Part 3 (1/2)
”Hus.h.!.+” whispered B.
”Hus.h.!.+” repeated the giant.
I also said, ”hus.h.!.+” The driver made the same pertinent observation--the only remark he contributed that day. Then we all ”hushed” in chorus, which started the horses, and quieted the quails.
(_Par parenthese_, may I inquire if you ever hush, when told to do so?
Systematic experiments upon all sorts and conditions of people have led me to conclude that the impulse to ”hush” back at once is one that human nature cannot resist.)
Silence being restored, we listened. Soon the quails' calling burst forth again away up the hill-side, and, hastily alighting, we plunged into the forest and followed them.
In a few minutes a bird suddenly rose before me, and vanished behind a bush. Whilst debating in my own mind whether it were a quail or not, another bird rose and whisked round another bush. I shot the bush. And then another bird got up, and I shot another bush. And then another bird got up, and there being no bush in its immediate vicinity, I stopped it, and proceeded to pick up my first Californian mountain quail.
What a pretty bird it is, with its long drooping top-knot, and its mottled breast and thighs! Of the sad-coloured birds, few can excel it in beauty of shape or marking. It has that symmetrically prosperous, that aesthetically fastidious, confidently reposeful, felicitously demure appearance, only to be observed in perfection in wealthy, wicked, and juvenile widows. s.h.i.+n, an exquisitely bad shot (so bad indeed that he rarely succeeded in killing a quail, unless he caught one sitting for its photograph), used to a.s.sert that: ”They would roll about on the granite boulders with their heels in the air, and laugh till they moulted, when they saw _him_ coming with a gun.” I cannot say that I myself ever witnessed in the quail any so striking an example of their just appreciation of the humorous as this; but my informant was a man of thoughtful habits, keen powers of observation, and unimpeachable veracity. Moreover, it is well known that certain birds do laugh, and that, too, under less provocation than s.h.i.+n's quails experienced. To the curious collector of ornithological data I can, therefore, commend this instance.
Having bagged a couple more birds, a sugar-pine, and a granite boulder, I rejoined the buggy, where the others soon met me, and, remounting, we drove slowly on again. In a few minutes the same proceedings were re-enacted, and this continued throughout the afternoon. It was the easiest sport that I ever enjoyed. Quail shooting after this fas.h.i.+on has all the attractive simplicity of vice. It induces that pleasurable exultation which, until detection supervenes, always, I believe, attends an infraction of the law. Enjoyment of such kind seldom fails to stimulate even the jaded appet.i.tes of the wicked, but more especially doth it afford a relish to those who, never having impaired their moral palates by intemperate indulgence in crime, are still able to sin with the sentiments of novelty and zest that ever reward moderation. Need I say that our moral palates were yet susceptible of these delightful impressions.
At length the driver pulled up on the summit of a grade. The shadows had grown longer and deeper, the day had waxed old and weary, rich in colour and in gilded glory, but in breathing faint and low. Both near and far away the granite peaks were lurid with purple and with blood-red lights, as if the sun shone on them through stained gla.s.s. The crests of the ridges had become fringed with a lace-work of coruscated fire, that glittered through the dark pine-quills, and shot soft, luminous rays and ways down into the delicately pencilled pools of twilight in the bottoms, whose leafy edges seemed like pebbled sh.o.r.es. And at one point, where the hidden trout stream, winding on its course, had widened for itself a resting-place, deep in a wilderness of foliage and shade there gleamed a strange hieroglyphic in thread of gold, that flashed upon the s.h.i.+fting eddies of the water-node, as though some magic beetle circled there.
The squirrels and the chipmunks had vanished. No longer did the challenge of the doughty quail call us to arms. It was that transient interlude betwixt the minstrelsy of day and night. Dumb stillness had fallen upon all the forest, and not a breath of wind wooed any flower, nor whispered round any cone, till, with one long, low sigh, like a lost, lonely note of music singing to seek its fellows in the brown whorls of curled leaves--those forest sh.e.l.ls of daintiest biscuit-work--the dirge of day stole through the valley and pa.s.sed on.
There was only the murmur of the rock-embosomed stream, and from afar off, the fitful tinkling of a wether-bell came faintly down our way.
”Hence, thou lingerer, light!
Eve saddens into night.”
”Drive on to Campbell's--we'll stay there to-night. It is getting too late to shoot,” said s.h.i.+n.
The wheels grated once more on the stony track, and on we went to Campbell's hostelry.
