scattered fringe of bluffs was unsubmerged; and through all

the gaps the fog was pouring over, like an ocean, into the
blue clear sunny country on the east. There it was soon

lost; for it fell instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly into the bottom of the valleys,
following the water-shed; and the hilltops in that quarter

were still clear cut upon the eastern sky.
Through the Toll House gap and over the near ridges on the

other side, the deluge was immense. A spray of thin vapour
was thrown high above it, rising and falling, and blown into

fantastic shapes. The speed of its course was like a
mountain torrent. Here and there a few treetops were

discovered and then whelmed again; and for one second, the
bough of a dead pine beckoned out of the spray like the arm

of a drowning man. But still the imagination was
dissatisfied, still the ear waited for something more. Had

this indeed been water (as it seemed so, to the eye), with
what a plunge of reverberating thunder would it have rolled

upon its course, disembowelling mountains and deracinating
pines! And yet water it was, and sea-water at that - true

Pacific billows, only somewhat rarefied, rolling in mid air
among the hilltops.

I climbed still higher, among the red rattling gravel and
dwarf underwood of Mount Saint Helena, until I could look

right down upon Silverado, and admire the favoured nook in
which it lay. The sunny plain of fog was several hundred

feet higher; behind the protecting spur a gigantic
accumulation of cottony vapour threatened, with every second,

to blow over and submerge our homestead; but the vortex
setting past the Toll House was too strong; and there lay our

little platform, in the arms of the deluge, but still
enjoying its unbrokensunshine. About eleven, however, thin

spray came flying over the friendly buttress, and I began to
think the fog had hunted out its Jonah after all. But it was

the last effort. The wind veered while we were at dinner,
and began to blow squally from the mountain summit; and by

half-past one, all that world of sea-fogs was utterly routed
and flying here and there into the south in little rags of

cloud. And instead of a lone sea-beach, we found ourselves
once more inhabiting a high mountainside, with the clear

green country far below us, and the light smoke of Calistoga
blowing in the air.

This was the great Russian campaign for that season. Now and
then, in the early morning, a little white lakelet of fog

would be seen far down in Napa Valley; but the heights were
not again assailed, nor was the surrounding world again shut

off from Silverado.
THE TOLL HOUSE

THE Toll House, standing alone by the wayside under nodding
pines, with its streamlet and water-tank; its backwoods,

toll-bar, and well trodden croquet ground; the ostler
standing by the stable door, chewing a straw; a glimpse of

the Chinese cook in the back parts; and Mr. Hoddy in the bar,
gravely alert and serviceable, and equallyanxious to lend or

borrow books; - dozed all day in the dusty sunshine, more
than half asleep. There were no neighbours, except the

Hansons up the hill. The traffic on the road was
infinitesimal; only, at rare intervals, a couple in a waggon,

or a dusty farmer on a springboard, toiling over "the grade"
to that metropolitanhamlet, Calistoga; and, at the fixed

hours, the passage of the stages.
The nearest building was the school-house, down the road; and

the school-ma'am boarded at the Toll House, walking thence in
the morning to the little brown shanty, where she taught the

young ones of the district, and returning thither pretty
weary in the afternoon. She had chosen this outlying

situation, I understood, for her health. Mr. Corwin was
consumptive; so was Rufe; so was Mr. Jennings, the engineer.

In short, the place was a kind of small Davos: consumptive
folk consorting on a hilltop in the most unbroken idleness.

Jennings never did anything that I could see, except now and
then to fish, and generally to sit about in the bar and the

verandah, waiting for something to happen. Corwin and Rufe
did as little as possible; and if the school-ma'am, poor

lady, had to work pretty hard all morning, she subsided when
it was over into much the same dazed beatitude as all the

rest.
Her special corner was the parlour - a very genteel room,

with Bible prints, a crayon portrait of Mrs. Corwin in the
height of fashion, a few years ago, another of her son (Mr.

Corwin was not represented), a mirror, and a selection of
dried grasses. A large book was laid religiously on the

table - "From Palace to Hovel," I believe, its name - full of
the raciest experiences in England. The author had mingled

freely with all classes, the nobility particularly meeting
him with open arms; and I must say that traveller had ill

requited his reception. His book, in short, was a capital
instance of the Penny Messalina school of literature; and

there arose from it, in that cool parlour, in that silent,
wayside, mountain inn, a rank atmosphere of gold and blood

and "Jenkins," and the "Mysteries of London," and sickening,
inverted snobbery, fit to knock you down. The mention of

this book reminds me of another and far racier picture of our
island life. The latter parts of ROCAMBOLE are surely too

sparingly consulted in the country which they celebrate. No
man's education can be said to be complete, nor can he

pronounce the world yet emptied of enjoyment, till he has
made the acquaintance of "the Reverend Patterson, director of

the Evangelical Society." To follow the evolutions of that
reverend gentleman, who goes through scenes in which even Mr.

Duffield would hesitate to place a bishop, is to rise to new
ideas. But, alas! there was no Patterson about the Toll

House. Only, alongside of "From Palace to Hovel," a sixpenny
"Ouida" figured. So literature, you see, was not

unrepresented.
The school-ma'am had friends to stay with her, other school-

ma'ams enjoying their holidays, quite a bevy of damsels.
They seemed never to go out, or not beyond the verandah, but

sat close in the little parlour, quietly talking or listening
to the wind among the trees. Sleep dwelt in the Toll House,

like a fixture: summer sleep, shallow, soft, and dreamless.
A cuckoo-clock, a great rarity in such a place, hooted at

intervals about the echoing house; and Mr. Jenning would open
his eyes for a moment in the bar, and turn the leaf of a

newspaper, and the resting school-ma'ams in the parlour would
be recalled to the consciousness of their inaction. Busy

Mrs. Corwin and her busy Chinaman might be heard indeed, in
the penetralia, pounding dough or rattling dishes; or perhaps

Rufe had called up some of the sleepers for a game of
croquet, and the hollow strokes of the mallet sounded far

away among the woods: but with these exceptions, it was
sleep and sunshine and dust, and the wind in the pine trees,

all day long.
A little before stage time, that castle of indolence awoke.

The ostler threw his straw away and set to his preparations.
Mr. Jennings rubbed his eyes; happy Mr. Jennings, the

something he had been waiting for all day about to happen at
last! The boarders gathered in the verandah, silently giving

ear, and gazing down the road with shaded eyes. And as yet
there was no sign for the senses, not a sound, not a tremor

of the mountain road. The birds, to whom the secret of the
hooting cuckoo is unknown, must have set down to instinct

this premonitory bustle.