Lechuza's narrative gave great satisfaction. I said nothing, feeling half stupid with amazement, for the man apparently told it in the full conviction that it was true, while the other listeners appeared to accept every word of it with the most implicit faith. I began to feel very melancholy, for evidently they expected something from me now, and what to tell them I knew not. It went against my conscience to be the only liar amongst these exceedingly veracious Orientals, and so I could not think of inventing anything.
“My friends,” I began at length, “I am only a young man; also a native of a country where marvellous things do not often happen, so that I can tell you nothing to equal in interest the stories I have heard. I can only relate a little incident which happened to me in my own country before I left it. It is trivial, perhaps, but will lead me to tell you something about London—that great city you have all heard of.”
“Yes, we have heard of London; it is in England, I believe. Tell us your story about London,” said Blas encouragingly.
“I was very young—only fourteen years old,” I continued, flattering myself that my modest introduction had not been ineffective, “when one evening I came to London from my home. It was in January, in the middle of winter, and the whole country was white with snow.”
“Pardon me, Captain,” said Blas, “but you have got the cucumber by the wrong end. We say that January is in summer.”
“Not in my country, where the seasons are reversed,” I said.
“When I rose next morning it was dark as night, for a black fog had fallen upon the city.”
“A black fog!” exclaimed Lechuza.
“Yes, a black fog that would last all days and make it darker than night, for though the lamps were lighted in the streets they gave no light.”
“Demons!” exclaimed Rivarola; “there is no water in the bucket. I must go to the well for some or we shall have none to drink in the night.”
“You might wait till I finish,” I said.
“No, no, Captain,” he returned. “Go on with your story; we must not be without water.” And, taking up the bucket, he trudged off.
“Finding it was going to be dark all day,” I continued, “I determined to go a little distance away, not out of London, you will understand, but about three leagues from my hotel to a great hill, where I thought the fog would not be so dark, and where there is a palace of glass.”
“A palace of glass!” repeated Lechuza, with his immense round eyes fixed sternly on me.
“Yes, a palace of glass—is there anything so wonderful in that?”
“Have you any tobacco in your pouch, Mariano?” said Blas.
“Pardon, Captain, for speaking, but the things you are telling require a cigarette, and my pouch is empty.”
“Very well, sirs, perhaps you will now allow me to proceed,” I said, beginning to feel rather vexed at these constant interruptions. “A palace of glass large enough to hold all the people in this country.”
“The Saints assist us! Your tobacco is dry as ashes, Mariano,” exclaimed Blas.
“That is not strange,” said the other, “for I have had it three days in my pocket. Proceed, Captain. A palace of glass large enough to hold all the people in the world. And then?”
“No, I shall not proceed,” I returned, losing my temper. “It is plain to see that you do not wish to hear my story. Still, sirs, from motives of courtesy you might have disguised your want of interest in what I was about to relate; for I have heard it said that the Orientals are a polite people.”
“There you are saying too much, my friend,” broke in Lechuza. “Remember that we were speaking of actual experiences, not inventing tales of black fogs and glass palaces and men walking on their heads, and I know not what other marvels.”
“Do you know that what I am telling you is untrue?” I indignantly asked.
“Surely, friend, you do not consider us such simple persons in the Banda Orientál as not to know truth from fable?”
And this from the fellow who had just told us of his tragical encounter with Apollyon, a yarn which quite put Bunyan's narrative in the shade! It was useless talking; my irritation gave place to mirth, and, stretching myself out on the grass, I roared with laughter. The more I thought of Lechuza's stern rebuke the louder I laughed, until I yelled with laughter, slapping my thighs and doubling myself up after the manner of Mariano's hilarious visitor from purgatory. My companions never smiled. Rivarola came back with the bucket of water, and, after staring at me for some time, said, “If the tears, which they say always follow laughter, come in the same measure, then we shall have to sleep in the wet.”
This increased my mirth.
“If the whole country is to be informed of our hiding-place,” said Blas the timid, “we were putting ourselves to an unnecessary trouble by running away from San Paulo.”
Fresh screams of laughter greeted this protest.
