“For mercy’s sake, woman, they will hear you,” begged some of the terrified women.

But others scouted this fear.  “Let Don Antolin and his niece hear them!  What did it matter?  The Claverias were tired of the rapacity of the uncle, and the magnificent airs that ugly woman gave herself!  Because they were poor they were not going to spend their lives trembling before that couple.  God only knew what the uncle and niece did when they were alone in the house together!”

A breath of rebellion had passed over that sleepy world.  It was the unconscious influence of Gabriel.  What he had said to his friends had been passed on to all the men in the Claverias, getting even to the women.  They were confused and garbled ideas, that very few could understand, but they cherished them like fresh pure air reviving their minds.  They sounded in their ears like a pleasant echo from the outside world.  It was sufficient for them to know that this quiet life of submission they had led up to now was not immutable—­they had a right to something better—­and that human beings ought to rebel against injustice and oppression.

Don Antolin, who knew well enough the crew confided to his care, was not long in perceiving this moral upturn.  He felt hostility and rebellion on every side.  The debtors answered him haughtily, alleging their poverty as a reason for no longer enduring his avarice; his imperious orders were tardily executed, and he had a clear perception that they were laughing behind his back as he walked through the cloister, and making threatening gestures.  One day his legs trembled beneath him and his eyes were dimmed, hearing how the Perrero replied to one of his reprimands, having returned late to the Cathedral, and obliging him to descend and open the door after he had gone to bed.  The Tato made him understand, with an insolent expression, that he had bought a knife, and that he intended its first fleshing to be in the bowels of some priest or other who ground down the poor.

His niece complained to Don Antolin, they paid no attention to her and flouted her, no woman now ever came to help her gratuitously in her household duties.  They replied insolently that those who wanted servants must pay for them.  What was her uncle thinking about?  It was certainly time to assert his authority and to lay a heavy hand on these people.

She herself, so lively and energetic in her own house, was now obliged to retire snorting with rage or weeping, whenever she stationed herself at her door.  All the women of the Claverias wished to revenge themselves for their former thraldom, standing already on the declivity of disrespect.

“Look at her!” screamed the shoemaker’s wife to her neighbours, “always so dressed up, the ugly jade.  She decks herself with the blood that vampire of an uncle sucks from the poor.”

And from the iron gratings of the upper Claverias, giving on the roofs, there was generally a voice singing the ancient couplet, no doubt inspired by the Cathedral garden—­