Gordon Stables

“ So were Jill and Peter.
“I hope,” said the latter, “the earth won’t open and swallow us up. Fancy being buried alive!”
“It would soon be all over, Peter,” said Jill.
Castizo, Lawlor and Ritchie were already out in the open and gazing westward. A fitful, changeful light was on their faces, such as I had never seen before. Sometimes it was a rosy glimmer, then it would change to pale yellow or blue.
The light came from the western horizon, and the appearance there was simply appalling. A great cone-shaped hill was vomiting forth columns of smoke alternating with fierce and terrible flames. ”

“ Very marked indeed is the silence by night on the Patagonian Pampas. Not more so anywhere except on the broad, glittering snow-fields of the Arctic “pack,” or the highest plateaus of the Himalayan hills.
So tall and square is the figure of the horseman, whose rifle is slung across his shoulders, and so active, yet sturdy and strong, does his horse look, that standing there on the ridge, he has all the picturesqueness of a mounted Arab.
He shudders slightly now and draws his guanaco mantle closer about him, gazes once more around as if taking his bearings, then rides slowly on. ”

“ When we got the chair fairly round with its back to us we felt at peace to do as we liked. We could stand on our heads till our faces got blue and our eyes felt ready to burst; I could make a go-cart of Jill, and haul him all round the room with the skipping-rope; he could make a ship’s mast of me, and squirm up and stand on my shoulders to give three cheers for the Queen and the Royal Navy; we could build a tower with the chairs, and in fact do anything or everything except spill the ink. ”

“ There was something almost appalling, however, in the gradual approach of that great sheet of cloud, rising grim and dark on the western horizon. It came on and up more swiftly every minute, and soon covered one whole third of the heavens.
On and up, on and upwards, swallowing star after star, constellation after constellation, and now it has reached the moon itself, and for a moment only its outer edge is a rim of golden light; then the moon too disappears, is buried in the black advancing mass. Almost at the same time the wind comes moaning over the plain, accompanied with driving snow. ”

“ There was nought of life to be seen anywhere, save that single horseman on his trusty steed who stopped for a moment on an upland ridge to gaze around him. Not a tree; hardly a bush; the very grass itself in stunted patches, with rough boulders lying here and there as if they had been rained from the heavens. No signs of house nor habitation, only the sharply undulating plain, wherever the eye might turn, and far away on the western horizon, hills or mountains snow-clad, glimmering white in the uncertain light of moon and stars. ”

“ Mrs Coates sat near the stove, which was burning brightly, in her little rocking chair, reading; her black maid sitting not far off sewing; in front of the fire a big pleasant-faced cat was singing a duet with the brightly burnished copper kettle, and the great lamp swung in its gymbals from a beam over head.
I could not help pausing in the doorway for a moment to admire the homelike cosiness of the scene. By and by down came Captain Coates.
“Jill, my lad,” he said, as he seated himself by the little piano, “trot on deck and relieve Peter a bit.” ”

“ To be naval officers had always been our dream of dreams, Jill’s and mine. To wear the grand old uniform of blue and gold, to tread the snowy quarter-deck with swords by our side, and the white flag fluttering in the sunshine overhead—
“The flag that braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze—”
to sail the seas, to hear great guns firing, to attack ships and forts, and do all kinds of gallant deeds for our own glory and our country’s good—this constituted our notions of life as it ought to be led. ”

“ No, we did not say them, for mother taught us to think and pray the prayer—to wish what we said, as it were; and we got into that habit, Jill and I, so that at any time when praying, with our hearts wandering, as it were, we believed the good angels never could hear that prayer, and never bear it away to the good Father on the great white throne of grace.
I dare say few boys love their mother so much as we loved our beautiful mother, but then one always does think just in that way about one’s own love. None other can be like it. ”

“ How much that smile cost her, mothers alone may tell, but even we knew it was a smile without, to hide the grief within.
Mother went away.
For many a long month now there was a blank, a void in our hearts and in our home that nothing could fill.
Except Hope.
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Truer words were never spoken. When Hope dies, Life itself is soon extinct.
Auntie Serapheema did all she could now to cheer us. She was far less prim and stern with Jill and me. One o’clock struck no more on his knuckles nor on mine. ”

“ We live to learn. Here’s the cow, mon ami. Will you walk inside, Señor Cacique?”
“Ah!” cried Castizo, rubbing his hands gleefully.
“Here’s a blaze of light and glory! Here’s comfort; here’s luxury!”
Then, even before he shook hands with Jill and Ritchie, Castizo must elevate his palms like a Spanish girl dancing, cock his head a little on one side, and smilingly sing a verse of a song which caused his eyes to sparkle with merriment, and made those laugh who listened to him. ”

