land, on which stood an old ruin, formerly a Moorish watch-tower or hermitage, and still called the Moor's Tower.
Needless to say that Uncle Hormiga did not stop to consider for an instant who this Moor might be, nor what might have been the original purpose of the ruined building; the one thing which he saw at once, clear as water, was, that with the stones which had already fallen from the ruin and those which he should remove from it, he might make a secure and commodious yard for his cattle; consequently, on the very day after it came into his possession, and as a suitable pas-time for a man of his thrifty habits, he began to devote his leisure hours to the task of pulling down what still remained standing of the ruin.
"You will kill yourself," said his wife, seeing him come home in the evening, covered with dust and sweat and carrying his crowbar hidden under his cloak.
"On the contrary," he answered, "this exercise is good for me; it will put my blood in motion and keep me from being like our sons, the students who, according to what the storekeeper tells me, were at the theatre in Granada the other night looking so yellow that it was enough to make one sick to see them."
"Poor boys! From studying so much! But you ought to be ashamed to work like a laborer,
