Olalla - Page 2

smallest intimacy.'

I will not deny that I was piqued, and perhaps the feeling
strengthened my desire to go, for I was confident that I could
break down that barrier if I desired. 'There is nothing offensive
in such a stipulation,' said I; 'and I even sympathise with the
feeling that inspired it.'

'It is true they have never seen you,' returned the doctor
politely; 'and if they knew you were the handsomest and the most
pleasant man that ever came from England (where I am told that
handsome men are common, but pleasant ones not so much so), they
would doubtless make you welcome with a better grace. But since
you take the thing so well, it matters not. To me, indeed, it
seems discourteous. But you will find yourself the gainer. The
family will not much tempt you. A mother, a son, and a daughter;
an old woman said to be halfwitted, a country lout, and a country
girl, who stands very high with her confessor, and is, therefore,'
chuckled the physician, 'most likely plain; there is not much in
that to attract the fancy of a dashing officer.'

'And yet you say they are high-born,' I objected.

'Well, as to that, I should distinguish,' returned the doctor.
'The mother is; not so the children. The mother was the last
representative of a princely stock, degenerate both in parts and
fortune. Her father was not only poor, he was mad: and the girl
ran wild about the residencia till his death. Then, much of the
fortune having died with him, and the family being quite extinct,
the girl ran wilder than ever, until at last she married, Heaven
knows whom, a muleteer some say, others a smuggler; while there are
some who uphold there was no marriage at all, and that Felipe and
Olalla are bastards. The union, such as it was, was tragically
dissolved some years ago; but they live in such seclusion, and the
country at that time was in so much disorder, that the precise
manner of the man's end is known only to the priest - if even to
him.'

'I begin to think I shall have strange experiences,' said I.

'I would not romance, if I were you,' replied the doctor; 'you will
find, I fear, a very grovelling and commonplace reality. Felipe,
for instance, I have seen. And what am I to say? He is very
rustic, very cunning, very loutish, and, I should say, an innocent;
the others are probably to match. No, no, senor commandante, you
must seek congenial society among the great sights of our
mountains; and in these at least, if you are at all a lover of the
works of nature, I promise you will not be disappointed.'

The next day Felipe came for me in a rough country cart, drawn by a
mule; and a little before the stroke of noon, after I had said
farewell to the doctor, the innkeeper, and different