HEARD two horrid stories at Granada, which I would not repeat except that I feel some of their truth. We were walking in the town one day, and observing an unusual air of stir and excitement, asked a stander-by what it meant.
The person in question told us that a certain Señor, Don So-and-so, had just died, and that as he was a great enemy to the Liberal party, and a great tyrant, there was rejoicing among the people. We were interested in the matter, and talked of it afterwards to an old Granadino, whose acquaintance we had made during our stay, and he more than confirmed the report.
“He was a bad man,” he said, “but of the sangre azul (blue blood), a thorough aristocrat, and very powerful. I could tell you stories of what he did that you would not believe. Oh! the people who have blue blood in their veins can do anything in Spain, I assure you. It is a cosa de España. Now just listen to a thing this Señor Don L—— did not more than nine years ago. A poor honest man known to me, was taken up accused of committing a theft. He belonged to the Liberal party, and was hated by the blue blood. Well, this man, who is just dead, had him brought into the Plaza de Toos, and tied him up to one of the posts by the hands. ‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he asked. ‘Señor, I know nothing of it. I am as innocent as a child,’” Then this Señor Don —— ordered his man to hammer on to the prisoner’s hands with an iron hammer.
“‘Did you or did you not commit this theft?’ he was asked again by the great gentleman of the blue blood. ‘Señor, I have said I am innocent.’ Again the hammer fell on the poor man’s hands, and again and again, till the bones were broken, and he still denying the deed. At last, finding him so obstinate, they let him go back to prison, where he was kept for weeks. When he came out I saw with my own eyes the ruin they had made of his poor hands.”
“But that is as bad as the Inquisition,” I said, horrified.
The old man, with a good deal of Spanish punctiliousness, had a touch of Moorish resignation, or what might better be called perhaps fatalism. “We have had to bear such things. I can tell you what happened to me in my youth, when there was still more difference between the law for the blue blood and the white.[13] I am of the white of course, no Don or Caballero, but a humble Señor, of little account. I was a dealer in pigs, Señoras; and I sold a fine lot of pigs to a certain aristocratic gentleman whom I will call Don Serafin. Don Serafin agreed to buy my pigs for five hundred dollars, paying half the sum down, and giving me a written document engaging to pay the other at the end of three months. My beautiful pigs went, and the three months passed. No money from Don Serafin. As I did not wish to appear impertinent, (being of the white blood, therefore, nobody, you know, Señoras) I waited patiently till three months more had slipped away. Then I waited on Don Serafin, and respectfully demanded my money. ‘I owe him money!’ cried the great man to his servants, ‘turn the impertinent fellow away, Es un mentira. He lies.’
“I saw that nothing remained for me but to sue him for my money, which I did. On the day appointed, we appeared before the Alcalde, who received Don Serafin with bows and scrapes, gave him the seat of honour, begged to know to what chance he was indebted for the pleasure of seeing him, and so on. ‘Why, it is that fellow there,’ said Don Serafin, ‘who has brought me here with a cooked-up story about some pigs, Es un mentira. I never bought his pigs, or if I did, paid for them long ago. Don’t believe a word of it.’ The Alcalde then turned to me, who stood by, hat in hand, like a criminal. ‘Speak out, hombre,’ he said, sternly, ‘of what do you accuse his grace, Don Serafin de So and so and So and so’ (the blue-blooded race have very long titles, you know). ‘Señor,’ I said, still standing, ‘I sold Don Serafin a lot of beautiful pigs, and he agreed to give five hundred dollars for them, paying half the sum down and the other at the end of three months. Señor, I have never received the last half of the money.’ The Alcalde turned to Don Serafin, smiling sweetly; ‘Senor Don Serafin, you hear what this fellow says—is it true or not?’
“‘Es un mentira, a pack of lies and nothing more,’ again answered his grace Don Serafin; ‘don’t believe half a syllable of the story.’
“The Alcalde looked at me with a scowl as if he could devour me.