The ravines through which they advance are strangely enclosed. Higher than all these woods of oaks and of beeches, which seem as if suspended above, appear ferocious, denuded summits, a zone abrupt and bald, sombre brown, making points in the violent blue of the sky. But here, underneath, is the sheltered and mossy region, green and deep, which the sun never burns and where April has hidden its luxury, freshly superb.
And they also, the two who are passing through these paths of foxglove and of fern, participate in this splendor of spring.
Little by little, in their enjoyment at being there, and under the influence of this ageless place, the old instincts to hunt and to destroy are lighted in the depths of their minds. Arrochkoa, excited, leaps from right to left, from left to right, breaks, uproots grasses and flowers; troubles about everything that moves in the green foliage, about the lizards that might be caught, about the birds that might be taken out of their nests, and about the beautiful trout swimming in the water; he jumps, he leaps; he wishes he had fishing lines, sticks, guns; truly he reveals his savagery in the bloom of his robust eighteen years.—Ramuntcho calms himself quickly; after breaking a few branches, plucking a few flowers, he begins to meditate; and he thinks—
Here they are stopped now at a cross-road where no human habitation is visible. Around them are gorges full of shade wherein grand oaks grow thickly, and above, everywhere, a piling up of mountains, of a reddish color burned by the sun. There is nowhere an indication of the new times; there is an absolute silence, something like the peace of the primitive epochs. Lifting their heads toward the brown peaks, they perceive at a long distance persons walking on invisible paths, pushing before them donkeys of smugglers: as small as insects at such a distance, are these silent passers-by on the flank of the gigantic mountain; Basques of other times, almost confused, as one looks at them from this place, with this reddish earth from which they came—and where they are to return, after having lived like their ancestors without a suspicion of the things of our times, of the events of other places—
They take off their caps, Arrochkoa and Ramuntcho, to wipe their foreheads; it is so warm in these gorges and they have run so much, jumped so much, that their entire bodies are in a perspiration. They are enjoying themselves, but they would like to come, nevertheless, near the two little, blonde girls who are waiting for them. But of whom shall they ask their way now, since there is no one?
“Ave Maria,” cries at them from the thickness of the branches an old, rough voice.
And the salutation is prolonged by a string of words spoken in a rapid decrescendo, quick; quick; a Basque prayer rattled breathlessly, begun very loudly, then dying at the finish. And an old beggar comes out of the fern, all earthy, all hairy, all gray, bent on his stick like a man of the woods.
“Yes,” says Arrochkoa, putting his hand in his pocket, “but you must take us to the Olhagarray house.”
“The Olhagarray house,” replies the old man. “I have come from it, my children, and you are near it.”
In truth, how had they failed to see, at a hundred steps further, that black gable among branches of chestnut trees?