“I once knew a man,” said Mariano, “who had a most extraordinary laugh; you could hear it a league away, it was so loud. His name was Aniceto, but we called him El Burro on account of his laugh, which sounded like the braying of an ass. Well, sirs, he one day burst out laughing, like the Captain here, at nothing at all, and fell down dead. You see, the poor man had aneurism of the heart.”
At this I fairly yelled, then, feeling quite exhausted, I looked apprehensively at Lechuza, for this important member of the quartet had not yet spoken.
With his immense, unspeakably serious eyes fixed on me, he remarked quietly, “And this, my friends, is the man who says it is wrong to steal horses!”
But I was past shrieking now. Even this rich specimen of topsy-turvy Banda Orientál morality only evoked a faint gurgling as I rolled about on the grass, my sides aching, as if I had received a good bruising.
Day had just dawned when I rose to join Mariano at the fire he had already kindled to heat the water for his earlymaté. I did not like the idea of lying there concealed amongst the trees like some hunted animal for an indefinite time; moreover, I had been advised by Santa Coloma to proceed directly to the Lomas de Rocha, on the south coast, in the event of a defeat, and this now seemed to me the best thing to do. It had been very pleasant lying there “under the greenwood tree,” while those veracious stories of hags, lampalaguas, and apparitions had proved highly entertaining; but a long spell, a whole month perhaps, of that kind of life was not to be thought of; and if I did not get to Rocha now, before the rural police were set to catch runaway rebels, it would perhaps be impossible to do so later on. I determined, therefore, to go my own way, and, after drinking bittermaté, I caught and saddled the dun horse. I really had not deserved the severe censure Lechuza had passed on me the previous evening in reference to horse-stealing, for I had taken the dun with very little more compunction than one is accustomed to feel in England when “borrowing” an umbrella on a rainy day. To all people in all parts of the world, a time comes when to appropriate their neighbour's goods is held not only justifiable, but even meritorious; to Israelites in Egypt, Englishmen under a cloud in their own moist island, and to Orientals running away after a fight. By keeping the dun over thirty hours in my possession I had acquired a kind of prescriptive right to it, and now began to look on it as my very own; subsequent experience of his endurance and other good qualities enables me to endorse the Oriental saying that a “stolen horse carries you well.”
Bidding farewell to my companions in defeat, who had certainly not been frightened out of their imaginations, I rode forth just when it was beginning to grow light. Roads and houses I studiously avoided, travelling on at an easy gallop, which took me about ten miles an hour, till noon; then I rested at a smallrancho, where I fed and watered my horse and recruited my own energies with roast beef and bittermaté. On again till dark; by that time I had covered about forty miles, and began to feel both hungry and tired. I had passed severalranchosandestanciahouses, but was shy of seeking entertainment at any of them, and so went farther, only to fare worse. When the brief twilight was darkening to night I came upon a broad cart-track, leading, I suppose, to Montevideo from the eastern part of the country, and, seeing a long, lowranchonear it, which I recognized as apulperia, or store, by the flagstaff planted before it, I resolved to purchase some refreshment for myself, then to ride on a mile or two and spend the night under the stars—a safe roof if an airy one. Tying my horse to the gate, I went into the porch-like projection at the end of therancho, which I found divided from the interior by the counter, with its usual grating of thick iron bars to protect the treasures of gin, rum, and comestibles from drunken or quarrelsome customers. As soon as I came into the porch I began to regret having alighted at the place, for there, standing at the counter, smoking and drinking, were about a dozen very rough-looking men. Unfortunately for me, they had tied their horses under the shadow of a clump of trees some distance from the gate, so that I had missed seeing them on my arrival. Once amongst them, however, my only plan was to disguise my uneasiness, be very polite, get my refreshments, then make my escape as speedily as possible. They stared rather hard at me, but returned my salutation courteously; then going to a disengaged corner of the counter, I rested my left elbow on it and called for bread, a box of sardines, and a tumbler of wine.
“If you will join me, señores, the table is spread,” said I; but they all declined my invitation with thanks, and I began to eat my bread and sardines.
