The San Rosario Ranch Part 4

"Of course I like him. I told you I should, from the moment you described his queer tower and his solitary life to me. I always like people who have something to characterize them and set them apart from the mere dead-level rank and file of mediocrity," answered Millicent.

"But may not a hermit like Graham be mediocre like everybody else?"

"No, the fact of his living alone does not make him interesting; but he would not live alone if he were like everybody else. Ordinary people all herd together."

"You must find all of us very ordinary people, I should think, after the people you have lived among,--romantic Italians and that sort?"

"But Italians are by no means all interesting. The great charm about them is that they are usually a happy people, and that it does not take so much to make them contented as it does you more complex Americans."

"_You_ Americans? How soon are you going to call yourself an American?

But you do not answer my question. How can you manage to get on as well as you do with commonplace people like ourselves?"

"_You_ are not commonplace. A man who knows how to milk cows and digs potatoes, who rubs down his own horse and feeds his stock, and can withal dance like a city beau, and keep a table full of people laughing from the soup to the coffee, cannot be called commonplace."

"Thank you, Princess, most heartily for the compliment. I see you will not be pinned down by my rather personal question. Let me pay you with some of your own coin. I think it quite remarkable that you have so quickly fitted into the life here, and have accepted so quietly things which must be very strange to you. The difference of the way of living, the surroundings, the very strangeness of being waited on by these Chinamen, must be very uncomfortable, I fear?"

"Do not suggest a word against Ah Lam; he is the most delightful servant I have ever seen. Our Italian domestics are like great children, who have to be humored and managed with the extreme of tact and care. Ah Lam is like nothing but one of the automata described by Bulwer in 'The Coming Race,' which stand motionless against the wall until roused to action by the vrill wand, when they promptly perform the duty in hand.

Ah Lam is only mechanical as far as regularity goes, for he has feelings and deep sentiments beneath his calm exterior. Do you know that he brings me fresh roses every morning, and that when he returned from San Francisco yesterday he brought me a present?"

"They all do that; they are the most generous creatures in the world.

What did Lam bring you?"

"The prettiest little China silk handkerchief, which he presented with these words: 'I solly got no more, I _so_ poor.' Was it not touching?"

"How do your lessons get on?"

"Very well. Lam learns ten or twelve new words every day. I give him the English word for an article, and he gives me the Chinese; and the following day we catechise each other; but I have never remembered a Chinese name, and Lam has never forgotten an English one. Then I set him copies, which he writes out beautifully with his queer little camel's-hair brush dipped in India-ink. I fear the sentiments will not greatly benefit him, but I try to explain them to him."

"Give me an example of your copy-book maxims; I am sure they are something new, quite unlike those I was brought up on."

"I take my verses all from Mr. Lear's 'Nonsense Book;' they will help him geographically, if not otherwise."

"You have given him the 'Old Man of Moldavia'?"

"a.s.suredly."

"Truly, Princess, you are the most inexplicable person I have ever seen.

I find you in the morning with a volume of Spinoza in your hand, trying to explain his particular dogma of philosophy to poor Barbara; and in the afternoon you are talking about this absurd child's book as if it were something serious. You snubbed that poor professor last night, because he presumed to give an opinion concerning Dante, never having read him in the original; and to-day I heard you ask my mother if Washington was in the State of New York. You are remarkably erudite and positively ignorant at the same time."

"_Eh bene, cosa volete_? I--"

"Now what is the use of talking Italian to me? You know I can't understand a word of it, and--"

A third voice interrupted Deering. It was that of a man who had joined the pair unnoticed by either of them, the sound of his footsteps being m.u.f.fled by the deep gra.s.s.

"If Miss Almsford knew how pretty her manner of speaking English was, she would never have resort to the weaker language of her birthplace to express her thoughts."

"What, Graham, with a gallant speech upon his lips! Wonder of wonders!

Princess, he has the sharpest tongue and the keenest wit I have ever known. Beware of him! When did you come?"

"Just now; I rode over to see if Miss Almsford was in the mood for a ride, and to offer my services as cavalier, knowing that your afternoons, my dear Deering, are too much occupied for you to play esquire to this fair dame."

"It is the thing of all others I should enjoy," said Millicent; "I will be ready in ten minutes."

Deering strolled off, rather disconsolately, in the direction of the dairy, Graham accompanying him as far as the stable, where he proceeded to put Barbara's saddle on the back of a st.u.r.dy cob, which from his immovable character had been named Sphinx.

