Ramona | Page 5

almost unprecedented outburst of Juan's the
Senora's countenance had been slowly growing stern. Juan had not seen
it. His eyes had been turned away from her, looking down into the
upturned eager face of his favorite collie, who was leaping and
gambolling and barking at his feet.
"Down, Capitan, down!" he said in a fond tone, gently repulsing him;
"thou makest such a noise the Senora can hear nothing but thy voice."
"I heard only too distinctly, Juan Canito," said the Senora in a sweet but
icy tone. "It is not well for one servant to backbite another. It gives me
great grief to hear such words; and I hope when Father Salvierderra
comes, next month, you will not forget to confess this sin of which you
have been guilty in thus seeking to injure a fellow-being. If Senor
Felipe listens to you, the poor boy Luigo will be cast out homeless on
the world some day; and what sort of a deed would that be, Juan Canito,

for one Christian to do to another? I fear the Father will give you
penance, when he hears what you have said."
"Senora, it is not to harm the lad," Juan began, every fibre of his
faithful frame thrilling with a sense of the injustice of her reproach.
But the Senora had turned her back. Evidently she would hear no more
from him then. He stood watching her as she walked away, at her usual
slow pace, her head slightly bent forward, her rosary lifted in her left
hand, and the fingers of the right hand mechanically slipping the beads.
"Prayers, always prayers!" thought Juan to himself, as his eyes
followed her. "If they'll take one to heaven, the Senora'll go by the
straight road, that's sure! I'm sorry I vexed her. But what's a man to do,
if he's the interest of the place at heart, I'd like to know. Is he to stand
by, and see a lot of idle mooning louts run away with everything? Ah,
but it was an ill day for the estate when the General died,-- an ill day!
an ill day! And they may scold me as much as they please, and set me
to confessing my sins to the Father; it's very well for them, they've got
me to look after matters. Senor Felipe will do well enough when he's a
man, maybe; but a boy like him! Bah!" And the old man stamped his
foot with a not wholly unreasonable irritation, at the false position in
which he felt himself put.
"Confess to Father Salvierderra, indeed!" he muttered aloud. "Ay, that
will I. He's a man of sense, if he is a priest," -- at which slip of the
tongue the pious Juan hastily crossed himself,-- "and I'll ask him to
give me some good advice as to how I'm to manage between this young
boy at the head of everything, and a doting mother who thinks he has
the wisdom of a dozen grown men. The Father knew the place in the
olden time. He knows it's no child's play to look after the estate even
now, much smaller as it is! An ill day when the old General died, an ill
day indeed, the saints rest his soul!" Saying this, Juan shrugged his
shoulders, and whistling to Capitan, walked towards the sunny veranda
of the south side of the kitchen wing of the house, where it had been for
twenty odd years his habit to sit on the long bench and smoke his pipe
of a morning. Before he had got half-way across the court-yard,
however, a thought struck him. He halted so suddenly that Capitan,

with the quick sensitiveness of his breed, thought so sudden a change
of purpose could only come from something in connection with sheep;
and, true to his instinct of duty, pricked up his ears, poised himself for a
full run, and looked up in his master's face waiting for explanation and
signal. But Juan did not observe him.
"Ha!" he said, "Father Salvierderra comes next month, does he? Let's
see. To-day is the 25th. That's it. The sheep-shearing is not to come off
till the Father gets here. Then each morning it will be mass in the
chapel, and each night vespers; and the crowd will be here at least two
days longer to feed, for the time they will lose by that and by the
confessions. That's what Senor Felipe is up to. He's a pious lad. I
recollect now, it was the same way two years ago. Well, well, it is a
good thing for those poor Indian devils to get a bit of religion now and
then; and it's like old times to see the chapel full of them kneeling, and
more than can