Stableboy

“ We can’t live together free and easy if we stand on ceremony. We are all equal on the Pampas.”
“But there is a cacique or chief among the Ishmaelites?”
“Yes; but a cacique holds a kind of sinecure office. He is partly chief and partly magistrate, gives himself a great many airs; and the women often laugh at him behind his back. I’ll be cacique if you like, but not ‘Sir.’”
“Well,” said Peter, “I’ll be bound we won’t laugh at you behind your back.”
As he spoke, Peter divested the horse of saddle and bridle, as nimbly as if he had been brought up in a stable all his life. ”

“ I’ll do as much for you again. Goodness gracious, Jack! if I’ve got to leave the saddle now, I’ll be death of this darling child. If the horse should stumble or baby should kick, it’s all up with us; and I haven’t made my will either.”
Here the baby sneezed, and Peter swayed unsteadily in the saddle.
“Hoop!” he cried. “I did think it was all up with me then. Jack, will you have baby?”
“Not I, thank you.”
“Jill, you’re a dear, good fellow. You’ll take the baby, won’t you? The mother has gone away forward somewhere. Do, old man. I’ll never call you Greenie again.” ”

“ Most of the party were young and deeply engrossed by the prospect of some sky-races, which, coming off next day, were to bring their winter sojourn at Jumwar to a brilliant close. One, a lanky boy with pretensions to both money and brains, was drawing down on himself merciless chaff by a boastful allusion to former stables he had owned.
"Don't believe a syllable he says," cried his dearest friend. "I give you my word they were all screws. Stable, indeed! ”

“ The child patted his hand as if she had been some old aunt of his.
'You were not afraid, were you, Mr Blake?' she said.
'Well, Lotty, a voice like that isn't calculated to raise the drooping spirits of a lone man like me. Have you done rehearsal?'
'Oh yes, and now, if you please, we can ramble off to the hills with Wallace. But we could ride, Mr Blake, if you prefer it. There is one big, wild black horse that only I can manage; but I have taken Skeleton up behind me sometimes, and I'm sure I could manage with you.'
Antony laughed. ”

“ The lad said he must get room for the little beast in the stable. The gentleman said he would get it. They went home then. He had eleven boys. When they were going out into the stable at ten o'clock each of them took a light but he. He took no candle at all with him.
Each of them went to his own stable. When he went into his stable he opened the box. He left it in a hole in the wall. The light was great. It was twice as much as in the other stables. There was wonder on the boys what was the reason of the light being so great, and he without a candle with him at all. ”

“ This stallion, in whom survived the fighting traits of the wild horse and defiance of man as an enemy who had no use for him but to enslave him and work him to death, had already killed two stablemen. Too valuable for the stud to be himself killed, and too dangerous to be approached or handled, it was decided to destroy his eyesight; and the doctor had been called in to treat both stable-boy and stallion. ”

“ Their motto is, ‘Take all we can get, and take it anyhow.’ My dear lad,” he continued, “could anything be handier for these savages than to collar a white man. He is dressed, and has nick-nacks in his pocket; well, they want the dress and the nick-nacks, for you see they don’t have any clothes of their own worth mentioning; then the body of the white man comes in handy for a side-dish. They think no more of killing a white man than they do of sending an arrow through the heart of a guanaco. ”

“ They had us in the water; and by the time a boat shoved off from the Wasp and came to our assistance, there was hardly a man among us left to tell tales.”
“That was fearful!”
“Ye see—haul aft the main sheet a bit—you see, sir, mostly all savages has their own ways o’ fightin’, their own tactics as you might say. Drat ’em all, I say.”
“You don’t believe in the noble savage?” said Jill.
“Not same’s they make ’em nowadays, sir. ’Cause why, we white men have spiled them. And now we want to kill ’em all off the face o’ the earth. It’s just like an ignorant old party having a dog for a pet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But crack, crack, crack went the brave girl’s whip; she punished the runaway most unmercifully, and had succeeded in turning him ere her Northumbrian cavalier rode up. A moment more and the bull was tearing back towards the herd he had left, a stockman or two following close behind.
“I was frightened for you,” said Archie.
“Pray, don’t be so, Mr Broadbent. I don’t want to think myself a child, and I should not like you to think me one. Mind, I’ve been in the Bush all my life.”
But there was more and greater occasion to be frightened for Etheldene ere the day was done. ”