They appeared to be all persons living in the immediate neighbourhood, for they addressed each other familiarly and were conversing about love matters. One of them, however, soon dropped out of the conversation, and, edging away from the others, stood a little space apart, leaning against the wall on the side of the porch farthest from me. I began to notice this man very particularly, for it was plain to see that I had excited his interest in an extraordinary manner, and I did not like his scrutiny. He was, without exception, the most murderous-looking villain I have ever had the misfortune to meet: that was the deliberate opinion I came to before I formed a closer acquaintance with him. He was a broad-chested, powerful-looking man of medium height; his hands he kept concealed under the large clothponchohe wore, and he had on a slouch hat that just allowed his eyes to be seen under the rim. They were truculent, yellowish-green eyes, that seemed to grow fiery and dim and fiery again by turns, yet never for a single instant were they averted from my face. His black hair hung to his shoulders, and he also had a bristly moustache, which did not conceal his brutal mouth, nor was there any beard to hide his broad, swarthy jowl. His jaws were the only part of him that had any motion, while he stood there, still as a bronze statue, watching me. At intervals he ground his teeth, after which he would slap his lips together two or three times, while a slimy froth, most sickening to see, gathered at the corners of his mouth.
“Gandara, you are not drinking,” said one of the gauchos, turning to him. He shook his head slightly without speaking or taking his eyes off my face; whereupon the man who had spoken smiled and resumed his conversation with the others.
The long, intense, soul-trying scrutiny this brutal wretch had subjected me to came to a very sudden end. Quick as lightning a long, broad knife flashed out from its concealment under hisponcho, and with one cat-like bound he was before me, the point of his horrid weapon touching myponchojust over the pit of my stomach.
“Do not move, rebel,” he said in a husky voice. “If you move one hair's breadth, that moment you die.”
The other men all ceased talking and looked on with some interest, but did not offer to interfere or make any remark.
For one moment I felt as if an electric shock had gone through me, and then instantly I was calm—never, in fact, have I felt more calm and collected than at that terrible moment. 'Tis a blessed instinct of self-preservation which nature has provided us with; feeble, timid men possess it in common with the strong and brave, as weak, persecuted wild animals have it as well as those that are fierce and bloodthirsty. It is the calm which comes without call when death suddenly and unexpectedly rises up to stare us in the face; it tells us that there is one faint chance which a premature attempt to escape or even a slight agitation will destroy.
“I have no wish to move, friend,” I said, “but I am curious to know why you attack me?”
“Because you are a rebel. I have seen you before, you are one of Santa Coloma's officers. Here you shall stand with this knife touching you till you are arrested, or else with this knife in you here you shall die.”
“You are making a mistake,” I said.
“Neighbours,” said he, speaking to the others, but without taking his eyes from my face, “will you tie this man hand and foot while I stand before him to prevent him from drawing any weapon he may have concealed under hisponcho?”
“We have not come here to arrest travellers,” returned one of the men. “If he is a rebel it is no concern of ours. Perhaps you are mistaken, Gandara.”
“No, no, I am not mistaken,” he returned. “He shall not escape. I saw him at San Paulo with these eyes—when did they ever deceive me? If you refuse to assist me, then go one of you to the Alcalde's house and tell him to come without delay, while I keep guard here.”
After a little discussion one of the men offered to go and inform the Alcalde. When he had left, I said, “My friend, may I finish my meal? I am hungry, and had just begun to eat when you drew your knife against me.”
“Yes; eat,” he said; “only keep your hands well up so that I can see them. Perhaps you have a weapon at your waist.”
“I have not,” I said, “for I am an inoffensive person and do not require weapons.”
“Tongues were made to lie,” he returned, truly enough. “If I see you drop your hand lower than the counter I shall rip you up. We shall then be able to see whether you digest your food or not.”
I began to eat and sip my wine, still with those brutal eyes on my face and the keen knife-point touching myponcho. There was now a ghastly look of horrible excitement on his face, while his teeth-grinding performances became more frequent and the slimy froth dropped continually from the corners of his mouth on to his bosom. I dared not look at the knife, because a terrible impulse to wrest it out of his hands kept rising in me. It was almost too strong to be overcome, yet I knew that even the slightest attempt to escape would be fatal to me; for the fellow was evidently thirsty for my blood and only wanted an excuse to run me through. But what, I thought, if he were to grow tired of waiting, and, carried away by his murderous instincts, to plunge his weapon into me? In that case I should die like a dog, without having availed myself of my one chance of escape through over-caution. These thoughts were maddening, still through it all I laboured to observe an outwardly calm demeanour.
