Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California shore.
For the Padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fast or too
slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the little
Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden. There, in
the cloisters among the jessamine, the orange blossoms, the oleanders, in
the presence of the round yellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the
Miserere was slowly learned. The Mexicans and Indians gathered, swarthy
and black-haired, around the tinkling instrument that Felipe played; and
presiding over them were young Gaston and the pale Padre, walking up and
down the paths, beating time or singing now one part and now another. And
so it was that the wild cattle on the uplands would hear Trovatore hummed
by a passing vaquero, while the same melody was filling the streets of
the far-off world.
For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and
though not a word of restlessness came from him, his host could read San
Francisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man could
not have stayed here for twenty years! And the Padre forbore urging his
guest to extend his visit.
"But the world is small," the guest declared at parting.
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