I spent about a week at Toledo, during which time several copies of the Testament were disposed of in the shop of my friend the bookseller. Several priests took it up from the _mostrador_ on which it lay, examined it, but made no remarks; none of them purchased it. My friend showed me through his house, almost every apartment of which was lined from roof to floor with books, many of which were highly valuable. He told me that he possessed the best collection in Spain of the ancient literature of the country. He was, however, less proud of his library than his stud; finding that I had some acquaintance with horses, his liking for me and also his respect considerably increased. “All I have,” said he, “is at your service; I see you are a man after my own heart. When you are disposed to ride out upon the _sagra_, you have only to apply to my groom, who will forthwith saddle you my famed Cordovese _entero_; I purchased him from the stables at Aranjuez, when the royal stud was broken up. There is but one other man to whom I would lend him, and that man is Flinter.” At Toledo I met with a forlorn gypsy woman and her son, a lad of about fourteen years of age; she was not a native of the place, but had come from La Mancha, her husband having been cast into the prison of Toledo on a charge of mule-stealing: the crime had been proved against him, and in a few days he was to depart for Malaga, with the chain of galley-slaves. He was quite destitute of money, and his wife was now in Toledo, earning a few _cuartos_ by telling fortunes about the streets, to support him in prison. She told me that it was her intention to follow him to Malaga, where she hoped to be able to effect his escape. What an instance of conjugal affection! and yet the affection here was all on one side, as is too frequently the case. Her husband was a worthless scoundrel, who had previously abandoned her and betaken himself to Madrid, where he had long lived in concubinage with the notorious she-thug Aurora, {107} at whose instigation he had committed the robbery for which he was now held in durance. “Should your husband escape from Malaga, in what direction will he fly?” I demanded. “To the _chim_ of the _Corahai_, my son; to the land of the Moors, to be a soldier of the Moorish king.” “And what will become of yourself?” I inquired; “think you that he will take you with him?” “He will leave me on the shore, my son; and as soon as he has crossed the black _pawnee_, he will forget me and never think of me more.” “And knowing his ingratitude, why should you give yourself so much trouble about him?” “Am I not his _romí_, my son; and am I not bound by the law of the _Calés_ to assist him to the last? Should he return from the land of the _Corahai_ at the end of a hundred years, and should find me alive, and should say, ‘I am hungry, little wife; go forth and steal or tell _baji_,’ I must do it, for he is the _rom_ and I the _romí_.”