The aboriginal in question had seen him running across the field and shouting as he ran. He declared, probably with truth, that never had he heard the like before. It was undoubtedly the language which was in common use among things of evil. This conclusion was not flattering to English-speaking people, but there are occasions on which ignorance is not bliss, and it is not folly to be wise. Being a Breton peasant of average education, this aboriginal decided that Bertie's English was the language in common use among things of evil. That settled the question. There are possibly Beings--Beings in this case should be written with a capital letter--of indifferent, and worse than indifferent character, who have at least some elementary acquaintance with the Breton tongue. Let so much be granted. But it cannot be doubted--at any rate no one did doubt it--that the fact of this stranger speaking in a strange tongue made it as plain as a pike-staff that he was the sort of character which is better left alone. So, as a rule, they left him alone in the severest manner. Of course this could not endure for ever. Bertie was approaching the Land of Golden Dreams in a sense of which he had not dreamed even in his wildest dreams. One cannot subsist on roots alone. Nor can a young gentleman, used to cosy beds and well-warmed rooms and regular meals, exist for long on such a diet, under ever-changing skies, in an inhospitable country, in the open air. Bertie was worn to a shadow. He was wasted not only physically, but mentally and morally. He was a ghost of what he once had been, enfeebled in mind and body. If something did not happen soon to change his course of living, he would soon bring his journeying to an untimely end, and reach the Land of Dreams indeed. Something did happen, but it was not by any means the sort of thing which was required. One day a great hunt took place in that district. It was first-rate sport. They occasionally hunt wolves, and even wild boars in Finistere, but this time what was hunted was a boy. And the boy was Bertie. The mayor of St. Thegonnec was a wise man. All mayors are of necessity, and from the nature of their office, wise, especially the mayors of rural France; and this mayor was the wisest of wise mayors. He was a miller by trade, honest as millers go, and as pig-headed a rustic as was ever found in Finistere. His name was Baudry--Jean Baudry. It was reported to M. Baudry by his colleague, the mayor of the commune of Plouigneau, which lies on the other side of Morlaix, that there was a Being--with a capital B--which had come no one knew from whence, and which was plundering the fields in a way calculated to make the blood of all honest men turn cold--or hot, as might accord best with the natural disposition of the blood of the man in question.