And then a singular commotion disturbed the peaceful monotony of the patriarchal household of Don Juan Briones.  The stagnant courtyard was suddenly alive with peons and servants, running hither and thither.  The alleys and gardens were filled with retainers.  A confusion of questions, orders, and outcrys rent the air, the plains shook with the galloping of a dozen horsemen.  For the acolyte Francisco, of the Mission San Carmel, had disappeared and vanished, and from that day the hacienda of Don Juan Briones knew him no more.

III.

When Father Pedro saw the yellow mules vanish under the low branches of the oaks beside the little graveyard, caught the last glitter of the morning sun on Pinto’s shining headstall, and heard the last tinkle of Antonio’s spurs, something very like a mundane sigh escaped him.  To the simple wonder of the majority of early worshipers—­the half-breed converts who rigorously attended the spiritual ministrations of the Mission, and ate the temporal provisions of the reverend fathers—­he deputed the functions of the first mass to a coadjutor, and, breviary in hand, sought the orchard of venerable pear trees.  Whether there was any occult sympathy in his reflections with the contemplation of their gnarled, twisted, gouty, and knotty limbs, still bearing gracious and goodly fruit, I know not, but it was his private retreat, and under one of the most rheumatic and misshapen trunks there was a rude seat.  Here Father Pedro sank, his face toward the mountain wall between him and the invisible sea.  The relentless, dry, practical Californian sunlight falling on his face grimly pointed out a night of vigil and suffering.  The snuffy yellow of his eyes was injected yet burning, his temples were ridged and veined like a tobacco leaf; the odor of desiccation which his garments always exhaled was hot and feverish, as if the fire had suddenly awakened among the ashes.

Of what was Father Pedro thinking?

He was thinking of his youth, a youth spent under the shade of those pear trees, even then venerable as now.  He was thinking of his youthful dreams of heathen conquest, emulating the sacrifices and labors of Junipero Serra; a dream cut short by the orders of the archbishop, that sent his companion, Brother Diego, north on a mission to strange lands, and condemned him to the isolation of San Carmel.  He was thinking of that fierce struggle with envy of a fellow-creature’s better fortune, that, conquered by prayer and penance, left him patient, submissive, and devoted to his humble work; how he raised up converts to the faith, even taking them from the breast of heretic mothers.