For A Day Or Two After My Arrival I
Believed Myself To Be The Only Lodger In The House.
One morning,
however, I beheld a strange-looking old man seated in the corridor,
by one of the windows,
Reading intently in a small thick volume.
He was clad in garments of coarse blue cloth, and wore a loose
spencer over a waistcoat adorned with various rows of small buttons
of mother of pearl; he had spectacles upon his nose. I could
perceive, notwithstanding he was seated, that his stature bordered
upon the gigantic. "Who is that person?" said I to the landlord,
whom I presently met; "is he also a guest of yours?" "Not exactly,
Don Jorge de mi alma," replied he, "I can scarcely call him a
guest, inasmuch as I gain nothing by him, though he is staying at
my house. You must know, Don Jorge, that he is one of two priests
who officiate at a large village at some slight distance from this
place. So it came to pass, that when the soldiers of Gomez entered
the village, his reverence went to meet them, dressed in full
canonicals, with a book in his hand, and he, at their bidding,
proclaimed Carlos Quinto in the market-place. The other priest,
however, was a desperate liberal, a downright negro, and upon him
the royalists laid their hands, and were proceeding to hang him.
His reverence, however, interfered, and obtained mercy for his
colleague, on condition that he should cry Viva Carlos Quinto!
which the latter did in order to save his life.
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