I.
On an evening in May, some forty years ago, Tio Pedro, the portero, or gate-keeper, of Tres Hermanos, had loosened the iron bolts that held back the great doors against the massive stone walls, and was about to close the hacienda buildings for the night, when a traveller, humbly dressed in a shabby suit of buff leather, urged his weary mule up the road from the village, and pulling off his wide sombrero of woven grass, asked in the name of God for food and shelter.
Pedro glanced at him sourly enough from beneath his broad felt-hat, gay with a silver cord and heavy tassels. The last rays of the setting sun flashed in his eyes, allowing him but an uncertain glimpse of the dark face of the stranger, though the shabby and forlorn aspect of both man and beast were sufficiently apparent to warn him from forcing an appearance of courtesy, and he muttered, grumblingly,—
“Pass in! Pass in! See you not I am in a hurry? God save us! Am I to stand all night waiting on your lordship? Another moment, friend, and the gate would have been shut. By my patron saint,” he added in a lower tone, “it would have been small grief to me to have turned the key upon thee and thy beast. By thy looks, Tia Selsa’s mud hut for thee, and the shade of a mesquite for thy mule, would have suited all needs well enough. But since it is the will of the saints that thou comest here, why get thee in.”
“Eheu!” ejaculated a woman who stood by, “what makes thee so spiteful to-night, Tio Pedro, as if the bit and sup were to be of thy providing? Thou knowest well enough that Doña Isabel herself has given orders that no wayfarer shall be turned from her door!”
“Get thee to the hand-mill, gossip!” cried the gatekeeper, angrily. “This new-comer will add a handful of corn to thy stint for grinding; he has a mouth for a gordo, believe me.”
The woman, thus reminded of her duty, hurried away amid the laughter of the idlers, who, lounging against the outer walls or upon the stone benches in the wide archway, exchanged quips and jests with Pedro, one by one presently sauntering away to the different courtyards within the hacienda walls or to their own homes in the grass-thatched village, above which the great building rose at once overshadowingly and protectingly.
The stranger, thus doubtfully welcomed, urged his mule across the threshold, throwing, as he entered, keen glances around the wide space between the two arches, and beyond into the dim court; and especially upon the rows of stuffed animals ranged on the walls, and upon the enormous snakes pendent on either side the inner doorway, twining in hideous folds above it, and even encircling the tawdry image of the Virgin and child by which the arch was surmounted. These trophies, brought in by the husbandmen and shepherds and prepared with no unskilful hands, gave a grim aspect to the entrance of a house where unstinted hospitality was dispensed, the sight of whose welcoming walls cheered the wayfarer across many a weary league,—it being the only habitation of importance to be seen on the extensive plain that lay within the wide circle of hills which on either hand lay blue and sombre in the distance. For a few moments, indeed, the western peaks had been lighted up by the effulgence of the declining sun; the last rays streamed into the vestibule as the traveller entered, then were suddenly withdrawn, and the gray chill which fell upon the valley deepened to actual duskiness in the court to which he penetrated.
Careless glances followed him, as he rode across the broad flagging, picking his way among the lounging herdsmen, who, leaning across their horses, were recounting the adventures of the day or leisurely unsaddling. He looked around him for a few moments, as if uncertain where to go; but each one was too busy with his own affairs to pay any attention to so humble a wayfarer. Nor, indeed, did he seem to care that they should; on the contrary, he pulled his hat still further over his brows, and with his dingy striped blanket thrown crosswise over his shoulder and almost muffling his face, followed presently a confused noise of horses and men, which indicated where the stables stood, and disappeared within a narrow doorway leading to an inner court.