My supper was done. I began to feel strangely weak and nervous. My lips grew dry; I was intensely thirsty and longed for more wine, yet dared not take it for fear that in my excited state even a very moderate amount of alcohol might cloud my brain.
“How long will it take your friend to return with the Alcalde?” I asked at length.
Gandara made no reply. “A long time,” said one of the other men. “I, for one, cannot wait till he comes,” and after that he took his departure. One by one they now began to drop away, till only two men besides Gandara remained in the porch. Still that murderous wretch kept before me like a tiger watching its prey, or rather like a wild boar, gnashing and foaming, and ready to rip up its adversary with horrid tusk.
At length I made an appeal to him, for I began to despair of the Alcalde coming to deliver me. “Friend,” I said, “if you will allow me to speak, I can convince you that you are mistaken. I am a foreigner, and know nothing about Santa Coloma.”
“No, no,” he interrupted, pressing the knife-point warningly against my stomach, then suddenly withdrawing it as if about to plunge it intome. “I know you are a rebel. If I thought the Alcalde were not coming I would run you through at once and cut your throat afterwards. It is a virtue to kill a Blanco traitor, and if you do not go bound hand and foot from here then here you must die. What, do you dare to say that I did not see you at San Paulo—that you are not an officer of Santa Coloma? Look, rebel, I will swear on this cross that I saw you there.”
Suiting the action to the word, he raised the hilt of the weapon to his lips to kiss the guard, which with the handle formed a cross. That pious action was the first slip he had made, and gave the first opportunity that had come to me during all that terrible interview. Before he had ceased speaking, the conviction that my time had come flashed like lightning through my brain. Just as his slimy lips kissed the hilt, my right hand dropped to my side and grasped the handle of my revolver under myponcho. He saw the movement, and very quickly recovered the handle of his knife. In another second of time he would have driven the blade through me; but that second was all I now required. Straight from my waist, and from under myponcho, I fired. His knife fell ringing on to the floor; he swerved, then fell back, coming to the ground with a heavy thud. Over his falling body I leaped, and almost before he had touched the ground was several yards away, then, wheeling round, I found the other two men rushing out after me.
“Back!” I shouted, covering the foremost of the two with my revolver.
They instantly stood still.
“We are not following you, friend,” said one, “but only wish to get out of the place.”
“Back, or I fire!” I repeated, and then they retreated into the porch. They had stood by unconcerned while their cut-throat comrade Gandara was threatening my life, so that I naturally felt angry with them.
I sprang upon my horse, but, instead of riding away at once, stood for some minutes by the gate watching the two men. They were kneeling by Gandara, one opening his clothes to look for the wound, the other holding a flaring candle over his ashen, corpse-like face.
“Is he dead?” I asked.
One of the men looked up and answered, “It appears so.”
“Then,” I returned, “I make you a present of his carcass.”
After that, digging my spurs into my horse, I galloped away.
Some readers might imagine, after what I had related, that my sojourn in the Purple Land had quite brutalised me; I am happy to inform them that it was not so. Whatever a man's individual character may happen to be, he has always a strong inclination in him to reply to an attack in the spirit in which it is made. He does not call the person who playfully ridicules his foibles a whitened sepulchre or an unspeakable scoundrel, and the same principle holds good when it comes to actual physical fighting. If a French gentleman were to call me out, I daresay I should go to the encounter twirling my moustache, bowing down to the ground, all smiles and compliments; and that I should select my rapier with a pleasant kind of feeling, like that experienced by the satirist about to write a brilliant article while picking out a pen with a suitable nib. On the other hand, if a murderous brute with truculent eyes and gnashing teeth attempts to disembowel me with a butcher's knife, the instinct of self-preservation comes out in all its old original ferocity, inspiring the heart with such implacable fury that after spilling his blood I could spurn his loathsome carcass with my foot. I do not wonder at myself for speaking those savage words. That he was past recall seemed certain, yet not a shade of regret did I feel at his death. Joy at the terrible retribution I had been able to inflict on the murderous wretch was the only emotion I experienced when galloping away into the darkness—such joy that I could have sung and shouted aloud had it not seemed imprudent to indulge in such expression of feeling.
