Then Ramuntcho, silent, worries about his destiny,
feels as if he were a prisoner here, with his same
aspirations always, toward something unknown, he knows
not what, which troubles him at the approach of night.
And his heart also fills up, because he is alone and
without support in the world, because Gracieuse is
in a situation different from his and may never be
given to him.
But Arrochkoa, very brotherly this time, in one of
his good moments, slaps him on the shoulder as if
he had understood his reverie, and says to him in
a tone of light gaiety:
“Well! it seems that you talked together, last
night, sister and you—she told me about
it—and that you are both prettily agreed!—”
Ramuntcho lifts toward him a long look of anxious
and grave interrogation, which is in contrast with
the beginning of their conversation:
“And what do you think,” he asks, “of
what we have said?”
“Oh, my friend,” replied Arrochkoa, become
more serious also, “on my word of honor, it
suits me very well—And even, as I fear that
there shall be trouble with mother, I promise to help
you if you need help—”
And Ramuntcho’s sadness is dispelled as a little
dust on which one has blown. He finds the supper
delicious, the inn gay. He feels himself much
more engaged to Gracieuse, now, when somebody is in
the secret, and somebody in the family who does not
repulse him. He had a presentiment that Arrochkoa
would not be hostile to him, but his co-operation,
so clearly offered, far surpasses Ramuntcho’s
hope—Poor little abandoned fellow, so conscious
of the humbleness of his situation, that the support
of another child, a little better established in life,
suffices to return to him courage and confidence!
At the uncertain and somewhat icy dawn, he awoke in
his little room in the inn, with a persistent impression
of his joy on the day before, instead of the confused
anguish which accompanied so often in him the progressive
return of his thoughts. Outside, were sounds of
bells of cattle starting for the pastures, of cows
lowing to the rising sun, of church bells,—and
already, against the wall of the large square, the
sharp snap of the Basque pelota: all the noises
of a Pyrenean village beginning again its customary
life for another day. And all this seemed to
Ramuntcho the early music of a day’s festival.
At an early hour, they returned, Arrochkoa and he,
to their little wagon, and, crushing their caps against
the wind, started their horse at a gallop on the roads,
powdered with white frost.
At Etchezar, where they arrived at noon, one would
have thought it was summer,—so beautiful
was the sun.
In the little garden in front of her house, Gracieuse
sat on a stone bench:
“I have spoken to Arrochkoa!” said Ramuntcho
to her, with a happy smile, as soon as they were alone—“And
he is entirely with us, you know!”
