He occupied the best “habitacion” in the Claverias.  At the great ceremonies he walked in front of the Chapter in his pluvial, carrying a silver stick nearly as tall as himself, making the tiles of the pavement re-echo with its blows.  During High Mass and the choir in the evening he walked about the naves to check any irreverence on the part of the congregation or any inattention on that of the staff.  At eight o’clock at night in the winter, and at nine in summer, he locked the door of the staircase leading to the upper cloister, putting the key in his pocket, and so all the people in the cloister remained quite isolated from the town.  If now and again anyone was taken ill in the night, it was necessary to wake Don Antolin who, plunging his hand into the depths of his cassock, would produce his key, and deign to restore communication with the outer world.

He was about seventy years of age, small and wizened; age had scarcely tinged his shaven crown with grey, his forehead was broad and square, and rose straight beneath the silk cap he wore in winter.  His features were rather drawn out, without a single wrinkle, and devoid of any expression that showed emotion, the jaw-bone narrow and sharp, and the eyes as inexpressive and motionless as the rest of the face, but with a cold, penetrating glance that was extremely disconcerting.

Gabriel had known him from his childhood; he was, to use his own expression, like a private soldier of the church, who by reason of his years and services had attained the rank of sergeant, but who could rise no further.  When Luna first entered the seminary Don Antolin had just been ordained priest, and since then had passed his life in the sacristy of the Primacy where he had begun as acolyte.

On account of his absolute and irrational faith and his unbending adhesion to the Church, the professors in the seminary had pushed him on in his career, in spite of his ignorance; he was a son of the soil, having been born in a village in the mountains round Toledo.  The Holy Metropolitan Church was to him the second house of God in the world, only ranking after Saint Peter’s in Rome, and all ecclesiastical learning was to him like rays emanating from the Divine wisdom, which blinded him, and were to be adored with the profound respect of ignorance.

He had that blessed and entire want of education so appreciated by the Church in former years.  Gabriel felt sure that if Silver Stick had been born in the flourishing times of Catholicism he would have become a saint on dedicating himself to the spiritual life, or he would have played an excellent part in the Inquisition on the arrival of that militant society.  Having come into the world at the wrong time, when faith was weakened and the Church could no longer impose its laws by violence, the good Don Antolin had remained hidden in the lower administration of the Cathedral, assisting the Canon Obrero in the division and assignment of the money that the State allowed to the Primacy, giving long thought over the spending of each handful of farthings, endeavouring that the holy house, like the ruined families, should keep up its good outward appearance without revealing the poverty inside.