After my terrible adventure I did not rest badly that night, albeit I slept on an empty stomach (the sardines counting as nothing), and under the vast, void sky, powdered with innumerable stars. And when I proceeded next day on my journey,God's light, as the pious Orientals call the first wave of glory with which the rising sun floods the world, had never seemed so pleasant to my eyes, nor had earth ever looked fresher or lovelier, with the grass and bushes everywhere hung with starry lace, sparkling with countless dewy gems, which theepeirashad woven overnight. Life seemed very sweet to me on that morning, so softening my heart that when I remembered the murderous wretch who had endangered it I almost regretted that he was now probably blind and deaf to nature's sweet ministrations.
Before noon I came to a large, thatched house, with clumps of shady trees growing near it, also surrounded with brushwood fences and sheep and cattle enclosures.
The blue smoke curling peacefully up from the chimney and the white gleam of the walls through the shady trees—for thisranchoactually boasted a chimney and whitewashed walls—looked exceedingly inviting to my tired eyes. How pleasant a good breakfast, with a long siesta in the shade after it, would be, thought I; but, alas! was I not pursued by the awful phantoms of political vengeance? Uncertain whether to call or not, my horse jogged straight on towards the house, for a horse always knows when his rider is in doubt and never fails at such times to give his advice. It was lucky for me that on this occasion I condescended to take it. “I will, at all events, call for a drink of water and see what the people are like,” I thought, and in a few minutes I was standing at the gate, apparently an object of great interest to half a dozen children ranging from two to thirteen years old, all staring at me with wide-open eyes. They had dirty faces, the smallest one dirty legs also, for he or she wore nothing but a small shirt. The next in size had a shirt supplemented with a trousers-like garment reaching to the knees; and so on, progressively, up to the biggest boy, who wore the cast-off parental toggery, and so, instead of having too little on, was, in a sense, overdressed. I asked this youngster for a can of water to quench my thirst and a stick of fire to light my cigar. He ran into the kitchen, or living-room, and by and by came out again without either water or fire. “Papitawishes you to come in to drinkmaté,” said he.
Then I dismounted, and, with the careless air of a blameless, non-political person, strode into the spacious kitchen, where an immense cauldron of fat was boiling over a big fire on the hearth; while beside it, ladle in hand, sat a perspiring, greasy-looking woman of about thirty. She was engaged in skimming the fat and throwing the scum on the fire, which made it blaze with a furious joy and loudly cry out in a crackling voice for more; and from head to feet she was literally bathed in grease—certainly the most greasy individual I had ever seen. It was not easy under the circumstances to tell the colour of her skin, but she had fine large Juno eyes, and her mouth was unmistakably good-humoured, as she smiled when returning my salutation. Her husband sat on the clay floor against the wall, his bare feet stretched straight out before him, while across his lap lay an immense surcingle, twenty inches broad at least, of a pure white, untanned hide; and on it he was laboriously working a design representing an ostrich hunt, with threads of black skin. He was a short, broad-shouldered man with reddish-grey hair, stiff, bristly whiskers and moustache of the same hue, sharp blue eyes, and a nose decidedly upturned.
He wore a red cotton handkerchief tied on his head, a blue check shirt, and a shawl wound round his body in place of thechiripàusually worn by native peasants. He jerked out his“Buen dia”to me in a short, quick, barking voice, and invited me to sit down.
“Cold water is bad for the constitution at this hour,” he said. “We will drinkmaté.”
There was such a rough, burr-like sound in his speech that I at once concluded he was a foreigner, or hailed from some Oriental district corresponding to our Durham or Northumberland.
“Thank you,” I said, “amatéis always welcome. I am an Oriental in that respect if in nothing else.” For I wished everyone I met to know that I was not a native.
“Right, my friend,” he exclaimed.“Matéis the best thing in this country. As for the people, they are not worth cursing.”
