ing this year. One as superstitiously prejudiced against
Roman Catholic rule as she was in favor of it, would have found, in the
way things fell out, ample reason for a belief that the Senora was
being punished for having let all the affairs of her place come to a
standstill, to await the coming of an old monk. But the pious Senora,
looking at the other side of the shield, was filled with gratitude
that, since all this ill luck was to befall her, she had the good Father
Salvierderra at her side to give her comfort and counsel.

It was not yet quite noon of the first day, when Felipe fainted and fell
in the wool; and it was only a little past noon of the third, when
Juan Canito, who, not without some secret exultation, had taken Senor
Felipe's place at the packing, fell from the cross-beam to the ground,
and broke his right leg,--a bad break near the knee; and Juan Canito's
bones were much too old for fresh knitting. He would never again be able
to do more than hobble about on crutches, dragging along the useless
leg. It was a cruel blow to the old man. He could not be resigned to
it. He lost faith in his saints, and privately indulged in blasphemous
beratings and reproaches of them, which would have filled the Senora
with terror, had she known that such blasphemies were being committed
under her roof.

"As many times as I have crossed that plank, in my day!" cried Juan;
"only the fiends themselves could have made me trip; and there was that
whole box of candles I paid for with my own money last month, and burned
to Saint Francis in the chapel for this very sheep-shearing! He may sit
in the dark, for all me, to the end of time! He is no saint at all! What
are they for, if not to keep us from harm when we pray to them? I'll
pray no more. I believe the Americans are right, who laugh at us." From
morning till night, and nearly from night till morning, for the leg
ached so he slept little, poor Juan groaned and grumbled and swore, and
swore and grumbled and groaned. Taking care of him was enough, Margarita
said, to wear out the patience of the Madonna herself. There was no
pleasing him, whatever you did, and his tongue was never still a minute.
For her part, she believed that it must be as he said, that the fiends
had pushed him off the plank, and that the saints had had their reasons
for leaving him to his fate. A coldness and suspicion gradually grew up
in the minds of all the servants towards him. His own reckless languag