High-ways and by-ways - 1827 Author:Thomas Colley Grattan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: house, and nearly blocking up the approach, stood a throng of mules laden with all sorts of rubbish, saved from the ruin of their wretched owners, or pilfered in... more » their flight; and with these were mixed, oxen, sheep, and goats, bellowing and bleating in all the discord of a cattle fair. Within was a scene of brute confusion quite analogous. A large fire, formed of the young bark of the cork-tree and a newly-felled pine, filled the wide chimney at one end of the room. Close to the flame pressed a throng of women, children, monks, and muleteers, their steaming cloaks joining a thick vapour to the smoke from the moist fire-wood and numerous cigars and tobacco-pipes. Several were standing; others sat on stools, and large blocks of stone, or wood: all employed in efforts to warm themselves, or hang on the branches which were crackling but not yet in flames, their gaiters, shoes, and sandals. The woman of the house occupied one corner of the chimney, stooping almost into the fire, while she cooked, on a gridiron of the rudest construction, slices of beef, cut by her husband from the still warm, and almost quivering carcase of a cow, that hung in one corner of the room. Some hungry individuals devoured the steaks, as they came tough and blackened, from the hands of the hostess. Others partook of the black bread and onions, which they carried in their wallets; and drank deeply of the wine contained in their goat-skin bottles, or quaffed, from small vessels of horn, the brandy which was served to them by the brood of urchin inn-keepers, which formed the remainder of the family. The Spaniards, who were strictly under the surveillance of the police, paid for whatever they consumed; and the Gens- d'armes threw many a look of contempt on the military and religious outcasts, as they drew forth t...« less