more? Madre di Dios! were there not curtains? to say nothing of the magnificent Virgin dressed in white satin, under a glass case! To the amazement of the Señora, we were not convinced, and the gentlemen of the party insisted on permission to bivouack in the “Comedor,” or large draughty salle à manger.
“But the beautiful curtains,” she still rejoined.
Leaving her to cogitate over the unreasonableness of the stranger, we sallied forth to see the quaint old town. The streets were all silent and deserted, and many of the houses crumbling into ruins: it looked as if the town had just been evacuated by an enemy. A narrow winding lane led us to the summit of the hill, graced by the glorious cathedral. It is approached by a flight of eighty-six steps, broad and easy of ascent. Service was over, but a faint smell of incense still lingered—that odour of sanctity which in Spain, above all other countries, the priests did well to adopt. A side door leads to the grand deserted old cloisters, built round a garden, which no doubt was once adorned by choice blossoms, under the care of the departed monks. The abandoned monasteries all through Spain are sad to see: though no country has gained more by the secularisation of monks, still the antiquarian mourns over the grand old buildings given up as habitations for the bats and the owls, and gradually sinking into decay.
Imagination peoples the cloisters again with solemn slow-pacing forms. Under their sober garbs what restless hearts must have beaten, chafing against the solemn sham of their lives. How often must the novice, who had been at first carried away by enthusiasm and excitement, have felt crushed by the daily monotony of his life, and have pined for the joys and pleasures of common humanity; the heavy masonry, shutting him out from the busy stir of life, must have grown hateful to his eyes, and suggested to him the thought that his was a death in life—that he was entombed. Others, doubtless, rejoiced in the barriers which shut out from eye and ear the successes of rivals, and the favours of fortune lavished on their foes: like the ostrich, who buries her head in the sands, that she may not see the approach of her enemies, they found peace and tranquillity in forgetting that such things as ambition and worldly success were, but belonged not to them. Others, again, of elevated intellect, of peculiarly ecstatic and devout natures, attained to a spiritual communion so complete and perfect that they detested the body for imprisoning the soul, and dwelling with passion on the thought of death. Such lines as the following were penned by the “Commendador Escriva,” or Warden of one of these religious houses.
Come, Death, ere step or sound I hear,
Unknown the hour, unfelt the pain,
Lest the wild joy to feel thee near
Should thrill me back to life again.
Come sudden, as the lightning ray,
When skies are calm and air is still,
E’en from the silence of its way
More sure to strike where’er it will.
Leaving the cloisters’ shades, we emerged into the quiet streets, down which peasant girls were bringing home flocks of goats from the hillside, where they had browsed all day: each goat seemed to know its own habitation, and quietly walked in at the open door of its master’s house. We now bent our way to the market-place, the focus of animation: all the people of the town were there—laughing and shrieking at the top of their voice with true Spanish shrillness.
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Spanish Frontier.
