Polinar_ fled in comical dismay--to the region of high art. There is something epical about his figures, in the clamorous feuds of the fishwives not less than in the serene heroism of the deep-sea fishermen. “La Puchera” is only half a sea-novel. The inhabitants of Robleces only go sea-fishing to eke out the miserable pittance won by cultivation of the soil. Thus in the house of Juan Pedro (called _El Lebrato_) and Pedro Juan, his son (nicknamed _El Josco_, from his ferocious shyness), fishing-tackle and oars mingle with agricultural tools. Juan Pedro is a widower, and father and son are entirely devoted to one another, but their house is untidy and uncomfortable for lack of a woman’s care. Pedro Juan is in love with Pilara, Pilara is in love with Pedro Juan, her family encourages the match, his father asks for nothing better, but Pedro Juan cannot break through his timidity and bring himself to speak. At last, however, he is emboldened when Pilara at the haymaking, in scarlet skirt, bodice of striped blue, and headkerchief of many colours, arranging the hay on the cart as he forks it up to her, leaps laughingly from the last hay-cart into his arms. “Pilara, from here to the Church for the señor priest to marry us. Will you agree to it?” And she answers, “We might have been back long ago, _hijo de mi alma_, if you had been different.” Though the miser of the book, Don Baltasar, is most skilfully drawn, its interest centres more especially in the life of Juan Pedro and Pedro Juan: Juan Pedro, gay and talkative, appearing on festival days with his famous sea-boots, his Cochin-China medal, and a silk necktie; Pedro Juan, who at his wedding, when asked by the priest, Don Alejo, if he will have Pilara to be his wife, answers: “And will I not indeed? She knows well I will, and you know it too.”