“ Now once having taken it into my head that escape from this country of savages was impossible, strange to say I began to settle down, in everything else except human bloodthirstiness, and soon became a very expert savage, taking a wild kind of pride in my exploits.
Mine was now a life of peril and hardship; adventures to me were of everyday occurrence; I carried my life in my hand; I grew as wily as a jackal, and I hope as bold as a lion. I take no credit to myself for being bold; I had to be so.
The king and I continued friends. At the end of the sixth year of my captivity, Jooma died. ”

“ Should we not be happy and thankful? Peter, help me to a little more of Pedro’s mush. And, Pedro, bring the teapot. Thank you. Place it near the fire again.”
“Yes,” I said, “independence is a truly delightful thing.”
“The world is uncharitable—I mean the civilised world: in towns and cities you hardly know how to look and live to please people. If you seem independent, they hate you; if you are obsequious, they despise you. Jill, here is a tit-bit—ostrich gizzard, my boy! Pedro, have you seen to the dogs?”
“But,” I said, “even in cities you find wheat among the chaff.”
Castizo laughed lightly. ”

“ And sometimes I sigh and murmur to myself——
'Oh dear me!' I say, 'if my purse were only half as big as my heart, wouldn't I quickly gather together a thousand of these white slaves and sail merrily off with them to the Land of the Silver West! And men would learn to laugh there who hardly ever smiled before, and tendons would wax wiry, and muscles hard, and pale faces grow brown with the tints of health. And health would mean work, and work would mean wealth, and—but, heigho! what is the good of dreaming? ”

“ Sandie obeyed the Rector to the letter. He went home and went to bed. But to sleep, alas! he found was out of the question. He could not keep himself from thinking what a pleasant life might be before him if he were successful. Ah! if. But what if he failed in winning a bursary big enough to support him? That was the “if” that caused his heart to beat and kept him wide-awake. Back he would have to go to the slush and the drudgery of farm labour, the plough, the harrow, the mud, the snow, the hard work, wet day or dry day, the stiff joints and the aching bones. ”

“ Ah, lad, it was my--it was your dear mother who provided and baptized her."
"But----" The boy hesitated, as well he might. "I want to go farther afloat than any yacht could ever take me. I wish to go and see wild places such as my best authors speak of, to kill wild beasts, to fight with savages, and snakes, and sharks, and tigers."
"Pile it up, boy. You're not at all ambitious, are you? But, Kep, I'm not rich enough to buy you a ship, and I have other views for you. You are my only son, and heir to all my property. I want to take you into London society. ”

“ Many a poor slave who had stolen from his cabin, to join in the dance, now remembered that they had no pass! Many screamed in affright, as if they already felt the lash and heard the crack of the overseer's whip; others clenched their hands, and assumed an attitude of bold defiance, while a savage frown contracted the brow of all. Their unrestrained merriment and delicious fare, seemed to arouse in them the natural feelings of self-defence and defiance of their oppressors. ”

“ And beside her always sat a sturdy bright-faced boy of about thirteen, with blue eyes, and short irrepressible locks of soft fair hair, that nothing on earth except scissors could have kept from tumbling over his brow. He was always dressed in the Highland garb as Highland lads ought to be, but his jacket was of black velvet and his kilt of the sombrest coloured tartan.
He was the favourite of every one on the estate, and so was his bird. Wherever young Claude—he was seldom called Lord Claude, because he did not like to be—wherever he went his snow-bird went as well. ”

