An Idyll of the Sud Express
by S. R. Crockett
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Observations on the English travelling abroad.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Observations on the English travelling abroad.
Five o’clock on a bleak autumn morning, and my faithful Bigño had parted from me almost in tears at the draughty station of Bilbao. Sunny Spain was in tears as well as Bigño, and my heart too was heavy when I thought of London fogs and business worries, the many adventures we had had together, the strong-smelling muleteers’ satchel over his back, and the caravan parted with to a merchant of rabbit-skins; - these were added tribulations too heavy almost to be borne.
Wrapped in my big Spanish cloak and huddled in a corner – surrounded with the last tokens of Bigño – the latest newspapers, after a while I took stock of my companions. We made an odd assembly for a first-class express carriage, even in Spain.
Opposite me was a sad-faced peasant woman with a sack beside her, which evidently contained all her worldly belongings. I was wondering idly what she was doing there, when a voice, unmistakably English in its brightness, called my attention to the far side of the carriage.
‘Now, Jack,’ said the speaker, ‘you can never again say I am a growly woolly bear that won’t get up in the morning!’
‘When did I ever say so, little silly?’ Jack smiled down at her with undisguised adoration.
‘Not so loud, Jack!’
‘Oh, these foreign Don Inky-cloaks will never understand!’ My polite fellow-countryman meant me, having heard my farewell to Bigño in Bilbao station.
‘You always say I am a growly bear if I have to wake up early – and here I am after making you a lovely cup of tea, boiling eggs, and finishing the packing, after getting off that horrible Southampton boat!’
‘Yes,’ interposed Jack, ‘you know you do pack so beautifully.’
‘Ungrateful brat – haven’t I got the temper of an angel? Say so quickly! Out with it or I’ll kiss your shoulder before these people! Then they’ll be sure we are newly-marrieds!’
Jack Trenchard had an Englishman’s horror of sentiment, and, moreover, not being over sure of what his mischievous little wife might do, surrendered at discretion.
‘Mamie Trenchard, you little witch, I will say, think, do anything you like. I swear you are perfect – and death to the man who says you are otherwise. No – no – I mean death to any other man but me who says you are!’
This lovers’ quarrel settled, the girl began to take a survey of her fellow-passengers.
‘How funny,’ she said, laughing softly, and talking with the universal English disbelief in anyone understanding their language, ‘do you see that peasant woman there with the sack. How does she come first-class?’ Then with a quick change of voice, ‘How sad she looks – I wish I could talk to her. It is so different to have you here, you dear, big, stupid Jack – tut! There, I will do it. The growly person in the corner wrapped in his cloak and ‘boina’ does not understand a word. Look, he is going to sleep!’
Again she referred to a very alert journeyman of letters, who had the manuscripts of a volume of Spanish adventure in his kit-bag.
And so rattled on the light-hearted English wife, a dainty picture full of life, coming and going in bright swift flashes, mainly from her eyes. She was the only Englishwoman I had ever met in many years of Spanish travel. No wonder she took me for a don.
The slow Spanish train (if it did call itself an express) was passing through the beautiful Basque scenery. At times the wooded dells spoke of England. Again, everything flitted past rude and wild as any Scottish glen. France, too, mingled subtly with the landscape, but there was no trace of the Spain I knew so well – tawny, bare, ravine-furrowed, yet growing darker to the heart as the years go by – a wrinkled, ancient mother, but somehow kindly too.
From the window I presently returned to a covert survey of my compatriots. Mistress Mamie was busy preparing a dainty little meal for two – no tea or eggs this time, but sandwiches, chicken, rolls and butter, a few leaves of lettuce, olives, and a bottle of good white wine. She was evidently ignorant of the Spanish custom which makes the offer to partake the most necessary of forms when travelling.
‘Jack, you lazy boy, get out the cork, and, hey, my merry men, fall to!’ There is no need to report all that was said as with merry chatter the two discussed their good things.
Presently I too fished in my pocket for the more ordinary fare Bigño had provided – a roll cut in two, with slices of sausage and onion. I had a slight pang of regret that Bigño’s tastes were not more refined, but I washed it down from my flask – and would gladly have shared with my neighbour opposite, but she, poor soul, was sleeping the sleep of the tired, with the signs of tears still wet on her cheeks and her thin arms clasping her sack of belongings.
