Hexe-Baizel soon after brought the soup, and they made a circle round the steaming bowl.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Catherine Lefévre went out of the old cavern about seven o'clock in the morning; Louise and Hexe-Baizel were still asleep; but broad daylight, the splendid daylight of the upper regions, was already streaming through every abyss. At the bottom, through the bright azure, were outlined the woods, the valleys, and the rocks as clearly as the mosses and pebbles of a lake beneath its crystal waters. Not a breath disturbed the air; and Catherine, in presence of this spectacle of boundless nature, felt herself calmer, more tranquil than even in sleep.
"What," said she, to herself, "are our petty troubles of a day, our trials and vexations? Why weary Heaven with our murmurs? Why dread the future? All this only lasts but for a second. Our complaints are of no more account than the cry of the grasshopper in autumn: do its cries prevent winter from coming? Must not the times and seasons be accomplished, and all die to be born again? We have been dead before and have returned again; we shall die again, and again return. And the mountains, with their forests, their rocks, and their ruins, will be ever there to say to us: 'Remember! Remember! Thou hast seen me; behold me again; and thou shalt see me again from generation to generation!'"
Thus mused the old woman, and the future no longer made her afraid; thoughts for her were only memories.
And while she was standing there for a few moments, all of a sudden a hum of voices struck upon her ear; she turned, and saw Hullin with the three smugglers, who were conversing gravely together on the other side of the plateau. They had not perceived her, and seemed engaged in a serious discussion.