When we came to Don Alonso’s house, they laid us very gently on to two beds, for fear of rattling our bones, they were so bare with starving; then with magnifying glasses they began to search all about our faces for our eyes, and were a long time before they could find out mine, because I had suffered most, being treated like a servant, and consequently mine was a royal hunger. Physicians were called, who ordered the dust should be wiped off our mouths with foxtails, as if we had been paintings; and indeed we looked like the picture of death; and that we should be nourished with good broths and light meats, for fear of overloading our weak stomachs. Who can be able to express the rejoicing there was in our guts, the first good soup that we tasted, and afterwards when we came to eat some fowl? All these things to them were unknown novelties. The doctors gave order that for nine days nobody should talk in our chamber, because our stomachs were so empty that the least word returned an echo in them. These and suchlike precautions used caused our spirits to return to us in some measure; but our jaws were so tanned and shrivelled up that there was no stretching of them, and therefore care was taken that they should be every day gently forced out, and, as it were, set upon the last with the bottom of a pestle. In a few days we got up to try our limbs, but still we looked like the shadows of other men, and so lean and pale as if we were lineally descended from the fathers in the desert. We spent the whole day in praising God for having delivered us out of the clutches of the most inhuman Cabra, and offered up our earnest prayers, that no Christian might ever fall into that miserable thraldom. If ever, when we were eating, we happened to think of the miserable boarding school table, it made us so hungry that we devoured twice as much as at any other time. We used to tell Don Alonso, how, when Cabra sat down to table, he would inveigh against gluttony though he never knew anything of it in his life; and he laughed heartily when we informed him that, in speaking of the commandment “Thou shall not kill,” he made it extend to partridges and capons, and such other dainties as never came within his doors, and even to killing of hunger, which he certainly counted a heinous sin, and therefore had an aversion to all eating. We were three whole months upon our recovery, and at the end thereof Don Alonso began to think of sending his son to Alcalá, to finish his Humanity. He asked me whether I would go, and I thinking I could never be far enough from that inhuman monster of misery and famine, offered to serve his son faithfully, as experience should show. He provided him another servant, in the nature of steward, to look after him, and give an account of the money he sent for his expenses, by bill upon one Julian Merluza. We put all our equipage into a cart belonging to one Diego Monge; it consisted of a small bed for our master, and a truckle bed to run under it, for me and the steward whose name was Aranda, five quilts, four pair of sheets, eight pillows, four hangings, a trunk of linen, and other furniture for a house. We went ourselves into a coach in the evening, a little before nightfall, and about midnight came to the ever accursed lone inn of Viveros. The innkeeper was a Morisco, and a downright thief; and all my life I never saw cat and dog so united in peace as that day.9 He received us very lovingly, because he and the carters went snacks, for we travelled so slowly that they were there before us. He came to the coach-side, gave me his hand to alight, and asked me, “Whether I was going to the University?” I told him I was. He put me into the house, where two bullies were with some wenches, a curate praying by them, an old covetous shopkeeper endeavouring to forget his supper, and two scoundrelly shabby scholars, contriving how to fill their bellies free of cost. My master, as being the last comer and but a boy, said, “Landlord, get what you have in the house for me and two servants.” “We are all your servants, sir,” said the sharpers, “and will wait on you. Here, landlord, take notice; this gentleman will stand treat; fetch out all you have in the larder.” This said, one of them stepped up to Don Diego, and taking off his cloak, laid it by, saying, “Pray, sir, sit down and rest you.” This puffed me up so full of vanity that the inn was too little to hold me. One of the damsels said, “What a well shaped gentleman it is; is he going to his studies? Are you his servant, sir?” I, fancying that every word they said was sincere, answered, “That I and the other were both his servants.” They asked me his name, and it was scarce out of my mouth, before one of the scholars went up to him, with tears in his eyes, and embracing him, as if he had been his brother, said, “O my dear Don Diego! who would have thought, ten years ago, to have seen you thus. Unhappy man, I am in such a condition that you will not know me.” My master and I were both amazed, and swore we had never seen him in all our days. The scholar’s companion stared Don Diego in the face, and said to his friend, “Is this the gentleman of whose father you told me so many stories? It is extraordinary fortunate that we have met him, and know him. He is grown very tall; God bless him.” With this he began to cross himself, and seemed so overjoyed, that any man would have thought we had been brought up together. Don Diego made him many compliments; and as he was asking him his name, out came the innkeeper, and laid the cloth; and smelling the joke, said, “Let that alone and talk of it after supper, for the meat will be cold.” One of the bullies stepped up, and set stools for everybody, and an arm chair for Don Diego; the other of them brought in a dish. The scholars said, “Do you sup, sir, and whilst they dress what the house affords for us, we will wait on you at table.” “God forbid,” answered Don Diego; “pray, gentlemen, sit down if you please.” The bullies, though he did not speak to them, readily answered, “Presently, good sir; all is not ready yet.” When I saw some invited and the others invite themselves, my heart was in my mouth, and I dreaded what came to pass; for the scholars laying hold of the salad, which was a good dishful, and looking upon my master, said, “It would be unreasonable that these ladies should be left supperless, where a gentleman of such quality is; pray, sir, give them leave to take a bit.” My master, like a true cully, invited them to partake. They sat