It is a sort of al fresco cloakroom where these ladies repair the ravages of wind or storm, where they assemble in the evening to pack their purchases on their beasts of burden, and finally climb to the top of all themselves.

For it is not etiquette to ride in or out of the gates upon one's wares; and a breach of this unwritten law would immediately arouse the suspicion of the courteous toll-officer, who fingers delicately with a tobacco-stained hand the bundles and baskets submitted to his inspection.
Here also Marcos had friends, and was able to tell the latest news from Cuba, where some had husband, son or lover; a so-called volunteer to put down the hopeless rebellion, attracted to a miserable death, by the forty-pound bounty paid by Government.

There were old women who chaffed him, and young ones with fine-cut classic features and crinkled hair, who lay in wait for a glance from his grave eyes.
"It is a pity there are not more like you, Senor Conde," said one old peasant; "for it is you that keeps the men from fighting among themselves and makes them tend the sheep or take in the crops.

Carlist or Royalist, the land comes before either, say I." "For it is the land that feeds the children," added another, who carried a pair of small espradrillas in her apron pocket.
Marcos went back to his father with such information as he had been able to gather.
"Leon is here," he said.

"He is in Retreat at the monastery of the Redemptionists, which stands half-empty on the road to Villaba.