The hidalgo of Salamanca appears to have been quite overwhelmed at the honour done him by the charge of so important a person, and his ceremonious and verbose letter of thanks to the Count-Duke needed hardly to be prefaced by the prayer that his patron will not attribute his laconic speech to the proverbial taciturnity of his countrymen, but rather to his confusion at the greatness of the honour done him by his Majesty, for which words are inadequate to express his gratitude. His only thanks can be his faithful fulfilment of orders. He begs that the doctor who has had the care of the little one may be sent to Salamanca with him in order to consult with Don Juan's doctor, and ascertain whether he is fit to undertake so important a charge, and if {334} not he will approach cautiously a doctor in Vitoria, named Trevino, of whom he hears good accounts. The woman who accompanies the child shall stay with him some short time, although the good hidalgo is evidently rather doubtful of this arrangement, as he adds that if she should find the horizon of their dull country life too confined for her after Madrid, or begins to kick against the discipline, other arrangements will have to be made. All care shall be taken to prevent the boy from learning who he is, and if it should get wind efforts shall be made to silence it, but the task will be a difficult one. The child shall be so reared, please God, that he shall not become abject or servile (which is most important to a royal personage), or licentious and headstrong; and the good hidalgo thereupon breaks out into a mild pedantic little joke by quoting a Latin proverb, to the effect that, to attain so great an object as this, one must be prepared to eat salt and acrid food, which, he says, will be easy for him to do, "as we all live on salt bacon and hung beef in my province." This does not sound very promising, nor does his description of the water they have to drink, which he says is bad to drink raw, particularly in the summer, and needs cinnamon or other spice to correct it. The doctor, he says, will advise whether they had better boil it with mastic or some other drug. The correspondence shall be sent weekly through "my nephew, Don Alonso Ibarra Isassi, the eldest of the lads I took to Madrid with me. He is a good, prudent, and modest lad, and a correspondence between us as uncle and nephew will arouse no suspicion." As for the 500 ducats a month payment, the {335} good hidalgo says his cheeks burn with shame as he writes or even thinks about them; "but if your Excellency should deign to order them to be paid to me they might be sent without attracting notice through the treasury at Vitoria or Burgos."