He bade her good morning quite respectfully, and drove the Cagot before him from the village. It was slow progress, for the recalcitrant pig must be humoured. The man looked back from time to time, his face full of the most human gratitude. A little way on he paused by an outlying cottage until his benefactor was come up with him. Then, smiling brightly, he stayed Ned with a significant gesture, and went on tiptoe to the door that stood open. A loaf lay on a table within. This the Cagot seized with a muttered word, and so came forth again, hugging his prize. “What, the devil!” cried Ned. He had seen a woman within the hut. She had shrunk, crying out, from the intruder, but had made no effort to defend her property. “A thief!” exclaimed the Englishman. “_Nenni_!” said the man in a deprecatory voice. “It is one of our poor little privileges. I appropriated the bread that monseigneur might see.” “The deuce, you did!” “We may take it--but, yes, we may enter and take, wherever we see it, a cut loaf turned upside-down, with the sliced part to the door. I will return it if monseigneur wills.” “No,” said Ned. “This privilege is on a par with all the rest. Let the fool pay toll to his own inconsequence. Lead on, my friend.” Very shortly they turned into a forest track, plunging amongst trees for a half mile or more. Here Ned pushed up to his humble wayfellow. “Why are you accursed?” said he. “God help us, monseigneur! I know not. Thus they hold and keep us. Wheresoever in our wanderings we alight, we must report our names and habitations to the _bailli_ of the nearest jurisdiction, that no loophole may be left us to escape from ourselves; for it is forbidden to us to intermarry with the pure of blood, lest we thereby, merging into the community, lose our unhappy distinction.” “But, whence come you, and what have you done to merit this--this----?” “Monseigneur, we are accursed. It is not given to us to know more than that.” Was there a faint note of stubbornness, a suggestion of some conscious secret withheld, in this abject reiteration of abasement? Ned was in doubt; but at least it seemed these strange people carried horror with them like a hidden plague-spot. “Tell me,” said he, “why did you cower when the louts cried ‘Baa’ to you?” The man looked up furtively. “It is our ears,” he muttered. “They will call them sheep’s ears, monseigneur.” “Certainly, it would appear, they are not designed for rings. That is a progressive evolution, my friend.” The Cagot did not answer. A few steps farther brought them into a little dell traversed by a brook. Here, by the water-side, was stretched a single tent of tattered brown canvas. “Alone!” said Ned, surprised.