The Silverado Squatters | Page 9

Englishman may meet an Englishman to-morrow, upon

Chimborazo, and neither of them care; but when the Scotch
wine-grower told me of Mons Meg, it was like magic.
"From the dim shieling on the misty island Mountains divide us, and a
world of seas; Yet still our hearts are true, our hearts are Highland, And
we, in dreams, behold the Hebrides."
And, Highland and Lowland, all our hearts are Scotch.
Only a few days after I had seen M'Eckron, a message reached me in
my cottage. It was a Scotchman who had come down a long way from
the hills to market. He had heard there was a countryman in Calistoga,
and came round to the hotel to see him. We said a few words to each
other; we had not much to say--should never have seen each other had
we stayed at home, separated alike in space and in society; and then we
shook hands, and he went his way again to his ranche among the hills,
and that was all.
Another Scotchman there was, a resident, who for the more love of the
common country, douce, serious, religious man, drove me all about the
valley, and took as much interest in me as if I had been his son: more,
perhaps; for the son has faults too keenly felt, while the abstract
countryman is perfect--like a whiff of peats.
And there was yet another. Upon him I came suddenly, as he was
calmly entering my cottage, his mind quite evidently bent on plunder: a
man of about fifty, filthy, ragged, roguish, with a chimney-pot hat and a
tail coat, and a pursing of his mouth that might have been envied by an
elder of the kirk. He had just such a face as I have seen a dozen times
behind the plate.
"Hullo, sir!" I cried. "Where are you going?"
He turned round without a quiver.
"You're a Scotchman, sir?" he said gravely. "So am I; I come from
Aberdeen. This is my card," presenting me with a piece of pasteboard
which he had raked out of some gutter in the period of the rains. "I was
just examining this palm," he continued, indicating the misbegotten
plant before our door, "which is the largest spAcimen I have yet
observed in Califoarnia."
There were four or five larger within sight. But where was the use of
argument? He produced a tape-line, made me help him to measure the
tree at the level of the ground, and entered the figures in a large and
filthy pocket-book, all with the gravity of Solomon. He then thanked

me profusely, remarking that such little services were due between
countrymen; shook hands with me, "for add lang syne," as he said; and
took himself solemnly away, radiating dirt and humbug as he went.
A month or two after this encounter of mine, there came a Scot to
Sacramento--perhaps from Aberdeen. Anyway, there never was any
one more Scotch in this wide world. He could sing and dance, and
drink, I presume; and he played the pipes with vigour and success. All
the Scotch in Sacramento became infatuated with him, and spent their
spare time and money, driving him about in an open cab, between
drinks, while he blew himself scarlet at the pipes. This is a very sad
story. After he had borrowed money from every one, he and his pipes
suddenly disappeared from Sacramento, and when I last heard, the
police were looking for him.
I cannot say how this story amused me, when I felt myself so
thoroughly ripe on both sides to be duped in the same way.
It is at least a curious thing, to conclude, that the races which wander
widest, Jews and Scotch, should be the most clannish in the world. But
perhaps these two are cause and effect: "For ye were strangers in the
land of Egypt."

PART II--WITH THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL

CHAPTER I
.--TO INTRODUCE MR. KELMAR

One thing in this new country very particularly strikes a stranger, and
that is the number of antiquities. Already there have been many cycles
of population succeeding each other, and passing away and leaving
behind them relics. These, standing on into changed times, strike the
imagination as forcibly as any pyramid or feudal tower. The towns, like
the vineyards, are experimentally founded: they grow great and prosper
by passing occasions; and when the lode comes to an end, and the
miners move elsewhere, the town remains behind them, like Palmyra in
the desert. I suppose there are, in no country in the world, so many
deserted towns as here in California.
The whole neighbourhood of Mount Saint Helena, now so quiet and

sylvan, was once alive with mining camps and villages. Here there
would be two thousand souls under