I Ran On And Overtook
Him, And Was Rather Taken Aback At His Wonderfully Fine Appearance.
He
was like one of the gentlemen of the gathering before the church,
described a few pages back, and
Wore a silk hat and fashionable black
coat and trousers and scarlet silk waistcoat; he was also a remarkably
handsome young gentleman, with a golden-brown curly beard and
moustache and dark liquid eyes that studied my face with a half-amused
curiosity when I looked up at him. In one hand he carried a
washleather bag by its handle, and holding a pebble in his right hand
he watched the birds, the small parties of crested song sparrows,
yellow house sparrows, siskins, field finches, and other kinds, and
from time to time he would hurl a pebble at the bird he had singled
out forty yards down below us on the rocks. I did not see him actually
hit a bird, but his precision was amazing, for almost invariably the
missile, thrown from such a distance at so minute an object, appeared
to graze the feathers and to miss killing by but a fraction of an
inch.
I followed him for some distance, my wonder and curiosity growing
every minute to see such a superior-looking person engaged in such a
pastime. For it is a fact that the natives do not persecute small
birds. On the contrary, they despise the aliens in the land who shoot
and trap them. Besides, if he wanted small birds for any purpose, why
did he try to get them by throwing pebbles at them? As he did not
order me off, but looked in a kindly way at me every little while,
with a slight smile on his face, I at length ventured to tell him that
he would never get a bird that way - that it would be impossible at
that distance to hit one with a small pebble. "Oh, no, not
impossible," he returned, smiling and walking on, still with an eye
on the rocks. "Well, you haven't hit one yet," I was bold enough to
say, and at that he stopped, and putting his finger and thumb in his
waistcoat pocket he pulled out a dead male siskin and put it in my
hands.
This was the bird called "goldfinch" by the English resident in La
Plata, and to the Spanish it is also goldfinch; it is, however, a
siskin, _Chrysomitris magellanica,_ and has a velvet-black head, the
rest of its plumage being black, green, and shining yellow. It was
one of my best-loved birds, but I had never had one in my hand, dead
or alive, before, and now its wonderful unimagined loveliness, its
graceful form, and the exquisitely pure flower-like yellow hue
affected me with a delight so keen that I could hardly keep from
tears.
After gloating a few moments over it, touching it with my finger-tips
and opening the little black and gold wings, I looked up pleadingly
and begged him to let me keep it. He smiled and shook his head: he
would not waste his breath talking; all his energy was to be spent in
hurling pebbles at other lovely little birds.
"Oh, senor, will you not give it to me?" I pleaded still; and then,
with sudden hope, "Are you going to sell it?"
He laughed, and taking it from my hand put it back in his waistcoat
pocket; then, with a pleasant smile and a nod to say that the
interview was now over, he went on his way.
Standing on the spot where he left me, and still bitterly regretting
that I had failed to get the bird, I watched him until he disappeared
from sight in the distance, walking towards the suburb of Palermo; and
a mystery he remains to this day, the one and only Argentine
gentleman, a citizen of the Athens of South America, amusing himself
by killing little birds with pebbles. But I do not know that it was an
amusement. He had perhaps in some wild moment made a vow to kill so
many siskins in that way, or a bet to prove his skill in throwing a
pebble; or he might have been practising a cure for some mysterious
deadly malady, prescribed by some wandering physician from Bagdad or
Ispaham; or, more probable still, some heartless, soulless woman he
was in love with had imposed this fantastical task on him.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing I saw during that first eventful
visit to the capital was the famed Don Eusebio, the court jester or
fool of the President or Dictator Rosas, the "Nero of South America,"
who lived in his palace at Palermo, just outside the city. I had been
sent with my sisters and little brother to spend the day at the house
of an Anglo-Argentine family in another part of the town, and we were
in the large courtyard playing with the children of the house when
some one opened a window above us and called out, "Don Eusebio!" That
conveyed nothing to me, but the little boys of the house knew what it
meant; it meant that if we went quickly out to the street we might
catch a glimpse of the great man in all his glory. At all events, they
jumped up, flinging their toys away, and rushed to the street door,
and we after them. Coming out we found quite a crowd of lookers-on,
and then down the street, in his general's dress - for it was one of
the Dictator's little jokes to make his fool a general - all scarlet,
with a big scarlet three-cornered hat surmounted by an immense
aigrette of scarlet plumes, came Don Eusebio. He marched along with
tremendous dignity, his sword at his side, and twelve soldiers, also
in scarlet, his bodyguard, walking six on each side of him with drawn
swords in their hands.
We gazed with joyful excitement at this splendid spectacle, and it
made it all the more thrilling when one of the boys whispered in my
ear that if any person in the crowd laughed or made any insulting or
rude remark, he would be instantly cut to pieces by the guard.
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