The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 26, 27 June 1901, Page 23

The Storyteller

A STRANGE VISITOR.

It was in the time when the camp was new to me that this* happened. Through the lavor or uj«jilert^uie of the fate whi^h V»>id charge of me in those days I was all alone in a ranch with a flock of sheep. The ranch was a nastily -ouueliu.teJ shanty in the middle of an old tapera. It was close to a river, nearly a league from the nearest human habitation, and shut off from the world by • dense cardo jungle. It was in the month of December, and thft weather was Suffocating. I passed the days trying to keep cool, trying to extract oar do thorns from my limbs with a knife, and trying to formulate some theory as to the probable whereabouts of my sheep. I saw the flock occasionally by instalments in the morning or in the evening when a few score or, maybe, two or three hundred of the sheep would come home. The rent slept out ; and I often wondered, in my unsophisticated way, if they would ever be found again, and what would happen to me when I reported them missing. But it was too hot to pursue any train of thought very far, so when a fatiguing problem about being shot or going to prison arose I generally put it aside for future consideration and took another draught from the water-bucket. I had no dog or cat. I had nothing to read. I had no way of writirg. I was thrown completely back on myself, as it werp, and I think I was the loneBomest, home-sickest, most completely disillusioned shepherd under the Pani pa skies. The days followed one another with the same dreadful emptiness and monotony. The flies buzzed in the ranch ; the mosquitos trumpeted ; the insects hummed in the eardox ; the crickets chirped ; the night voices called, and moaned and came and went mysteriously and weirdly ; the stars hung in the dull muddy blue of midnight almost without a twinkle ; the moon was beautiful, yet hatefu , as she rose in the small hours over the thistle tops, for she seemed to be delaying the day and dragging to an intolerable length the sleepless hours ; there was stagnation without and within ; a world which seemed to fester, a mind which seemed to be blue-moulding — a hateful, sweltering, depressing time it was in every way, calculated to make you call for an iced drink whenever in after-years you recalled the pitiless days and endless nights — also, it may be said, calculated to make you wonder at the saving instinots which so often keep men from savagery or idiotcy. It was after about a fortnight of such an existence that something happened. I received a vibit. One night, about 10 o'clock, as I sat smoking at my door, a horseman, dimly seen in the starlight, rode out of the card ox on the side of the rodeo and approached my hut. I sat still and watched him as he came at a slow walk towards the well and stopped there. I had no fence around the house and the well was but a few yards from the door, co that when he pulled up he was quite close to me. I could not see his eyes, b"t I felt he was looking at me. He did not speak. He sat there like a statue, or rather like a shadow, with his face turned toward me, and made no sign. ' Guod night,' I Paid. There was no answer. 1 Buenaa noches,' I ventured, drawing on my slender stock of Spanish. No response. 1 Who are you ?' I asked, raising my voice. The horseman was as mute as if he were carved in stone. Something like a cold shiver ran down my back as I leaped <o my feet and rushed to where my revolver hung. It an old pinfire roarer in which I had very little confidence. It was a very noiay weapon, when it went off ; but there was no stability or certainty about it. You might snap it 10 times without getting anything out of it, and then at the eleventh call upon its obedience it would go off with a bang like a email cannon. I grasped it. however, and went back to the door, to find that the horseman had dismounted and was unsaddling. 4 Stop that,' I said threateningly. ' Hold on — who gave you leave to unsaddle ?' No reply. I again drew on my newly-acquired Spanish vocabulary and used most of the words I had learned, finishing up with ' No, no, no.' I might as well have been wasting my commands oi a gatopost. That horseman went on with his unsaddling, and scarcely had my last 'no' fallen on the air when the thud ot his riding gear fell on the ground. Then he took off the bridle and 1. d his horse to the well-bucket. It was aggravating no doubt, but I did not feel so much angry as dumbfounded. I raised the pistol and told him to stop once more. At last he stopped and turned towards me. 1 Who and what are you ?' I asked, 'to come in this way, at this hour and make the place your own .' Come, get out.' I uon't know whether I meant to fire or not,. lam inclined to think that the half conviction that the pistol would not go off had something to do with readiness in raising it. I was not altogether bluffing. In fact I oannot find the right word to express what I felt. As I raised the pistol the man turned and faced me. A low, foroed, painful, angry, unnatural cry came from him, as if from the depth of his heart. I knew it, for I had heard it before. It was the cry of the dumb. My hand dropped, and slipping the pistol under my belt I went towards him. My first impulse was one of hospitable commiseration. I would make the poor fellow welcome. I would help him with his horne — But would I ? He pushed me roughly away, as I reached for the halter to take it from hia hand, and stamped his foot.

