With many rustlings the quail huddled in the live-oaks, complaining
querulously until the darkness silenced them.
The warm, acrid fragrance of the hills was drawn intermittently across
the cooler level of the shadowy road. A little owl, softly reiterating
his cadences of rue, made loneliness as a thing tangible, a thing
groping in the dusk with velvet hands.
Then came that hush of rest, that pause of preparation, as though night
hesitated to awaken her countless myrmidons. With the lisping of
invisible leaves the Great Master's music-book unfolded. That low,
orchestral "F"--the dominant note of all nature's melodies--sounded in
timorous unison--an experimental murmuring. Repeated in higher octaves,
it swelled to shrill confidence, then a hundred, then myriad invisibles
chanted to their beloved night or gossiped of the mystery of stars.
Then Night crept from the deep, cool canons to the starlit peaks and
knelt with her sister hill-folk, Silence and Solitude; knelt, listening
with bowed head to that ancient antiphony of thankfulness and praise;
then rose and faced the western sea.
Boyar, the black pony, shook his head with a silvery jingling of
rein-chains. His sleek flanks glistened in the moonlight.
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