The clouds had blown over. Now was the hour for congratulations. Many persons who were preparing to send away their families resolved to let them remain. I had no further occupation in Madrid. A Deputy who had thirty years' experience of life in the capital told me that this was the last place in Spain where there was likely to be a disturbance for the present; but he added, "If you think of going elsewhere, be sure to give me an address where I can telegraph to you, for something may always turn up." I had waited nigh five weeks in the expectation of that something turning up, and at length I began to think I had better seek fresh fields and take a look at real Spain.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Writer Turns Churlish and Quits Madrid—Sleep under Difficulties—A Bad Dream—Santa Cruz again—Off St. Helena!—Dissertation on Stomach Matters—A Hint to British Railway Directors—"Odds, Hilts and Blades"—A Delicate Little Gentleman is Curious—The "Tierra Deleitosa"—That Butcher again.
"IF you want to see real Spain," said the British Minister to me, "don't stop here longer than you can help. Go south." That fixed me. With a natural impulsiveness I pronounced "the imperial and crowned, very noble and very loyal and very heroic town"—all which titles it bears—a fraud and a failure as far as my calling was concerned. There had been great cry and little wool. I was as churlish as a hangman cheated of his client. That terrible thing which was perpetually on the eve of coming to pass had not come to pass. After all, I reflected, it was for the better; for if there had been stupendous tidings to wire, the Government telegraphic system would have broken down under the operation. A message more than twenty lines long was a shock to the clerks, and set them discussing so excitedly that they let the fire of their cigarettes die out. The "only court" grew hateful to my mind. It had produced no men to charm by, save Frey Lope de Vega Carpio, Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, and the Maestro Tirso de Molina—and they were dead. It was a nest of political hornets, and head-quarters of hyperbole; flimsy feathers of lying gossip floated thick as midges in midsummer air; as in Athens, the populace spent its leisure, which was the best part of its life, in nothing but hearing or telling new stories. I would shake the dust of the Prado off my feet, in testimony against the unsatisfying capital. Architecturally, it was a higgledy-piggledy of houses on a high bare site; climatically, it was a mixture of furnace and hall of winds; socially, it was slow, and a disappointment; intellectually, it was below zero. My parting words—I cannot say my farewell—will be framed on those of Jugurtha to Rome: "Urbem venalem et mature perituram, si emtorem invenerit."
I paid a good-bye visit, with thoughts of a stirrup-cup, to Maceehan, at the Fornos, and discovered him listening to Bret Harte's poem of "Table Mountain," recited by Russell Young, who was lolling on a sofa in an upstairs cabinet. The dentist did not seem to "take much stock in it." An appreciation of the horrors of Chinese cheap labour requires a liberal antecedent education on the Pacific slope. Dr. Maceehan was, for his own sake, sincerely sorry I was going away; but for my sake he was glad, as I had been overworking myself, and was badly in want of a kick in the liver.
It is an error to speak of any city or people when you are under the influence of sluggish bile, for you are liable to do them injustice. It is a sin not to withdraw the unjust words. I am tempted to sin; but on consideration I follow the example familiar in a certain legislature, and take back the unparliamentary language into which I have been betrayed by jecoral derangement. Honour to the manes of Uxem-Ali-Beck, Ambassador from the Shah of Persia, who came to Madrid in 1601, and fell in love there. He liked it. I fell in love ten times a day, but nobody would fall in love with me.
On a Sunday night at nine o'clock, I quitted the city, and on Tuesday morning I had my hair trimmed by a barber of Seville. The journey, like most long railway journeys, is one of infinite weariness to the flesh. The first-class carriages are roomy and well-padded, so that short travelling, except for invalids, is comfortable enough. The correo, or mail train—that which I took—leaves but once in twenty-four hours, and, in consequence of carrying the mails, has to stop at every station, so that its progress is slow, albeit the quickest to be had for money. There were nine sociable young Spaniards in the compartment with me. The gauge of the road is wide, admitting of five broad seats at each side, and the motion of the train is easy and nurses to sleep, without that violent rocking which one sometimes experiences while rattling northwards from London in the Flying Scotchman. But the backs of the seats are stiff and straight as a Prussian drill-sergeant, and do not nurse, but "murder sleep," as I speedily found to my sorrow. However, they do nurse a crick in the neck. I was woke out of a wayward doze just as I was about to undergo the punishment of death by the garrote. I had been dreaming a fearsome dream. In a weak moment I had accepted the crown of Spain. I had granted my subjects every conceivable privilege, pandered to all their crazes, gone so far as to give them a bull-fight every day in the week and two on Sundays and festivals, paying all expenses out of my own royal pockets. But they were not to be satisfied, unless I would go into the bull-ring myself. That was the straw that breaks the camel's back. I flatly refused. They rebelled, kicked me off the throne, led me in a felon's yellow coat on a wretched donkey to the place of execution, and planted me in the fatal chair. Most poignant humiliation yet, all the crowned heads of Europe, led by the Czar of Russia, were invited to the spectacle and joined in a howling chorus of "Serve him right." I looked my last around, and woke up with a toss of my noddle against the back of the seat. We were at Alcázar. A fellow-traveller kindly offered to let me lay my head between his legs if I would give him my carpet-bag for a pillow. There is nothing like reciprocal accommodation on a journey. I agreed, the train started again, and I lost myself in the land of Nod. This time I was following the campaign against the Carlists. Suddenly I was roused by a cry—
"Santa Cruz!"
I knuckled my eyes, the carriage was motionless, and I distinctly heard the name of the dreaded priest Santa Cruz repeated. This was no dream. Had I mistaken the terminus? Had I been speeding northwards all this time? I was in a most perplexed tangle of mind, half pleased at the prospect of meeting the redoubtable Cura in person, half apprehensive lest I might give lodging to a chance bullet, and miss the opportunity of describing him. As I was preparing to jump out, the tram moved on anew. I turned to the railway guide and discovered the explanation of the mystery. Santa Cruz is a station on the Andalusian line between Val de Peñas and Almuradiel. A third time I fell asleep, to be roused by another cry—
"St. Helena!"