“Brutes!” said Catalina, meaning the government.
“Why don’t they come to America?” asked Lydia, wonderingly. “Look at that old woman out in the field. That is the most shocking thing you see in Europe—women in the fields everywhere.”
Catalina, indolent in some respects, waged eternal war with the one-sided. “Your factories are far worse,” she asserted. “They are really horrible, for the women stand on their feet all day with a ceaseless din tearing at their nerves and never a breath of decent air in their lungs. They are the most ghastly lot I ever saw in my life. These women are always in the fresh air, with the quiet of nature about them, and they rest when they like. I think we are the barbarians—we and the Spanish government.”
“Well, well, don’t argue,” said Mr. Moulton, soothingly. “It is too hot. We have our defects, but don’t forget our many redeeming virtues. And as for Spain, backward, tax-ridden, oppressed as she is, one sees nothing to compare with the horrors that Arthur Young saw in France just before 1789. Spain, no doubt, will have her own revolution in her own time; I am told the peasants are very virile and independent. My love, shall I blow up that bag behind your head?”
He examined the other bags, readjusted them, and there being nothing to claim the eye at the moment, read Baedeker aloud, to the intense but respectful annoyance of his eldest daughter and the barely concealed resentment of Catalina, who hung still farther over the creaking door.
The train walked into a little station of Tordera and stopped.
“Cinco minutos!” said the guard, raising his voice.
“Five!” said Catalina. “That means fifteen. Let us get out and exercise and buy something.”
“Pray be careful!” exclaimed Mrs. Moulton. “I know you will be left. Mr. Moulton, please—please don’t get out.”
Mr. Moulton patted her amiably and descended in the wake of Catalina and Lydia. They were surrounded at once by beggars, even the babies in arms extending their hands. There were few men among them, but the women, picturesque enough in their closely pinned kerchiefs of red or yellow, were more pertinacious than man ever dared to be. Lydia, fastidious and economical, retreated into the train and closed the door; but Catalina disbursed coppers and gave one dirty little Murillo a peseta. She had spoken almost as much Spanish in her life as English, and exchanged so many elaborate compliments with her retinue, in a manner so acceptable to their democratic taste, that they forgot to beg and pressed close at her heels as she strode up and down, her hands in her pockets, wondering what manner of fallen princess was this who travelled third class and knew how to treat a haughty peasant of Spain as her equal. She was buying an inflammable-looking novel with which to insult Jane, and a package of sweets for Lydia and herself, when she heard a shrill note of anguish: