The don asked me what I should say for myself when the affair should be found out. I replied that I would plead hunger, the common sanctuary of all scholars; and if that was not enough, I would urge that, seeing them come into the house without knocking, just as if they had been at home, I really thought that they were ours. They all laughed, and Don Diego said, “By my faith, Paul, you begin to understand the trade.” It was well worth observing the difference between my master and me; he so sober and religious, I so arch and roguish, so that the one was a foil to the other, and served to set off either his virtue or his vice. Our old housekeeper was pleased to the very heart, for we both played our parts, and conspired against the larder. I was caterer, and a mere Judas in my employment, ever since retaining an inclination for cribbing and stealing. The meat always wasted in the old woman’s keeping, and she never dressed wedder mutton when she could get ewe or goat. Besides, she picked the flesh off the bones before she boiled them, so that the dishes she served up looked as if the cattle had all died of a consumption. The broth was so clear, that had it been as hard as the bones, it might have passed for crystal; but when she wanted to make it seem a little fat, she clapped in a few candles’ ends. When I was by, she would say to my master, “In truth, sir, Paul is the best servant in Spain, bating his unluckiness, but that may well enough be borne with, because he is so honest.” I gave her the same character, and so we put upon the whole house between us.
When I bought anything at market for the real value, the old body would pretend to fall out and quarrel; and she, seeming to be in a passion, would say, “Do not tell me, Paul, that this is a pennyworth of salad.” At this I pretended to cry and make a great noise, beseeching my master that he would please to send the steward, that he might prove the base calumny of the scolding old woman. By such simple means did we both retain our character for honesty; she appearing to look sharp after me, and I always being found out to be trustworthy. Don Diego, highly pleased, would often say, “Would to God, Paul were as virtuous in other ways as he is honest; I see, my good woman, he is even better than you represent him.” It was thus we had leisure and opportunity to feast on them like horse-leeches.
If you ask how much we might cheat them of in the year’s round, I can only say it amounted to a considerable sum; yet the old woman never missed going to church daily, nor did I perceive any scruple of conscience she made of it, though she was so great a saint. She always wore a pair of beads about her neck, so big, that the wood of them might have served to roast a sirloin of beef. It was all hung with medals, crosses, pictures, and other trinkets, on all which, she said, she prayed every night for her benefactors. She would pray longer than any fanatical preacher, always in dog Latin, the sound of which almost made us split our sides with laughter.
The old woman kept fowls, and had about a dozen fine grown chickens, which made my mouth water, for they were fit for any gentleman’s table. It happened one day, going to feed them, she called, as is the custom in Spain, very loud: “Pio, Pio, Pio.” She repeated it so often, that I cried out in a pretended rage—
“’Fore God! nurse, I wish I had seen you kill a man, or clip and coin, for then I might have kept your counsel; but now I must be forced to discover you. The Lord have mercy upon us both, I say.”
She, seeing me in such disorder, was somewhat alarmed: “Why, Paul,” she said, “what have I done? pray do not jest with me.”
“Jest with you, forsooth, a curse on your iniquity! I cannot avoid giving information to the Inquisition, or I shall be excommunicated.”
“Oh Lord! the Inquisition; have I committed any crime, then?”
“Have you not?” I answered; “ don’t think to trifle with the Inquisitors; own you are in the wrong; eat your own words as fast as you can, and deny not the blasphemy and irreverence.”
She replied in great consternation: “But, Paul, will they punish me if I recant?”