His usual
gayety was at an end, he had no longer a joke or a song for his
neighbors, and, in short, became the most miserable animal in the
Alhambra. His old comrades remarked this alteration, pitied him
heartily, and began to desert him; thinking he must be falling into
want, and in danger of looking to them for assistance. Little did they
suspect that his only calamity was riches.
The wife of Lope Sanchez shared his anxiety, but then she had
ghostly comfort. We ought before this to have mentioned that Lope,
being rather a light inconsiderate little man, his wife was
accustomed, in all grave matters, to seek the counsel and ministry
of her confessor Fray Simon, a sturdy, broad-shouldered, blue-bearded,
bullet-headed friar of the neighboring convent of San Francisco, who
was in fact the spiritual comforter of half the good wives of the
neighborhood. He was moreover in great esteem among divers sisterhoods
of nuns; who requited him for his ghostly services by frequent
presents of those little dainties and knick-knacks manufactured in
convents, such as delicate confections, sweet biscuits, and bottles of
spiced cordials, found to be marvellous restoratives after fasts and
vigils.
Fray Simon thrived in the exercise of his functions. His oily skin
glistened in the sunshine as he toiled up the hill of the Alhambra
on a sultry day. Yet notwithstanding his sleek condition, the
knotted rope round his waist showed the austerity of his
self-discipline; the multitude doffed their caps to him as a mirror of
piety, and even the dogs scented the odor of sanctity that exhaled
from his garments, and howled from their kennels as he passed.
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