“How can you say such a thing,” I returned. “You are a foreigner, I suppose, but your wife is surely an Oriental.”
The Juno of the grease-pot smiled and threw a ladleful of tallow on the fire to make it roar; possibly this was meant for applause.
He waved his hand deprecatingly, the bradawl used for his work in it.
“True, friend, she is,” he replied. “Women, like horned cattle, are much the same all the world over. They have their value wherever you find them—America, Europe, Asia. We know it. I spoke of men.”
“You scarcely do women justice—
La mujer es un angel del cielo,”
I returned, quoting the old Spanish song.
He barked out a short little laugh.
“That does very well to sing to a guitar,” he said.
“Talking of guitars,” spoke the woman, addressing me for the first time; “while we are waiting for thematé,perhaps you will sing us a ballad. The guitar is lying just behind you.”
“Señora, I do not play on it,” I answered. “An Englishman goes forth into the world without that desire, common to people of other nations, of making himself agreeable to those he may encounter on his way; this is why he does not learn to perform on musical instruments.”
The little man stared at me; then, deliberately disencumbering himself of surcingle, threads, and implements, he got up, advanced to me, and held out his hand.
His grave manner almost made me laugh. Taking his hand in mine, I said:
“What am I to do with this, my friend?”
“Shake it,” he replied. “We are countrymen.”
We then shook hands very vigorously for some time in silence, while his wife looked on with a smile and stirred the fat.
“Woman,” he said, turning to her, “leave your grease till tomorrow. Breakfast must be thought of. Is there any mutton in the house?”
“Half a sheep—only,” she replied.
“That will do for one meal,” said he. “Here, Teofilo, run and tell Anselmo to catch two pullets—fat ones, mind. To be plucked at once. You may look for half a dozen fresh eggs for your mother to put in the stew. And, Felipe, go find Cosme and tell him to saddle the roan pony to go to the store at once. Now, wife, what is wanted—rice, sugar, vinegar, oil, raisins, pepper, saffron, salt, cloves, cummin seed, wine, brandy—”
“Stop one moment,” I cried. “If you think it necessary to get provisions enough for an army to give me breakfast, I must tell you that I draw the line at brandy. I never touch it—in this country.”
He shook hands with me again.
“You are right,” he said. “Always stick to the native drink, wherever you are, even if it is black draught. Whisky in Scotland, in the Banda Orientál rum—that's my rule.”
The place was now in a great commotion, the children saddling ponies, shouting in pursuit of fugitive chickens, and my energetic host ordering his wife about.
After the boy was despatched for the things and my horse taken care of, we sat for half an hour in the kitchen sippingmatéand conversing very agreeably. Then my host took me out into his garden behind the house to be out of his wife's way while she was engaged cooking breakfast, and there he began talking in English.
“Twenty-five years I have been on this continent,” said he, telling me his history, “eighteen of them in the Banda Orientál.”
“Well, you have not forgotten your language,” I said. “I suppose you read?”
“Read! What! I would as soon think of wearing trousers. No, no, my friend, never read. Leave politics alone. When people molest you, shoot 'em—those are my rules. Edinburgh was my home. Had enough reading when I was a boy; heard enough psalm-singing, saw enough scrubbing and scouring to last me my lifetime. My father was a bookseller in the High Street, near the Cowgate—you know! Mother, she was pious—they were all pious. Uncle, a minister, lived with us. That was all worse than purgatory to me. I was educated at the High School—intended for the ministry, ha, ha! My only pleasure was to get a book of travels in some savage country, skulk into my room, throw off my boots, light a pipe, and lie on the floor reading—locked up from everyone. Sundays just the same, They called me a sinner, said I was going to the devil—fast. It was my nature. They didn't understand—kept on ding-donging in my ears. Always scrubbing, scouring—you might have eaten your dinner off the floor; always singing psalms—praying—scolding. Couldn't bear it; ran away at fifteen, and have never heard a word from home since. What happened? I came here, worked, saved, bought land, cattle; married a wife, lived as I liked to live—am happy. There's my wife—mother of six children—you have seen her yourself, a woman for a man to be proud of. No ding-donging, black looks, scouring from Monday to Saturday—you couldn't eat your dinner off my kitchen floor. There are my children, six of 'em, all told, boys and girls, healthy, dirty as they like to be, happy as the day's long; and here am I, John Carrickfergus—Don Juan all the country over, my surname no native can pronounce—respected, feared, loved; a man his neighbour can rely on to do him a good turn; one who never hesitates about putting a bullet in any vulture, wild cat, or assassin that crosses his path. Now you know all.”