At this moment the conductor entered in the casual way a Spanish railway official has. He walks along the step outside, opens the door, shuts it behind him, and lo! with a noble sweep of his cap he demands your ticket – or your life.
Meekly I gave up mine. Trenchard the Englishman searched wildly in all his pockets, till at last they were discovered in the overcoat which his wife was using as a pillow.
But a rough shake awoke the sleeping woman. For her the guard of an express mail train stood on no ceremony. With a dazed look she handed out her ticket. Alas, ignorance and sorrow had placed her in an awkward predicament. Sleep had overtaken her, and the junction where she ought to have changed was long since passed – hours ago indeed.
A desolation seized her – the fear and panic which any dealings with men in authority always causes to southern women.
‘Oh, Pedro,’ she wailed, ‘why are you not here to help me? See senor (she appealed to the guard), my husband has gone to kill the Americans, and I, well, I have nothing now – I am going home to my people.’
‘Enough,’ interrupted this polite official. ‘See, you must go on to Zumarraga and you must pay the excess fare. It will take a little longer that way, but you will get home all the same.
‘Sanctissima Maria, and I have not a centimo!’ The woman stared round her like a trapped animal. It seemed as if she were about to make a bolt for the window.
I was about to speak when my eye caught the merry feast arrested in mid-course. The girl was staring with wondering, uncertain eyes. Her Spanish was evidently desperately limited, but, woman-like, she grasped the main situation.
‘Jack, Jack,’ she whispered, ‘quick, give me the money.’
Then, passing swiftly to where the woman sat bewildered, she faltered out, ‘No ha dinero? Quanto es? No puede haoler mucho, perro.’ Then her Spanish went to bits, and with Jack’s fresh English gold in her hand, and with tears that mingled with those of the peasant woman, she gave it up and left us three men to settle the question. It was all very pretty to see.
I explained to the collector. Then, turning to Mr Trenchard, I confessed my co-nationality. Together we arranged the return fare – a matter of a few shillings – and then little Mrs Trenchard insisted on feeding the dazed woman, with all the gentleness and sweetness which only women can (if they will) show to a sorrowing sister. Then I too came in for a share of the lunch, and was assistant interpreter. The woman’s annals were the short and simple ones of the Spanish poor.
Her Pedro had gone to the war – but he was all she had – and only that morning she had seen him off. Oh yes, she could get work at her old home – and then, by-and-by, when Pedro came back –
Then all suddenly she laid her face on her new-found friend’s breast and wept.
‘But if he comes not back – oh, then I must just die!’
‘What does she say?’
The interrogation was addressed to me, almost fiercely. I was evidently unforgiven for pretending to be a foreigner.
‘Ah, but he will.’ This in mixed English and Spanish. But the secret sympathy told the meaning, and somehow Pedro’s wife felt comforted.
When the train stopped we had all to get out, we three to change to the line for the frontier, and Pedro’s wife to wait a couple of hours till a train would convey her home.
With much emphatic Anglo-Spanish, the product of phrase-books half-forgotten, Mrs Trenchard impressed upon the guard to see that the woman was looked after. And he, succumbing to her bright beauty, her indifference to mistakes merely grammatical (and to a couple of pesetas I slipped him), promised to do her bidding.
It was with manifest horror that he saw at parting the peasant throw her arms about the neck of the generous young Englishwoman. But because Mamie smiled at him at the same time, taking him, as it were, into her confidence, he suffered it with a shrug of his official shoulders. All English were mad anyway.
At the French frontier we got the news that the war was over. No more troops were to be sent out. Pedro would never even have reached Corunna, his port of embarkation. So, though I was not there to see, doubtless Pedro and Pedro’s wife were soon after reunited.
And, at any rate, though the story is incomplete, it pleased me more than many I have finished to my own proper liking. If more English folk were like Jack and Mamie Trenchard, the name of Britain would smell sweeter abroad. To which end some small acquaintance with tongues helps amazingly – also breaking off the habit of calling the rest of the world ‘foreigners’.
All the same, little Mrs Trenchard never forgave me for pretending to be one. It was taking such a mean advantage. What might she not have said?
