The sun was intensely hot, and when we had reached the opposite bank of the river, we pulled up in the shade to dine, the provisions having been secured against all injury in crossing the river. Ramsey insisted on drinking an immense quantity of the river, which, however, he qualified with brandy; and after having in consequence expended a large amount of second-hand poetry on the surrounding scenery, nothing would please him but he must alter the tails of his two Canadian switch tail ponies, to make them match with those of Mainspring and the Old Soldier, which were banged. I remonstrated with him on the folly of spoiling two valuable animals, whose chief beauty consisted in their manes and tails, but he would do it; and having cut one tail about a foot shorter than the other with a blunt table knife, he left them pretty objects. Imagine my disgust when the fellow remarked, after gravely contemplating them, “Sh’no consequence, s’hey don’t b’long to me.� I got into trouble about them afterwards, as will be seen.
In the cool of the evening we arrived at the farm, where I found everybody well, and glad to see me back. As I had foreseen, settlers were beginning even to invade my dominions, and not only was the romance of the place destroyed, but the game was retiring very rapidly, and it required a long day’s walk to find venison. This of itself would have determined me to leave the valley, but other causes hastened my decision—firstly, the onions were a failure; they had come up, but the ground squirrels had proved so numerous as to destroy all vestige of the young plants; secondly, I had on one occasion disclosed at March’s not only that I was not a naturalised American, but that I had no intention of bringing myself into contempt by deserting my own country from interested motives, as too many I regret to say have done. This had become known among the crowd of settlers that were now hunting for pre-emption claims; they also knew, as of course there were a few Philadelphia lawyers among them, that as an alien I had no right to the valley. Some of them called upon me to tell me so, but these left however quicker than they came. Under all the circumstances, and particularly as I never could have resided among such a set as were now “locatingâ€� themselves about the place, I made a virtue of necessity, and gave the farm as it stood (excepting the cattle and my books and shooting materials) to one of the backwoodsmen I had known there for some time.
During this last visit to the old place, however, we enjoyed ourselves; the green peas had arrived at perfection, and the young fawns were excellent substitutes for lamb. Tiger and Bevis afforded us some coursing, and Ramsey found out for the first time in his life what it was to stand knee deep in a running stream and wash a flannel shirt without soap.
Whilst we were absent one night on an excursion, Thomas, who remained at home, distinguished himself by shooting a valuable milch cow, that had been brought up by one of the new settlers, and which, having strayed near the house, he mistook in the dark for a wild bull or a bear. When we returned in the morning, Thomas, in great trepidation, had just completed burying the carcase near the house, and we were still laughing over the matter, when a tall settler appeared amongst us and inquired if we had seen “e’er a cow,â€� to which Thomas, knowing that the settler had followed his cow’s trail, fortunately replied in the affirmative, and suggested a distant hill as a celebrated rendezvous for strayed cows in general, on account of the fine quality of its spring water; thither the settler wended his way, after satisfying himself with a few rapid and suspicious glances that we had venison hanging about instead of beef, and that no symptom of cow was stamped about the place. As he turned once more to call three wiry-looking, gamboge-coloured curs, that he had brought with him, and which had been sniffing about, I observed with horror that the brutes were on the cow’s grave, scratching away bravely—“Seize them, Tiger! At them, Prince! Bevis!â€� and these disturbers of the dead flew for their lives, and as I called the dogs off, evidenced no disposition to return, although my brave defenders immediately had a battle royal over the dainty morsel which had thus been brought to light.
I have already alluded to Barnes’s physical strength; in Norfolk he was always an expert axeman, even with the stupid broad-headed Flemish axe, that we still adhere to in England, but his six months’ training at the farm with the American axe had so improved on his former strike and natural powers of endurance, that he was induced one night to boast of his prowess whilst in company with some backwoodsmen at March’s shanty. It had already been proved that no one of the party was a match for him, as I had given him permission to fell for March’s saw-mill in his leisure hours, (at which work I may mention he often made his thirty shillings a day,) March therefore undertook to bring a man called Alexander, to take “the shine out of Barnes,� and during our stay this man arrived. He was a Hercules in muscle though spare, and when, a tree having been selected, the men “stripped for work� as Bell’s Life would say, there was little to choose between them in appearance, though I thought I saw an advantage on Barnes’s side in point of loins. To me it is delightful to witness a fair trial of skill and dexterity between two picked athletæ, where, as in this instance, the pleasure is unalloyed by any brutal exhibition of inflicted punishment. Our party and that of the Americans were equally excited, but no bets were made, and there was no boastful confidence in the issue on either side. I have mentioned elsewhere that the red-wood tree retains in its growth sometimes so perfect a perpendicular that it may be cut round its centre, and yet remains erect on a calm day, supported but by a few inches of the heart. A tree having therefore been selected of about eight feet diameter, as nearly as I can recollect, the men were placed on either side, and a few straight lines for their guidance having been chalked on the bark, they commenced work, the man on whose side the tree fell, to be declared the winner, as he of course would have cut the deepest. For the first part of the day the champions worked manfully stroke for stroke, and the issue seemed to the last doubtful, but at length the strokes became weaker and slower, and then Barnes seemed to have kept something back for the finish, for after a few vigorous drives, the huge tree fell over on his side, and came thundering to the ground. It was a touch and go victory; and caused no ill feeling; but Barnes on returning home was very unwell from over exertion, and during the night he wandered in his head; the next day, however, he was quite well; but the “shine� was taken out of him although he won.
I bade farewell to the little valley before its charms had so palled upon me by use as to render me indifferent to its possession, but its great charm of seclusion that first bound me to it was lost, and in my eyes it was as much “cut up� by the presence of fresh settlers, as is your country villa, sir, when a rushing railway, marking out its track directly through your favourite clump of weeping willows, sends its hot cinders on to the very lawn in front of you; but you were compensated for your villa being smoke-begrimed, and sold it, moreover, on good terms to Styles, who likes living near a railway, and being hourly reminded that his country is making “giant strides,� whilst I, equally a victim to the march of improvement, walked out without any other reflection than that I had gone to a great deal of trouble for the sole benefit of an utter stranger.
We arrived at Vallejo without accident. The appearance of the tailless Canadian horses brought forward their indignant owner, who demanded of me, as conductor of the expedition, an exorbitant sum, which I of course refused to pay, upon which he went to law; and about the time that the hotel was completed, an execution was put on it by the sheriff for the amount claimed for two horses’ tails that I never touched.
We had very little sport at Vallejo; a few wild-fowl hung about the marshes, but were very hard to secure; snipe and curlew also were tolerably plentiful; but the sun was hot, and the yellow treeless hills dazzled the eyes too much for shooting. Our guns therefore were shelved for the present; but I found another source of amusement by fortunately making the acquaintance of a young Englishman of the name of Rowe.
Rowe was a surveying engineer of good ability, and had, previous to leaving England, scarified that country to a considerable extent in the shape of tunnels and cuttings on railways. His present business in Vallejo consisted in surveying and laying out the plan of that city, which having completed, he was now transferring to a gorgeous map, on which the Botanical Gardens, Orphan Asylums, and Schools for the Indigent Blind were already traced and lettered.
Rowe possessed about a dozen small Californian and Indian horses, and as these brutes were not only now wild, but were of that peculiar breed that can neither be tamed or fattened, I could not at first conceive what object Rowe had in keeping them, especially as they were all small, gaunt, and painfully ugly. I perceived that almost daily my new acquaintance, dressed in Californian spurs and leggings, would mount the horse that he generally kept by him (with the saddle always on), and proceed in search of the others which he had turned out to graze on the hills the night previous.