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Updated: June 11, 2025
He was, in a sense, a foreigner among foreigners there, and the people were not quizzical, since he was an outsider in any case and not a native returned, as he had been in Normandy. He learned to play pelota, the Basque game taken from the Spaniards, and he even allowed himself a little of that oratory which, as they say, has its habitat chiefly in Gascony.
Its summit, which was broken and irregular, rose full thirty feet from the ground throughout more than double that length, and along the wall, at about two-thirds of a man's height, ran a horizontal black line, indicating, as did also the numerous marks and bruises upon the whitewashed surface, that this ancient piece of masonry enabled the frequenters of the venta to indulge in the favourite juego de pelota, or a game at ball, to which the Navarrese and the northern Spaniards generally are much addicted, and at which most of them excel.
They are the great players of the country, the fine flower of the lithe and the strong; it is for the pelota game of the afternoon that they are consulting, and they make a sign to Ramuntcho who pensively comes to them.
"Pelota" is the father of racquets and fives, and is an immemorially old game, going back, it is said, to the times of the Romans. Instead of using a racquet, it is played with a curved wicker basket strapped on to the right wrist.
A pelota player like you, you should know, was made to please him, in his mind there is nothing superior to that " "But your mother, Gatchutcha, for several days has acted much better to me, I think For example, Sunday, you remember, when I asked you to dance " "Oh! don't trust to that, my Ramuntcho! you mean day before yesterday, after the high mass?
He would remain the Ramuntcho of other times, the "son of Franchita," player of pelota and smuggler, free, freed from everything, owing nothing to and asking nothing from anybody. And he felt serene, without remorse, without fright, either, in this mortuary house, from which the shades had just disappeared, peaceful now and friendly At the frontier, in a mountain hamlet.
From instant to instant, clack! the snap of the pelotas, their sharp noise against the glove which throws them or the wall which receives them, their same noise giving the notion of all the strength displayed Clack! it will snap till the hour of twilight, the pelota, animated furiously by arms powerful and young.
If it chanced to be on a Sunday afternoon, the priest, with his sotana tucked up round his waist, would be found playing the national game of pelota with his flock, using the blank wall of the church as a court. One is apt to forget that Old Castile is one of the provinces having a northern seaboard.
Quick changes from negro to Spanish gangs demonstrated beyond all future question how much more native intelligence has the white man. Rarely did I need to ask a Spaniard a question twice, still less ask him to repeat the answer. His replies came back sharp and swift as a pelota from a cesta.
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