Read Online The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories by Geoffrey Household - Free Book Online

startled both me and my mule in sunlight—it looked and smelt like one of the more unpleasant hazards on the course of Pilgrim’s Progress—and was prohibitive when imagined under crawling vapor. I decided to ride over to the estancia and ask for a bed.
    We plodded through the mist and two streams. A massive Holstein bull, colored black and white like Cotopaxi, materialized out of a cloud and accompanied us for half a mile. Neither of us liked him. True, I knew that the lean beasts of real cattle country did not attack a mounted man; but I was doubtful whether this aristocrat imported from Europe would have heard of the local rule. The scent of a dairy came to my nostrils as we paced up the avenue of eucalyptus that led to the house, and when we arrived before the façade of round white arches two golden cockers barked and whined and leapt against their chains with the usual friendliness of spaniels to any newcomer. At the noise of this enthusiasm, effective as the growl of a watchdog, a tall man in shirt sleeves, corduroy breeches, and gaiters came round the corner of the house. His face was bronzed and his hair dark and curly. He did not look like an Ecuadorian born. Possibly a Basque immigrant, I thought.
    â€œ Buenas tardes, señor, ” I began. “Excuse this visit without ceremony, but—”
    He watched me keenly while I spoke.
    â€œA dirty evening,” he interrupted cordially with a slight West Country burr in his voice. “We’ll gladly put you up if you care to stay the night.”
    â€œAre you English?” I asked in surprise.
    â€œCornish,” he corrected me.
    I put him down as a cowman or stud groom imported by the owner of the estancia. It seemed odd that a man with all the earmarks of one fixed to his own soil should be earning wages in the heart of the cordillera.
    â€œGood Lord! What’s brought you out here?” I asked impulsively.
    â€œA woman,” he chuckled.
    He did not seem at all upset about her, seemed even to be mischievously waiting for some sympathetic remark from me.
    An Indian in a red poncho and wide-brimmed straw hat trotted out of the damp mist, driving before him a donkey and a llama both loaded with brushwood. He was moving in the wrong dimension. The Cornishman, the spaniels, the dairy scents, and the dripping trees around the house had created a complete illusion of England. I should have been less surprised to see a boy on a bicycle delivering the evening paper.
    â€œ Tu, Felipe!” ordered the Cornishman. “Take this gentleman’s mule round to the stables. He is staying the night.”
    â€œ Ahora mismo, patrón, ” answered the peon respectfully.
    â€œYou own this place?” I asked.
    â€œOf course! Come in—come in!”
    His manners were more brusque and free than those of an Ecuadorian, but the voice of all Spanish America rang out hospitably with his own. He led me into the hall of the estancia, a magnificent room with whitewashed walls and Indian rugs on a floor of patterned tiles. It was too large to look untidy, though freely scattered with the possessions of a man living alone and at ease. There was a heap of saddlery under the far window, and on a long table—rough and evidently made on the estate—boxes of soil and packets of seeds and fertilizers which suggested that he had been experimenting with grasses.
    â€œA fine place!” I said.
    â€œNot bad, is it? I don’t want anything better. No summer and no winter and the best pasture in Ecuador. You should see it on a fine day.”
    â€œI did, from the top of your hill.”
    â€œProspecting?” he asked coldly.
    â€œNo. Idling. I saw the hill from the head of the valley, and thought it might have been built by the old Quitos; so I rode over to look at it.”
    â€œA—ah! I’ll be bound you did! And you’re not the first. George Trevithick’s my name,” he added heartily, as if now