After taking leave of him and the Nunzio, and of the many other kind friends who had made their stay at Madrid so pleasant, our travellers started at eight o'clock in the evening for Villa Alba, where they were to take the diligence for Segovia. The night was clear and beautiful, and the scenery through which they passed was finer than any they had seen in Spain. At dawn they came almost suddenly on this most quaint and picturesque of cities, standing on a rocky knoll more than 3,000 feet above the sea, encircled by a rapid river, and with the most magnificent aqueduct, built by Trajan to convoy the pure water of the river Frio from the neighboring sierra to the town. This aqueduct commences with single arches, which rise higher as the dip of the ground deepens, until they become double. The centre ones are 102 feet high, and the whole is built of massive blocks of granite, without cement or mortar. A succession of picturesque towers and ancient walls remain to mark the boundaries of the old Roman city.
The diligence unceremoniously turned our travellers out into the street at the bottom of the town, and left them to find their way as best they could to the little "fonda" in the square above. It was very clean and tidy, with the box-beds opening out of the sitting-rooms, which are universal in the old-fashioned inns of Spain, and always remind one of a Highland bothie. The daughter of the house showed off her white linen with great pride, and was rather affronted because two of the party preferred going to church to trying her sheets, stoutly declaring that "no one was yet awake, and no mass could yet be obtained." However, on leaving her, and gently pushing open one of the low side-doors of the cathedral close by, the ladies found that the five o'clock services had begun at most of the altars, with a very fair sprinkling of peasants at each. The circular triple apse at the east end of this cathedral, from the warm color of the stone, and the beauty of its flying buttresses and Gothic pinnacles, is deservedly reckoned one of the finest in Spain. The tower also is beautiful; and the view from the cupola over the city, the fertile valleys beneath, and the snow-tipped mountains beyond, is quite unrivalled. The interior has been a good deal spoiled by modern innovations, but still contains some glorious painted glass, a very fine "retablo" by Juni of the "Deposition from the Cross," and some curious monuments, especially one of the Infanta Don Pedro, son of Henry II.. who was killed by being let fall from the window of the Alcazar by his nurse. The Gothic cloisters are also worth seeing. After service, as it was still very early, the two ladies wandered about this beautiful quaint old town, in which every house is a study for a painter, and found themselves at last at the Alameda, a public promenade on the ramparts, shaded by fine acacias, and the approach to which, on the cathedral side, is through a beautiful Moorish horse-shoe arched gateway. From thence some stone steps led them up to a most curious old Norman church, with an open cloister running round it, with beautiful circular arches and dog-toothed mouldings; opposite is a kind of Hôtel de Ville, with a fine gateway, cloistered "patio," and staircase carved "à jour." In a narrow street, a little lower down, is the exquisite Gothic façade of the Casa de Segovia, and turning to the left is another curious and beautiful church, La Vera Cruz, built by the Templars, and with a little chapel in it on the exact model of that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The zigzag and billet dog-tooth mouldings round the windows and doorways are very fine. A little higher up is the Parral, a deserted convent, with a beautiful church, richly carved portal and choir, fine monuments, cloisters, and gardens: the latter had such a reputation that they give rise to the saying, "Las huertas del Parral, paraiso terrenal." Fairly tired out with sight-seeing before breakfast, the ladies climbed up again to the Plaza de la Constitucion, which was like the square of an old German town, having endlessly varied and colored houses with high roofs; and were glad to find the rest of the party awake at last, and sitting round a table with the invariably good chocolate and white bread of the country. The meal over, one of the ladies started off with a little boy as her guide, to present her letters of introduction to the bishop, who lived in a picturesque old palace in the Plaza of San Esteban, the fine church opposite, with its beautiful tower, Saxon arches, and open cloister, being dedicated to that saint. He received his visitor with great good nature, and instantly countersigned the Nunzio's order for her to visit the Carmelite convent of Sta. Teresa, sending his vicar-general to accompany her. This house is the original one purchased for the saint, in 1574, by Dona Ana de Ximenes, who was the first lady to receive the habit in Segovia. It is dedicated to St. Joseph, and the first mass was said in it by St. John of the Cross. The nuns maintain the reformed rule in all its austerity. They showed their visitor the saint's cell, now converted into an oratory, and also the room of St. John of the Cross, whose convent is in the valley below, just outside the walls of the town. There his body rests—that body still uncorrupted, of one of whom it has been truly said that he was a "cherub in wisdom and a seraph in love." On the door of his cell is his favorite sentence:
Pati et contemni pro Te!
