As the evening closed, the little Place became quite thronged with girls, come to wash their pails and draw water from the fountain. Each damsel came statelily along, bearing a huge bucket, made of alternate horizontal stripes of brass and tin, upon her head, and polished like a mirror. A half-hour, or so, of gossipping ensued, frequently broken by a pleasant chorus, sung in unison by the fresh, pure voices of the whole assembly. The effect, when they first broke out into a low, wailing song, echoing amongst the high houses and the hill behind, was quite electrifying. Then they set to work, scrubbing their pails as if they had been the utensils of a model dairy, and at length marched away, each with the heavy bucket, full to the brim, poised upon her head--and with a carriage so steady and gracefully unswerving that, to look at the pails, you would suppose them borne in a boat, rather than carried by a person walking. At night, after I had turned into as snug a bed, with as crisp, and white, and fresh linen as man could wish for, I was long kept awake by the vocal performances of a party of shepherds, who had just arrived from the hills, and who paraded the Place singing in chorus, long after the cracked bell in the little church had tolled midnight. Nine-tenths of these people have capital voices. Their lungs and throats are well-developed, by holding communication from hill to hill; and they jodle or jerk the voice from octave to octave, just as they do in the Alps. This said jodling appears, indeed, to be a natural accomplishment in many mountain countries. The songs of the shepherds at Laruns had jodling chorusses, but the airs were almost all plaintive minors, with long quavering phrases, clinging, as it were, to the pitch of the key-note, and only extending to about a third above or below it. The music was always performed in unison, the words sometimes French, and sometimes Bearnais. The single phrase in the former language, which I could distinguish, and which formed the burden of one of the ditties, was, "_Ma chere maitresse_." This "_chere maitresse_" song, indeed, appeared the favourite. Over and over again was it sung, and there was a wild, melancholy beauty which grew more and more upon you, as the mellow cadence died away again and again in the long drawn out notes of "_Ma chere maitresse_." CHAPTER IX. RAINY WEATHER IN THE PYRENEES--EAUX CHAUDES OUT OF SEASON, AND IN THE RAIN--PLUCKING THE INDIAN CORN AT THE AUBERGE AT LARUNS--THE LEGEND OF THE WEHRWOLF, AND THE BARON WHO WAS CHANGED INTO A BEAR.