A Cup of Tea 



this remarkable object by an oblong spot of black paint was 

 considered a master-stroke of art. 



When I had done, there were murmurs of applause, 

 mingled with eager whisperings, which I guessed were to 

 the point of whether I could be persuaded to leave this 

 portrait with his family ; and sure enough in the evening, 

 after supper, the cura opened this delicate question with 

 much diplomatic skill, and I finally had to cut him out of 

 my book. After a short visit to the olive harvest, we 

 returned and sat by our blazing chimney, to which resorted 

 the patriarch Madruga, several of his sons, and a few of the 

 labourers. These last were not accommodated with chairs, 

 but squatted round the hearth on their hams, and were 

 supplied with cigars occasionally from the marques's special 

 paper. Madruga^ which, in Spanish, means the dawn, is 

 not the patronymic of the capataz^ though he is invariably 

 called by it. It is an honourable sobriquet which he had 

 acquired in his youth by habits of early rising. The marques 

 made some strong aniseed-brandy (aguardiente) punch, and 

 regaled the company. 



After the tag-rag of the party had retired, the marques 

 made some very strong tea, which, with slices of bread and 

 butter, was our supper. Old Madruga and his wife looked 

 on at this un-Spanish meal as the simple inhabitants of 

 some farm-house in Yorkshire might do, if a travelled son 

 of the landlord were to make a bowl of gazpacho for his 

 shooting-luncheon. When we had done, the remains of the 

 pot were administered to them, and they drank it, for the 

 honour of the thing, with some wry faces. The cura enter- 

 tained us after tea with passages from his life : he had been 

 a soldier up to the fall of Napoleon, and had broken some 

 of his limbs in amateur bull-fighting. Next day we 

 returned to Seville. 



87 



