"Ill-gotten! Look here, friend Tiennet," he said, laughing, "you who have, I suppose, like all the small proprietors about here, a couple of dozen sheep, two or three goats, and perhaps an old mare that feeds on the common, do you go and offer reparation if, by accident, your beasts bark your neighbor's trees and trample his young wheat? Don't you call in your animals as fast as you can, without saying a word about it; and if your neighbors take the law of you, don't you curse them and the law too? And if you could, without danger, get them off into a corner, wouldn't you make amends to yourself by belaboring their shoulders? I tell you, it is either cowardice or force that makes you respect the law, and it is because we avoid both that you blame us, out of jealousy of the freedom that we have known how to snatch." "I don't like your queer morality, Huriel; but what has all this got to do with music? Why do you laugh at my song? Do you know a better?" "I don't pretend to, Tiennet; but I tell you that music, liberty, beautiful wild scenery, lively minds, and, if you choose, the art of making money without getting stupefied,--all belong together like fingers to the hand. I tell you that shouting is not singing; you can bellow like deaf folks in your fields and taverns, but that's not music. Music is on our side of those hills, and not on yours. Your friend Joseph felt this, for his senses are more delicate than yours; in fact, my little Tiennet, I should only lose my time in trying to show you the difference. You are a Berrichon, as a swallow is a swallow; and what you are to-day you will be fifty years hence. Your head will whiten, but your brain will never be a day older." "Why, do you think me a fool?" I asked, rather mortified.