We do not think that England realized the great interest excited all over the world by the sufferings of the late Mayor of Cork. While his fate hung in the balance people would stop us in the streets of Murcia, or even in the outlying villages, to ask us if we believed that there was a chance of his recovery. He had died shortly before our homeward journey began. The Northern parts of Spain see a parallel between their position and that of Ireland. Indeed, the parallel is not exact; rather one might compare them to the position to which Ulster fears to be relegated. The fact remains that Catalonia and the Basque countries, the hard-working, commercial parts of Spain, object to the domination, laxity and misrule of the Government of Madrid. I believe that the party which wishes independence, the Spanish Sinn Fein, is very small; but it has become mixed with socialistic propaganda, communism, and so forth. At any rate, Barcelona, combining as it does the excitable nature of the Spaniard with the organization of a working community, provides the field for a series of extremely unpleasant strikes, riots and demonstrations. The transport strike was an illustration of this. During the two days we were in Barcelona, three employers were shot in the streets by employés.
To return to the Mayor of Cork. His death was the signal for a typical demonstration in Barcelona, in favour of the Sinn Fein and of the Irish Republic. England was far enough away to remain undisturbed. The English Consul was at hand. When we reached his house we found that all his window-glass had been smashed in sympathy for Irish freedom.
At a first glance Barcelona does not seem to be a Spanish town. There is something Germanic about it. Sitting in the main square and watching the people pass by, one could well imagine oneself in some town on the German border of Alsace.
We remained in Barcelona two days, recovering from the fatigues of the journey. On our last afternoon, as we were strolling through a narrow back street, our attention was caught by a window full of small figures, baked in clay, highly coloured and gilt. The figures were all those of saints and biblical characters, not depicted in the formal manner of religious moments, but in a familiar and homelike way. We went into the small shop and asked their purpose, and were told that these figures were for Christmas decorations. We bought two—one of the Blessed Virgin hanging on a line a chemise which she had just washed, the other an incognita lady saint with a distaff and a cat.
We had taken up our quarters at a small, disreputable lodging-house opposite the station, where they charged us the exorbitant fee of two pesetas a night each. (We suspect that the real price was one peseta). The night-watchman got us out of bed at three o'clock, as our train left at half-past four in the morning, and the preliminaries to Spanish travelling are complicated.
To our surprise we found but a small queue of people waiting at the ticket-office. Our immediate neighbour was a shabby man in a bowler hat from beneath which showed the curly black hair of an Italian. He was accompanied by a middle-aged bustling bourgeois. The bourgeois took a ticket, which he handed to the Italian. We then demanded tickets to the French frontier at Cerbere.
"We cannot book you to Cerbere," said the clerk; "the railway bridge between Figueras and Port Bou has been damaged. It will not be passable for three days."
We thought drearily of having to return to the lodging-house, of three days more in this large, transportless town of Barcelona, of again getting up at three a.m.
At this moment the Italian came to our aid.
"From Figueras," he said, "there are motor-cars which will carry the passengers over the frontier. You can get along that way easily."