This convent is rich both in his letters and in those of St. Theresa. Here it was that the saint received the news of the death of her favorite brother, Laurence de Cepeda. She was quietly at work during recreation when he appeared to her; the saint, without uttering a word, put down her work and hastened to the choir to commend the departed spirit to our Lord. She had no sooner knelt before the blessed sacrament than an expression of intense peace and joy came over her face. Her sisters asked her the reason, and she told them that our Lord had then revealed to her the assurance that her brother was in heaven. His sudden death occurred at the very moment when he had appeared to her in the recreation room. Over the door of her oratory are the words, "Seek the cross," "Desire the cross;" and a little farther on, "Let us teach more by works than by words." After spending two or three hours with the sisters, the English lady was compelled reluctantly to leave them and return to her party, who were waiting for her to go with them to the Alcazar.
This palace, originally Moorish, was rebuilt by Henry IV. in the fifteenth century. It was the favorite residence of Isabella of Castile, and from thence, on the occasion of a revolution, she rode out alone, and "by her sweetness of countenance more than by her majesty," as the old chronicle says, "won over the people to return to their allegiance." Our King Charles I. lodged here also, and is recorded to have supped on certain "troutes of extraordinary greatness," doubtless from the beautiful stream below. At the time of the French invasion the Alcazar was turned into a military college, and these wretched students, in a freak of boyish folly, set fire to a portion of one of the rooms two years ago. The fire spread; and all that is now left of this matchless palace is a ruined shell, the façade, the beautiful Moorish towers and battlements, one or two sculptured arabesque ceilings, and the portcullised gateway, each and all testifying to its former greatness and splendor. Its position, perched on a steep plateau forming the western extremity of the town, is quite magnificent, and the views from the windows are glorious. Our travellers staid a long time sitting under the shade of the orange-trees in the battlemented court below, enjoying the glorious panorama at their feet, and watching the setting sun as it lit up the tips of the snowy sierra which forms the background of this grand landscape; while the beautiful river Eresma flowed swiftly round the old walls, its banks occupied at that moment by groups of washerwomen in their bright picturesque dresses, singing in parts the national songs of their country. In the valley below were scattered homesteads and convents, and a group of cypresses marking the spot where, according to the legend, Maria del Salto alighted. This girl was a Jewess by birth, but secretly a Christian; and having thereby excited the anger and suspicions of her family, was accused by them of adultery, and condemned, according to the barbarous practice of those times, to be thrown from the top of the Alcazar rock. By her faith she was miraculously preserved from injury, and reached the ground in safety; a church was built on the spot, of which the "retablo" tells the tale.
Segovia is famous for its flocks, and for the beauty of its wool: the water of the Eresma is supposed to be admirable for washing and shearing.
Our travellers now began to think of pursuing their journey to Avila; but that was not so easy. The diligence which had brought them flatly refused to convey them back till the following night, except at a price so exorbitant that it was impossible to give it. And here, as everywhere else in Spain, you have no redress. There are no carriages whatever for hire, except in the two or three large capitals, like Madrid and Seville; and even should carriages be found, there are no horses or mules to draw them—or, at any rate, none that they choose to let out for the purpose. Such as they are, they are always reserved for the diligence; and if the latter should happen to be full, the unhappy passengers may wait for days at a wayside "posada" until their turn comes. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary in Spain to write and make the contract for places beforehand: and to be hard-hearted when the time comes, as it almost invariably happens that you leave behind certain luckless travellers who have not adopted a similar precaution; and the struggle for seats, and consequent overcrowding of the carriages, are renewed at every station. Making a virtue of necessity, our travellers at last made up their minds to another miserable diligence night out of bed—the fatigue of which must be felt to be thoroughly sympathized with—and spent the intervening hours of the evening in dining, and then going to a religious play, which they had seen advertised in the morning, and which was a very curious exhibition of popular taste and religious feeling. The little theatre was really very clean and tidy, and there was nothing approaching to irreverence in the representations given. A similar scene in a very different place recurred to the memory of one of the party, as having been witnessed by her in Paris, some years ago, when on a certain occasion she accompanied a somewhat stiff puritanical old lady to the opera. A ballet was given as an entr'acte, in which the scenery was taken from the book of Genesis, and Noah and his sons appeared just coming out of the Ark. This was too much for the good lady: "If Noah either dances or sings," she exclaimed, "I'll leave the house!" The poor Segovians, trained in a different school, saw nothing incongruous in the representation of the shepherds, and the wise men, and the cave of Bethlehem: and only one comical incident occurred, when, on