made them a soft couch, or in some deserted hut, the ground of which
they covered with wild thyme and lavender. Those were flights far from
the everyday world, when they became absorbed in healthy mother Nature
herself, adoring trees and streams and mountains; revelling in the
supreme joy of being alone and free.

Dubuche, who was a boarder, had only joined them on half-holidays and
during the long vacation. Besides, his legs were heavy, and he had the
quiet nature of a studious lad. But Claude and Sandoz never wearied;
they awakened each other every Sunday morning by throwing stones at
their respective shutters. In summer, above all, they were haunted by
the thought of the Viorne, the torrent, whose tiny stream waters the
low-lying pastures of Plassans. When scarcely twelve they already knew
how to swim, and it became a passion with them to potter about in the
holes where the water accumulated; to spend whole days there, stark
naked, drying themselves on the burning sand, and then replunging into
the river, living there as it were, on their backs, on their stomachs,
searching among the reeds on the banks, immersed up to their ears, and
watching the hiding-places of the eels for hours at a stretch. That
constant contact of water beneath a burning sun prolonged their
childhood, as it were, and lent them the joyous laughter of truant
urchins, though they were almost young men, when of an evening they
returned to the town amidst the still oppressive heat of a summer
sunset. Later on they became very fond of shooting, but shooting such
as is carried on in a region devoid of game, where they had to trudge
a score of miles to pick off half a dozen pettychaps, or fig-peckers;
wonderful expeditions, whence they returned with their bags empty, or
with a mere bat, which they had managed to bring down while
discharging their guns at the outskirts of the town. Their eyes
moistened at the recollection of those happy days; they once more