Although Fray Salvi made little use of violence, yet, as an old wiseacre of the town said, what he lacked in quantity he made up in quality.

But this should not be counted against him, for the fasts and abstinences thinned his blood and unstrung his nerves and, as the people said, the wind got into his head.

Thus it came about that it was not possible to learn from the condition of the sacristans' backs whether the curate was fasting or feasting.
The only rival of this spiritual power, with tendencies toward the temporal, was, as we have said, the alferez: the only one, since the women told how the devil himself would flee from the curate, because, having one day dared to tempt him, he was caught, tied to a bedpost, soundly whipped with a rope, and set at liberty only after nine days.

As a consequence, any one who after this would still be the enemy of such a man, deserved to fall into worse repute than even the weak and unwary devils.
But the alferez deserved his fate.

His wife was an old Filipina of abundant rouge and paint, known as Dona Consolacion--although her husband and some others called her by quite another name.