Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 049.djvu/99

 1841.]

The Venta ofAnnenlia.

89

THE VENTA OF ARMENTIA.

A SKETCH OF THE LATE CARLIST WAR. IN SPAIN.

AT the foot of a ridge of mountains which intersects the south-eastern corner of the province of Alava, is situated the dirty little town of Peiia- cerrada. Placed on the top of a small hill or knoll of earth, and tolerably well fortified, it nevertheless changed hands several times during the late civil war, being on the verge of the Christine territory, and bordering on the debatable ground, subject to the incursions and alternate temporary occupation of both parties. This, added to the circumstance of the town being commanded by a rising ground at a short distance, and to the negligence of the Queen's generals in frequently leaving insufficient garrisons or un- trustworthy governors, was the cause of its being twice taken by the Car- lists, aLhough on both occasions they were allowed to retain their conquest but a brief space, before it was wrested from them by their opponents.

The traveller, who, in happier and less dangerous times than Spain has of late years enjoyed, may have rambled through the Basque pro- vinces, will perchance remember the picturesque road that runs due south from Vittoria to Penacerrada. If he has passed along it on a thirsty sum- mer's day, he can hardly have forgotten that about midway between the two towns stands a large country inn of somewhat barn-like appearance, but which few travellers pass without draining a cup of the excellent Rioja wine that is found within. The Venta of Armentia,* for such is the name of this roadside hostelry, if it cannot boast of very refined accommodations, has at least the advantage of a situa- tion of perfect beauty. The ground slopes down from the door to the banks of the little river Aya, which murmurs over its bed of bright yellow sand and divers-coloured pebbles, as it hastens through a grove of mingled sycamore and elm to throw itself into the Zadorra, one of the tributaries of the mighty Ebro. On the right the eye glances through lofty trees over

wide and verdant pastures, interspersed and varied with clumps of wood 5 the front commands a view of the chain of blue mountains that bounds the horizon. On the left of the house, the road to Penacerrada passes over a rustic wooden bridge, the ground, for about a mile before and after reaching the venta, rising on the eastern side of the road to the height of twenty or thirty feet, fringed at the top with heath and yellow broom, whilst the brier rose, the honeysuckle, and wild vine, clothe with their tangled festoons the entire side of the acclivity.

These advantages of position had, however, little value in the eyes of Pablo Quintanar, the landlord of the venta, who would gladly have ex- changed them for the more substantial benefit of a thriving business, or for immunity from the exactions to which he was daily subjected by Carlists and Christines. For, being in the neigh- bourhood of various fortified posts of both parties, the venta was rarely a week without receiving the visit of some detachment of troops or party of guerillas ; and the politics of mine host were sufficiently doubtful to fur- nish both liberals and royalists with a pretext for drinking his wine, ransack- ing his hen-roost, and emptying his larder, without making that return in lawful coin of the realm to which innkeepers are accustomed to lay claim. Many persons thought it strange that Pablo had never seen fit to make the declaration of his political opinions which would have secured to him protection from one of the two contending parties. He had neither wife nor child, and was moreover somewhat of a philosopher in his way ; and although sometimes roused to anger for a moment by the brutality and extortions of an undisciplined sol- diery, he soon resumed the sort of sullen apathy and indifference which usually characterized him, and under which he concealed his real feelings. That these feelings were keen, and that his attachment was warm to the


 * Venta is the Spani&h term for a country inn.