Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/170

 than the other. Not a soul was to be seen; our footsteps rang on the narrow side-walk, and it seemed rude of our voices when we talked to wake the sleepy silence out of its afternoon nap. But suddenly a handsome young man appeared from a side street, and stopping in the middle of the road, vigorously tinkled a musical bell. Immediately the street became alive. Each house door showed a man; women hung over the gaily-draped balconies; children ran out and clustered round the bell-ringer. He began to speak very fast in guttural Spanish, and we couldn't understand a word he said, though Brown has a smattering of the language—enough to get on with in shops and hotels. When he had finished everyone laughed. All up and down the street came the sound of laughter; deep, bass laughter from the men; contralto laughter from the women. The handsome bell-ringer laughed too, and then vanished as suddenly as he had come. All the life of the quaint street seemed to fade away with him. Slowly the people took themselves indoors; the balconies were empty; the street silent as in a city of the dead. It was like something on the stage; but I suppose it's just a bit of everyday life in Fuenterrabia and old, old Spain.

We went on up to the castle we had seen from the beach, and I turned my eyes away from a big, ugly round building, like a country panorama-place, for that was the bull ring, and the one thing that makes Spain hateful to me. I didn't want even to think of it. The gateway of the palace—for it had been a palace—was splendid—an arch across the street. But