Here, under
the admonition and tuition of his wife, he became a personage of
some consequence, for she made the worthy little man array his long
body and short legs in doublet and hose, with a feather in his hat and
a sword by his side, and laying aside his familiar appellation of
Peregil, assume the more sonorous title of Don Pedro Gil: his
progeny grew up a thriving and merry-hearted, though short and
bandy-legged generation, while Senora Gil, befringed, belaced, and
betasselled from her head to her heels, with glittering rings on every
finger, became a model of slattern fashion and finery.
As to the alcalde and his adjuncts, they remained shut up under
the great Tower of the Seven Floors, and there they remain spell-bound
at the present day. Whenever there shall be a lack in Spain of pimping
barbers, sharking alguazils, and corrupt alcaldes, they may be
sought after; but if they have to wait until such time for their
deliverance, there is danger of their enchantment enduring until
doomsday.
The Tower of Las Infantas.
IN AN evening's stroll up a narrow glen, overshadowed by fig
trees, pomegranates, and myrtles, which divides the lands of the
fortress from those of the Generalife, I was struck with the
romantic appearance of a Moorish tower in the outer wall of the
Alhambra, rising high above the tree-tops, and catching the ruddy rays
of the setting sun.
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