But Cabesang Tales appealed, loaded his shotgun, and patrolled his fields with deliberation.
During this period his life seemed to be a wild dream.

His son, Tano, a youth as tall as his father and as good as his sister, was conscripted, but he let the boy go rather than purchase a substitute.
"I have to pay the lawyers," he told his weeping daughter.

"If I win the case I'll find a way to get him back, and if I lose it I won't have any need for sons." So the son went away and nothing more was heard of him except that his hair had been cropped and that he slept under a cart.

Six months later it was rumored that he had been seen embarking for the Carolines; another report was that he had been seen in the uniform of the Civil Guard.
"Tano in the Civil Guard! _'Susmariosep_!" exclaimed several, clasping their hands.

"Tano, who was so good and so honest! _Requimternam!_" The grandfather went many days without speaking to the father, Juli fell sick, but Cabesang Tales did not shed a single tear, although for two days he never left the house, as if he feared the looks of reproach from the whole village or that he would be called the executioner of his son.