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"Now, curb thy greed," cried Don Guillermo, as the girls dropped down the companion-way, "for thou hast more now than thou canst wear in five years. God of my soul! if a bark came every day they would want every shred on board. My daughter could tapestry the old house with the shawls she has."
Behind the dwelling were the manufactories and huts of the Indian retainers. Don Guillermo Iturbi y Moncada was the magnate of the South. His ranchos covered four hundred thousand acres; his horses and cattle were unnumbered.
We sprang to our saddles, Don Guillermo mounted heavily, and we cantered to the beach, followed by the ox-cart which would carry the fragile cargo home. A boat took us to the bark, which sat motionless on the placid channel. The captain greeted us with the lively welcome due to eager and frequent purchasers.
Her white face was delicately cut: the lines of time indicated spiritual sweetness rather than strength. Chonita roved between the sala and an adjoining room where four Indian girls embroidered the yellow poppies on the white satin. I was reading one of her books, the "Vicar of Wakefield." "Wilt thou be glad to see Reinaldo, my Prudencia?" asked Don Guillermo, as the song finished.
Don Guillermo, the plaster-worker, Mariano, Manuel and I, seizing whatever weapons were convenient at hand, started for the jail. We found an excited crowd gathered around the doorway. On a log before the door there sat a creature crazy-drunk. I have never seen a case more horrible. He screamed, yelled, gnashed his teeth, struck and snapped at everyone around. The whole village stood in terror.
A rodeo was held the next day, the last of the festivities; Don Guillermo taking advantage of the gathering of the rancheros. It was to take place on the Cerros Rancho, which adjoined the Rancho de las Rocas. We went early, most of us dismounting and taking to the platform on one side of the circular rodeo-ground.
"Well, then, you must know," continued the young man, "this morning that famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that he died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter of Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress of a shepherdess." "You mean Marcela?" said one.
We sent Antonio on with the horses to Cuernavaca, and started by the Diligence early one morning, accompanied by one of our English friends, whom I will call as every-one else did Don Guillermo. It is the regular thing here, as in Spain, to call everybody by his or her Christian name. You may have known Don Antonio or Don Felipe for weeks before you happen to hear their surnames.
"He must be a diputado to Mexico. I would not lose my only son in battle. I am ambitious for him; and so art thou, Chonita, for thy brother? Is it not so?" "Yes. I have it in me to stab the heart of any man who rolls a stone in his way." "My daughter," said Don Guillermo, with the accent of duty rather than of reproof, "thou must love without vengeance. Sustain thy brother, but harm not his enemy.
"I say then, my dear sir," said the goatherd, "that in our village there was a farmer even richer than the father of Chrysostom, who was named Guillermo, and upon whom God bestowed, over and above great wealth, a daughter at whose birth her mother died, the most respected woman there was in this neighbourhood; I fancy I can see her now with that countenance which had the sun on one side and the moon on the other; and moreover active, and kind to the poor, for which I trust that at the present moment her soul is in bliss with God in the other world.
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