"It is fourteen leagues from here."
"Then take yourself off."
"Senhor Captain—"
"Take yourself off before you are shot or hanged. Ferreira, Da Silva, take his weapons. He can keep his horse because it's his own."
The scared peasant flushed and would have answered. But his boor's personality was top-heavy and lop-sided, and he went down like a skittle before the captain's next ball.
"Go home this instant!" bellowed the captain. And helped by the friendly hustling of his wiser comrades, José soon found himself hoisted on his old horse and ambling under the camellias toward his mother's roof-tree.
Meanwhile a lay-brother had returned from the Abbot's cell. In a loud voice and with a ceremonious air he said:
"The most excellent and most reverend Lord Abbot is at the service of your Excellencies."