Ramuntcho | Page 5

a
sentiment which she hardly confessed to herself, lingered powerfully in
the depths of her heart: the fear of losing her son, of guiding him no
longer, of holding him no longer, of having him no longer.--And so, in

that instant of decisive reflection, after having hesitated for years, she
inclined more and more to remain stubborn in her silence with regard to
the stranger and to let pass humbly near her the life of her Ramuntcho,
under the protecting looks of the Virgin and the saints.--There remained
unsolved the question of Gracieuse Detcharry.--Well, she would marry,
in spite of everything, her son, smuggler and poor though he be! With
her instinct of a mother somewhat savagely loving, she divined that the
little girl was enamoured enough not to fall out of love ever; she had
seen this in her fifteen year old black eyes, obstinate and grave under
the golden nimbus of her hair. Gracieuse marrying Ramuntcho for his
charm alone, in spite of and against maternal will!--The rancor and
vindictiveness that lurked in the mind of Franchita rejoiced suddenly at
that great triumph over the pride of Dolores.
Around the isolated house where, under the grand silence of midnight,
she decided alone her son's future, the spirit of the Basque ancestors
passed, sombre and jealous also, disdainful of the stranger, fearful of
impiety, of changes, of evolutions of races;--the spirit of the Basque
ancestors, the old immutable spirit which still maintains that people
with eyes turned toward the anterior ages; the mysterious antique spirit
by which the children are led to act as before them their fathers had
acted, at the side of the same mountains, in the same villages, around
the same belfries.--
The noise of steps now, in the dark, outside!--Someone walking softly
in sandals on the thickness of the plane-tree leaves strewing the
soil.--Then, a whistled appeal.--
What, already!--Already one o'clock in the morning!--
Quite resolved now, she opened the door to the chief smuggler with a
smile of greeting that the latter had never seen in her:
"Come in, Itchoua," she said, "warm yourself--while I go wake up my
son."
A tall and large man, that Itchoua, thin, with a thick chest, clean shaven
like a priest, in accordance with the fashion of the old time Basque;

under the cap which he never took off, a colorless face, inexpressive,
cut as with a pruning hook, and recalling the beardless personages
archaically drawn on the missals of the fifteenth century. Above his
hollow cheeks, the breadth of the jaws, the jutting out of the muscles of
the neck gave the idea of his extreme force. He was of the Basque type,
excessively accentuated; eyes caved-in too much under the frontal
arcade; eyebrows of rare length, the points of which, lowered as on the
figures of tearful madonnas, almost touched the hair at the temples.
Between thirty and fifty years, it was impossible to assign an age to
him. His name was Jose-Maria Gorosteguy; but, according to the
custom he was known in the country by the surname of Itchoua (the
Blind) given to him in jest formerly, because of his piercing sight
which plunged in the night like that of cats. He was a practising
Christian, a church warden of his parish and a chorister with a
thundering voice. He was famous also for his power of resistance to
fatigue, being capable of climbing the Pyrenean slopes for hours at
racing speed with heavy loads on his back.
Ramuntcho came down soon, rubbing his eyelids, still heavy from a
youthful sleep, and, at his aspect, the gloomy visage of Itchoua was
illuminated by a smile. A continual seeker for energetic and strong
boys that he might enroll in his band, and knowing how to keep them in
spite of small wages, by a sort of special point of honor, he was an
expert in legs and in shoulders as well as in temperaments, and he
thought a great deal of his new recruit.
Franchita, before she would let them go, leaned her head again on her
son's neck; then she escorted the two men to the threshold of her door,
opened on the immense darkness,--and recited piously the Pater for
them, while they went into the dark night, into the rain, into the chaos
of the mountains, toward the obscure frontier.
CHAPTER II.
Several hours later, at the first uncertain flush of dawn, at the instant
when shepherds and fisherman awake, they were returning joyously,
the smugglers, having finished their undertaking.

Having started on foot and gone, with infinite precautions to be silent,
through ravines, through woods, through fords of rivers, they were
returning, as if they were people who had never anything to conceal
from anybody, in a bark of Fontarabia, hired under the eyes of Spain's