a child in the pit setting up a squeal, there was a universal cry of Where's Herod? At ten o'clock they left their play, with its quiet and respectable little audience, and once more found themselves tightly stowed in their diligence prison for the night. The moon, however, was bright and beautiful, and enabled them to see the royal hunting-box and woods, and the rest of the fine scenery through which they passed, so that the journey was far less intolerable than usual, as is often the case when a thing has been much dreaded beforehand. At four o'clock in the morning they were turned out, shivering with cold, at a wayside station, where they were to take the train to Avila; but were then told, to their dismay, by a sleepy porter, that the six o'clock train had been taken off, and that there would be none till ten the next morning, so that all hopes of arriving at Avila in time for church (and this was Sunday) were at an end. The station had no waiting-room, only a kind of corridor with two hard benches. Establishing the children on these for the moment with plaids and shawls, one of the party went off to some cottages at a little distance off, and asked in one of them if there were no means of getting a bedroom and some chocolate? A very civil woman got up and volunteered both; so the tired ones of the party were able to lie down for a few hours' rest in two wonderfully clean little rooms, while their breakfast was preparing. The question now arose for the others: "Was there no church anywhere near?" It was answered by the people of the place in the negative. "The station was new; the cottages had been run up for the accommodation of the porters and people engaged on the line; there was no village within a league or two." Determined, however, not to be baffled, one of the party inquired of another man, who was sleepily driving his bullocks into a neighboring field, and he replied "that over the mountains to the left there was a village and a curé; but that it was a long way off, and that he only went on great "festas." It was now quite light; the lady was strong and well; and so she determined to make the attempt to find the church. Following the track pointed out to her by her informant, she came to a wild and beautiful mountain path, intersected by bright rushing streams, crossed by stepping stones, the ground perfectly carpeted with wild narcissus and other spring flowers. Here and there she met a peasant tending his flocks of goats, and always the courteous greeting of "Vaya Usted con Dios!" or "Dios guarde á Usted!" as heartily given as returned. At last, on rounding a corner of the mountain, she came on a beautiful view, with the Escurial in the distance to the left; and to the right, embosomed, as it were, in a little nest among the hills, a picturesque village, with its church-tower and rushing stream and flowering fruit-trees, toward which the path evidently led. This sight gave her fresh courage; for the night journey and long walk, undertaken fasting, had nearly spent her strength. Descending the hill rapidly, she reached the village green just as the clock was striking six, and found a group of peasants, both men and women, sitting on the steps of the picturesque stone cross in the centre, opposite the church, waiting for the curé to come out of his neat little house close by to say the first mass. The arrival of the lady caused some astonishment; but, with the inborn courtesy of the people, one after the other rose and came forward, not only to greet her, but to offer her chocolate and bread. She explained that she had come for communion, and would go into the church. The old white-haired clerk ran into the house to hasten the curé, and soon a kind and venerable old man made his appearance, and asked her if she wished to see him first in the confessional. He could scarcely believe she had been in Segovia only the night before! Finding that she was hurried to return and catch the train, he instantly gave her both mass and communion, and then sent his housekeeper to invite her to breakfast, as did one after the other of the villagers. Escaping from their hospitality with some difficulty, on the plea of the shortness of the time and the length of the way back, the English lady accepted a little loaf, for which no sort of payment would be heard of, and walked with a light heart back to the station, feeling how close is the religious tie which binds Catholics together as one family, and how beautiful is the hearty, simple hospitality of the Spanish people when untainted by contact with modern innovations and so-called progress. There was no occasion when this natural, high-bred courtesy was not shown during the four months that our travellers spent in this country; and those who, like the author of Over the Pyrenees into Spain, find fault on every occasion with the manners of the people, must either have been ignorant of their language and customs, or, having no sympathy with their faith, have wounded their susceptibilities, and to a certain degree justified the rudeness of which they pretend to have been the victims.
Original.
Beams.
"Why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye,
but the beam that is in thine own eye
thou considerest not?"
Disciple.
"How's this! And hath my brother ne'er a beam
That may be plucked from out his eye?
And are my brother's beams all motes,
And none have beams but I?"
Master.
"E'en so, For beams enough there be, I trow;
And who will claim them, if not thou?"
Disciple.
"'Tis well! I'll claim mine own.
(Methinks it has of late much larger grown.)"
Master.
"Suffices it, if thou wilt claim but one.
Then shall thy brother, in thy sight, have none.
For beams do so prevent pride's selfish view
That, if thy brother's beam did weigh a ton,
It would appear the smallest mote to you."