The air vibrated with light and colour. An African sun poured torrents of gold upon the earth, cracking it with its ardent caresses, and its arrows of gold slipped in between the compressed foliage, an awning of verdure under which the vega protected its babbling canals and its humid furrows, as though fearful of the heat which generated life everywhere.
The trees showed their branches loaded with fruit. The medlar trees bent over under the weight of the yellow clusters covered with glazed leaves; apricots glowed among the foliage like the rosy cheeks of a child; the boys scanned the corpulent fig-trees with impatience, greedily seeking the early first fruit, and in the gardens on top of the walls, the jasmines exhaled their suave fragrance, and the magnolias, like incensories of ivory, scattered their perfume in the burning atmosphere, impregnated with the odour of ripe fruit.
The gleaming sickles were shearing the fields, felling low the golden heads of wheat, the heavy ears of grain, which oppressed with superabundance of life, were bending toward the ground, their slender stalks doubling beneath them.
On the threshing-floor the straw was mounting up, forming hills of gold which reflected the light of the sun; the wheat was fanned amid the whirling clouds of dust, and in the fields whose tops were lopped off, along the stubble, the sparrows hopped about, seeking the forgotten grains.
Every one was happy, all worked joyfully. The carts creaked on all the roads, bands of boys ran over the fields, or gambled on the threshing-floors, thinking of the cakes of new wheat, of the life of abundance and satisfaction which began in the farm-house upon the filling of the lofts; even the old nags seemed to look on with happy eyes, and to walk with more alacrity, as though stimulated by the odour of the mounds of straw which, like rivers of gold, would slip through their cribs during the course of the year.
The money, hoarded in the bedrooms during the winter, hidden away in the chest or in the depth of a stocking, began to circulate through the vega. Toward the close of the day, the taverns began to fill with men, reddened and bronzed by the sun, their rough shirts soaked with sweat, who talked about the harvest and the payment of Saint John, the half-year's rent which they had to pay over to the masters of the land.
The abundance had also brought happiness to the farm-house of Batiste. The crops had made them forget the little "Abbot." Only the mother, with sudden tears and some profound sighs, revealed the fleeting remembrance of the little one.
It was the wheat, the full sacks which Batiste and his son carried up to the granary, and which made the floor tremble, and the whole house shake as they fell from their shoulders, that interested all the family.
The good season began. Their good fortune now was as extreme as their past misfortune. The days slipped by in saintly calm and much work, but without the slightest incident to disturb the monotony of a laborious existence.
The affection which all the neighbours had shown at the burial of the little one had somewhat cooled down. As the remembrance of this misfortune became deadened, the people seemed to repent of the spontaneous impulse of tenderness and recalled once more the catastrophe of old Barret and the arrival of the intruders.