“ I keep talking to Jill and he to me, though we each have to shout into the other’s ear.
I remember calling—
“Jill, we must not sleep. Are you drowsy?”
“No, not very.”
“To sleep were death.”
After a few moments, in an agony of desperation, thinking and fearing more for my brother than myself, I spring up, and again we try to wrestle on. The dogs keep close to our heels, though we hardly can see them, so covered are they with snow and ice.
In vain, in vain. We can go no farther, and once more take shelter beneath our robes of skin. Ossian and Bruce creep partly between us. ”

“ Peter laughed heartily when I told him of the occurrence; but Jill did not. He even scolded me. What right had I to go away into the bush without him? he inquired, and hoped it would be a warning to me.
Poor innocent Jill!
The Indians, and even Jeeka, were rather afraid of the wood in which this adventure had taken place. It was haunted.
Strange, I thought, that so many woods were haunted.
Yet one cannot wonder at these poor people being superstitious, wandering so much as they do in this wild lone land, seeing so many sights and hearing so many strange sounds for which they cannot account. ”

“ If it comes at night the stars always hide themselves, and the very moon—should there be one—appears to shelter behind the unbroken surface of dark grey clouds.
Every wild creature knows the sough of the snow-wind. Bears creep farther into their dens when they hear it; wolves hide under the pine trees; the fox dreams not of leaving his burrow; rabbits cower closer beneath the tree roots, and birds seek shelter under the thickest boughs.
“The snow-wind,” continued Castizo. “Are we all safe and secure, Ritchie?” ”

“ On looking back through a long vista of years, and considering all the pros and cons of the case, and remembering that Jill and I were only boys, I do not think it any wonder we ran away from the dear old Thunderbolt hulk. I have always accused myself to myself, for the folly of having given way to a sudden romantic impulse—for which I, being the elder of the three on board, am alone accountable—playing at pirates, firing at a flag-ship, and all the rest of it. ”

“ Sometimes we turn round and walk with our backs to the terrible blast. Often we fall, but we help each other up, for we are hand in hand as brothers ever should be.
Jill whispers—it seems but a whisper though he is shouting—in my ear at last.
“I can do no more, brother. I am sinking.”
I feel glad—glad of the excuse to sink down among the snow and rest a little. Only a little. We creep close together, with our backs to the storm, pulling up our mantles round our heads and drawing in our legs for warmth. Oh, those good guanaco mantles, what a blessing they are now! ”

“ At a sign from Castizo, and during a lull in the proceedings, Peter brought out his clarionet. He had hardly played a note ere a silence deep as death fell upon the assembled Indians. At first some of them ran away, as if frightened, but all soon returned and stood or sat listening entranced. How very deeply the music had affected them was proved by the sighs they gave vent to immediately after Peter had finished. There must be something genuinely good in the heart of those wild Tehuelches, or they could not love music so much. ”

“ I have said “gloomy grandeur,” but gloom can hardly be associated with glaciers, ice, and snow; and surely, too, the myriads of wheeling birds were doing all they could to dispel the gloom; still, it lay on the sea, it hung on the dark cliffs, and hovered on the mists that had not yet risen from the mountain summits.
Indeed, everything in and around this strange ocean highway has an air of gloom. You cannot help feeling you are at the end of the world. There is something weird in the very appearance of the water, weird and treacherous too ”

“ I believe that if auntie ever cloaked her real soul’s self at all, it was when she was apparently exceedingly wroth with us, after some of our little escapades; which we could no more help than a bird can help flying. But sitting there in that weird black chair, lecturing Jill and me with uplifted forefinger, and steadfast glances over, not through, the two pairs of glasses, she certainly did look thrillingly stern. ”

“ I said, “that the self-same feelings agitate the breasts of these savages as dwell in our own.”
“Yes,” said Peter, “human nature is the same all the world over.”
That evening, after supper, Jill asked Peter what his feelings were particularly.
“I don’t know,” was the reply, “which end of me is uppermost. I feel all bruised and sore, and just as though I had gone in at one end of a thrashing machine and come out at the other.”
“Won’t you sing us a song to-night, then?” said Castizo, laughing, “or play on your pipe?”
“Play, mon ami? Pipe, my friend? It’ll be when I’m asleep, then.” ”

“ Nadi, woman-like, had brought some sewing with her, some beautiful skunk skins from which—we afterwards discovered—she was making a little roba or poncho for her favourite Peter.
“You’re not afraid of the Gualichu?” I said.
Jeeka looked hastily round as if to make sure there was nothing very dreadful in sight, before he replied—
“I shoot he quick, suppose I can.”
“But you shot him before in the shape of a horse?” I said.
“So, so.”
“And he has come to life again?”
“He, everywhere.”
“You speak the truth, Jeeka: the spirit of evil, if not the evil spirit in person, is everywhere. ”