LEGENDS OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
was entertained by many people that he had intimacies with heretics. Such conduct gives a man a very bad name now; but it gave a man a worse name then—and so he was known generally as the Excommunicate, which was the very worst name that anybody could have.
As to the raven, Señor, Don Rodrigo himself named it El Diablo; and that it truly was the devil—or, at least, that it was a devil—no one ever doubted at all. The conduct of that reprobate bird was most offensive. It would soil the rich furnishings of the house; it would tear with its beak the embroidered coverings of the chairs and the silken tapestries; it would throw down and shatter valuable pieces of glass and porcelain; there was no end to its misdeeds. But when Don Rodrigo stormed at his servants about these wreckings—and he was a most violent man, Señor, and used tempestuous language—the servants had only to tell him that the raven was the guilty one to pacify him instantly. "If it is the work of the Devil," he would say without anger, "it is well done!"—and so the matter would pass.
Suddenly, on a day, both Don Rodrigo and
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