The Carlists of to-day seem much in the same position as the Jacobites of the reign of George III. They may defiantly show you “King Carlos’” portrait upon their parlour wall, or even exhibit it for sale in their shop windows. But all this enthusiasm is rather sentimental than active; and in their heart of hearts they must feel with Redgauntlet that a cause so much tolerated is lost.
Meanwhile the road to Leon did not seem nearer{56} realisation at Sahagun than at Cervera. There was only a “dead road,” they told us, and this we should scarcely have recognised had we not been introduced. The “dead road” proved a sort of consensus of cart tracks, straying vaguely across the moorland with a general trend towards the west. It had died in a most dissipated fashion all asprawl among the boulders and heather: and as each of us soon grew fully absorbed in negotiating his own wheel rut, we frequently found ourselves drifting poles asunder, and had to regain connection by cross-country sprints. The water-courses were ineffably stony, and, of course, there were no bridges. We had good cause to congratulate ourselves on the absence of rain in the mountains, for had the streams been in spate we should have had no resource but to follow the example of the expectant rustic, and wait for them to run down. The occasional walled sheepfolds, and the spiked collars of the dogs which guarded them, hinted broadly at the inroads of wolves in winter-time; and our only way-fellows, a party of gypsies, savage-looking and half-naked, with tangled elf locks and skins of negro blackness, formed a group that to outward appearance seemed scarcely more amenable than the wolves. Fortunately,{57} however, there was small chance of missing our direction. We could not stray many miles to our right without coming upon the railway, nor to the left without striking the high-road from Mayorga. The one thing needed was to keep our right shoulders to the mountains; and eventually we emerged sure enough at Mansilla de las Mulas, where, after twenty miles cross-country, our wilderness came to an end.
Mansilla lies upon the banks of the Esla, and the mules were grazing under the ancient ramparts along the margin of the stream. A pretty picture it made as we crossed the old bridge in the twilight and entered the long colonnade of poplars that leads towards the city of Leon. The poplar pollen carpeted the road before us as thick and white as newly-fallen snow, and the whirl of our wheels flung it up on either side in little wavelets, as the foam is flung up by the bows of a racing eight. The effect was quite poetical, but we could not linger to rhapsodise, for the causeway had been broken by floods in several places, and unless we made use of the daylight we should be breaking our necks in the pits. It does not seem to occur to the authorities that there is any risk in delaying repairs for a year or so. And perhaps we have no{58} right to grumble, for at least we got safe to our goal.
Leon is a city for which I have acquired a growing affection with each successive visit, a grave old Gothic capital, all filled with memories of the past. It was founded originally by the Romans to control the Cantabrian passes; and the massive walls which surround it still bear witness to the solidity of their work. Unfortunately they are much masked by the surrounding houses; but they are of most imposing dimensions, about twenty feet in thickness, and strengthened by huge Cubos or solid semicircular bastions, spaced at very frequent intervals, some two and a half diameters apart.
The city is best viewed from the Pajares road to the northward, but as it is situated on the level it does not show very conspicuously from without. Its most prominent object is the delightfully elegant cathedral; obviously French by inspiration, and of extraordinary lightness of construction, more like a lantern of stained glass than a monument of stone. It is step-sister to Beauvais and Amiens; and, on the whole, it need not fear comparison. But the Spanish builders were not quite at home in dealing with the unfamiliar style. One{59} problem evidently routed them, and they have left it still crying for an answer. How on earth was it possible to reconcile the steep French gables with the low-pitched Spanish roof?
