He advised me to
read it again, to read and consider it carefully with the sole purpose
of getting at the truth. "Take it," he said, "and read it again in the
right way for you to read it--as a naturalist."
He had been surprised that I, an ignorant boy or youth on the pampas,
had ventured to criticise such a work. I, on my side, had been equally
surprised at his quiet way of reasoning with me, with none of the old
scornful spirit flaming out. He was gentle with me, knowing that I had
suffered much, and was not free yet.
I read it again in the way he had counselled, and then refused to
think any more on the subject. I was sick of thinking. Like the wretch
who long has tossed upon the thorny bed of pain, I only wanted to
repair my vigour lost and breathe and walk again. To be on horseback,
galloping over the green pampas, in sun and wind. For after all it was
only a reprieve, not a commutation of sentence--though one of a kind
unknown in the Courts, in which the condemned man is allowed out on
bail. My pardon was not received until a few years later. I returned
with a new wonderful zest to my old sports, shooting and fishing, and
would spend days and weeks from home, sometimes staying with old
gaucho friends and former neighbours at their ranches, attending
cattle-markings and partings, dances, and other gatherings, and also
made longer expeditions to the southern and western frontiers of the
province, living out of doors for months at a time.
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