SHOOTING IN SPAIN. 197 



vintage, for having abstracted one bunch of grapes from its 

 holy destination." 



He finished this harangue by announcing his return on 

 the following week, to take an account of the eggs, the 

 poultry, the lambs, and the sucking-pigs; after which he 

 rose, closed his register, and departed as gravely as he 

 entered. 



We happened to have chosen a day appointed for the 

 collection of tithes, and other pious works, for our shooting 

 excursion. Scarcely had the leclmzo turned heel, when 

 another scarecrow entered, dressed in grey woollen, with a 

 cord around his loins, and on the left a chaplet of great noisy 

 beads, attached to a crucifix, trailing on the ground. He 

 first saluted us in bad Latin, then in good Spanish, and 

 demanded alms for the convent of St. Frangois, but in an 

 easy kind of style, more significant of an order than a request. 

 This was not the kind of charity that a cuarto would satisfy, 

 but it was necessary to fill with different provisions the half 

 of a great sack on the back of a donkey at the gate. Whilst 

 this was in progress of performance, and swallowing a large 

 tumbler of wine which was poured out for him, the purveyor 

 of St. Frangois complimented the host on the late good har- 

 vest, which he affirmed was entirely owing to the prayers 

 and orisons of the reverend Franciscan fathers; offered a 

 pinch of snuff to the farmer, pinched the cheek of his wife, 

 threw a few dried raisins, which he took from his dirty 

 pocket, to the children, and, laughing in his sleeve, repaired 

 to the next cottage, to fill the other half of his sack. 



After this came a third, dressed in a coarse chocolate- 

 coloured robe, with a thick hood, covering the head as far as 

 the nose; a grizzled beard descended to his waist, and his 

 naked feet were enclosed in well-worn sandals. This indivi- 

 dual remained at the threshold, bowed to the ground, and 

 muttered an ave Maria parissima, when, casting down his 



