Next day my fair friend showed me where to fish for the largest trout, helped me with her own white hands to prepare the tackle, and took part with us in the sport. A few more hours of swinging in the hammock, the last cigarrito was smoked, the last story told, and reluctantly I bade my kind friends of the valley of San Andreas good-by, beneath the laurel-and the buckeye-trees, and, mounting old Don Benito, galloped away toward the Golden City.
We are always happier for having been happy once; and I have lived longer, and I hope better, and enjoyed life more, for the recollection of that first paseár to the valley of San Andreas. And here, as we meet again to-night, the pleasant memory comes back to us and we talk it over once again with keenest satisfaction. In taking leave of our fair young friend I tell her that I start for Mexico in a few days for a long paseár under tropic skies; and, as we ride away in the gloaming of the evening, she bows gravely, and, in the soft Castilian tongue, as is the custom of the people in Spanish lands, bids me "Adios, Amigo!" adding, with a trace of something more than mere conventional politeness in her voice, "And the peace of God be with you!"
CHAPTER II.
IN THE MISTS OF THE PACIFIC.
The Crystal Springs.—The Music of the Night.—The California Night-Singer and the Legend of the Easter Eggs.—The Cañada del Reymundo.—Over the Sierra Morena.—Down the Coast.—Pescadero and its Surroundings.—Pigeon Point and the Wrecks.—A shipwrecked Ghost.—The Coast Whalers and their Superstitions.—An Embarcadero on the San Mateo Coast.—Ride to Point Anño Nuevo.
Riding on southward down the valley of San Andreas in the cool, quiet evening, we came to the Crystal Springs, one of the most beautiful of the summer resorts in the vicinity of San Francisco. There is a fine, large hotel, with a broad piazza all around it, just the place to sit and smoke a good cigar, have a quiet talk with your friends, and admire the beauty of the surrounding scenery, brought out in all its loveliness by the full autumn moon which was pouring down its full flood of mellow light upon the scene. The San Mateo Creek runs through a wild, tangled thicket in front of the house; parterres of flowers of every hue, in full bloom, fill the intervening grounds; and on the west the steep mountain sweeps around in a grand curve, forming a magnificent amphitheatre beside which the Coliseum is but the toy playhouse of a child. Away back in the air, cutting sharply against the horizon, stand great pines, from whose broad-spreading branches float long steamers of green-gray moss, giving an air of great are and venerableness to the forest. Densely wooded are all the intervening hill-sides with the fragrant laurel, tea-oak and many flowering shrubs interwoven with the glorious madroño, whose crown of bright-green leaves contrasts so pleasingly with its bark of brilliant scarlet—the madroño ought to be the favorite tree with the Fenian Brotherhood, who are so fond of seeing the green above the red. Sitting on the broad piazza, in the cool evening, we hear the whistle of the locomotive at San Mateo, only four miles away over the hills to the eastward. As the last faint echoes die away in the cañons, a coyote wolf, which has been prowling stealthily in the vicinity of the hotel, sets up a sharp, shrill yell in answer. Other wolves, far and near—there may be half a dozen of them, but it seems as if there were a thousand—take up the cry, and in an instant the woods and the night are filled with music, not exactly such as Longfellow sines of, but which for want of better will serve to induce "the cares which infest the day" to "fold their tents like the Arab, and as silently steal away."
Half a dozen huge Newfoundland dogs, good-natured, lazy fellows enough at the best, but anxious to convince the generous public that they are of some importance in the world, and make a show of earning their bread and butter now that their master is at home, roused from their slumbers by the howling of the coyote, with loud yells dash off into the woods, as if determined to exterminate the whole vile race right there and then, taking good care, however, to yelp their very loudest at every jump, that the gentlemen in gray may have abundant notice of their coming, and get out of the way in time to avoid unpleasant results to either party. I have known valiant duelists start out from San Francisco to shed each other's blood, but manage to produce much the same result by simply making so much noise as to attract the attention of the police, and insure the arrest of one or both parties before reaching the field of honor. Instinct and reason are much the same in their practical workings after all.
When the wolves have decamped, and the dogs, with the air of conquering heroes, have returned from the bloodless campaign, and turned in for the night, the cigars are smoked out and the stories told, our company breaks up, and we retire for the night. Through the open window comes at intervals a sweeter music than that to which we have just been listening: the low, sweet song of a little bird of the finch species, which is found, though not in great abundance, in all the coast range country of California. This little night-singer stays concealed in the thickets all day, uttering no note to give notice of his whereabouts; but when the cool shadows of the evening fall it comes forth into the gardens, and through all the long hours of the otherwise silent night, pours out its sweet and plaintive song as if in mourning for the loved and lost. In size and form it is not unlike the common wild California canary, to which it is doubtless allied; but, curiously enough for a night-singer, its plumage is far more brilliant and beautiful,—green, orange, and blue, with a narrow bar of red on the wings. I have never been able to see it save in captivity, but many a night have I lain awake in my home on Russian Hill, in San Francisco, and listened to its plaintive little song as it flitted among the shrubbery in the garden, wondering what manner of bird it might be. One day a Mexican residing in the western part of the city, who gains a livelihood by trapping canaries and linnets, offered me a pair of these little beauties for two dollars, apologizing for the high price by saying that they were very rare and caught with difficulty. Struck by their beauty and delicate brilliancy of plumage, I asked him if they ever sang. "Oh, yes, señor; but only in the night. You must remember the story of the bird which sang all night before the tomb in which lay the body of the Saviour of the world"—touching his hat respectfully—"after the crucifixion? Well, señor, these birds are of the same!"
Then the story of the Easter-night singer of far-off Palestine, as I had heard it told in other lands, came back me; and going home I read with fresh interest the beautiful lines by Fitzjames O'Brien:
"You have heard, my boy, of the One who died,
Crowned with keen thorns and crucified;
And how Joseph the wealthy—whom God reward—
Cared for the corpse of the martyred Lord,
And piously tombed it within the rock,
And closed the gate with a mighty block.
"Now, close by the tomb, a fair tree grew,
With pendulous leaves and blossoms of blue;
And deep in the green tree's shadowy breast
A beautiful singing-bird on her nest,
Which was bordered with mosses like malachite
And held four eggs of an ivory white.
"Now, when the bird from her dim recess
Beheld the Lord in his burial dress,
And looked on the heavenly face so pale,
And the dear feet pierced with the cruel nail,
Her heart now broke with a sudden pang
And out of the depth of her sorrow she sang.
"All night long, till the moon was up,
She sat and sang