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164. DAYS IN THE SUN
mountains for years and years, without ever having a
roof to sleep under, until the amnesty was pronounced.
That’s where I get this trouble from,” and he lays his
hands over his loins.
“Well, now tell me, have you gotten to the point
where you can afford to drive around in broad day-
light with a wagon load of Mauser rifles?” asks Don
Louis with a wink.
“No, we did not go about it that way. We weren’t
as stupid as all that,” the old man answered, offended.
“Neither are we, so have patience!”
“All right, Don Louis, it is all very well to have
patience, but you are not eighty years old! For some
fine day I tell you, man—” He moves his hands as
to indicate a body somersaulting down hill toward the
churchyard below. These cottagers bear the mark of
the soil, as our cottagers do at home in Denmark—
the peace and solidity of the soil, but not its heaviness.
There is no heavy weight dragging from their soles
as they walk about talking to Don Louis, a man of
university education, concerning the conditions of this
place. There is only an external difference between
him and them. They are just as much at ease, speak
the same rich figurative language, without a trace of
dialect, and without any fumbling for the proper ex-
pression.
We, the strangers, are enveloped from the very start
with a benevolence, a delicate consideration that might
be the result of many generations of inherited gentility.
They change the conversation to our interests, so that
we may not be bored; pluck flowers for my wife; pick
out the best spots in the road for us to walk on. They
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