1 All right,' I paid to myself, 'If you want it po ; butyoa needn't be so peppery because a fellow changes his mind, and instead of shooting you (or firing a t you) offers you his hospitality. He watered his horse and then led him a few yards away where the clover and summer-grasses were knee-hi^h and tied him out in the falling- d w to eat his fill. I stood beside the well watching him, and trying to make up my mind about him. When you receive a self-invited visitor at 10 o'clock at night in the midst of a cardo jungle, and when said victor is dumb and peculiar, you are to some extent disturbed in your mind about him. I resented his free and efiey manner ot making the huuse, &UoL us it was his own ; but then he was dumb. He picked up his riding-gear and carried it indoors. Beside where the gear lay there were two parcels. I stooped to pick them up, but he rushed back to me and snatched them hurriedly away. I eaid to myself with some asperity :—: — ' Well, if he hasn't the gift of speech he has the gift of making people feel uncomfortable, and anyhow, who's the tycoon here? Who's hont and who's the guest ?' I went in and struck a match to light a candle, but scarcely had the flame leaped out of the match head than it was stricken from my hand. I wheeled and faced the intruder in anger. What did he mean auyhow by such antics f I would give him a shaking • But would I? He stood before me immovable, his hands hanging down beside him, a i-quare, tall, burly fignre in the dim light that came from the stars through the doorway. I raised my right arm to shake my fist in his face when he grasped my wrist and held it. Hia grip was like a vice. I tried to wriggle free, but he held me as if the arm against which I exerted all my strength were of chilled steel. Suddenly a trick of the ' body holts ' days in wrestling occurred to me and I put it in practice. It freed me. But what was I to do with my liberty ? Attack him ? I could not. He stood before me for about half a minute ; then he slipped backwards and sat down upon his gear. I sat on the side of my stretcher-bed, with the sweat coursing down my face and my temples throbbing. I was aoting in everything contrary to what I believed to be the right course, and yet I could not help myself. I could not fire at him. I oould not kick him out. I could not do anything but sit there and wait for events, feeling that I was a fool, if not worse, to allow myself to be dominated to such an extent by my nerves. I told myself that the hatchet lay in the fire-place, that a revolver (more or less certain to hang fire) was in my belt, that I ought to make a fight to get him out of my ranch. But it was useless to think these things, I had not the will to execute them. I was not exactly cowed or submissive but I was overcome. Anyhow, I sat there, and the other man eat opposite me, I in the gloom, he in the faint light of the doorway. I could see his eyes were upon me. Mine were on him. We watched each other for an hour or more, when he fumbled in the darkness near him and presently drew something acro-8 his lap. Was it a gun. I placed my hand on the butt of the revolver (which was nearly sure to miss fire) and asked myself, ' Why on earth don't I open hostilities ? ' The intruder went on with his fumbling, and just -when I expected to hear the snick of a ri-ing hammer or closing breech-bolt, there instead came 'ting-a-ting a tung.' A guitar ! Yes, and a guitar-player too. He began with a mrfonga. and when he had rung the changes on that he turned to other tunes and played me up to the gates of heaven. Have you heard anybody play in puch witching fashion as to crowd into your mind and heart all the happiness you have ever felt, or can feel, all the pleasant memories of your past, all the rosy dreams you have ever dreamt or are to dream ? Well, he did that ! 1 heard the tunes that the ploughmen had whistled long ago— when ploughmen had the hearts to whistle. The swish of the scythes through the meadow grasses and the rattle of the whetstones on the long bright blades of the mowers in the days be lore the i lick-ehek ot the machine proclaimed that another chepter in the history of rural Ireland had closed — I heard all that in the mu«ic. The sweet scent of the hay-makers, and the sigh of the wind through the yellowing wheat-stalks on the ridges — all that was in the mubio too. The song of the thrush, the call of the blackbird, the melody of the lark singing herself to death over the moorland the carol of the robin for the Bun-rise of Christmas — it was all in the guitar. The cooing of the wood-pigeons, the wind symphony in the foliaged tops of larch and birch and towering elm and spreading beech and ash, tbe whistle of the curlew on the mountain, the wail of the plover on the callow, the lowing of the cows by the river-brink — every tone of it was in the music he made. And there were histories and prophecies, and songs of triumph and praise — all — every note of them in the strumming in the doorway. What do you say 1 The concert drew to a close at length to my inexpressible sorrow. I wanted it to go on and on. I wanted to be there and have him pUy the veTy life out of me. But he stopped short and put away the instrument. By this time I bad made up my mind that, whoever or whatever he might be, it would be a crime to harm the weakest hair of his head, even if that old revolver were capable of doing it, or even if I could bring the hatchet into action. But I had also resolved, cost what it might, to gaze upon the features of such a wizard. Carefully and noiselessly groping in the dark for my matches I struck a light and sprang forward towards where h9 sat. Lo ! he was no longer there. He had vanished. So had hia horse. Man, beast, guitar — all had disappeared. And, in fact, I mybelf was lying face downwards in the patio, a broken pipe between my teeth and my hat grasped firmly in both hands. Overhead the Btarß were shining, ' having nothing else to do ' as the song of Molly Bawn eings of them. Had I fallen asleep by my door ? Had I dreamt all about the mute musician of the midnight? I suppose so. It impressed me grently, however, and I slept no more that night. Next day I galloped over to the Larry's and told him the whole story, for I wondered if it could be an omen, and I knew if it were an omen

