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The Silverado Squatters-Part10_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON(1850-1894)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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The sun had now gotten much higher, and through all the gaps

of the hills it cast long bars of gold across that white



ocean. An eagle, or some other very great bird of the

mountain, came wheeling over the nearer pine-tops, and hung,



poised and something sideways, as if to look abroad on that

unwonted desolation, spying, perhaps with terror, for the



eyries of her comrades. Then, with a long cry, she

disappeared again towards Lake County and the clearer air.



At length it seemed to me as if the flood were beginning to

subside. The old landmarks, by whose disappearance I had



measured its advance, here a crag, there a brave pine tree,

now began, in the inverse order, to make their reappearance



into daylight. I judged all danger of the fog was over.

This was not Noah's flood; it was but a morning spring, and



would now drift out seawardwhence it came. So, mightily

relieved, and a good deal exhilarated by the sight, I went



into the house to light the fire.

I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted the



platform to look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up

enormously since last I saw it; and a few hundred feet below



me, in the deep gap where the Toll House stands and the road

runs through into Lake County, it had already topped the



slope, and was pouring over and down the other side like

driving smoke. The wind had climbed along with it; and



though I was still in calm air, I could see the trees tossing

below me, and their long, strident sighing mounted to me



where I stood.

Half an hour later, the fog had surmounted all the ridge on



the opposite side of the gap, though a shoulder of the

mountain still warded it out of our canyon. Napa valley and



its bounding hills were now utterly blotted out. The fog,

sunny white in the sunshine, was pouring over into Lake



County in a huge, raggedcataract, tossing treetops appearing

and disappearing in the spray. The air struck with a little



chill, and set me coughing. It smelt strong of the fog, like

the smell of a washing-house, but with a shrewd tang of the



sea salt.

Had it not been for two things - the sheltering spur which



answered as a dyke, and the great valley on the other side

which rapidly engulfed whatever mounted - our own little



platform in the canyon must have been already buried a

hundred feet in salt and poisonous air. As it was, the



interest of the scene entirely occupied our minds. We were

set just out of the wind, and but just above the fog; we



could listen to the voice of the one as to music on the

stage; we could plunge our eyes down into the other, as into



some flowing stream from over the parapet of a bridge; thus

we looked on upon a strange, impetuous, silent, shifting



exhibition of the powers of nature, and saw the familiar

landscape changing from moment to moment like figures in a



dream.

The imagination loves to trifle with what is not. Had this



been indeed the deluge, I should have felt more strongly, but

the emotion would have been similar in kind. I played with



the idea, as the child flees in delightedterror from the

creations of his fancy. The look of the thing helped me.



And when at last I began to flee up the mountain, it was

indeed partly to escape from the raw air that kept me



coughing, but it was also part in play.

As I ascended the mountain-side, I came once more to overlook



the upper surface of the fog; but it wore a different

appearance from what I had beheld at daybreak. For, first,



the sun now fell on it from high overhead, and its surface

shone and undulated like a great nor'land moor country,



sheeted with untrodden morning snow. And next the new level

must have been a thousand or fifteen hundred feet higher than



the old, so that only five or six points of all the broken

country below me, still stood out. Napa valley was now one



with Sonoma on the west. On the hither side, only a thin




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