Wrapped in my big Spanish cloak and huddled in a corner – surrounded with the last tokens of Bigño – the latest newspapers, after a while I took stock of my companions. We made an odd assembly for a first-class express carriage, even in Spain.
Opposite me was a sad-faced peasant woman with a sack beside her, which evidently contained all her worldly belongings. I was wondering idly what she was doing there, when a voice, unmistakably English in its brightness, called my attention to the far side of the carriage.
‘Now, Jack,’ said the speaker, ‘you can never again say I am a growly woolly bear that won’t get up in the morning!’
‘When did I ever say so, little silly?’ Jack smiled down at her with undisguised adoration.
‘Not so loud, Jack!’
‘Oh, these foreign Don Inky-cloaks will never understand!’ My polite fellow-countryman meant me, having heard my farewell to Bigño in Bilbao station.
‘You always say I am a growly bear if I have to wake up early – and here I am after making you a lovely cup of tea, boiling eggs, and finishing the packing, after getting off that horrible Southampton boat!’
‘Yes,’ interposed Jack, ‘you know you do pack so beautifully.’
‘Ungrateful brat – haven’t I got the temper of an angel? Say so quickly! Out with it or I’ll kiss your shoulder before these people! Then they’ll be sure we are newly-marrieds!’
Jack Trenchard had an Englishman’s horror of sentiment, and, moreover, not being over sure of what his mischievous little wife might do, surrendered at discretion.
‘Mamie Trenchard, you little witch, I will say, think, do anything you like. I swear you are perfect – and death to the man who says you are otherwise. No – no – I mean death to any other man but me who says you are!’
This lovers’ quarrel settled, the girl began to take a survey of her fellow-passengers.
‘How funny,’ she said, laughing softly, and talking with the universal English disbelief in anyone understanding their language, ‘do you see that peasant woman there with the sack. How does she come first-class?’ Then with a quick change of voice, ‘How sad she looks – I wish I could talk to her. It is so different to have you here, you dear, big, stupid Jack – tut! There, I will do it. The growly person in the corner wrapped in his cloak and ‘boina’ does not understand a word. Look, he is going to sleep!’
Again she referred to a very alert journeyman of letters, who had the manuscripts of a volume of Spanish adventure in his kit-bag.
And so rattled on the light-hearted English wife, a dainty picture full of life, coming and going in bright swift flashes, mainly from her eyes. She was the only Englishwoman I had ever met in many years of Spanish travel. No wonder she took me for a don.
The slow Spanish train (if it did call itself an express) was passing through the beautiful Basque scenery. At times the wooded dells spoke of England. Again, everything flitted past rude and wild as any Scottish glen. France, too, mingled subtly with the landscape, but there was no trace of the Spain I knew so well – tawny, bare, ravine-furrowed, yet growing darker to the heart as the years go by – a wrinkled, ancient mother, but somehow kindly too.
From the window I presently returned to a covert survey of my compatriots. Mistress Mamie was busy preparing a dainty little meal for two – no tea or eggs this time, but sandwiches, chicken, rolls and butter, a few leaves of lettuce, olives, and a bottle of good white wine. She was evidently ignorant of the Spanish custom which makes the offer to partake the most necessary of forms when travelling.
‘Jack, you lazy boy, get out the cork, and, hey, my merry men, fall to!’ There is no need to report all that was said as with merry chatter the two discussed their good things.
Presently I too fished in my pocket for the more ordinary fare Bigño had provided – a roll cut in two, with slices of sausage and onion. I had a slight pang of regret that Bigño’s tastes were not more refined, but I washed it down from my flask – and would gladly have shared with my neighbour opposite, but she, poor soul, was sleeping the sleep of the tired, with the signs of tears still wet on her cheeks and her thin arms clasping her sack of belongings.
At this moment the conductor entered in the casual way a Spanish railway official has. He walks along the step outside, opens the door, shuts it behind him, and lo! with a noble sweep of his cap he demands your ticket – or your life.
Meekly I gave up mine. Trenchard the Englishman searched wildly in all his pockets, till at last they were discovered in the overcoat which his wife was using as a pillow.
