de as if he
would turn and accompany him. My lady, who was riding behind him, said to
him in a low voice, 'What are you about, you sneak, don't you see that I
am here?' The alcalde like a polite man pulled up his horse and said to
him, 'Proceed, senor, for it is I, rather, who ought to accompany my lady
Dona Casilda'--for that was my mistress's name. Still my husband, cap in
hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my
lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather
think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with
such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the
ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the
alcalde and the alguacils did the same; the Guadalajara gate was all in
commotion--I mean the idlers congregated there; my mistress came back on
foot, and my husband hurried away to a barber's shop protesting that he
was run right through the guts. The courtesy of my husband was noised
abroad to such an extent, that the boys gave him no peace in the street;
and on this account, and because he was somewhat shortsighted, my lady
dismissed him; and it was chagrin at this I am convinced beyond a doubt
that brought on his death. I was left a helpless widow, with a daughter
on my hands growing up in beauty like the sea-foam; at length, however,
as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my lady the
duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to take me with
her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and here as time
went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in the world; she
sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it like a gipsy, reads
and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like a miser; of her
neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not purer, and her age
is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five months and three days,
one more or less. To come to the point, the son of a very rich farmer,
living in a village of my lord the duke's not very far from here, fell in
love with this girl of mine; and in short, how I know not, they came
together, and under the promise of marrying her he made a fool of my
daughter, and will not keep his word. And though my lord the duke is
aware of it (for I have complained to him, not once but many and many a
time, and entreated him to order the farmer to marry my daughter), he
turns a deaf ear and