Sinopsis

"The childhood shows the man."—John Milton. A slim slip of a boy, with dark brown eyes and pale olive skin, walked at the head of a pair of fawn-colored oxen as he turned homeward from the market-place of a small village in the north of Portugal. The village was just a humble collection of narrow streets paved with round, worn cobble stones; a few shops and a long, one-storied inn; a group of cottages and two or three larger houses, and a little white granite church. Along the street through which Jose Almaida ed with the oxen, the market-day produce was spread out under the trees. There were great piles of maize-cobs, potatoes, chestnuts and beans; baskets full of grapes, figs and apples; strings of garlic and onions; heaps of giant early yellow gourds, scarlet pimentos and deep red tomatoes; panniers of fish, fresh and salted, and red earthenware household dishes, crocks and water-jars.