Horrible were the visions which were conjured up by the contemplation of these desolate fields; and their gloomy poverty was sharpened by the contrast with the surrounding fields, so red and well-cultivated, with their orderly rows of garden-truck and their little fruit-trees, to whose leaves the autumn gave a yellowish transparency.
Even the birds fled from these plains of death, perhaps from fear of the hideous reptiles which stirred about under the growth of weeds, or possibly because they scented the vapour of abandonment.
If anything were seen to flutter over the broken roof of straw, it was certain to be of funereal plumage with black and treacherous wings, which as they stirred, cast silence over the joyful flappings and playful twitterings in the trees, leaving the huerta deathly still, as though no sparrows chirped within a half-league roundabout.
Pepeta was about to continue on her way toward her farm-house, which peered whitely among the trees some distance across the fields; but she had to stand still at the steep edge of the highroad in order to permit the passing of a loaded wagon, which seemed to be coming from the city, and which advanced with violent lurches.
At the sight of it, her feminine curiosity was aroused.
It was the poor cart of a farmer drawn by an old and bony nag, which was being helped over the deep ruts by a tall man, who marched alongside the horse, encouraging him with shouts and the cracking of a whip.
He was dressed like a labourer; but his manner of wearing the handkerchief knotted around the head, his corduroy trousers, and other details of his costume, indicated that he was not from the huerta, where personal adornment had gradually been corrupted by the fashions of the city. He was a farmer from some distant pueblo; he had come, perhaps, from the very centre of the province.
Heaped high upon the cart, forming a pyramid which mounted higher even than the side-poles, was piled a jumble of domestic objects. This was the migration of an entire family. Thin mattresses, straw-beds, filled with rustling leaves of corn, rush-seats, frying-pans, kettles, plates, baskets, green bed-slats: all were heaped upon the wagon, dirty, worn, and miserable, speaking of hunger, of desperate flight, as if disgrace stalked behind the family, treading at its heels. And on top of this disordered mass were three children, embracing each other as they looked out across the fields with wide-open eyes, like explorers visiting a country for the first time.
Treading close at the heels of the wagon, watching vigilantly to see that nothing might fall, trudged a woman with a slender girl, who appeared to be her daughter. At the other side of the nag, aiding him whenever the cart stuck in a rut, stalked a boy of some eleven years. His grave exterior was that of a child accustomed to struggle with misery. He was already a man at an age when others were still playing. A little dog, dirty and panting, brought up the rear.
Pepeta, leaning on the flank of her cow, and possessed with growing curiosity, watched them pass on. Where could these poor people be going?
This road, running into the fork of Alboraya, did not lead anywhere; it was lost in the distance as though exhausted by the innumerable forkings of its lanes and paths, which gave entrance to the various barracas.
But her curiosity had an unexpected gratification. Holy Virgin! The wagon turned away from the road, crossed the tumbledown little bridge made of tree-trunks and sod which gave access to the accursed fields, and went on through the meadows of old Barret, crushing the hitherto respected growth of weeds beneath its wheels.
The family followed behind, manifesting by gestures and confused words, the impression which this miserable poverty and decay were making upon them, but all the while going directly in a straight line toward the ruined barraca like those who are taking possession of their own.
Pepeta did not stop to see more; she fairly flew toward her own home. In order to arrive the sooner, she abandoned the cow and little calf, who tranquilly pursued their way like animals who have a good, safe stable and are not worried about the course of human affairs.
Pimentó was lazily smoking, as he lay stretched out at the side of his barraca with his gaze fixed upon three little sticks smeared with bird-lime, which shone in the sun, and about which some birds were fluttering,—the occupation of a gentleman.
When he saw his wife arrive with astonished eyes and her weak chest panting, Pimentó changed his position in order to listen the better, at the same time warning her not to come near the little sticks.
What was up now? Had the cow been stolen from her?
Pepeta, between weariness and emotion, was scarcely able to utter two consecutive words.
The lands of Barret, ... an entire family, ... were going to work; they were going to live in the ruined barraca,—she had seen it herself!
Pimentó, a hunter with bird-lime, an enemy of labour, and the terror of the entire community, was no longer able to preserve his composure, the impressive gravity of a great lord, before such unexpected news.
Cordons!
And with one bound, he raised his heavy, muscular frame from the ground, and set out on a run without awaiting further explanations.
His wife watched him as he hurried across the fields until he reached a cane-brake adjoining the accursed land. Here he knelt down, threw himself face forward, crawling upon his belly as he spied through the cane-brake like a Bedouin in ambush. After a few minutes, he began to run again, and was soon lost to sight amid the labyrinth of paths, each of which led off to a different barraca, to a field where bending figures wielded large steel hoes, which glittered as the light struck upon them.
The huerta lay smiling and rustling, filled with whisperings and with light, drowsy under the cascade of gold reflected from the morning sun.
But soon there came, from the distance, the mingled sound of cries and halloes. The news passed on from field to field. With loud shouts, with a trembling of alarm, of surprise, of indignation, it ran on through all the plain as though centuries had not elapsed, and the report were being spread that an Algerian galley was about to land upon the beach, seeking a cargo of white flesh.
II
AT harvest time, when old Barret gazed at the various plots into which his fields were divided, he was unable to restrain a feeling of pride. As he gazed upon the tall wheat, the cabbage-heads with their hearts of fleecy lace, the melons showing their green backs on a level with the earth, the pimentoes and tomatoes, half-hidden by their foliage, he praised the goodness of the earth as well as the efforts of all his ancestors for working these fields better than the rest of the huerta.
All the blood of his forefathers was here. Five or six generations of Barrets had passed their lives working this same soil. They had turned it over and over, taking care that its vital nourishment should not decrease, combing and caressing it with ploughshare and hoe; there was not one of these fields which had not been watered by the sweat and blood of the family.
The farmer loved his wife dearly, and even forgave her the folly of having given him four daughters and no son, to help him in his work. Not that he loved his daughters any the less, angels sent from God who passed the day singing and sewing at the door of their farm-house, and who sometimes went out into the fields in order to give their poor father a little rest. But the supreme passion of old Barret, the love of all his loves, was the land upon which the silent and monotonous history of his family had unrolled.
Many years ago, many indeed, in those days when old Tomba, an aged man now nearly blind, who took care of the poor herd of a butcher at Alboraya, went roaming about in the band of The Friar,[C] shooting at the French, these lands had belonged to the monks of San Miguel de los Reyes.
They were good, stout gentlemen, sleek and voluble, who were not in a hurry to collect their rentals, and appeared to be satisfied if when they passed the cabin of an evening, the grand-mother,