Page:Madrid shaver's singular adventures, and wonderful escape from the Spanish Inquisition (3).pdf/3

 THE Madrid Shaver.

Nicolas Pedrosa, a busy little being, who was shaver, surgeon and man-midwife, in the town of Madrid, mounted his mule and pushed through the gate of San Bernardino, being call’d to a patient in a neighbouring village upon a pressing occasion. Every body knows, that the ladies in Spain, in certain cases, do not give long warning to practitioners of a certain description, and nobody knew it better than Nicolas, who was resolved not to lose an inch of his way, nor of his mule’s best speed by the way, if cudgelling could beat it out of her. It was plain to Nicolas’s conviction, as plain could be, that his road lay straight forward to the little convent in front; the mule was of opinion, that the turning on the left down the hill towards the Prade, was the road of all roads most familiar and agreeable to herself, and accordingly began to dispute the point with Nicolas, by fixing her forefeet resolutely in the ground, dipping her head at the same time between them, and launching heels and crupper furiously into the air, in the way of argument. Little Pedrosa, who was armed at heel with one massy silver spur, of stout though ancient workmanship, resolutely applied the rusty rowel to the shoulder of the beast, and at the same time, adroitly tucking his blue cap under his right arm, and flinging his skirt over his left shoulder en cavalier, began to lay about him with a stout ashen