The Purple Land Part 19

Then I dismounted, and, with the careless air of a blameless, non-political person, strode into the s.p.a.cious 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 sc.u.m 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 circ.u.mstances 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 _chiripa_ 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 const.i.tution at this hour," he said. "We will drink _mate."_

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 _mate_ 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. _"Mate_ 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 _mate,_ perhaps you will sing us a ballad.

The guitar is lying just behind you."

"Senora, 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 disenc.u.mbering 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, c.u.mmin 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 Oriental 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 _mate_ 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 Oriental."

"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 Sat.u.r.day--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 p.r.o.nounce--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 a.s.sa.s.sin 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 gla.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s near me, he busy ornamenting his surcingle, she with the _mate_-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 _mate_. 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."