Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/126

124 The house which Don Tadeo had gained (for he had at first taken possession in his own name) was situated at the extremity of the village. Crowds of villagers, who had assembled to share in the largesses which are usually distributed on an occasion of this kind, stood before the house, and assisted us in recognizing it. It was a little building of a very sorry appearance, with a small porch before the door, supported by brick pillars. Numerous cracks furrowed the walls in every direction, clearly indicating a sad state of disrepair. Behind the house was a garden choked with weeds, surrounded by a wall thickly covered with moss, and crowned with pellitories. The porter, whom the licentiate had put in charge of the house, opened the door. "You are in your own house," said Don Tadeo to me. We entered. The interior of the house was as desolate as the exterior. The ceilings were gaping with chinks, the disjointed boards in the stairs creaked sadly under foot, and the garden was nothing more than a collection of sentern, nettles, and thistles, in the midst of which rose some sickly-looking fruit-trees. This wretched house and garden, however, were almost equal to the debt, and that was sufficient; the more in the case of such a debtor as Peralta was, with whom one could not be too exacting.

After visiting the ground floor and the garden, we went up stairs. The room which we first entered seemed to have been a dining-room, and had not been entered for many years, if one could judge from the musty smell which pervaded the apartment. We hastened to let in the air and light by opening the strongly-barred window-shutters. A collection of spiders' webs, thickly matted together, covered the entire ceiling. We looked into the presses, but they were all