Chapter Twelve.
The Hacienda.
Clear and bright was the sky, and wherever the rays of the sun penetrated it was for them to fall in a shower of golden arrows, and form tracery upon the green carpet beneath the trees, amid whose branches, screaming, chattering, climbing, and hanging head downwards, or fluttering from bough to bough, were hundreds of rainbow-hued parrots, beautiful as Nature’s dyes could paint.
It was a scene of exceeding beauty, and was not lost even upon blunt, hungry Tom.
“Well,” he exclaimed, “if this don’t pay for coming out, may I never again wire out a bar of best mottled. It’s a rum sort of country though; one time frightening you to death, and the next minute coaxing you into staying. S’pose, Mas’r Harry, that there’s a sort of foreign market-garden?”
“If I’m not mistaken, Tom, that’s my uncle’s plantation.”
“With all my heart, Mas’r Harry; but choked as I am with thirst I should like one of them pumpkins or some of the other outlandish fruits. Let’s have a pen’orth, sir. My! what a sight though! I hope this is the spot. But there, only look, Mas’r Harry, did you ever see such sparrows? Look at the colour of ’em! If I don’t take home a cageful, and one of them red and yaller poll-parrots, I don’t stand here now. But are you sure your uncle Reuben lives here, Mas’r Harry?”
“I think this must be the spot, Tom,” I said, “according to the guide’s description.”
“Why, he must be quite a lord, sir. He’s never touched taller or soap in his life, I’ll bet. But, say, Mas’r Harry, we look rough uns to go and see him, don’t us?”