“Your daughter appears inclined to obey your wishes,” said the Priest. “But if not, you remember your vow to our holy Church; and let your heart be steeled, and your honour unsullied, as was that of your noble predecessors. Let me feel confident that your wife’s dying request may be fulfilled, and again swear, that as long as the count urges his suit to your daughter, she shall accept him, or become the bride of Heaven.”
“Father, I have already said so, and I again swear, that she shall marry the man I choose, or assume the veil,” exclaimed the Fidalgo.
“I am satisfied,” said the Priest.
End of the First Volume.
Volume Two—Chapter One.
In painting a true picture of times and events, we must introduce among our figures the wealthy and great, the wicked, the wretched, and the indigent, or we should present no true likeness of the world as it exists; but we must also beg leave to bring forward a personage who was certainly not wealthy or great; who vowed that he was not wicked, for he performed his duty to God and man; who was not wretched, for he was singing all day long; while he declared that he could not be indigent, for he possessed abundance to supply all his wants, though, fortunately for himself, they were very few.
This personage was a cobbler. Now, it is a curious fact, which no one will venture to dispute, that, from the time of the cobbler who tacked the bits of Ali Baba’s brother together, as mentioned in the authentic history of the Forty Thieves—with which we trust all our readers are acquainted—to the days of the celebrated cobbler who lived in a stall, “which served him for parlour, and kitchen, and hall,” cobblers have borne a strong similarity to each other, with distinctive qualities separating them from other men, as can be proved by the above and numerous other instances, both in all countries and all ages.
In England, a tailor is looked upon, not only as inferior to other men, but actually to be of no more consideration than the ninth part of a man: now, in Portugal, the same unjust sort of prejudice exists against shoemakers; consequently, cobblers are considered utterly below all notice.