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Purple Land

<h2> CHAPTER XXI </h2> 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 the epeiras had 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 this rancho actually 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. “Papita wishes you to come in to drink maté,” 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 the chiripà usually 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 drink maté.” 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, “a maté is 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. “Maté is 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 the maté, 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 sipping maté and 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 remember one miracle. 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. He didn'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 say Nature, 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-white pan 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 Spanish pimenton. A fowl roasted or boiled, as we eat them in England, is wasted, compared with this delicious guiso de potto which one gets in any rancho in 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 my poncho on 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 the maté-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 drink maté. 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. Your poncho, 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 sipped maté I 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 our maté, Candelaria deftly repaired the tell-tale cuts in my poncho. 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 early maté. 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. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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