? or Maitre Pierre, the carpenter? or Maitre Pierre, the beadle?
or half-a-dozen of Maitre Pierres besides. When none of those corresponded with
the description of the person after whom he inquired, the peasants accused him
of jesting with them impertinently, and threatened to fall upon him and beat
him, in guerdon of his raillery. The oldest amongst them, who had some influence
over the rest, prevailed on them to desist from violence.
    »You see by his speech and his fool's cap,« said he, »that he is one of the
foreign mountebanks who are come into the country, and whom some call magicians
and soothsayers, and some jugglers, and the like, and there is no knowing what
tricks they have amongst them. I have heard of such a one paying a liard to eat
his bellyful of grapes in a poor man's vineyard; and he ate as many as would
have loaded a wain, and never undid a button of his jerkin - and so let him pass
quietly, and keep his way, as we will keep ours. - And you, friend, if you would
shun worse, walk quietly on, in the name of God, our Lady of Marmoutier, and
Saint Martin of Tours, and trouble us no more about your Maitre Pierre, which
may be another name for the devil, for aught we know.«
    The Scot, finding himself much the weaker party, judged it his wisest course
to walk on without reply; but the peasants, who at first shrunk from him in
horror, at his supposed talents for sorcery and grape-devouring, took heart of
grace as he got to a distance, and having uttered a few cries and curses,
finally gave them emphasis with a shower of stones, although at such a distance
as to do little or no harm to the object of their displeasure. Quentin, as he
pursued his walk, began to think, in his turn, either that he himself lay under
a spell, or that the people of Touraine were the most stupid, brutal, and
inhospitable of the French peasants. The next incident which came under his
observation did not tend to diminish this opinion.
    On a slight eminence, rising above the rapid and beautiful Cher, in the
direct line of his path, two or three large chestnut-trees were so happily
placed as to form a distinguished and remarkable group; and beside them stood
three or four peasants, motionless, with their eyes turned upwards, and fixed,
apparently, upon some object amongst the branches of the tree next to