To-night, therefore, if she did not talk to her son of the message which had just been transmitted to them, the reason was she divined his meditation on America and was afraid of his answers. Besides, among country people, the little profound and intimate dramas are played without words, with misunderstandings that are never cleared up, with phrases only guessed at and with obstinate silence.
But, as they were finishing their meal, they heard a chorus of young and gay voices, coming near, accompanied by a drum, the boys of Etchezar, coming for Ramuntcho to bring him with them in their parade with music around the village, following the custom of New Year's eve, to go into every house, drink in it a glass of cider and give a joyous serenade to an old time tune.
And Ramuntcho, forgetting Uruguay and the mysterious uncle, became a child again, in the pleasure of following them and of singing with them along the obscure roads, enraptured especially by the thought that they would go to the house of the Detcharry family and that he would see again, for an instant, Gracieuse.
CHAPTER X.
The changeable month of March had arrived, and with it the intoxication of spring, joyful for the young, sad for those who are declining.
And Gracieuse had commenced again to sit, in the twilight of the lengthened days, on the stone bench in front of her door.
Oh! the old stone benches, around the houses, made, in the past ages, for the reveries of the soft evenings and for the eternally similar conversations of lovers—!
Gracieuse's house was very ancient, like most houses in that Basque country, where, less than elsewhere, the years change the things.—It had two stories; a large projecting roof in a steep slope; walls like a fortress which were whitewashed every summer; very small windows, with settings of cut granite and green blinds. Above the front door, a granite lintel bore an inscription in relief; words complicated and long which, to French eyes resembled nothing known. It said: “May the Holy Virgin bless this home, built in the year 1630 by Peter Detcharry, beadle, and his wife Damasa Irribarne, of the village of Istaritz.” A small garden two yards wide, surrounded by a low wall so that one could see the passers-by, separated the house from the road; there was a beautiful rose-laurel, extending its southern foliage above the evening bench, and there were yuccas, a palm tree, and enormous bunches of those hortensias which are giants here, in this land of shade, in this lukewarm climate, so often enveloped by clouds. In the rear was a badly closed orchard which rolled down to an abandoned path, favorable to escalades of lovers.
What mornings radiant with light there were in that spring, and what tranquil, pink evenings!