ith it. Then, after talking a little while about
Brother Stephen's artistic work, the messenger briefly explained to the
Abbot his errand, and told him that King Louis had ordered him to make
his inquiries about Gabriel as quietly as possible.

As he heard, the Abbot raised his eyebrows and looked somewhat
disapproving, when he realized that the peasant lad who had dared to put
his page into the beautiful book was the same little colour-grinder who
had had the boldness to speak to him, one day in the garden, and ask him
to take off Brother Stephen's chain. However, whatever he may have
thought, he kept it to himself; he treated the messenger with much
courtesy, and, on bidding him good night, invited him to stay as a guest
of the Abbey so long as he chose.

The next morning the messenger rode to the Viaud farm, and, though he
did not go into the cottage, he looked it over carefully and the land
about it; and then he took the highway that led to the castle of Count
Pierre de Bouchage.

When he reached the castle, he asked to see Count Pierre, and so was
taken into the great hall, where the count received him in a very
haughty manner. He became somewhat more polite, however, when he learned
that King Louis had sent the messenger to him; though he looked
decidedly blank when the latter presented to him a letter written on
parchment and fastened with a wax seal stamped with the king's emblem,
which was the print of a little porcupine with the quills on his back
standing up straight, and a crown on top of them.

On seeing this letter, Count Pierre looked blank because the truth was,
that, like many other noble lords at that time, he could read only with
great difficulty. But then the messenger rather expected this, and so he
asked permission to read the parchment to him, and Count Pierre
frowningly assented.

Indeed, though the messenger pretended not to notice his angry looks, he
frowned blacker and blacker as the reading went on. For King Louis
requested in the letter that Count Pierre at once release from prison in
his castle one Jacques Viaud, peasant on his estate. And the king
further said that he himself wished to buy the Viaud cottage and farm,
together with a good-sized piece of ground that adjoined it (the
messenger, in looking it over that morning, had selected a piece of land
which was much better soil than the most of the Viaud farm), and he
stated that for this purpose he had sent by his messenger a certai