"Never mind, we must stoop all the same; it's the custom; let us receive his fire with our noses on our saddles." "But you see that he doesn't fire, Pompée." "He doesn't fire?" said the squire, raising his head. "Good! he must be afraid; our determined bearing has intimidated him. Ah! he's afraid! Let me speak to him, and do you speak after me, and make your voice as gruff as possible." The shadow was coming toward them. "_Holé!_ friend, who are you?" cried Pompée. The shadow halted with a very perceptible start of terror. "Do you shout now," said Pompée. "It's useless," said the viscount; "the poor devil is frightened enough already." "Ah! he's afraid!" said Pompée, raising his weapon. "Mercy, monsieur!" exclaimed the man, falling on his knees, "mercy! I am only a poor pedler, and I haven't sold as much as a pocket-handkerchief for a week; I haven't a sou about me." What Pompée had taken for a musket was the yard-stick with which the poor devil measured off his wares. "Pray understand, my friend," said Pompée, majestically, "that we are no thieves, but fighting men, travelling at night because we are afraid of nothing; go your way in peace; you are free." "Here, my friend," the milder voice of the viscount interposed, "here's a half-pistole for the fright we gave you, and may God be with you!" As he spoke, the viscount, with his small white hand, gave the poor devil a half-pistole, and he walked away, thanking Heaven for the lucky meeting. "You were wrong, Monsieur le Vicomte, you were very wrong," said Pompée, a few steps farther on. "Wrong, wrong! wherein, pray?" "In giving that man a half-pistole. At night you should never admit that you have money about you; look you, wasn't it that coward's first cry that he hadn't a sou?" "True," said the viscount, smiling; "but he's a coward, as you say, while we, as you also said, are fighting men, who fear nothing." "Between being afraid and being suspicious, Monsieur le Vicomte, there is as great a distance as between fear and prudence. Now, it isn't prudent, I say again, to let a stranger whom you meet on the high-road see that you have money." "Not when the stranger is alone and unarmed?" "He may belong to an armed band; he may be only a spy sent forward to see how the land lies. He may return with a crowd, and what can two men, however brave they may be, do against a crowd?" This time the viscount realized the reasonableness of Pompée's reproof, or rather, to cut the lecture short, pretended to admit his guilt, and they rode on until they reached the bank of the little river Saye, near Saint-Genès. There was no bridge, and they were obliged to ford the stream. Pompée, thereupon, delivered a learned discourse upon the passage of rivers, but as a discourse is not a bridge, they were not the less obliged to ford the stream after the discourse was concluded.