Ever and anon open out green dells, filled with bright foxgloves and other beautiful flowers; through these dells trickle tiny rivulets that swell the course of our young stream, which through the woods we hear gurgling and gushing on, falling from stone to stone, and wearing many a little pool in the rough ground.
Occasionally we pass a heap of fresh-cut wood, and across our path lie huge trunks of the fallen forest giants; a resinous odour is strongly mixed with the scent of the wild flowers,—one flower, from which the mountain bees make their delicious honey, is peculiarly fragrant and very frequent; occasionally the rivulet is quite hid by the luxuriant carpets of the false forget-me-not that line its banks.
At length we pass from the forest to the cultivated land: the little valley opens into a wider one, which is surrounded by mountains of diverse forms steeped in sunlight; the sun declines, and wreaths of blue smoke ascend from the châlets on the hill-sides, where the evening meal is being prepared for the active, hard-working peasantry, who, with loads of all sorts on their heads, pass by, saluting politely as they go us and each other.
The young stream dances along by the roadside, and thus we enter Bussang, and close our first chapter of this fairy life.
CHAPTER II.
Confluence.
From Bussang to Remiremont our infant stream gurgles plashingly along; sometimes it conceals itself in little tranquil pools, where the large trout lie deep beneath the roots of the overshadowing trees; sometimes it falls with a gentle splash over an obstruction, leaping, as we do in early life, over all difficulties with a smile, even seeming to enjoy that which at a maturer age too often frets and chafes us, though we conceal our chagrin under an unruffled surface.
Sometimes our stream passes, broken into ripples, over smooth shiny pebbles,—here the trout from time to time suddenly dart up and seize their insect food; and sometimes it glides between green banks which hem it in (fair setting for so bright a gem): here it is blue, reflecting the sky above.