“Your worship can do no better; and allow me here to tell you, that for every single book you might sell in a _despacho_ in the city, you may dispose of one hundred amongst the villages, always provided you offer them cheap; for in the country money is rather scant. _Vaya_! should I not know? am I not a villager myself, a _villana_ from the Sagra? Ride forth, therefore: your horses are neighing in the stall, as your worship says, and you might almost have added that the _Señor_ Antonio is neighing in the house. He says he has nothing to do, on which account he is once more dissatisfied and unsettled. He finds fault with everything, but more particularly with myself. This morning I saluted him, and he made me no reply, but twisted his mouth in a manner very uncommon in this land of Spain.” “A thought strikes me,” said I; “you have mentioned the Sagra; why should not I commence my labours amongst the villages of that district?” “Your worship can do no better,” replied Maria; “the harvest is just over there, and you will find the people comparatively unemployed, with leisure to attend and listen to you; and if you follow my advice, you will establish yourself at Villa Seca, in the house of my fathers, where at present lives my lord and husband. Go, therefore, to Villa Seca in the first place, and from thence you can sally forth with the _Señor_ Antonio upon your excursions. Peradventure, my husband will accompany you; and if so, you will find him highly useful. The people of Villa Seca are civil and courteous, your worship; when they address a foreigner, they speak to him at the top of their voice and in Gallegan.” “In Gallegan!” I exclaimed. “They all understand a few words of Gallegan, which they have acquired from the mountaineers, who occasionally assist them in cutting the harvest, and as Gallegan is the only foreign language they know, they deem it but polite to address a foreigner in that tongue. _Vaya_! it is not a bad village, that of Villa Seca, nor are the people; the only ill-conditioned person living there is his reverence the curate.” I was not long in making preparations for my enterprise. A considerable stock of Testaments were sent forward by an _arriero_, I myself followed the next day. Before my departure, however, I received a visit from Benedict Mol. “I am come to bid you farewell, _lieber Herr_; tomorrow I return to Compostella.” “On what errand?” “To dig up the _Schatz_, _lieber Herr_. For what else should I go? For what have I lived until now, but that I may dig up the _Schatz_ in the end?” “You might have lived for something better,” I exclaimed. “I wish you success, however. But on what grounds do you hope? Have you obtained permission to dig? Surely you remember your former trials in Galicia?”