“But the landlady told me she gave special orders last night, and that you promised to have me fetched at five o’clock.”
“She didn’t tell me, for I was not at the office. Had she told me I should have been at the _fonda_ before now. She must have told the other driver, who takes turns with me to go to the station. What is to be done? Can you not carry your own bag to the coach if I wait here for you?”
“I certainly can not. And meanwhile the _fonda_ door is open for thieves to enter, and the inmates may be murdered in their beds. Why not fetch it yourself and earn my peseta instead of my giving it to some one else who does not deserve it half so much? I should be greatly obliged to you, and you will get your tip at the station just the same, besides your peseta now.”
“_Andando!_ (Come along!) Certainly I can do with a _pesetita_ as well as another man.”
And, telling an old woman in the shop to mind his meek and dejected horses, he set off with me to the inn, shouldered my belongings, shouted a “good-morning” outside the landlady’s room which must have roused everybody within from the sleep they were so desirous of prolonging, and banged the street door as we went out with a noise loud enough to wake the town.
“They thoroughly deserve it,” said he as we hurried off together. “What disgraceful discourtesy to allow a lady like your honour to leave the _fonda_ unattended! _Gracias à Dios_ that I was on the spot to make good their short-comings. You will send for me next time you come to Moguer, Señora, and you shall not have to complain of negligence again!”
I certainly shall remember him, for I never saw a prompter “quick change act” from supine indifference to my plight to eager courtesy than was effected by him on the mention of the magic word “peseta.”
It continued to rain heavily; we ploughed in pitch darkness through a sea of mud, and the diligence rocked and rolled in the ruts all down the long hill to the river. But I was so well entertained by the conversation of my only fellow-passenger that we got into San Juan and pulled up at the station before I realised that we had crossed the perilous bridge safe and sound.
He was, he said, going to meet a connection of his family recently arrived in Seville, Señor Bethancourt, who held a high diplomatic position in one of the South American republics. His relative’s career, said the homely-looking countryman, had been most romantic. He came of a very old family of French origin, had left his home in Moguer when quite a lad, had been shipwrecked and cast up on the estate of a wealthy man who took him into his employ, and eventually made him a partner in the business and allowed him to marry his only daughter.