Our Home in the Silver West Part 30

We resumed talking, but in a lower, quieter key. The events of the evening, our strange surroundings, the whispering trees, the occasional strange cries, and the mournful beauty of the night, seemed to have cast a glamour over every heart that was here; and though it was now long past our usual hour for bed, no one appeared wishful to retire.

All at once Archie grasped me by the shoulder and glanced fearfully into the forest behind me. I dared scarcely turn my head till the click of Yambo's revolver rea.s.sured me.

Yes, there was the figure in grey moving silently towards us.

'Speak, quick, else I fire!' shouted our _capataz_.

'_Ave Maria!_'

Yambo lowered the revolver, and we all started to our feet to confront the figure in grey.

[14] Toldo = a tent.

CHAPTER XX.

THE MOUNTAIN CRUSOE.

The figure in grey--the grey was a garment of skin, cap, coat, breeches, and even boots, apparently all of the same material--approached with extended hand. We could see now it was no ghost who stood before us, but a man of flesh and blood. Very solid flesh, too, judging from the cheeks that surmounted the silvery beard. The moon shone full on his face, and a very pleasant one it was, with a bright, merry twinkle in the eye.

'Who are you?' said I.

'Nay, pardon me,' was the bold reply, 'but the question would come with greater propriety from my lips. I need not ask it, however. You are right welcome to my little kingdom. You are, I can see, a party of roving hunters. Few of your sort have ever come here before, I can tell you.'

'And you?' I said, smiling.

'_I_ am--but there, what need to give myself a name? I have not heard my name for years. Call me Smith, Jones, Robinson; call me a hunter, a trapper, a madman, a fool--anything.'

'A hermit, anyhow,' said Dugald.

'Yes, boy, a hermit.'

'And an Englishman?'

'No; I am a Portuguese by birth, but I have lived in every country under the sun, and here I am at last. Have I introduced myself sufficiently?'

'No,' I said; 'but sit down. You have,' I continued, 'only introduced yourself sufficiently to excite our curiosity. Yours must be a strange story.'

'Oh, anybody and everybody who lives for over fifty years in the world as I have done has a strange story, if he cared to tell it. Mine is too long, and some of it too sad. I have been a soldier, a sailor, a traveller; I have been wealthy, I have been poor; I have been in love--my love left _me_. I forgot _her_. I have done everything except commit crime. I have not run away from anywhere, gentlemen. There is no blood on my hands. I can still pray. I still love. She whom I love is here.'

'Oh!' cried Dugald, 'won't you bring the lady?'

The hermit laughed.

'She _is_ here, there, all around us. My mistress is Nature. Ah! boys,' he said, turning to us with such a kind look, 'Nature breaks no hearts; and the more you love her, the more she loves you, and leads you upwards--always upwards, never down.'

It was strange, but from the very moment he began to talk both my brothers and I began to like this hermit. His ways and his manners were quite irresistible, and before we separated we felt as if we had known him all our lives.

He was the last man my brothers and I saw that night, and he was the first we met in the morning. He had donned a light cloth poncho and a broad sombrero hat, and really looked both handsome and picturesque.

We went away together, and bathed, and I told him of Dugald's adventure.

He looked interested, patted my brother's shoulder, and said:

'Poor boy, what a narrow escape you have had!

'The stream,' he continued, 'that flows through this strange glen rises in the hills about five miles up. It rises from huge springs--you shall see them--flows through the woods, and is sucked into the earth in the middle of that lake. I have lived here for fifteen years. Walk with me up the glen. Leave your rifles in your tents; there is nothing to hurt.'

We obeyed, and soon joined him, and together we strolled up the path that led close by the banks of a beautiful stream. We were enchanted with the beauty displayed everywhere about us, and our guide seemed pleased.

'Almost all the trees and shrubs you see,' he said, 'I have planted, and many of the beautiful flowers--the orchids, the climbers, and creepers, all are my pets. Those I have not planted I have encouraged, and I believe they all know me.'

At this moment a huge puma came bounding along the path, but stopped when he saw us.

'Don't be afraid, boys,' said the hermit. 'This, too, is a pet. Do not be shy, Jacko. These are friends.'

The puma smelt us, then rubbed his great head against his master's leg, and trotted along by his side.

'I have several. You will not shoot while you live here? Thanks. I have a large family. The woods are filled with my family. I have brought them from far and near, birds and beasts of every kind. They see us now, but are shy.'

'I say, sir,' said Dugald, 'you are Adam, and this is Paradise.'

The hermit smiled in recognition of the compliment, and we now approached his house.

'I must confess,' I said, 'that a more Crusoe-looking establishment it has never been my luck to behold.'

'You are young yet,' replied the hermit, laughing, 'although you speak so like a book.

'Here we are, then, in my compound. The fence, you see, is a very open one, for I desire neither to exclude the suns.h.i.+ne nor the fresh air from my vegetables. Observe,' he continued, 'that my hut, which consists of one large room, stands in the centre of a gravel square.'

'It is strange-looking gravel!' said Dugald.

'It is nearly altogether composed of salt. My house is built of stone, but it is plastered with a kind of cement I can dig here in the hills. There is not a crevice nor hollow in all the wall, and it is four feet thick.

The floor is also cemented, and so is the roof.'

'And this,' I remarked, 'is no doubt for coolness in summer.'

'Yes, and warmth in winter, if it comes to that, and also for cleanliness.

Yonder is a ladder that leads to the roof. Up there I lounge and think, drink my _mate_ and read. Oh yes, I have plenty of books, which I keep in a safe with bitter-herb powder--to save them, you know, from literary ants and other insects who possess an ambition to solve the infinite. Observe again, that I have neither porch nor verandah to my house, and that the windows are small. I object to a porch and to climbing things on the same principle that I do to creeping, crawling creatures. The world is wide enough for us all. But they must keep to their side of the house at night, and I to mine. And mine is the inside. This is also the reason why most of the gravel is composed of salt. As a rule, creepies don't like it.'

'Oh, I'm glad you told us that,' said Archie; 'I shall make my mule carry a bushel of it. I'm glad you don't like creepies, sir.'

'But, boy, I _do_. Only I object to them indoors. Walk in. Observe again, as a showman would say, how very few my articles of furniture are. Notice, however, that they are all scrupulously clean. Nevertheless, I have every convenience. That thong-bottomed sofa is my bed. My skins and rugs are kept in a bag all day, and hermetically sealed against the prying probosces of insectivora. Here is my stove, yonder my kitchen and scullery, and there hangs my armoury. Now I am going to call my servant.

He is a Highlander like yourselves, boys; at any rate, he appears to be, for he never wears anything else except the kilt, and he talks a language which, though I have had him for ten years, I do not yet understand.

Archie, Archie, where are you?'