When We Cleared The City Streets And Houses, We Began Running Out Into
The Country Through Suburbs Vulgarly Gay With
Small, bright brick
villas, so expressive of commuting that the eye required the vision of
young husbands and fathers going
In at the gates with gardening tools on
their shoulders and under their arms. To be sure, the time of day and
the time of year were against this; it was now morning and autumn,
though there was a vernal brilliancy in the air; and the grass,
flattered by the recent rains, was green where we had last seen it gray.
Along a pretty stream, which, for all I know may have been the
Manzanares, it was so little, files of Lombardy poplars followed away
very agreeably golden in foliage; and scattered about were
deciduous-looking evergreens which we questioned for live-oaks. We were
going northward over the track which had brought us southward to Madrid
two weeks before, and by and by the pleasant levels broke into rough
hills and hollows, strewn with granite boulders which, as our train
mounted, changed into the savage rock masses of New Castile, and as we
drew near the village of Escorial gave the scene the look of that very
desolate country. But it could not be so gloomy in the kind sunlight as
it was when lashed by the savage storm which we had seen it cowering
under before; and at the station we lost all feeling of friendlessness
in the welcome of the thronging guides and hotel touters.
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