The San Rosario Ranch Part 5

These ideas, believe me, are not worthy of you, and have been derived by you from some perverted mind. Your own is too clear to have formed such opinions. They have been engrafted or inherited. How should you really have any idea but the most chimerical one, of America or Americans? You have pa.s.sed your life among a race of people most unlike them, and you have been taught to ignore the country and the race to which you belong.

You consider the matter of your birth as a misfortune, and you have learned to look down on your country, from below. I have had some experience of life in the various American colonies in Europe, and I think it a great misfortune to be one of those expatriated Americans.

They are people without a country. They feel no responsibility toward any larger society than their own small household circle. Unless he is called by the exigencies of his profession to Europe, the American European is very apt to deteriorate greatly. He is in antagonism with the country which he has abandoned, and his foothold in foreign society is too much on tolerance to be fortunate in its effects on his character."

By this time the strong horses had reached the summit of the foot-hill, and stood breathing heavily. The riders dropped their conversation, which was drawing near to a discussion, and Millicent looked with wide eyes out over the grand scene. Far off stretched the line of the Sierras, the mountain barrier which severs the land of gold from the surrounding country. The sky was faintly flushed with a forewarning of the sunset, and a soft breeze rustled the tree tops, and blew into their faces.

"Are you rewarded for the long ascent, maiden from afar?"

"Yes," answered Millicent softly.

As they made the steep descent together Graham talked, in his strong, sweet voice, of his life in the old tower, of his work, of the pictures he had painted, and those which he dreamed of making some day. The self-dependent and contained young man was much attracted by the girl with the strange ideas and exquisite manners. On the night when they had first met, he had been drawn towards her by an attraction which seemed irresistible. It was not her beauty nor her intelligence which so much affected him, as a nameless charm like the warmth of a bright fire on a cool day, which seemed to wrap him about with a sense of comfort. When he left her this glow was still about him, but as hours pa.s.sed it seemed to fade away and leave him strangely cold. He felt for the first time how desolate was his life; and he remembered her in his lonely tower as a traveller in the African desert recalls the green oasis where his last draught of water has been drained. Yet sometimes, when they talked together, came a strange antagonism between them like an impalpable mist, chilling the warmth which at meeting always kindled in her eyes and in his own bosom. That the discordance came from himself he often felt, and yet he was helpless in the face of it. The conversation of that afternoon was a type of their interviews, which were often marred by discussions not far removed from disputes. Whose fault was it? Wherein lay the incompatibility? Did it arise from either of their characters, or from the circ.u.mstances and surroundings in which they met? He asked himself the question a score of times and left it always unanswered. Graham had not been without experience of women. In his early youth he had had the misfortune to fall deeply in love with a frivolous and heartless girl. His nature was of a complex character, pa.s.sionate to an unusual degree, yet guided by an intelligence stronger than pa.s.sion. He had been deceived and outraged in every feeling by the heartless coquette, whose worst characteristic was her entire incapacity for affection. After breaking her faith with him, she had tried to win him back again, and had sued for the love which she had so lightly won and refused. But though he still loved her with the full force of his being, he had repulsed the woman whom he could no longer respect. Then came the long death-agony of deceived love, leaving its unmistakable traces on heart and brain and body. It was graven on the white brow; it was painted in the deep eyes, with their unfathomable look of doubt; it strengthened the fibres of the strong brain with the greater power which great suffering brings to intelligence of a high order; and alas!

saddest of all, it chilled the hot heart-blood and left it cooler and more sluggish in its flow. Sorrowful was the man for the sorrow in the world, but pity for the grief of those about him was not so strong in him as it had been before. The bitterness which follows the spoiling of the rose-sweetness of love was happily modified by the broad humanitarian character of the man. It failed to make him bitter towards the world for its treatment of himself. He accepted manfully the knockdown blow which fate had dealt him; and if he mourned it was in secret,--he burdened no other soul with his misery. But as it was a woman who had darkened his life and drawn the veil of grief about his young soul, the whole rage of grief and bitterness which wore his heart went out toward her s.e.x. As he had loved all women for her sweet sake, so now did he distrust them all because she had proved false. Evil to him appeared abstractly as a feminine element in the world; and the great qualities of n.o.bility, abnegation, and heroism in his eyes were masculine attributes only. Too chivalrous by nature to think of himself as in opposition to the gentler s.e.x, his position was in point of fact antagonistic to them. He was courteous in their company, but he always avoided it. In deed, as in word, he treated them with reverence, speaking no lightlier of them behind their backs than to their faces.

