ed by time: "Blaidka
haritzea debakatua." (The blaid game is forbidden.)

Still, the day's game is to be the blaid; but the venerable inscription
dates from the time of the splendor of the national game, degenerated at
present, as all things degenerate. It had been placed there to preserve
the tradition of the "rebot", a more difficult game, exacting more
agility and strength, and which has been perpetuated only in the Spanish
province of Guipuzcoa.

While the graded benches are filling up, the paved square, which the
grass makes green, and which has seen the lithe and the vigorous men
of the country run since the days of old, remains empty. The beautiful
autumn sun, at its decline, warms and lights it. Here and there some
tall oaks shed their leaves above the seated spectators. Beyond are the
high church and the cypress trees, the entire sacred corner, from which
the saints and the dead seem to be looking at a distance, protecting the
players, interested in this game which is the passion still of an entire
race and characterises it--

At last they enter the arena, the Pelotaris, the six champions among
whom is one in a cassock: the vicar of the parish. With him are some
other personages: the crier, who, in an instant, will sing the points;
the five judges, selected among the experts of different villages to
intervene in cases of litigation, and some others carrying extra balls
and sandals. At the right wrist the players attach with thongs a strange
wicker thing resembling a large, curved fingernail which lengthens the
forearm by half. It is with this glove (manufactured in France by a
unique basket-maker of the village of Ascain) that they will have
to catch, throw and hurl the pelota,--a small ball of tightened cord
covered with sheepskin, which is as hard as a wooden ball.

Now they try the balls, selecting the best, limbering, with a few
points that do not count, their athletic arms. Then, they take off their
waistcoats and carry them to preferred spectators; Ramuntcho gives
his to Gracieuse, seated in the first row on the lower bench. And all,
except the priest, who will play in his black gown, are in battle array,
their chests at liberty in pink cotton shirts or light thread fleshings.

The assistants know them well, these players; in a moment, they shall be
excited for or against them and will shout at them, frantically, as it
happens with the toreadors.

At this moment the village is entirely animated by t