“An extraordinary history,” I said, “but I suppose you teach your children something?”
“Teach 'em nothing,” he returned, with emphasis. “All we think about in the old country are books, cleanliness, clothes; what's good for soul, brain, stomach; and we make 'em miserable. Liberty for everyone—that's my rule. Dirty children are healthy, happy children. If a bee stings you in England, you clap on fresh dirt to cure the pain. Here we cure all kinds of pain with dirt. If my child is ill I dig up a spadeful of fresh mould and rub it well—best remedy out. I'm not religious, but I rememberonemiracle. The Saviour spat on the ground and made mud with the spittle to anoint the eyes of the blind man. Made him see directly. What does that mean? Common remedyof the country, of course.Hedidn't need the clay, but followed the custom, same as in the other miracles. In Scotland dirt's wickedness—how'd they reconcile that with Scripture? I don't sayNature, mind, I say,Scripture, because the Bible's the book they swear by, though they didn't write it.”
“I shall think over what you say about children, and the best way to rear them,” I returned. “I needn't decide in a hurry, as I haven't any yet.”
He barked his short laugh and led me back to the house, where the arrangements for breakfast were now completed. The children took their meal in the kitchen, we had ours in a large, cool room adjoining it. There was a small table laid with a spotless white cloth, and real crockery plates and real knives and forks. There were also real glass tumblers, bottles of Spanish wine, and snow-whitepan creollo. Evidently my hostess had made good use of her time. She came in immediately after we were seated, and I scarcely recognized her; for she was not only clean now, but good-looking as well, with that rich olive colour on her oval face, her black hair well arranged, and her dark eyes full of tender, loving light. She was now wearing a white merino dress with a quaint maroon-coloured pattern on it, and a white silk kerchief fastened with a gold brooch at her neck. It was pleasant to look at her, and, noticing my admiring glances, she blushed when she sat down, then laughed. The breakfast was excellent. Roast mutton to begin, then a dish of chickens stewed with rice, nicely flavoured and coloured with red Spanishpimenton. A fowl roasted or boiled, as we eat them in England, is wasted, compared with this deliciousguiso de pottowhich one gets in anyranchoin the Banda Orient. After the meats we sat for an hour cracking walnuts, sipping wine, smoking cigarettes, and telling amusing stories; and I doubt whether there were three happier people in all Uruguay that morning than the un-Scotched Scotchman, John Carrickfergus, his un-ding-donging native wife, and their guest, who had shot his man on the previous evening.
After breakfast I spread myponchoon the dry grass under a tree to sleep the siesta. My slumbers lasted a long time, and on waking I was surprised to find my host and hostess seated on the grass near me, he busy ornamenting his surcingle, she with thematé-cup in her hand and a kettle of hot water beside her. She was drying her eyes, I fancied, when I opened mine.
“Awake at last!” cried Don Juan pleasantly. “Come and drinkmaté. Wife just been crying, you see.”
She made a sign for him to hold his peace.
“Why not speak of it, Candelaria?” he said. “Where is the harm? You see, my wife thinks you have been in the wars—a Santa Coloma man running away to save his throat.”
“How does she make that out?” I asked in some confusion and very much surprised.
“How! Don't you know women? You said nothing about where you had been—prudence. That was one thing. Looked confused when we talked of the revolution—not a word to say about it. More evidence. Yourponcho, lying there, shows two big cuts in it. 'Torn by thorns,' said I. 'Sword-cuts,' said she. We were arguing about it when you woke.”
“She guessed rightly,” I said, “and I am ashamed of myself for not telling you before. But why should your wife cry?”
“Woman like—woman like,” he answered, waving his hand. “Always ready to cry over the beaten one—that is the only politics they know.”
