Chapter Seventeen.
Saxe takes a Shower-Bath.
The musical tinkling of bells roused Saxe at daybreak; and, as he listened to the pleasant sound produced by quite a large herd of goats, their leader’s horn was heard from time to time collecting stragglers who were disposed to stop at intervals to begin breakfasting on the way.
“We haven’t done much in finding crystals yet,” thought Saxe, as he lay. “I wonder what he means to do this morning. I feel as if I should like a day or two’s rest; but I don’t know—I’m not so very tired.”
He lay very still for a few minutes, listening to the tinkling chime of the goat-bells, gradually growing more distant as their wearers made their way up the side of the valley; and as he listened he could tell as well as if he were watching when one of the goats broke away from the herd and leaped and bounded among the rocks to some tempting patch of young green grass,—for there was a sudden splash, so to speak, in the stream of sound; and again when two or three young kids rose on their hind legs and butted and danced at each other.
The picture Saxe painted in his mind made him restless, and the morning love of another half-hour being chased away, he determined to rise and get out in the clear, fresh air.
“Time they woke up,” thought Saxe at last, as the pale dawn stole in through the chinks. “Tired, I suppose.”
He lay listening now to the low murmuring sound of the cowbells, whose chime was silvery and pleasant, and trembled and vibrated in the air; and again he pictured the soft-eyed, meek, lowing creatures, slowly picking their way among the great mossy stones which had been tumbled down from the mountain.