Mr. Blake was
nothing to us but a huge, serious, somewhat silent man who took no
notice of small boys, and was clumsy and awkward and spoke very bad
Spanish. He was well spoken of by his neighbours, and was regarded as
a highly respectable and dignified person, but he had no intimates and
was one of those unfortunate persons, not rare among the English, who
appear to stand behind a high wall and, whether they desire it or not,
have no power to approach and mix with their fellow-beings.
I think he was about forty-five to fifty years old when I was eight.
His wife looked older and was a short ungraceful woman with a stoop,
wearing a sun-bonnet and sack and a faded gown made by herself. Her
thin hair was of a yellowish-grey tint, her eyes pale blue, and there
was a sunburnt redness on her cheeks, but the face had a faded and
weary look. But she was better than her giant husband and was glad to
associate with her fellows, and was also a lover of animals--horses,
dogs, cats, and any and every wild creature that came in her way.
The Blakes had been married a quarter of a century or longer and had
spent at least twenty years of their childless solitary life in a mud-
built ranch, sheep-farming on the pampas, and had slowly accumulated a
small fortune, until now they were possessed of about a square league
of land with 25,000 or 30,000 sheep, and had built themselves a big
ugly brick house to live in.
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