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"We counted ourselves yesterday in Naharilla Alta," said Vejarruco, "and we were thirteen ready for any little undertaking. But as we were afraid the mistress might be vexed, we did nothing. It is time now for the shearing." "Don't mind about the shearing," said Dona Perfecta. "There will be time enough for it. It won't be left undone for that."
Licurgo and the three countrymen laughed boisterously. "When the soldiers and the new authorities," said Dona Perfecta, "have taken from us our last real, when the town has been disgraced, we will send all the valiant men of Orbajosa in a glass case to Madrid to be put in the museum there or exhibited in the streets." "Long life to the mistress!" cried the man called Vejarruco demonstratively.
They were Senor Paso Largo, a young man named Frasquito Gonzales, and a third, a man of medium stature and robust make, who was called Vejarruco, although his real name was Jose Esteban Romero. Caballuco turned back, tempted by the agreeable society of these persons, who were old and intimate friends of his, and accompanied them to Dona Perfecta's house.
"Senor Vejarruco, Senor Paso Largo," continued Dona Perfecta, without looking at the bravo of the place, "I am not safe in my own house. No one in Orbajosa is, and least of all, I. I live with my heart in my mouth. I cannot close my eyes in the whole night." "But who, who would dare "
"Yesterday," said Vejarruco, "some soldiers enticed away Uncle Julian's youngest daughter, and the poor thing was afraid to go back home; they found her standing barefooted beside the old fountain, crying and picking up the pieces of her broken jar." "Poor Don Gregorio Palomeque, the notary of Naharilla Alta!" said Frasquito. "Those rascals robbed him of all the money he had in his house.
Of what use am I? None, none!" "May I be devoured by dogs," exclaimed Vejarruco, shaking his fist, which had all the hardness and the strength of a hammer, "if we do not soon make an end of that thievish rabble!" "They say that next week they will begin to pull down the cathedral," observed Frasquito. "I suppose they will pull it down with pickaxes and hammers," said the canon, smiling.
"In Madrid, as the curate of Naharilla told us the other night," said Vejarruco, "there are so few churches left standing that some of the priests say mass in the middle of the street, and as they are beaten and insulted and spat upon, there are many who don't wish to say it." "Fortunately here, my children," observed Don Inocencio, "we have not yet had scenes of that nature. Why?
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