With all this she was a
little of a slattern, something more of a lie-abed, and, above all,
a gossip of the first water; neglecting house, household, and every
thing else, to loiter slipshod in the houses of her gossip neighbors.
He, however, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, accommodates
the yoke of matrimony to the submissive neck. Peregil bore all the
heavy dispensations of wife and children with as meek a spirit as
his donkey bore the water-jars; and, however he might shake his ears
in private, never ventured to question the household virtues of his
slattern spouse.
He loved his children too even as an owl loves its owlets, seeing in
them his own image multiplied and perpetuated; for they were a sturdy,
long-backed, bandy-legged little brood. The great pleasure of honest
Peregil was, whenever he could afford himself a scanty holiday, and
had a handful of marevedis to spare, to take the whole litter forth
with him, some in his arms, some tugging at his skirts, and some
trudging at his heels, and to treat them to a gambol among the
orchards of the Vega, while his wife was dancing with her holiday
friends in the Angosturas of the Darro.
It was a late hour one summer night, and most of the
water-carriers had desisted from their toils. The day had been
uncommonly sultry; the night was one of those delicious moonlights,
which tempt the inhabitants of southern climes to indemnify themselves
for the heat and inaction of the day, by lingering in the open air,
and enjoying its tempered sweetness until after midnight.
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