These peasants, like the Spaniards everywhere,
were of an intelligent and sagacious look; they only wanted a chance,
one must think, to be a leading race. They have sometimes an anxiety of
appeal in their apathy, as if they would like to know more than they do.
There was some livelier thronging at the station where the train stopped
for luncheon, but secure with the pretty rush-basket which the head
waiter at our hotel, so much better than the hotel, had furnished us at
starting, we kept to our car; and there presently we were joined by a
young couple who were unmistakably a new married couple. The man was of
a rich brown, and the woman of a dead white with dead black hair. They
both might have been better-looking than they were, but apparently not
better otherwise, for at Seville the groom helped us out of the car with
our hand-bags.
I do not know what polite offers from him had already brought out the
thanks in which our speech bewrayed us; but at our outlandish accents
they at once became easier. They became frankly at home with themselves,
and talked in their Andalusian patter with no fear of being understood.
I might, indeed, have been far apter in Spanish without understanding
their talk, for when printed the Andalusian dialect varies as far from
the Castilian as, say, the Venetian varies from the Tuscan, and when
spoken, more.
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