The bitterness never broke the barriers of his vexed heart in noxious word or jest, but it lay there always embittering his life. He had finally ceased to remember his crushed hopes and spoiled youth; and then had succeeded a long time wherein he seemed to feel not at all. There was left him always his pious devotion to his mother, touching in its pathetic constancy, as to the one creature given him to love. For the gentle Mrs. Deering, whose face recalled that of his only living parent, he felt a real sentiment of friendship. Barbara, with her sweet, wholesome nature, he esteemed more highly than other young women; but since his intimacy with the family he had always emphasized his regard for the son and mother of the house; and Barbara had felt the difference in his voice when he addressed her. It grew colder, and his manner became formal, if by chance they were thrown together alone.

The charm by which Millicent swayed him, he said to himself, was not love. He looked back into the black and stormy past, and compared his feelings for this girl with those which had once torn his breast. She charmed him, but he surely did not love her. He felt a sense of cold discomfort on leaving her, but it was very different from the pa.s.sionate grief which he once had suffered. This was what he thought when he contemplated the subject at all, which was not very often. For the most part he let himself drift down the pleasant summer tide. Skies were blue and roses sweet. If Millicent made the sky seem bluer, if the roses took on a more perfect hue when she wore them in her bosom, it was because she was like the skies and roses, tender and full of warmth and color. Did not the buds blush into flowers for all the world as well as for him? Did not the white clouds dip and dance across the sky for other men's pleasure as well as his own? Was not the whole small world of the San Rosario Ranch made more blithe and happily alive by the advent of Millicent Almsford, the maiden from afar? Barbara had been stimulated by the new atmosphere to do more thinking, and had found less time for fancy-work and more leisure for reading. Mrs. Deering, gentlest of women, found a companionship in the stranger which she had at first thought impossible; and Hal, poor Hal, was vainly fighting against the witching spell which was fast making him the slave of the girl, who he had prophesied was too cold to interest him.

Had Graham known the change which his companionship had wrought upon Millicent, he would have felt that if there was no danger for him in those swift fleeting hours pa.s.sed together, there might be for her. The boredom which she had experienced at first was now dissipated, and every phase of the novel life at the Ranch had a charm for her.

The loud summons of the supper-bell struck the ears of the young people as they drew near the house; and the family stood waiting on the piazza as they reined in their horses before the door.

"Are you tired, Millicent?" was the anxious question of Mrs. Deering.

"Did you get a clear view of the mountains?" asked Barbara.

"How did Sphinx go?" said Hal.

"I cannot answer you all at once," cried Millicent, breathless from the rapid gallop which had brought them to the house; "but it was perfectly delightful. Sphinx behaved beautifully, and Mr. Graham almost as well.

The view is wonderful, and I think the country of California very fine.

There is a compliment for you all; do not pretend I never say anything nice about it."

"My dear, we have an invitation to go down to San Real to visit the Shallops. Mamma thinks we had better start to-morrow. Mr. Graham, here is a note for you which came enclosed in my letter. I fancy it carries the same invitation to you. It will be so nice at the seash.o.r.e. You will like it, Millicent, won't you?"

"I like it here," Millicent answered, as she walked slowly up the steps; "but if you all want to go, I am willing. Who are the Shallops? Where is San Real?"

Graham had torn open his letter, which he quickly perused. Millicent looked inquiringly at him, and he answered her unspoken query:

"Yes, Mrs. Shallop asks me to join your party for a week at her pleasant house. Very kind of her, I am sure; but I never do that sort of thing.

I--"

"Now, Graham," interrupted Mrs. Deering, "say nothing about it till I have talked it over with you. I have a particular reason for advising you to go. We will telegraph the answer in the morning, and can make up our minds in the course of the evening."

"I am yours to command in this and all things, Madame," said Graham, offering his arm to his hostess; "and there stands Ah Lam ready to weep because the m.u.f.fins are growing cold; and I am famously hungry after our ride."

Tea being ended, Mrs. Deering and Graham paced the gravel path around the house for half an hour. It was evident to the group on the piazza that a discussion was going on between them. They spoke in low, earnest voices, whose tones did not escape Millicent's sensitive hearing, though she failed to catch the import of the words.

"For my sake," she finally heard Mrs. Deering say in a pleading voice.

"Dear my lady, is it just to put it on that ground?"

"But if you will hear to it on no other," she argued.

"Think what it is you ask of me. To leave my tower and my man Friday for a luxurious household with plethoric master and servants; to stagnate for a week among those ridiculous people who fill San Real in the summer; and all this not because it will do me or any one else any good, but to the end that I may begin the portraits I have already refused to paint. You know that I am not suited to that sort of hack work. How can I make a picture of that over-fed Shallop or his pinched, good little wife?"

