(A murmur of sympathy in the audience.)
“He believed it was his duty to continue at his post to the end. And whenever duty was in question—at any rate, that was his idea, and it was necessary to respect it. And afterward, his health became so wretched——”
Here Señora Pardiñas’ voice grew slightly husky. She put her hand into her pocket, and taking out her handkerchief blew her nose and then wiped her eyes.
“So that,” she repeated, with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, “when the time came—And afterward you know how I was with my sisters-in-law, the law-suits and the difficulties I was involved in. I thought I should never be able to extricate myself from them. From home my old friends wrote to{36} me, ‘Come back, come back; in a day you will accomplish more here than you could in a year there. What would you have?’ I was afraid of the undertaking. With my rheumatism, to think of shutting myself up in one of those coaches that you couldn’t open a window in if it was to save your life! And when, well or ill, things were at last settled and the tangle of the will was straightened out, lo and behold, they put a railroad direct to Marineda. But by that time I had lost the wish to go, for to return home to find myself at variance with all my connections——”
{36}
“Not with all of them, mamma; according to your own account there are several who have taken our part.”
“Bah, how can I tell? In our place, child, it is hard to know who is for and who is against you. On that point I have had terrible disappointments. When you least expect it, your friends betray you and drive the knife into{37} you up to the handle. To speak the truth, there we are not frank and loyal, so to say, like the old Castillians.”
{37}
“You talk like a book,” assented Señor de Candás, who never let slip an opportunity of showing his claws. “The Galicians may have all the good qualities you please, but so far as being tricky and slippery and deceitful is concerned, there is no one who can beat them. Don’t trust to the word of a Galician, for they have no faith; or, if they have, it is Punic faith. What must the Galicians be when the gypsies don’t venture to pass through their country lest they should be cheated by them?”
“Take care how you insult the old land,” said Rogelio.
“Why, that is a well-known fact. No gypsy will go to
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