I Like To Think
He Was A Basque, Because I Like The Basques So Much For No Reason That I
Can Think Of.
Their being always Carlists would certainly be no reason
with me, for I was never a Carlist; and perhaps
My liking is only a
prejudice in their favor from the air of thrift and work which pervades
their beautiful province, or is an effect of their language as I first
saw it inscribed on the front of the Credit Lyonnais at Bayonne. It
looked so beautifully regular, so scholarly, so Latin, so sister to both
Spanish and Italian, so richly and musically voweled, and yet remained
so impenetrable to the most daring surmise, that I conceived at once a
profound admiration for the race which could keep such a language to
itself. When I remembered how blond, how red-blond our sinewy young
porter was, I could not well help breveting him of that race, and
honoring him because he could have read those words with the eyes that
were so blue amid the general Spanish blackness of eyes. He imparted a
quiet from his own calm to our nervousness, and if we had appealed to
him on the point I am sure he would have saved us from the error of
breakfasting in the station restaurant at the deceitful _table d'hote,_
though where else we should have breakfasted I do not know.
I
One train left for San Sebastian while I was still lost in amaze that
what I had taken into my mouth for fried egg should be inwardly fish and
full of bones; but he quelled my anxiety with the assurance, which I
somehow understood, that there would be another train soon.
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