sacred atmosphere in which the world had no part hung over all. Father-confessors listened to the secret struggles of young novices who hoped to leave the vanities and temptations of life outside the walls of their cells, only to find that in this state of probation conflict can never cease. So confessions were made and penances exacted, and soft footsteps and pale faces haunted those quiet cloisters. Large dark eyes—larger and darker for the sunk cheeks—gazed upwards at the sky that canopied the quadrangle with such divine peace, vainly seeking a clue to the mysteries of existence.

To-day all was changed. The cloisters were still militant, but in quite another way. All the ancient serenity and repose had departed and the beauty of outline alone remained. Soldiers and recruits in every stage of undress went about in restless activity.

In the upper gallery some were making or mending clothes, others drawing from the well in what was once the cloister garden. It was still ornamented with its fine old ironwork. Monks and priests once looked down and saw pale, cowled faces reflected in the calm water; and perhaps as they drew it to the surface there came a vision of another well in a far-off land and a certain woman of Samaria. No such vision troubled the five or six closely-cropped soldiers, whose reflected images below had nothing saintly, troubled or questioning about them. These rough specimens of an undersized, undisciplined army were out of all harmony with the ancient outlines that nothing could deprive of their beauty and refinement.

We felt the charm and incongruity of it all. The men crowded within a few yards of us, delighted at being taken by the small camera, interested at finding themselves reflected on the object glass, unhappy that we could not there and then present each with a photograph duly printed and mounted. Such a machine surely performed miracles.

"You all look very happy," H. C. remarked, for more carelessly contented faces were never seen—a mixture of types good and bad.

"As happy as kings," they answered. "We eat, drink and sleep well. Clothes and lodging are found us and we never have any fighting to do. We should like a little more money for tobacco—but one can't have everything."