"What a lot of questions, Tiennet!" replied my guest. "You argue fairly well for a Berrichon. I'll try to answer you. You see me drink and talk because I am a man and like wine. Company and the pleasures of the table please me even more than they do you, for the very good reason that I don't need them and am not accustomed to them. Always afoot, snatching a mouthful as I can, drinking at the brooks, sleeping under the first oak I come to, of course it is a feast for me to come across a good table and plenty of good wine; but it is a feast, and not a necessity. To me, living alone for weeks at a time, the society of a friend is a holiday; I say more to him in one hour's talk than you would say in a day at a tavern. I enjoy all, and more, than you fellows do, because I abuse nothing. If a pretty girl or a forward woman comes after me in the woods to tell me that she loves me, she knows I have no time to dangle after her like a ninny and wait her pleasure; and I admit that in the matter of love I prefer that which is soon found to that you have to search and wait for. As to the future, Tiennet, I don't know if I shall ever have a home and a family; but if I do, I shall be more grateful to the good God than you are, and I shall enjoy its sweetness more, too. But I swear that my helpmate shall not be one of your buxom, red-faced women, let her be ever so rich. A man who loves liberty and true happiness never marries for money. I shall never love any woman who isn't slender and fair as a young birch,--one of those dainty, lively darlings, who grow in the shady woods and sing better than your nightingales." "A girl like Brulette," I thought to myself. "Luckily she isn't here, for though she despises all of us, she might take a fancy to this blackamoor, if only by way of oddity." The muleteer went on talking. "And so, Tiennet, I don't blame you for following the road that lies before you; but mine goes farther and I like it best. I am glad to know you, and if you ever want me send for me. I can't ask the same of you, for I know that a dweller on the plains makes his will and confesses to the priest before he travels a dozen leagues to see a friend. But with us it isn't so; we fly like the swallows, and can be met almost everywhere. Good-bye. Shake hands. If you get tired of a peasant's life call the black crow from the Bourbonnais to get you out of it; he'll remember that he played the bagpipe on your back without anger, and surrendered to your bravery." SEVENTH EVENING.