DOI Heft:
No. 79 (October, 1899)
DOI Artikel:Forbes, Stanhope Alexander: On the slope of a southern hill
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19783#0040
On the Slope of a Southern Hill
ON THE SLOPE OF A
SOUTHERN HILL. BY
MRS. STANHOPE FORBES.
Perhaps it was because we came
°n our village just at the magical minute when
tne last red gold of the sun was dying from the
hills; perhaps it was the troop of handsome bare-
footed girls who bewitched us. They were crossing
the old Roman bridge, erect and dark against the
Pale sky, their sickles at their waists, bundles of
fresh-cut grass on their heads. " Addios ! " they
called back to the strangers in a chorus of civil
and kindly welcome.
The Angelus bells were ringing over the water ;
and for all these reasons our affections went out to
the old square tower, with the string of pearly-
white houses at its feet, with its broad setting of
purple mountain above, and purple reflection in
a bend of the river below. We had been out all
day on our bicycles, among the hills of the Low
Pyrenees, through that borderland which, with all
the evidence of douanes and milestones to the
contrary, is neither France nor Spain, at least in
sentiment or tongue, but belonging to a people
apart, who intermarry without reference to the
frontier, and keep intact the old language and
racial characteristics, which have been theirs so
long that no record exists of their beginnings.
We had been out all day seeking some spot,
peaceful and picturesque, where we might set up
our easels and unfurl our sketching umbrellas;
but our luck had not been of the happiest, or else
we were not in the mood for seeing—we could find
no glamour nor repose in the landscape under the
uncompromising brilliancy of a February sun. The
villages were dusty and dull, the wayside figures
commonplace ; the endless groves of pollard oaks
thrusting crooked arms, like beggars, up to the
hard blue sky, offended with their shadeless mono-
tony. So we were on our way back to our tem-
porary home in a pleasant town by the sea, and
in spite of the physical exhilaration of exercise in
strong, pure air, on perfect roads, a certain sense
' THE OLD BRIDGE "
FROM A PAINTING BY STANHOPE A. FORBES, A. R. A.
25
ON THE SLOPE OF A
SOUTHERN HILL. BY
MRS. STANHOPE FORBES.
Perhaps it was because we came
°n our village just at the magical minute when
tne last red gold of the sun was dying from the
hills; perhaps it was the troop of handsome bare-
footed girls who bewitched us. They were crossing
the old Roman bridge, erect and dark against the
Pale sky, their sickles at their waists, bundles of
fresh-cut grass on their heads. " Addios ! " they
called back to the strangers in a chorus of civil
and kindly welcome.
The Angelus bells were ringing over the water ;
and for all these reasons our affections went out to
the old square tower, with the string of pearly-
white houses at its feet, with its broad setting of
purple mountain above, and purple reflection in
a bend of the river below. We had been out all
day on our bicycles, among the hills of the Low
Pyrenees, through that borderland which, with all
the evidence of douanes and milestones to the
contrary, is neither France nor Spain, at least in
sentiment or tongue, but belonging to a people
apart, who intermarry without reference to the
frontier, and keep intact the old language and
racial characteristics, which have been theirs so
long that no record exists of their beginnings.
We had been out all day seeking some spot,
peaceful and picturesque, where we might set up
our easels and unfurl our sketching umbrellas;
but our luck had not been of the happiest, or else
we were not in the mood for seeing—we could find
no glamour nor repose in the landscape under the
uncompromising brilliancy of a February sun. The
villages were dusty and dull, the wayside figures
commonplace ; the endless groves of pollard oaks
thrusting crooked arms, like beggars, up to the
hard blue sky, offended with their shadeless mono-
tony. So we were on our way back to our tem-
porary home in a pleasant town by the sea, and
in spite of the physical exhilaration of exercise in
strong, pure air, on perfect roads, a certain sense
' THE OLD BRIDGE "
FROM A PAINTING BY STANHOPE A. FORBES, A. R. A.
25