And an old beggar comes out of the fern, all earthy, all hairy, all gray, bent on his stick like a man of the woods.
"Yes," says Arrochkoa, putting his hand in his pocket, "but you must take us to the Olhagarray house." "The Olhagarray house," replies the old man.

"I have come from it, my children, and you are near it." In truth, how had they failed to see, at a hundred steps further, that black gable among branches of chestnut trees?
At a point where sluices rustle, it is bathed by a torrent, that Olhagarray house, antique and large, among antique chestnut trees.
Around, the red soil is denuded and furrowed by the waters of the mountain; enormous roots are interlaced in it like monstrous gray serpents; and the entire place, overhung on all sides by the Pyrenean masses, is rude and tragic.
But two young girls are there, seated in the shade; with blonde hair and elegant little pink waists; astonishing little fairies, very modern in the midst of the ferocious and old scenes .-- They rise, with cries of joy, to meet the visitors.
It would have been better, evidently, to enter the house and salute the old people.

But the boys say to themselves that they have not been seen coming, and they prefer to sit near their sweethearts, by the side of the brook, on the gigantic roots.

And, as if by chance, the two couples manage not to bother one another, to remain hidden from one another by rocks, by branches.
There then, they talk at length in a low voice, Arrochkoa with Pantchika, Ramuntcho with Gracieuse.

What can they be saying, talking so much and so quickly?
Although their accent is less chanted than that of the highland, which astonished them yesterday, one would think they were speaking scanned stanzas, in a sort of music, infinitely soft, where the voices of the boys seem voices of children.
What are they saying to one another, talking so much and so quickly, beside this torrent, in this harsh ravine, under the heavy sun of noon?
What they are saying has not much sense; it is a sort of murmur special to lovers, something like the special song of the swallows at nesting time.