Meanwhile, Tio Pedro, his hands on the gate, still stood exchanging the last words of banter and gossip, idly delaying the moment of final closure. Of all those human beings gathered there, perhaps no one of them appreciated the magnificent and solemn grandeur by which they were surrounded any more than did the cattle that lowed in the distance, or the horses that ran whinnying to the stone walls of the enclosures, snuffing eagerly the cool night air that came down from the hills, over the clear stream which rippled under the shadow of the cottonwood trees, across the broad fields of springing corn and ripening wheat, and through the deep green of the plantations of chile and beans and the scented orchards of mingled fruits of the temperate and torrid zones. For miles it thus traversed the unparalleled fertility of the Bajio, that Egypt of Mexico, which feeds the thousands who toil in her barren hills for silver or who watch the herds that gather a precarious subsistence upon her waterless plains, and which gives the revenues of princes to its lordly proprietors, who scatter them with lavish hands in distant cities and countries, and with smiling mockery dole the scant necessities of life to the toiling thousands who live and die upon the soil.
Many are these fertile expanses, which, entered upon through some deep and rugged defile, lie like amphitheatres inclosed by jagged and massive walls of brescia and porphyry, that rise in a thousand grotesque shapes above their bases of green,—at a near view showing all the varying shades of gray, yellow, and brown, and in the distance deep purples and blues, which blend into the clear azure of the sky. One of the most beautiful of such spots is that in which lay the hacienda or estates of the family of Garcia, and one of the most marvellously rich; for there even the very rocks yield a tribute, the mine of the Three Brothers—the “Tres Hermanos”—being one of those which at the Conquest had been given as a reward to the daring adventurer Don Geronimo Garcia. It was surrounded by rich lands, which unheeded by the earliest proprietors, later yielded the most important returns to their descendants. But at the time our story opens, the mines and mills of Tres Hermanos, though they added a picturesque element to the landscape, had become a source of perplexity and loss,—still remaining, however, in the opinion of their owners, a proud adjunct to the vast stretches of field and orchard which encircled them.
The mines themselves lay in the scarred mountain against which the reduction-works stood, a dingy mass of low-built houses and high adobe walls, from the midst of which ascended the great chimney, whence clouds of sulphurous smoke often rose in a black column against the sky. These buildings made a striking contrast to the great house, which formed the nucleus of the agricultural interests and was the chief residence of the proprietors, and whose lofty walls rose proudly, forming one side of the massive adobe square, which was broken at one corner by a box-towered church and on another by a flour-mill. The wheels of this mill were turned in the rainy season by the rapid waters of a mountain stream, which lower down passed through the beautiful garden, the trees of which waved above the fourth corner of the walls,—flowing on, to be almost lost amid the slums and refuse of the reduction-works a half-mile away, and during the nine dry months of the year leaving a chasm of loose stones and yellow sand to mark its course. Along the banks were scattered the huts of workmen, though, with strange perversity, the greater number had clustered together on a sandy declivity almost in front of the great house, discarding the convenience of nearness to wood and water,—the men, perhaps, as well as the women, preferring to be where all the varied life of the great house might pass before their eyes, while custom made pleasant to its inmates the nearness of the squalid village, with its throngs of bare-footed, half nude, and wholly unkempt inhabitants.
These few words of description have perhaps delayed us no longer than Tio Pedro lingered at his task of closing the great doors for the night, leaving however a little postern ajar, by which the tardy work-people passed in and out, and at which the children boisterously played hide-and-seek (that game of childhood in all ages and climes); and meanwhile, as has been said, the traveller found and took his way to the stables. Before entering, he paused a moment to pull the red handkerchief that bound his head still further over his bushy black brows, and to readjust his hat, and then went into the court upon which the stalls opened. Finding none vacant in which to place his mule, he tethered it in a corner of the crowded yard; and then, with many reverences and excuses, such as rancheros or villagers are apt to use, asked a feed of barley and an armful of straw from the “major-domo,” who was giving out the rations for the night.
“All in good time! All in good time, friend,” answered this functionary, pompously but not unkindly. “He who would gather manna must wait patiently till it falls.”
“But I have a real which I will gladly give,” interrupted the ranchero. “Your grace must not think I presume to beg of your bounty. I—”
“Tut! tut!” interrupted the major-domo; “dost think we are shop-keepers or Jews here at Tres Hermanos? Keep thy real for the first beggar who asks an alms;” and he drew himself up as proudly as if all the grain and fodder he dispensed were his own personal property. “But,” he added, with a curiosity that came perhaps from the plebeian suspicion inseparable from his stewardship, “hast thou come far to-day? Thy beast seems weary,—though as far as that goes it would not need a long stretch to tire such a knock-kneed brute.”
“I come from Las Vigas,” answered the traveller, doffing his hat at these dubious remarks, as though they were highly complimentary. “Saving your grace’s presence, the mule is a trusty brute, and served my father before me; but like your servant, he is unused to long journeys,—this being the first time we have been so far from our birthplace. Santo Niño, but the world is great! Since noon have my eyes been fixed upon the magnificence of your grace’s dwelling-place, and, by my faith, I began to think it one of the enchanted palaces my neighbor Pablo Arteaga, who travels to Guadalajara, and I know not where, to buy and sell earthenware, tells of!”
The major-domo laughed, not displeased with the homage paid to his person and supposed importance, and suffering himself to be amused by the villager’s unusual garrulity. Las Vigas he knew of as a tiny village perched among the cliffs of the defile leading from Guanapila, whence fat turkeys were taken to market on feast-days, when its few inhabitants went down to hear Mass, and to turn an honest penny. They were a harmless people, these poor villagers, and he felt a glow of charity as if warmed by some personal gift, as he said, “Take a fair share of barley and straw for thy beast, and when thou hast given it to him, follow me into the kitchen, and thou shalt not lack a tortilla, nor frijoles and chile wherewith to season it.”
“May your grace live a thousand years!” began the villager, when the major-domo interrupted him.