I held on my journey to Madrid, and my mad companion went off to go another road; when he had gone a little way he turned back very hastily, and calling on me as loud as he could, though we were in the open where none could hear us, he whispered in my ear, "Pray, Sir, let me conjure you, as you hope to live, not to discover any of the mighty secrets I have acquainted you with, relating to the art of fencing, but keep them to yourself, since you are a man of sound judgment." I promised so to do; he went his way again, and I fell a-laughing at the comical secret. I travelled about a league without meeting anybody, and was considering with myself how difficult a matter it was for me to tread the paths of virtue and honour, since it was requisite, in the first place, that I should hide the scandal of my parents, and then have so much worth myself as to conceal me from their shame. These thoughts seemed to me so honourable, that I congratulated myself on them, and said, "It will be much more honourable in me, who had none to learn virtue from, than in those who had it hereditary from their predecessors." My head was full of these ideas, when I overtook a very old clergyman riding on a mule towards Madrid. We fell into discourse, and he asked me whence I came? I told him, from Alcalá. "God's curse," said he, "on those low people, since there was not one man of sense to be found among them." I asked how could that be said of such a town, where there were so many learned men? He answered, in a great passion, "Learned! I'll tell you how learned, Sir! I have for these fourteen years last past made all the songs and ballads and the verses for the bedels at Corpus Christi and Christmas, in the village of Majalahonda,[15] where I am reader; and those you call learned men, when I put up some of my works among the rest, at the public act, took no notice of mine. And that you may be sensible, good Sir, of the wrong they did me, I will read them to you;" and accordingly he began as follows: _Come, shepherds, let us dance and play_ _On great saint Corpus Christi's day;_ _For he comes down to give its thanks,_ _For all our kind and loving pranks._ _When we have drunk and made all even,_ _He flies back again to heaven._ _What he does there I cannot say,_ _Since here with us he will not stay._ _Come, shepherds, let us dance and play, &c._ [Illustration]