‘Anthony was then studying at Villagarcia, and already in the fourth class, as hath been said, and in the twenty-fifth year of his age. The fortnight vacation for the Holy and Easter Week arrived, and he went home to his own town, as is the custom for all those students whose home is within a short distance. The Devil, who never sleeps, tempted him to play the penitent on Maunday Thursday; for, as our young Penitent was now well shot up and his beard grown, he looked lovingly upon a Damsel that had been a neighbour of his, ever since they went to School together to the clerk of the Parish, to learn the horn-book; and in order to court her in the most winning manner, he thought it expedient to go forth as a disciplinant: as this, the Reader is to know, is one of the gallantries with which the Women of Campos are most pleased; for it is a very old observation there, that the greatest part of the marriages are concerted on the day of the cross of the May, on the evenings on which there is dancing, and on _Maunday Thursday_: some of the Women being so very devout and compunctious, that they are as much delighted with seeing the instruments of discipline applied, as with the rattling of the castanets. ‘The rogue of an Anthony was not ignorant of this inclination of the girls of his Town, and therefore went out as disciplinant, on Maunday Thursday, as we have above said. At a league’s distance he might, notwithstanding his mask, and his hood which hung down almost to his waist, have been known by Catanla Rebollo, which was the name of his sweetheart, neighbour, and old school-fellow; for, besides that there was no other cap in the whole procession so spruce or so stiff-standing as his, he wore as a mark, a black girdle which she had given him, upon his taking leave of her on Luke’s-day, to go to Villagarcia. She never took her eyes from him, during the time he was passing near her; and he, who knew it well, took that opportunity to redouble the briskness of his discipline, making her, by the way, unobserved by others, two little amorous obeisances by nodding his cap: which is one of the tender passes that never fail to win the hearts of the marriageable girls, who are very attentive to it; and the bumkin who knows how to do it with most grace, may pick and choose among them, though at the same time he may not be the most expert at the rural games and exercises.