Etchezar, hears vaguely during his sleep the tinkling of bells, attached
to the necks of cows moving in a dream, under him, in the stable.

CHAPTER XVI.

Now they open, to the beautiful April morning, the shutters of their
narrow windows, pierced like portholes in the thickness of the very old
wall.

And suddenly, it is a flood of light that dazzles their eyes. Outside,
the spring is resplendent. Never had they seen, before this, summits
so high and so near. But along the slopes full of leaves, along the
mountains decked with trees, the sun descends to radiate in this valley
on the whiteness of the village, on the kalsomine of the ancient houses
with green shutters.

Both awakened with veins full of youth and hearts full of joy. They have
formed the project this morning to go into the country, to the house of
Madame Dargaignaratz's cousins, and see the two little girls, who
must have arrived the night before in the carriage, Gracieuse and
Pantchika.--After a glance at the ball-game square, where they shall
return to practice in the afternoon, they go on their way through
small paths, magnificently green, hidden in the depths of the valleys,
skirting the cool torrents. The foxglove flowers start everywhere like
long, pink rockets above the light and infinite mass of ferns.

It is at a long distance, it seems, that house of the Olhagarray
cousins, and they stop from time to time to ask the way from shepherds,
or they knock at the doors of solitary houses, here and there, under
the cover of branches. They had never seen Basque houses so old nor so
primitive, under the shade of chestnut trees so tall.

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
a