Larry could interpret it. He made minute inquiries into all the circumstances and antecedents of the affair and then he diagnosed thusly :—: —

• Well. m« lad, it's as plain as the nose on your face how it is. You say you had no g r ox. Very well. You ate nothin' all day wud the hate. Buina ! A fther sundown you wint and cooked yersel a roast — side a ribs, acoordin' to what you tell me — and polished it off, raw mate and cooked mate jucht as it was. Thin, I undherstand, you dhrank amoHtly a bucketful of well-wather. Thin you Btaokpd. You sat down be your dure and your stomach thried to re-^r*thcr all that lead of mate and wather No human Rtomach ron ld do the work me by A man can only re-<K*-ther what's nakeral. If he gormandiseß like a starvin' dog or a shark, he puts hie stomach out of ordh'er and thin he'll have dhrames. But thim dhrames is unnakeral dhrames and isn't worth a rush. They mane nothin'. That deaf and dumb customer was a nightmare, that's what he was. You say he played splendid. Well he might have done much worser nor that. lie might have come to you wud seven heads and seven tails, and flames oomin' out of his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, and he might have thrun you down the well, and rowled you in nittles an' flung you from the top of a mountain into a lake of bilin' pitch and opened a hole in your skull an' filled it up wud melted lead, an' then sat on your chest until mornin' listen to you gruntin' and moanin' ond sufferin' all the pains of not been able to re yri-ther that sheep you gobbled. There's no sign in that dbrame, me by but one — Don't do it again. Don't lie around the whole day. Go out and stretch yourself on horseback. Thorns is it ? Thorns be danged ! Thorns is better nor your own company, me by, until yon get used to ir. By'rn-by you'll not be narvyous at bein' alone for, as I say. you'll get uned to your own company, as the man got used to hangin', but until you're able to bear more of your own company — shun it as you'd shun the divil. And don't ate the half of a she^p late at night. That's the sign of your dhrame, me by. An 1 now will you have a sup of tay I—Buenoß1 — Buenoß Aires Southern Crott.