“You have a stranger here since we passed by this time two years,” said one of the friars. “We have,” said Fausto, and his tone was sullen. “A man from the North, a schismatic,” said the friar. “Of that I know naught,” replied Fausto. “A pagan, one may say,” added the monk. “Why did your good lord place him here? ’Tis a sin against the Holy Ghost.” Fausto shrugged his shoulders; he was no theologian. “Does he know aught of forestry?” asked the other Franciscan. “Yes,” said Fausto reluctantly. “But all new-fangled northern ways. We always used to cut wood when we wished, and fell timber when we wanted a sum of money. But under his rule there is to be none of that. Only one tree in eight, and never even so much as this save in November and December, and no pollarding or cropping, and no fuel-making, and even the furze and heather cut by rule, and rarely.” He snorted scornfully like an angry bull, and drank a draught of the rough red wine. He had taken the extreme step of going to solicit audience at the palace of his employers in Rome, but had not been received by anyone higher than the house steward, who in answer to his grievances had declared that he could not place them before their lords, since he knew well that in regard to Le Selve all the new-comer did was well done--an unanswerable Italian formula. “All the old feudal rights are swept away,” Fausto continued. “Rights of pasturage, of dead wood, of snaring, of shooting, of barking and burning, of grazing and broom cutting--all are done away with I tell you, holy men. ’Tis enough to make the folks of the soil rise and fire the forests. Maybe they will do it one day.” “To be sure, poor souls,” said the friar with compassion, “and the saints will excuse them.” Who would now give a Franciscan, when he passed through the Selve, a plump quail, or a young hare, or a brace of coots shot on the pond?