We found the narrow thoroughfare in which last night we had almost come to grief; so tortuous and ill-paved, we wondered how we had escaped destruction. Here and there small houses of the meanest description broke the continuity of dead grey walls. At the door of the cottage H. C. had charged sat an evil-looking dog that growled and showed its teeth as we passed and evidently connected us with the midnight raid. Whether the owner of the blunderbuss had killed himself with his own weapon or was only absent on business remained uncertain; he did not appear.
Continuing upwards we presently came out upon the open space surrounding the old cathedral.
The precincts were certainly not ecclesiastical. We seemed to have reached the poorest part of the town, and the houses were quite picturesque in their shabbiness. A splendid doorway admitted to the interior of the semi-religious fortress, before which a sentinel with gun and bayonet kept watch and ward. No one passed him without a special permission from the churlish old commandant of the town, who, after tracing your pedigree back to Adam, bestowed the simple favour as though conferring upon you the dignity of Spain's high order of the Saint Esprit.
Strangers and especially Englishmen, evidently visit Lerida at long intervals, and wherever we went we found ourselves attracting an amount of attention that might have confused more bashful minds. As in most other places, the people were especially interested in our little kodak, and seemed to think the honour of being taken equal to canonisation. In the market-place men and women threw themselves into groups and attitudes, set out their stalls to the best advantage, and begged the favour of being made immortal.
But as the day wore on the crowd dispersed and disappeared, the market-place grew empty, arcades lost their loungers; the afternoon shadows lengthened; there were not so many sun-flashes in the air; outlines mellowed as the sky behind them grew less dazzling; the river lost some of its jewels.
We were gazing at the latter, at the wonderful outlines of the town rising gradually upon its rock, crowned by that magnificent fortress with its imposing and impressive tower, when a voice suddenly said beside us: "We hope, señor, you have spent a happy day in Lerida and seen the interior of the old cathedral--now nothing but a useless barrack. The commandant suffers from dyspepsia and is capricious. No one ever knows beforehand whether he will grant or withhold permission. It entirely depends upon his digestion."