"She's a lady's mount and very gentle. Old knowledge soon comes back to one," Uncle Jason said, with an encouraging smile.
They took their way up on the cliff, where there was a pretence of a road that long afterward was to be magnificent. From here the town was a succession of terraces to the bay. The houses were in many instances hidden, but here and there a high one, or a church, loomed up.
On the ocean side it was simply magnificent. The wave-washed rocks glinting in the brilliant sunlight, the seals diving, swimming about as if they were at play, then coming up to sun themselves, the flocks of gulls, the terns, the murres, and the fulmars, who expertly catch fish from the gulls, the auks, diving and swimming about. To-day almost every variety seemed out.
The air was like the wine of a new life and made the blood tingle in the veins. The midday heat was over, the west wind bore the tang of the broad ocean. Miss Holmes wondered if she had ever known before this just what life was, and the joy of living.
CHAPTER IX
A PARTY AND AN ADMIRER
When the sun dropped into the ocean the world for a time seemed ablaze. Certainly, here was the place for sunsets. And as they went on they crushed the dying ferns and foot-high evergreens into penetrating fragrance. Down below the Estenegas they turned around and took a lower road that had little in it except the whispering trees and plaintive bird songs, until houses came into view, and human figures moving about. They did not go down in the city, there was always more or less carousing on Saturday night. A strong young voice was shouting out a favorite song:
"Oh, Sally, dearest Sally; oh, Sally, for your sake,
I'll go to California and try to make a shake;
Says she to me, 'Joe Bowers, you are the man to win,
Here's a kiss to bind the bargain,' and she hove a dozen in."