down, and between the scholars and them, in a trice, there was but one single lettuce of all the salad left, which last bit Don Diego had; and as the accursed students gave it him, he said, “Sir, you had a grandfather, who was my father’s uncle, that swooned at the sight of a lettuce; he was a man of such an odd disposition.” This said, he fetched himself down a brick of bread, and his companion did the like. The damsels had made a great hole in a good loaf; but yet the poor curate ate more than all of them with his eyes and wishes. The bullies bringing in a whole side of kid roasted, and a dish of pigeons and bacon boiled, took their places at the table, saying to the priest, “Why, father, what makes you stand there? Draw near and reach a bit, for Don Diego treats us all.” No sooner were the words spoken but he sat down. When my master perceived that they had all intruded upon him he began to be much concerned. They divided the spoil, giving Don Diego some few bones to pick; the rest the curate and the others devoured. The bullies said, “Pray, sir, do not eat too much supper, lest it does you harm”; and the devil of a scholar answered, “Besides, sir, you must begin to practice to be abstemious considering the life you are to lead at Alcalá.” I and the other servant prayed heartily that God would put it into their hearts to leave something; and when they had devoured every bit, and the curate was picking the bones over again, one of the bullies turned about, and said, “God bless us, we have left nothing for the servants; come hither, gentlemen. Here, landlord, give them all the house affords; take this pistole to pay for it.” Up started immediately my master’s confounded imaginary kinsman, I mean the scholar, saying, “With your leave, good sir, I must tell you, I fear your breeding is not much; it is a sign you are not acquainted with my cousin; he will provide for his own servants and for ours too, if we had any, as he has done for us.” “Be not in a passion, sir,” replied the other, “we did not know so much before.” When I saw all this sly dissimulation, I began to curse them and thought I should never have done. The cloth was taken away, and they all desired Don Diego to go to bed. He would have paid for the supper, but they answered that in the morning would be time enough. They stayed a while chatting together; my master asked the scholar his name, and he answered Don something Coronel. The devil confound the deceitful dog, whosoever he is. Then perceiving that the griping shopkeeper was asleep, he said, “Will you have a little sport, sir, to make you laugh? Let us put some trick upon this fellow, who has eaten but one pear upon the road, and is as rich as a Jew.” The bullies cried, “God-a-mercy, Master Licentiate, do so, it is but right.” With this approbation he drew near the poor sleeping old fellow, and slipped a wallet from under his feet, untied it, and took out a box, all the company flocking about, as if it had been lawful prize taken in war. He opened it, and found it full of lozenges; all which he took out, and supplied their place with stones, chips, and any rubbish that came next to hand, then laid about a dozen of little glittering stones there are among some fine lime with which in Spain, they plaster the outsides of houses, which glitters in the sun like bits of glass. This done, he shut up the box, and said, “I have not done yet, for he has a leather bottle”; out of which he poured all the wine, only some little he left in the bottom, and then stuffed it up with tow and wool, and stopped it. The scholar put all again into the wallet, and a great stone into the hood of his travelling coat, and then he and all the rest went to bed, to sleep about an hour or little more.

When it was time to set out, all the company waked and got up, and still the old man slept; they called him and he could not get up for the weight of the stone that was in his hood. He looked to see what it was, and the innkeeper pretended to quarrel with him, saying, “God o’ my life, could you pick up nothing else to carry away, father, but this stone? I had been finely served, gentlemen, if I had not discovered it; I value it above an hundred crowns because it is good for the pain in the stomach.” The old man swore and cursed that he had not put it into his hood; the bullies reckoned up the bill, which came to six crowns; but the best arithmetician in Christendom could never have made out that sum. The scholars asked what service they could do us at Alcalá; the reckoning was paid, we breakfasted, and the old man took up his wallet; but for fear we should see what he had in it, and so he might be obliged to distribute any, he untied it in the dark under his great coat, and laid hold of a bit of lime well daubed, which he clapped into his mouth, and going to crunch it with a tooth and a half he had, was like to lose them both. He began to spit and make faces, what with the pain, and what with the loathsome bit he had put into his mouth. We all went up to him, and the curate among the first, asking, “What ailed him?” He began to curse and swear, dropped down the wallet, and the scholar came up to him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan; here is the cross.” The other opened a breviary and would persuade him he was possessed, till at last he told what ailed him, and begged they would give him leave to wash his mouth with some wine he had in his leather bottle. They let him go, he opened his bottle, and pouring into a small dish, out came a little wine, so hairy and full of tow, that there was no drinking or enduring the sight of it. Then the old man fell a raving beyond measure, but seeing all the company burst their sides with laughing, he was fain to grow calm, and get up into the wagon with the bullies and wenches. The curate and scholars mounted on asses, and we went into the coach. We were scarce gone from the door before they all began to banter and ridicule us, declaring the trick they had put upon us. The innkeeper cried, “Good master freshman, a few of these handsels will make you old and wise.” The cursed scholar said, “Pray, cousin, the next time scratch when it itches, and not afterwards.” In short, everyone had his say; but we thought best to take no notice, though, God knows, we were quite out of countenance. At length we got to Alcalá and alighted at an inn, where we spent all that day, for we came in at nine in the morning, in reckoning up the particulars of our last supper, but could never make out the account.