But a rough shake awoke the sleeping woman. For her the guard of an express mail train stood on no ceremony. With a dazed look she handed out her ticket. Alas, ignorance and sorrow had placed her in an awkward predicament. Sleep had overtaken her, and the junction where she ought to have changed was long since passed – hours ago indeed.
A desolation seized her – the fear and panic which any dealings with men in authority always causes to southern women.
‘Oh, Pedro,’ she wailed, ‘why are you not here to help me? See senor (she appealed to the guard), my husband has gone to kill the Americans, and I, well, I have nothing now – I am going home to my people.’
‘Enough,’ interrupted this polite official. ‘See, you must go on to Zumarraga and you must pay the excess fare. It will take a little longer that way, but you will get home all the same.
‘Sanctissima Maria, and I have not a centimo!’ The woman stared round her like a trapped animal. It seemed as if she were about to make a bolt for the window.
I was about to speak when my eye caught the merry feast arrested in mid-course. The girl was staring with wondering, uncertain eyes. Her Spanish was evidently desperately limited, but, woman-like, she grasped the main situation.
‘Jack, Jack,’ she whispered, ‘quick, give me the money.’
Then, passing swiftly to where the woman sat bewildered, she faltered out, ‘No ha dinero? Quanto es? No puede haoler mucho, perro.’ Then her Spanish went to bits, and with Jack’s fresh English gold in her hand, and with tears that mingled with those of the peasant woman, she gave it up and left us three men to settle the question. It was all very pretty to see.
I explained to the collector. Then, turning to Mr Trenchard, I confessed my co-nationality. Together we arranged the return fare – a matter of a few shillings – and then little Mrs Trenchard insisted on feeding the dazed woman, with all the gentleness and sweetness which only women can (if they will) show to a sorrowing sister. Then I too came in for a share of the lunch, and was assistant interpreter. The woman’s annals were the short and simple ones of the Spanish poor.
Her Pedro had gone to the war – but he was all she had – and only that morning she had seen him off. Oh yes, she could get work at her old home – and then, by-and-by, when Pedro came back –
Then all suddenly she laid her face on her new-found friend’s breast and wept.
‘But if he comes not back – oh, then I must just die!’
‘What does she say?’
The interrogation was addressed to me, almost fiercely. I was evidently unforgiven for pretending to be a foreigner.
‘Ah, but he will.’ This in mixed English and Spanish. But the secret sympathy told the meaning, and somehow Pedro’s wife felt comforted.
When the train stopped we had all to get out, we three to change to the line for the frontier, and Pedro’s wife to wait a couple of hours till a train would convey her home.
With much emphatic Anglo-Spanish, the product of phrase-books half-forgotten, Mrs Trenchard impressed upon the guard to see that the woman was looked after. And he, succumbing to her bright beauty, her indifference to mistakes merely grammatical (and to a couple of pesetas I slipped him), promised to do her bidding.
It was with manifest horror that he saw at parting the peasant throw her arms about the neck of the generous young Englishwoman. But because Mamie smiled at him at the same time, taking him, as it were, into her confidence, he suffered it with a shrug of his official shoulders. All English were mad anyway.
At the French frontier we got the news that the war was over. No more troops were to be sent out. Pedro would never even have reached Corunna, his port of embarkation. So, though I was not there to see, doubtless Pedro and Pedro’s wife were soon after reunited.
And, at any rate, though the story is incomplete, it pleased me more than many I have finished to my own proper liking. If more English folk were like Jack and Mamie Trenchard, the name of Britain would smell sweeter abroad. To which end some small acquaintance with tongues helps amazingly – also breaking off the habit of calling the rest of the world ‘foreigners’.
All the same, little Mrs Trenchard never forgave me for pretending to be one. It was taking such a mean advantage. What might she not have said?
About the Author
S. R. Crockett was born in Balmaghie, Galloway, in 1859 and died in France on April 16th, 1914. During his life, he had over 60 novels published (many of them serialised) and hundreds of short stories/sketches appeared in the popular magazines. He was one of Scotland’s bestselling and best known authors in his day, but now is barely known of. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of his death, The Galloway Raiders has been set up and a major collection of 32 of his Galloway-based fictional works has been republished by Ayton Publishing Limited.
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk
To find out more about S. R. Crockett, you can join The Galloway Raiders for FREE at www.gallowayraiders.co.uk