That was a Spain of cork-trees, of groves by
the green margins of mountain brooks, of habitable hills, where
shepherds might feed their flocks and mad lovers and maids forlorn might
wander and maunder; and here were fields of corn and apple orchards and
vineyards reddening and yellowing up to the doors of those comfortable
farmhouses, with nowhere the sign of a Christian cavalier or a turbaned
infidel. As a man I could not help liking what I saw, but I could also
grieve for the boy who would have been so disappointed if he had come to
the Basque provinces of Spain when he was from ten to fifteen years old,
instead of seventy-four.
It took our train nearly an hour to get by twenty miles of those
pleasant farms and the pretty hamlets which they now and then clustered
into. But that was fast for a Spanish way-train, which does not run,
but, as it were, walks with dignity and makes long stops at stations, to
rest and let the locomotive roll itself a cigarette. By the time we
reached San Sebastian our rain had thickened to a heavy downpour, and by
the time we mounted to our rooms, three pair up in the hotel, it was
storming in a fine fury over the bay under them, and sweeping the
curving quays and tossing the feathery foliage of the tamarisk-shaded
promenade.
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