Then, with a long cry, she
disappeared again towards Lake County and the clearer air. At
length it seemed to me as if the flood were beginning to subside.
The old landmarks, by whose disappearance I had measured its
advance, here a crag, there a brave pine tree, now began, in the
inverse order, to make their reappearance into daylight. I judged
all danger of the fog was over. This was not Noah's flood; it was
but a morning spring, and would now drift out seaward whence it
came. So, mightily relieved, and a good deal exhilarated by the
sight, I went into the house to light the fire.
I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted the platform
to look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up enormously since last
I saw it; and a few hundred feet below me, in the deep gap where
the Toll House stands and the road runs through into Lake County,
it had already topped the slope, and was pouring over and down the
other side like driving smoke. The wind had climbed along with it;
and though I was still in calm air, I could see the trees tossing
below me, and their long, strident sighing mounted to me where I
stood.
Half an hour later, the fog had surmounted all the ridge on the
opposite side of the gap, though a shoulder of the mountain still
warded it out of our canyon. Napa valley and its bounding hills
were now utterly blotted out.
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