VI.

Bagneres de Bigorre is placed at the opening-out of the broad Campan Valley, some distance out from the higher ranges and about twelve miles on from Grip.  The fog passes off as we start again, though it is lightly raining still.  In an hour or more we have finished the descent to the floor of the valley, and for the rest of the short afternoon the road runs uneventfully to the northward, for the most part level, and beaded with occasional villages and lesser clumps of houses.  Finally, as the light begins to fail behind the clouds, an increased bustle on the road and more frequent houses passed announce the nearness of our destination, and the horses are soon trotting into Bigorre and up the welcome promenade of the main street to the Hotel Beau Sejour.

Past discomforts quickly recede in the warm haze of present satisfactions.  We absorb to the full the pleasant glow of the hotel drawing-room, after we have comfortably repaired the ravages of the day.  Bareges is a grotesque phantom, and we can hardly admit that to-night there are people still in that shuddering, shivering, banshee-haunted line of hospitals, high in its weird valley, in the cold and in the falling rain.  Rayless and despairing their mood must be; escape would seem immeasurably more to be prized than cure.  Even the old man of Grip and his rag brighten by comparison, and we agree in viewing our present surroundings as a climax of utter content.

CHAPTER XV.

THE VALLEY OF THE SUN.

  “Baigneres, la beaute, l’honneur, le paradis. 
  De ces monts sourcilleux”
  —­DU BARTAS.

  “I hear from Bigorre you are there.”
  —­Lucile.

An agreeable little city we find about us, the next day.  Bigorre is one of the most well-known of the Pyrenean resorts, and has a steady though not accelerating popularity.  The tide of ultra summer fashion, has tended latterly toward Eaux Bonnes, Cauterets and Luchon in preference; still, Bigorre, conservative and with it’s own assured circle of friends, looks on without malice at its sister spas who have come to wear finer raiment than itself.  A number of the English,—­some even in winter and spring,—­frequent Bigorre almost alone of these Pyrenean resorts, and their liking for it has made it known, beyond the others, in their own country.  The streets are shady and well lined; the houses, frequently standing apart in their own small gardens, give a pleasant impression of space and airiness.  There are numberless shops, where we can later replenish various needs.  The pavements seem to have been built and leveled, by MacAdam himself, as an enthusiast puts it; and everywhere along the side of the walks bound rivulets of mountain water, so dear to these Pyrenean towns.