"But our work cannot all be that which is best suited to us--"

"It should be--"

"Remember, Graham, that in three weeks the payment for the studio is due--"

"Ah, kindest one! you never forget me; bless you for your sweetness and thoughtfulness. Yes, I will go and do my best to make Shallop look like something other than an ex-blacksmith, but it is indeed bitter."

"You will find that there will be compensations," said Mrs. Deering, her eyes resting on the pretty group on the piazza: Barbara sitting at Millicent's feet, and Hal reaching up to pluck a spray of honeysuckles for her hair.

CHAPTER V.

Where have we lived and loved before this, sweet?

My will ere now hath led thy wayward feet; I knew thy beauties--limbs, lips, brows, and hair-- Before these eyes beheld and found thee fair.

Mrs. Deering's arguments carried the day, and Graham decided to accompany the young ladies to San Real. Ferrara was to be of the party.

It was a bright morning which saw the departure of the three travellers from the Ranch. Hal drove them to the station in a very disconsolate frame of mind. During Ralph Almsford's long absences, it was impossible for him to leave the Ranch, in which his interests were all vested; and it seemed rather hard that Graham should enjoy the pleasure which he had been obliged to decline. Henry Deering was a susceptible young man, and he was already enthralled by the soft voice and deep eyes of the girl on whom he had bestowed the t.i.tle of Princess. His friendship for John Graham was one of the strongest feelings he had ever known. He admired him more than any person he knew. He respected the sterling character of the man, on whose honor he would have staked his life; and yet it was hard that Graham should devote himself to the Princess, for he said to himself there could be no chance for him against such a rival.

The country through which the railroad from San Rosario to San Real pa.s.ses is most picturesque. Round the high hills winds the yellow line of the track, making horseshoe loops, so that the engine, Millicent said, sometimes turned round and looked the pa.s.sengers in the face.

Long, high bridges carry the shining steel threads of travel over deep canyons, with fierce rocky sides and stony bottoms. The scenery is very wild and beautiful, and the moderate pace at which the shaky little engine tugged along the rickety cars gave the travellers every opportunity for seeing and admiring the view.

A great mountain, lying among the low foothills, remained in view through the greater part of the route; it was conical and sharp-pointed, like the typical mountain of the atlas. A great fire had lately raged for days among the spreading trees and thick undergrowth; and now that the smoke had cleared away, the path which the flame had taken was distinctly visible from certain points. A great cross lay stamped on the mountain-side, for all men to see. The baptism of fire had left the symbol which was sanctified eighteen hundred years ago. Graham attracted Millicent's attention to this, which, she said, would have been considered a miracle in Italy.

"Are they not happy, those dear simple-minded Italians? A large portion of them do really believe in miracles to this day." Millicent was the speaker.

"Yes, far happier than those of us who have lost all belief in anything beyond our own bodies, and the facts which that body's senses reveal to us."

"And you believe--"

"Ask me not, maiden, what I believe. I can only hope. But this I know, that there is need to you and to me, to all of us of this generation, to whom the old fallacious dogmas of dead creeds are meaningless, of faith.

This is not the age of belief. The things which have been considered necessary draperies to religion are stripped off; but because truth is naked, it is none the less truth. Faith in that part of ourselves which is not of earth, we must hold fast to, when all else is rent from our feeble natures."

"You should be a preacher. I think that you have got the right end of the truth, perhaps--"

Barbara, who had sat a silent listener to this conversation between the two young people, now spoke for the first time.

"I know little of the modern scientific theories, which Mr. Graham thinks have stripped religion of much that used to belong to it; but to me the denial of a Creator is the most illogical and ignorant act of which the human mind is capable. Look at that house we are just pa.s.sing. If I should tell you that it never was built, that no architect or workman ever planned and executed its design, you would say that my talk was too idle to require contradiction. And yet you will tell me that the pleasant earth on which the house stands, the very trees which furnished its wood, the metals and stone which are wrought into it, exist, and yet knew no Maker."

"Barbara, do not let us talk any more about it; it is impossible for you and me to speak understandingly to each other on these subjects. Mr.

Graham stands midway between your conventional faith and my unbelief; he can understand us both. Now let us talk about love and roses."

"_Apropos_ of love and roses, here comes Ferrara, laden with both of those fragile commodities, which he will straightway lay at Miss Barbara's feet. If you like, Miss Almsford, we will make the next stage of our journey on the engine. I spoke to the engineer, at the last station, of your desire to see the mechanism of his locomotive. You will find the man quite clean and intelligent."