But We Had Counted Without The Spread Of
Popular Education In Spain.
Under our windows, just across the way,
there proved to be a school of the "Royal Society of Friends of their
Country," as the Spanish inscription in its front proclaimed; and at
dusk its pupils, children and young people of both sexes, began
clamoring for knowledge at its doors.
About ten o'clock they burst from
them again with joyous exultation in their acquirements; then, shortly
after, every manner of vehicle began to pass, especially heavy market
wagons overladen and drawn by horses swarming with bells. Their
succession left scarcely a moment of the night unstunned; but if ever a
moment seemed to be escaping, there was a maniacal bell in a church near
by that clashed out: "Hello! Here's a bit of silence; let's knock it on
the head!"
We went promptly the next day to the gentle old manager and told him
that he had been deceived in thinking he had given us rooms on a quiet
street, and appealed to his invention for something, for anything,
different. His invention had probably never been put to such stress
before, and he showed us an excess of impossible apartments, which we
subjected to a consideration worthy of the greatest promise in them. Our
search ended in a suite of rooms on the top floor, where we could have
the range of a flat roof outside if we wanted; but as the private family
living next door kept hens, led by a lordly turkey, on their roof, we
were sorrowfully forced to forego our peculiar advantage.
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