-Iii- · V

Nay, as for her face, it may well be looked at, for she has a complexion like a rose.... Come, compose yourself: I fancy no one thinks ill of you concerning Sabel. The Marquis did not invent gunpowder, that is true enough, and the girl may amuse herself with those of her own class as much as she pleases—witness the dancing to the bagpipe today; but she would not have the impudence to deceive him to his face, with his own chaplain.... Man, let us not make the Marquis so stupid as all that.”

Julián turned round, kneeling rather than sitting upon the turf, with his eyes wide open.

“But... the young master... what has the young master to do with it...?”

The curate of Naya started in his turn, without any fly biting him, and burst into a boyish roar of laughter. Julián, beginning to understand, asked once more:

“Then the child... Perucho....”

Don Eugenio laughed again, to the point of having to wipe his eyes with his checkered handkerchief.

“Do not be offended...” he murmured between laughter and tears. “Do not be offended because I laugh so.... The truth is, I cannot contain myself when laughter seizes me; one day I even made myself ill.... It is like tick... tickling... involuntary....”

The fit of laughter having subsided, he added:

“The fact is I always took you for a blessed innocent, like our patron Saint Julián... but this is going rather too far.... To live at the Pazos and not know what goes on there! Or is it that you wish to play the simpleton?”

“Upon my word, I suspected nothing, nothing, nothing! Do you think I would have stayed there two days had I discovered it before? Authorize a concubinage with my presence? But... are you sure of what you say?”

“Man.... are you looking for fairy tales? Are you blind? Have you not noticed it? Well, keep your eyes open.”

“How should I know! When one has no malice! And the child... unhappy creature! The child inspires me with such pity.... He is being brought up there like a young Moor.... Can it be conceived that there are fathers so heartless?”

“Bah.... Such children, born behind the Church.... Besides, if one listens to this one and that one.... Everyone says what he takes a fancy to.... The girl is as merry as a set of castanets; everyone at the pilgrimages is on familiar terms with her: one treats her to cakes, another to aniseed liqueur, this one takes her out to dance, that one jostles her.... A thousand stories are told.... Did you notice the piper who played today at Mass?”

“A handsome fellow, with whiskers?”

“Precisely. They call him the Rooster by nickname. Well, they say he accompanies her along the roads.... Gossip!”

Behind the orchard wall was heard at that moment merry shouting and silvery bursts of laughter.

“Those are my cousins...” said Don Eugenio. “They are going to the bagpipe, which is playing at the crossroads now. Would you like to come for a little while? Let us see if your annoyance passes off.... There in the house some are praying and others playing.... I never pray over my dinner.”

“Let us go,” answered Julián, who had remained buried in thought.

“We will sit at the foot of the wayside cross.”