"Rascals! Devils!"
These scandals touched Don Joaquín to the quick and gave impetus next day to the relentless cane. What would people say of his school, the temple of good-breeding!
The battle would not end until some passing carter would brandish his whip, or until some old chap would come from the farm-houses, cudgel in hand, when the aggressors would flee, and disperse, repenting of their deed on seeing themselves alone, thinking fearfully, with the rapid shifting of impressions characteristic of childhood, of that bird who knew everything and of what Don Joaquín would have in store for them the following day.
And meanwhile, the three brothers would continue on their way, rubbing the bruises they had received in the battle.
One afternoon, Batiste's poor wife sent up a cry to heaven on seeing the state in which her young ones arrived.
The battle had been a fierce one! Ah! the bandits! The two older ones were bruised as usual; nothing to worry about.
But the little boy, the Bishop, as his mother called him caressingly, was wet from head to foot, and the poor little fellow was crying and trembling from cold and fear.
The savage young rascals had thrown him into a canal of stagnant water and his brothers had fished him out covered with disgusting black mud.
The mother put him to bed, for the poor little chap was still trembling in her arms, clinging around her neck, and murmuring with a voice that sounded like the bleating of a lamb,
"Mother! Mother!"