"Your worship need not fear," quoth the steward, "since we are with you."
"But now that Doctor Pedro Rezio is gone," quoth Sancho, "may I not have something to eat of substance and weight, though it were but a luncheon of bread and an onion?"
"At night your honor shall have no cause to complain," quoth the sewer; "supper shall make up for the want of dinner."
The countryman, who was of goodly presence, then came in, and it might be seen a thousand leagues off that he was an honest, good soul.
"Which among you here is the lord governor?" said he.
"Who should it be," answered the secretary, "but he who is seated in the chair?"
"I humble myself in his presence," quoth the countryman; and kneeling down, he begged for his hand to kiss.
Sancho refused it, and commanded him to rise and tell his business. The countryman did so, and said: "My lord, I am a husbandman, a native of Miguel Terra, two leagues from Ciudad Real."
"What! another Tirteafuera?" quoth Sancho. "Say on, brother; for let me tell you, I know Miguel Terra very well; it is not very far from my own village."
"The business is this, sir," continued the peasant: "by the mercy of Heaven I was married in peace and in the face of the holy Roman Catholic Church. I have two sons, bred scholars; the younger studies for bachelor, and the elder for licentiate. I am a widower, for my wife died, or rather a wicked physician killed her by improper medicines when she was pregnant; and if it had been God's will that the child had been born, and had proved a son, I would have put him to study for doctor, that he might not envy his two brothers, the bachelor and the licentiate."
"So that, if your wife," quoth Sancho, "had not died, or had not been killed, you would not now be a widower."
"No, certainly, my lord," answered the peasant.
"We are much the nearer," replied Sancho; "go on, friend, for this is an hour rather for bed than business."
"I say, then," quoth the countryman, "that my son who is to be the bachelor fell in love with a damsel in the same village, called Clara Perlerino, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer; which name of Perlerino came to them not by lineal or any other descent, but because all of that race are paralytic; and to mend the name, they call them Perlerinos. Indeed, to say the truth, the damsel is like any oriental pearl, and looked at on the right side seems a very flower of the field; but on the left not quite so fair, for on that side she wants an eye, which she lost by the small-pox; and though the pits in her face are many and deep, her admirers say they are not pits but graves wherein the hearts of her lovers are buried. So clean and delicate, too, is she, that to prevent defiling her face, she carries her nose so hooked up that it seems to fly from her mouth; yet for all that she looks charmingly, for she has a large mouth, and did she not lack half a score or a dozen front teeth she might pass and make a figure among the fairest. I say nothing of her lips, for they are so thin that, were it the fashion to reel lips, one might make a skein of them; but, being of a different color from what is usual in lips, they have a marvellous appearance, for they are streaked with blue, green, and orange-tawny. Pardon me, good my lord governor, if I paint so minutely the parts of her who is about to become my daughter; for in truth I love and admire her more than I can tell."