THE CALLEJÓN DEL MUERTO
went along with it: wherefore she caused the fever immediately to leave the sick Don Tristan—and presently home he came to his father alive and well.
But Don Tristan, having got from the Blessed Virgin all that he had asked of her, did not give to her what he had promised to give to her in return. Being by that time an aged gentleman, and also being much afflicted with rheumatism, the thought of taking a walk of near to three miles barefoot was most distasteful to him. And so he put his walk off for a week or two—saying to himself that the Blessed Virgin would not be in any hurry about the matter; and then he put it off for another week or two; and in that way—because each time that he was for keeping his vow shivers would come in his old feet at dread of being bare and having cold earth under them, and trembles would come in his old thin legs at dread of more rheumatism—the time slipped on and on, and the Blessed Virgin did not get her due.
But his soul was not easy inside of him, Señor—and it could not be, because he was playing fast and loose with it—and so he laid the whole matter before his friend the Arch-
[25]
