corner of the cathedral, so that the marble men holding up the
Constable's coat-of-arms in the rear of his chapel might well have ached
from the cold which searched the marrow of flesh-and-blood men below.
These hurried by in flat caps and corduroy coats and trousers, with
sashes at their waists and comforters round their necks; and they were
picturesque quite in the measure of their misery. Some whose tatters
were the most conspicuous feature of their costume, I am sure would have
charmed me if I had been a painter; as a mere word-painter I find myself
wishing I could give the color of their wretchedness to my page.




III


In the absence of any specific record in my notebook I do not know just
how it was between this first glimpse of the cathedral and dinner, but
it must have been on our return to our hotel, that the little
interpreter who had met us at the station, and had been intermittently
constituting himself our protector ever since, convinced us that we
ought to visit the City Hall, and see the outside of the marble tomb
containing the bones of the Cid and his wife. Such as the bones were we
found they were not to be seen themselves, and I do not know that I
should have been the happier for their inspection. In fact, I have no
great opinion of the Cid as an historical character or a poetic fiction.
His epic, or his long ballad, formed no part of my young study in
Spanish, and when four or five years ago a friend gave me a copy of it,
beautifully printed in black letter, with the prayer that I should read
it sometime within the twelvemonth, I found the time far too short. As a