“Did I not say that woman is an angel from heaven,” I returned; then, taking her hand, I kissed it. “This is the first time I have kissed a married woman's hand, but the husband of such a wife will know better than to be jealous.”
“Jealous—ha, ha!” he laughed. “It would have made me prouder if you had kissed her cheek.”
“Juan—a nice thing to say!” exclaimed his wife, slapping his hand tenderly.
Then while we sippedmatéI told them the history of my campaign, finding it necessary, when explaining my motives for joining the rebels, to make some slight deviations from the strictest form of truth. He agreed that my best plan was to go on to Rocha to wait there for a passport before proceeding to Montevideo. But I was not allowed to leave them that day; and, while we talked over ourmaté, Candelaria deftly repaired the tell-tale cuts in myponcho.
I spent the afternoon making friends with the children, who proved to be very intelligent and amusing little beggars, telling them some nonsensical stories I invented, and listening to their bird's-nesting, armadillo-chasing, and other adventures. Then came a late dinner, after which the children said their prayers and retired, then we smoked and sang songs without an accompaniment, and I finished a happy day by sinking to sleep in a soft, clean bed.
I had announced my intention of leaving at daybreak next morning; and when I woke, finding it already light, I dressed hastily, and, going out, found my horse already saddled standing, with three other saddled horses, at the gate. In the kitchen I found Don Juan, his wife, and the two biggest boys having their earlymaté. My host told me that he had been up an hour, and was only waiting to wish me a prosperous journey before going out to gather up his cattle. He at once wished me good-bye, and with his two boys went off, leaving me to partake of poached eggs and coffee—quite an English breakfast.
I then rose and thanked the good señora for her hospitality.
“One moment,” she said, when I held out my hand, and, drawing a small silk bag from her bosom, she offered it to me. “My husband has given me permission to present you with this at parting. It is only a small gift, but while you are in this trouble and away from all your friends it perhaps might be of use to you.”
I did not wish to take money from her after all the kind treatment I had received, and so allowed the purse to lie on my open hand where she had placed it.
“And if I cannot accept it——” I began.
“Then you will hurt me very much,” she replied. “Could you do that after the kind words you spoke yesterday?”
I could not resist, but, after putting the purse away, took her hand and kissed it.
“Good-bye, Candelaria,” I said, “you have made me love your country and repent every harsh word I have ever spoken against it.”
Her hand remained in mine; she stood smiling, and did not seem to think the last word had been spoken yet. Then, seeing her there looking so sweet and loving, and remembering the words her husband had spoken the day before, I stooped and kissed her cheek and lips.
“Adieu, my friend, and God be with you,” she said.
I think there were tears in her eyes when I left her, but I could not see clearly, for mine also had suddenly grown dim.
And only the day before I had felt amused at the sight of this woman sitting hot and greasy over her work, and had called her Juno of the grease-pot! Now, after an acquaintance of about eighteen hours, I had actually kissed her—a wife and the mother of six children, bidding her adieu with trembling voice and moist eyes! I know that I shall never forget those eyes, full of sweet, pure affection and tender sympathy, looking into mine; all my life long shall I think of Candelaria, loving her like a sister. Could any woman in my own ultra-civilised and excessively proper country inspire me with a feeling like that in so short a time? I fancy not. Oh, civilisation, with your million conventions, soul and body withering prudishnesses, vain education for the little ones, going to church in best black clothes, unnatural craving for cleanliness, feverish striving after comforts that bring no comfort to the heart, are you a mistake altogether? Candelaria and that genial runaway John Carrickfergus make me think so. Ah, yes, we are all vainly seeking after happiness in the wrong way. It was with us once and ours, but we despised it, for it was only the old, common happiness which Nature gives to all her children, and we went away from it in search of another grander kind of happiness which some dreamer—Bacon or another—assured us we should find. We had only to conquer Nature, find out her secrets, make her our obedient slave, then the earth would be Eden, and every man Adam and every Woman Eve. We are still marching bravely on, conquering Nature, but how weary and sad we are getting! The old joy in life and gaiety of heart have vanished, though we do sometimes pause for a few moments in our long forced march to watch the labours of some pale mechanician seeking after perpetual motion and indulge in a little dry, cackling laugh at his expense.