John Bull on the Guadalquivir | Page 9

the stone flight of steps, and at once began to
ascend. "There are a party of your countrymen up before us," said
Maria; "the porter says that they went through the lodge half an hour
since." "I hope they will return before we are on the top," said I,
bethinking myself of the task that was before me. And indeed my heart
was hardly at ease within me, for that which I had to say would require
all the spirit of which I was master.
The ascent to the Giralda is very long and very fatiguing; and we had to
pause on the various landings and in the singular belfry in order that
Miss Daguilar might recruit her strength and breath. As we rested on
one of these occasions, in a gallery which runs round the tower below
the belfry, we heard a great noise of shouting, and a clattering of sticks
among the bells. "It is the party of your countrymen who went up
before us," said she. "What a pity that Englishmen should always make
so much noise!" And then she spoke in Spanish to the custodian of the
bells, who is usually to be found in a little cabin up there within the
tower. "He says that they went up shouting like demons," continued
Maria; and it seemed to me that she looked as though I ought to be
ashamed of the name of an Englishman. "They may not be so solemn in
their demeanour as Spaniards," I answered; "but, for all that, there may
be quite as much in them."
We then again began to mount, and before we had ascended much
farther we passed my three countrymen. They were young men, with
gray coats and gray trousers, with slouched hats, and without gloves.
They had fair faces and fair hair, and swung big sticks in their hands,
with crooked handles. They laughed and talked loud, and, when we met
them, seemed to be racing with each other; but nevertheless they were
gentlemen. No one who knows by sight what an English gentleman is,
could have doubted that; but I did acknowledge to myself that they
should have remembered that the edifice they were treading was a
church, and that the silence they were invading was the cherished
property of a courteous people.

"They are all just the same as big boys," said Maria. The colour
instantly flew into my face, and I felt that it was my duty to speak up
for my own countrymen. The word "boys" especially wounded my ears.
It was as a boy that she treated me; but, on looking at that befringed
young Spanish Don--who was not, apparently, my elder in age--she had
recognised a man. However, I said nothing further till I reached the
summit. One cannot speak with manly dignity while one is out of
breath on a staircase.
"There, John," she said, stretching her hands away over the fair plain of
the Guadalquivir, as soon as we stood against the parapet; "is not that
lovely?"
I would not deign to notice this. "Maria," I said, "I think that you are
too hard upon my countrymen?"
"Too hard! no; for I love them. They are so good and industrious; and
come home to their wives, and take care of their children. But why do
they make themselves so--so--what the French call gauche?"
"Good and industrious, and come home to their wives!" thought I. "I
believe you hardly understand us as yet," I answered. "Our domestic
virtues are not always so very prominent; but, I believe, we know how
to conduct ourselves as gentlemen: at any rate, as well as Spaniards." I
was very angry--not at the faults, but at the good qualities imputed to
us.
"In affairs of business, yes," said Maria, with a look of firm confidence
in her own opinion--that look of confidence which she has never lost,
and I pray that she may never lose it while I remain with her--"but in
the little intercourses of the world, no! A Spaniard never forgets what is
personally due either to himself or his neighbours. If he is eating an
onion, he eats it as an onion should be eaten."
"In such matters as that he is very grand, no doubt," said I, angrily.
"And why should you not eat an onion properly, John? Now, I heard a
story yesterday from Don--about two Englishmen, which annoyed me

very much." I did not exactly catch the name of the Don in question but
I felt through every nerve in my body that it was the man who had been
talking to her on the plaza.
"And what have they done?" said I. "But it is the same everywhere. We
are always abused; but, nevertheless, no people are so welcome. At