“Yes,” he said sadly; “glorious as the gilded frame of a mirror, all lustre and brightness, while underneath it is composition, and wood, and ill-smelling glue. Why, my dear boy, I am only living from hand to mouth. This looks, of course, all very bright and beautiful to you, and a wonderful contrast to hazy, foggy, cold old England—Heaven bless it! But fire-flies, and humming-birds, and golden sunshine, and gaily-painted blossoms are not victuals and drink, Harry; and, besides, when you set to and earn your victuals and drink, you don’t know but what they will all be taken away from you. We’ve no laws here, my lad, worth a rush. We’re a patriotic people here, with a great love of our country—we Spanish, half-bred republican heroes,” he said bitterly, “and we love that country so well, Harry, that we are always murdering and enriching it with the blood of its best men. It might be a glorious place, but man curses it, and we are always having republican struggles, and bloodshed, and misery. We are continually having new presidents, here, my lad; and after being ruined three times, burned out twice, and saving my life by the skin of my teeth, the bright flowers and great green leaves seem to be powdered with ashes, and I’d gladly, any day, change this beautiful place, with its rich plantations, for fifty acres of land in one of the shires at home.”
“But don’t you take rather a gloomy view of it all, Uncle?” I said, as I looked at him curiously.
But to my great discomfiture he burst out laughing, for he had read my thoughts exactly.
“My liver is as sound as yours, Harry, my boy,” he said; “and I don’t believe that there’s a heartier man within fifty miles. No, my lad, I’m not jaundiced. There’s no real prosperity here. The people are a lazy, loafing set, and never happy but when they are in hot water. There’s the old, proud hidalgo blood mixed up in their veins; they are too grand to work—too lazy to wash themselves. There isn’t a decent fellow in the neighbourhood, except one, and his name is Garcia—eh, Lill?” he said, laughing.
Lilla’s face crimsoned as she bent over her work, while a few minutes after she rose and whispered to Mrs Landell.
“You must excuse me, Harry,” said my aunt, rising. “Lilla is unwell; the shock has been too much for her.”
The next moment I was alone with my uncle, who proceeded in the same bitter strain:
“Yes, my lad, commerce is all nohow here—everything’s sluggish, and I cannot see how matters are to mend. I’m glad to see you—heartily glad you have come. Stay with us a few months if you are determined upon a colonial life; see all you can of the country and judge for yourself; but Heaven forbid that I should counsel my sister’s child to settle in such a revolutionary place!”
I was not long in finding out the truth of my uncle’s words. The place was volcanic, and earthquakes of no uncommon occurrence; but Nature in the soil was not one half as bad as Nature in the human race—Spanish half-blood and Indian—with which she had peopled the region, for they were, to a man, stuffed with explosive material, which the spark of some speaker’s language was always liable to explode.
But I was delighted with the climate, in spite of the heat; and during the calm, cool evenings, when the moon was glancing through the trees, bright, pure, and silvery, again and again I thought of how happy I could be there but for one thing.