Very many of the pleasantest days in life are the most poverty-stricken in regard to incident. In all this week, only one episode occurred which would make you really laugh, and that, I regret to say, s.h.i.+n would not like me to relate. Do not infer though, that, because the current of the trip was placid, it necessarily was dull. So far from such being the case, we did not pa.s.s a single dull half-hour. An exhilarating freshness, an evanescent crispness is in this mountain air, which absolutely defies dulness. Moreover, we had started in that state of helpless good humour in which anything serves as food for laughter. It was not recorded that any one made a sensible remark during the whole drive; we talked pure nonsense exclusively. In this congenial spirit we were encouraged by the fact that, our wooden-visaged, saturnine driver--an eminently matter-of-fact and sensible man--preserved, throughout, impenetrable reserve. He sat on the box-seat in dignified silence, a mute protest against the egregious imbecility of human nature as exemplified in ourselves. Evidently he had been designed without any reference to the rules of risible acoustics. He was angular and flat all over. People constructed on this principle are not adapted for the expression of merriment. If he ever had laughed, the displacement of solemnity would have been so tremendous, that he would never have recovered his centre of gravity, and would probably have died mentally upside down, and mad. He only made one spontaneous observation during the excursion. We were talking of chipmunks and squirrels.
”Chipmunks----” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. And then he paused and thought for a while. ”Chipmunks,” he resumed, later in the day, ”is alegant food.”
Up the hill we were slowly toiling towards Campbell's, when a ragged boy in a broad-leafed hat, seated upon a ragged pony, whose tail coquetted with his heels, came jogging on the down-grade towards us.
”Say!” exclaimed s.h.i.+n, ”now when this fellow pa.s.ses, we'll all take off our hats to him. Don't say anything; just bow and watch him.”
Accordingly, when the boy drew near we greeted him with three sweeping bows. Probably he had never seen any one bow before; evidently he was not familiar with this form of salutation. He pulled up, and was staring after us in dumb astonishment, when, a thought seemed to strike him.
Removing his own hat, he carefully examined it. But there was nothing the matter with that, and he rammed it on again with an air of dogged perplexity. Anon, he shouted something--our inability to catch which was perhaps not to be deplored; and when, some minutes later, we turned a corner and lost sight of him, he was still where we had left him, gazing after us.
_a propos des bottes_: this unkempt, young mountaineer possessed aquiline features of the purest type; and it appears to me, as a superficial observer, open to correction, that these will distinguish the American of the future. The fusion of races in America is remarkably rapid. Distinctive physical peculiarities vanish not less swiftly than do national idiosyncrasies in character. And the mould in which these disappear is one that bears a striking resemblance to that formerly prevalent among the higher cla.s.s Indian nations of the continent. The typical American is aquiline-featured, stern or impa.s.sible in expression of countenance, spare of frame, chary of speech, impa.s.sive in demeanour, endued with unusual self-control and determination. But these traits--which, if further example were necessary, could be multiplied--were all once distinctive of the Indian; and that they should rea.s.sert themselves thus uniformly in the descendants of the divers alien races settled in America, opens a physiological problem of unusual magnitude and interest. Doubtless, in process of time, the citizen of the republic will become tinged with copper. A tone of bra.s.s is already noticeable occasionally.
Next morning saw us early under way; and during all the forenoon the road led through rocky pa.s.ses, or was blasted in the steep sides of sombre valleys. On we drove amidst a network of crumbled light, whose shadowed meshes were cast by the vast trunks of cedars, sugar and yellow pines, red and silver firs, tamaracks, and spruces. Nothing in the forest races can match the stately beauty of these straight-limbed giants, clad in dark plumes. They are an order of knights, a dynasty of kings amongst trees. Where they have fallen, they lie like vanquished t.i.tans, and seem even grander stretched out beneath clinging palls of moss than when upreared, archetypes of strength and grace, they toss their quilled foliage in the winds, and tower majestically above the earth.
Ever and anon the continuity of their solemn crypts and corridors was interrupted by some still glen, a cache of dreams and summer beauty. And here--scattered amidst enormous boulders, or gray and grim, or worked with gorgeous blazonry in lichens--red-leaved sumachs, golden-foliaged aspens, and ma.s.ses of flushed flowers blent in the rich arabesque of purple, brown, and russet bracken, had writ an idyl in a silent language, whose words were colour, and whose characters were leafy tracery, delicate and ever new. Yonder, by the lucent gleam of sunbeams, its tinted poetry was touched with fire, and there in the pearly shadows of midday it was yet coolly sleeping.
Long must have been the list of killed and wounded in the _Quail Gazette_ after that morning's work. At times the forest rang and re-echoed like a choice covert in England. Towards noon, having finished a beat before the others were ready, I walked on ahead of the buggy to a turnpike gate to ask for a gla.s.s of water. Instead of a crusty old gate-keeper I was agreeably surprised to see, tripping bare-headed from the neighbouring cottage, a pretty dark girl with black eyes, a ”peart”