Then, however, he
mounted to the top of the omnibus and thumped our trunks about as if to
test them for contraband by the sound. The investigation continued on
these strange terms until the officer had satisfied himself of our good
faith, when he got down and with a friendly smile at the window bowed us
into Valladolid.
In its way nothing could have been more charming; and we rather liked
being left by the omnibus about a block from our hotel, on the border of
a sort of promenade where no vehicles were allowed. We had been halted
near a public fountain, where already the mothers and daughters of the
neighborhood were gathered with earthen jars for the night's supply of
water. The jars were not so large as to overburden any of them when,
after just delay for exchange of gossip, the girls and goodwives put
them on their heads and marched erectly away with them, each beautifully
picturesque irrespective of her age or looks.
The air was soft, and after Burgos, warm; something southern, unfelt
before, began to qualify the whole scene, which as the evening fell grew
more dramatic, and made the promenade the theater of emotions permitted
such unrestricted play nowhere else in Spain, so far as we were witness.
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