"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.
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