“ Gee op and away ye goes! And there were old Garge who drov us like, which he Had a fine temper, polly, ’ceptin’ when he got a drop too much, then it was whip, whip, whip, all day, up hill and down, and my shoulders is marked till this day. But Old farmer frogue, he comes to the stable once upon a time, which a very fat un were farmer frogue, wi’ no legs to speak of like. Well, polly, as I were a sayin’, he comes to the stable, and he says to Garge, ‘Garge,’ says he—
“But would you believe it, dear dobbin? I never got further on with my story like. ”

“ Young Antony suppressed a yawn.
'Very good, my boy, very good!'—his dad was shaking hands with him—'and I honour you for your choice. And I'm of precisely the same opinion. There's nothing like a seat in the House.'
'Rather have one on the hillside though, daddy, all among the grouse.'
His father didn't hear him.
'And now, Frank, I'm not an ordinary father, you know; and, before entering the House, I don't see in the least why you shouldn't have your fling for a year or two. I maintain that all young fellows should have their fling. A hundred years or so agone I had my fling. Look at me now. ”

“ So I propose that we get ready at once, that we provision the sledges, and make an attempt to reach the semi-Eskimo, semi-Danish settlement of Sturmstadt.”
“It will be a terrible journey.”
“It will, indeed, but both Jack and Joe know the way. I have talked to them. Their people have come on the hunting-path within a hundred miles of this place.”
“For myself, I care not,” said Claude; “but I grieve to think of my poor fellows, perhaps sinking and dying by the way. Would it not be almost better to rough it here through another winter, then, when the snow is gone, to walk the journey? ”

“ We believed him. We were convinced it would end in a drum-head court-martial, with, next day, poor Jack swung up at one end of the fore-yard, and poor dear Jill at the other. A pretty sight that would have been on a summer’s morning. Romantic? Oh, yes, I own there would have been a good deal of romance about it. Rather much indeed. Our position would have been far too exalted to suit even my ambition.
Some one has said that hanging is the worst use you can put a man to, so it cannot be good for a boy.
That officer of the tug-boat, too, made so awfully light of the matter. ”

“ The men try hard to fight against it. They smoke, they sing, they fiddle, they dance—on every available excuse the captain may even splice the main-brace; but all pleasures are transient, and do not come directly from the heart.
This was the case now on board the good barque Boo-boo-boo. Willie and Sandie felt depressed; even Tyro the collie seemed in low spirits or out of sorts. ”

“ The Turk had run towards the saloon just as the mischief began to brew.
"You won't be safe, friend boy," he cried to poor Kep. Then he hurried the lad into his little cabin and locked the door.
He met the leader and mutineers as they were making aft.
"No blood," he cried. "Shed no blood."
The black man dashed him to the deck. Not stunned though, it would take a deal to quiet so powerful a Turk, he was on his feet in a moment; knives glittered, and the two were in deadly embrace. Both fell, but only one rose, and a rivulet of blood was straggling towards a scupper hole. ”

“ Already the evil seed that Gustus had sown so artfully was beginning to swell.
'Confound it all!' said Blake, half-aloud, as he tossed away half a cigar and proceeded to light another, 'that boy can't have much of the real blood of the old Blakes in him. 'Pon my soul, I'd rather he was a trifle wicked than a downright fool. Let me see—he hopes the old dad (that's me) won't take on about this when I (that's Frank) tell him. And it's just "dad," doesn't even honour me with a capital D. No, Frank Antony, the old dad is not going to lose his hair over this. ”

“ It was an ill-fated day for both clans when one morning a stalwart Highlander, flying from glen to glen with the fiery cross waving aloft, brought a missive to the chief of Coila. The Raes had been summoned to meet their prince; the M'Crimman had been solicited. In two hours' time the straths were all astir with preparations for the march. No boy or man who could carry arms, 'twixt the ages of sixteen and sixty, but buckled his claymore to his side and made ready to leave. Listen to the wild shout of the men, the shrill notes of bagpipes, the wailing of weeping women and children! ”