The Velvet Glove

by Henry Seton Merriman

They were soft spoken persons with a repressed manner, which characterises both men and women of their ancient race, and they spoke to him in Basque. Some freed their hands from the folds of the long blanket, which each wore according to his fancy, to shake hands with him; others nodded curtly. Men from the valley of Ebro muttered "Buenas"--the curt salutation of Aragon the taciturn.

Marcos seemed to know them by their baptismal names. He even knew their horses by name also, and asked after each, while Perro, affable alike with rich and poor, exchanged the time of day with traveled dogs, all lean and dusty from the road, who limped on sore feet and probably told him of the snow while they lay in the sun and licked their paws. Like his master, he was not proud, but took a wide view of life, so that all varieties of it came within his field of vision.

Then master and dog took a walk down the Calle del Pozo Blanco, where the saddle and harness-makers congregate; where muleteers must come to buy those gay saddle-bags which so soon lose their bright colour in the glaring sun; where the guardias civiles step in to buy their paste and pipe-clay; where the great man's groom may chat with the teamster from the mountain while both are waiting on the saddler's needle.

Finally Marcos passed through the wide Calle de San Ignacio to the drawbridges across the double fosse, where the rope-makers are always at work, walking backwards with an ever decreasing bundle of hemp at their waists and one eye cocked upwards towards the roadway so that they know all who come and go better even than the sentry at the gate. For the sentries are changed three or four times a day, while the rope-maker goes on forever.

Just beyond the second line of fortifications is a halting-place by a low wall where the country women (whom one may meet riding in the plain--dignified, cloaked and hooded figures, startlingly suggestive of a sacred picture) on mule or donkey, stop to descend from their perch between the saddle-bags or panniers. It is a sort of al fresco cloakroom where these ladies repair the ravages of wind or storm, where they assemble in the evening to pack their purchases on their beasts of burden, and finally climb to the top of all themselves. For it is not etiquette to ride in or out of the gates upon one's wares; and a breach of this unwritten law would immediately arouse the suspicion of the courteous toll-officer, who fingers delicately with a tobacco-stained hand the bundles and baskets submitted to his inspection.

Here also Marcos had friends, and was able to tell the latest news from Cuba, where some had husband, son or lover; a so-called volunteer to put down the hopeless rebellion, attracted to a miserable death, by the forty-pound bounty paid by Government. There were old women who chaffed him, and young ones with fine-cut classic features and crinkled hair, who lay in wait for a glance from his grave eyes.

"It is a pity there are not more like you, Señor Conde," said one old peasant; "for it is you that keeps the men from fighting among themselves and makes them tend the sheep or take in the crops. Carlist or Royalist, the land comes before either, say I."

"For it is the land that feeds the children," added another, who carried a pair of small espradrillas in her apron pocket.

Marcos went back to his father with such information as he had been able to gather.

"Leon is here," he said. "He is in Retreat at the monastery of the Redemptionists, which stands half-empty on the road to Villaba. Sor Teresa and Juanita are both well and in the school in the Calle de la Dormitaleria. Mon has been here for some weeks, but went to Madrid four days ago. It is an open secret that Pacheco will go over to the Carlists with his whole army corps for cash down--but he will not take a promise. The Carlists think that their opportunity has come."