The artist had visited the house several times since his first meeting with Millicent, and had promised to be her guide to the high hill-top, whence a view of the Sierra Nevadas was to be obtained. Up the narrow bridle path toiled the two horses, Graham's leading the way. The road was a difficult one, underbrush and rolling stones making it dangerous for any horse which was not sure-footed. Old Sphinx set his feet firmly on the solid ground, avoiding all pit-falls in a wary fashion. The air was sweet with the spicy breath of the madrone tree, whose dark red bark and brilliant glossy leaves gleamed out here and there through the darker foliage of the great redwoods. The young man turned his head over his shoulder, letting his mustang find out the path, and talked to his companion, who was not yet at home in the saddle. One of the new delights which the western country held for Millicent was that of riding. Most of her life had been spent in Venice; and she had had little opportunity for indulging in that most exhilarating exercise.

Graham a.s.sured her that she would soon make a good rider, as she quickly learned to a.s.sume the graceful but uncomfortable position compelled by the side-saddle. She was without fear, having that sort of bravery which is found in some children, and which comes from an ignorance of danger.

From a point in the road whence a view of the happy valley was to be obtained, Graham reined in his horse. The wide, pleasant valley lay below them, the house, its central point of interest, standing surrounded by the orchard and garden. A brook wound like a silver ribbon through the wide fields and wooded groves, under rustic bridges, here and there breaking into foam over a ma.s.s of stone, or a sudden shelving of the land.

When they again started Graham dismounted, and, pa.s.sing his arm through the bridle of his horse, took Sphinx by the rein and led him over the rough bit of country. Whether from an exaggerated idea of courtesy, or because the head covering was irksome, Graham doffed his hat and walked bareheaded, the little shafts of sunshine touching his dark hair with points of light. The tall girl noted the sun and shadow which made this and all else lovely on this fair afternoon. As the ascent became steeper, the trees were less dense and the path grew wider. Graham still walked beside her horse, though there was no longer need for him to do so. As they emerged upon a broad plateau Millicent drew her breath and touched Graham lightly with her whip, laying her finger on her lip and pointing to a little hillside spring, which ran dancing from the rich dark earth. Close to the spring stood a magnificent buck and a graceful doe. The stag had bent his head and was drinking from the basin which the water had worn for itself, and which was surrounded by a ring of green turf, jewelled with star blue and pale rose blossoms. Of this tender herbage, so different from the dried gra.s.s of the hillside and meadow, the dainty doe was nibbling little morsels. For a moment neither of the animals perceived the approach of the riders, and stood quite still in their unconscious beauty. Graham's hand instinctively sought the revolver in his pocket. As he was taking aim Millicent's velvet fingers closed about the steel barrel, and she cried aloud, "You could not be so cruel!"

At the sound of her voice the stag threw up his great head with a mighty shiver, tossing the crystal water drops from his nose. Before the last word was spoken the slender, dappled doe had flashed across the path and was out of sight, her mate with outstretched head following close upon her track. For an instant the flowing lines of the swift motion were seen on the sky background, and then the trembling leaves of the thicket into which they had penetrated were all that told of their flight.

"You are more tender-hearted than Miss Barbara."

"No, but I could not bear that those two glorious creatures should be put out of the warm sunlight which they love so well."

"Miss Barbara is an excellent shot; she could have killed the stag from this point."

"And yet Barbara is really much better-hearted than I, and feels other people's troubles as if they were her own. Everything is in habit and education; she has looked upon deer in the light of venison, as I have always considered oxen in the light of future beef. And yet, though Barbara is so kind and good, I do not find her _simpatica_--how shall I say?"

"You might say sympathetic or congenial, Miss Almsford, if you could content yourself with the English language."

"But it is not the same thing,--sympathetic and _simpatica_; indeed it is an untranslatable word. I cannot always express my thoughts in English."

"Would you allow me to suggest that it may not be entirely the fault of the language, which did not fail to express the thoughts of Chaucer and Shakspeare, that you find it difficult to make yourself understood?"

"Do I speak it so badly then? You are not complimentary."

"It is not that you speak it badly, but that your vocabulary is limited, and that your mind far outruns its limits. I fancy you have never read or thought much in a serious vein in the simplest and the strongest of tongues."

"No, I have read very little English, but I challenge your last statement. I do not find English the greatest language. It is coa.r.s.e by the side of French; it is prosaic compared to Italian. Think of the fine distinctions, the delicate shades of meaning, of the Gallic tongue.

Your English can only express the extremes."

"And yet to-day it is more a lender than a borrower of words. You cannot take up a German or a French newspaper without finding an Anglicism in every column."

"What does that prove? Merely that the Anglo-Saxon race is more restless than all others. They are the Goths of the nineteenth century, and invade every corner of Europe, Asia, and Africa, carrying with them their barbarous language. I have heard it intermingled with Arabic in the Syrian desert. It is small wonder they feel the need of travel; there is little enough to interest them at home."

"And yet I, who have lived half my life in Europe, elect to pa.s.s the remainder of it in this country of my own free choice. How do you account for that?"

"I cannot account for it save as an aberration of the brain. It is strange, too, for you Americans are not a patriotic people."

"You think not?"

"It does not strike me so."

"You are mistaken, Miss Almsford; but your mistake is a natural one.