Ramuntcho's lodging place was, in the house of his mother and above the stable, a room neatly whitewashed; he had there his bed, always clean and white, but where smuggling gave him few hours for sleep.

Books of travel or cosmography, which the cure of the parish lent to him, posed on his table--unexpected in this house.

The portraits, framed, of different saints, ornamented the walls, and several pelota-players' gloves were hanging from the beams of the ceiling, long gloves of wicker and of leather which seemed rather implements of hunting or fishing.
Franchita, at her return to her country, had bought back this house, which was that of her deceased parents, with a part of the sum given to her by the stranger at the birth of her son.

She had invested the rest; then she worked at making gowns or at ironing linen for the people of Etchezar, and rented, to farmers of land near by, two lower rooms, with the stable where they placed their cows and their sheep.
Different familiar, musical sounds rocked Ramuntcho in his bed.

First, the constant roar of a near-by torrent; then, at times, songs of nightingales, salutes to the dawn of divers birds.