he Spaniards, and
in the end placed the king on his throne again. When the war was over
the Faith was disbanded; some of the foreigners, however, amongst whom I
was one, were put into a Guard regiment, and there I continued for more
than a year.

"One day, being at a place called the Escurial, I took stock, as the
tradesmen say, and found I possessed the sum of eighty dollars, won by
playing at cards; for though I could not play so well with the foreign
cards as with the pack ye gave me, Shorsha, I had yet contrived to win
money from the priests and soldiers of the Faith. Finding myself
possessed of such a capital I determined to leave the service, and to
make the best of my way to Ireland; so I deserted, but coming in an evil
hour to a place they calls Torre Lodones, I found the priest playing at
cards with his parishioners. The sight of the cards made me stop, and
then, fool like, notwithstanding the treasure I had about me, I must wish
to play, so not being able to speak their language I made signs to them
to let me play, and the priest and his thaives consented willingly; so I
sat down to cards with the priest and two of his parishioners, and in a
little time had won plenty of their money, but I had better never have
done any such a thing, for suddenly the priest and all his parishioners
set upon me and bate me, and took from me all I had, and cast me out of
the village more dead than alive. Och! it's a bad village that, and if I
had known what it was I would have avoided it, or run straight through
it, though I saw all the card-playing in the world going on in it. There
is a proverb about it, as I was afterwards told, old as the time of the
Moors, which holds good to the present day--it is, that in Torre Lodones
there are twenty-four housekeepers, and twenty-five thieves, maning that
all the people are thaives, and the clergyman to boot, who is not
reckoned a housekeeper; and troth I found the clergyman the greatest
thaif of the lot. After being cast out of that village I travelled for
nearly a month, subsisting by begging tolerably well, for though most of
the Spaniards are thaives, they are rather charitable; but though
charitable thaives they do not like their own being taken from them
without leave being asked, as I found to my cost; for on my entering a
garden near Seville, without leave, to take an orange, the labourer came
running up and struck me to the ground with a hatchet, giving me a big
wound in