ide plain,
scattered over with single trees, groves and thickets, but which
might be yet termed open, so that objects began to be discerned with
sufficient accuracy. Quentin cast his eye on the person whom he rode
beside, and under the shadow of a slouched overspreading hat, which
resembled the sombrero of a Spanish peasant, he recognised the facetious
features of the same Petit Andre whose fingers, not long since, had, in
concert with those of his lugubrious brother, Trois Eschelles, been
so unpleasantly active about his throat.--Impelled by aversion, not
altogether unmixed with fear (for in his own country the executioner is
regarded with almost superstitious horror), which his late narrow escape
had not diminished, Durward instinctively moved his horse's head to
the right, and pressing him at the same time with the spur, made a
demi-volte, which separated him eight feet from his hateful companion.

"Ho, ho, ho, ho!" exclaimed Petit Andre, "by Our Lady of the Grave, our
young soldier remembers us of old. What! comrade, you bear no malice, I
trust?--every one wins his bread in this country. No man need be ashamed
of having come through my hands, for I will do my work with any that
ever tied a living weight to a dead tree.--And God hath given me grace
to be such a merry fellow withal.--Ha! ha! ha!--I could tell you such
jests I have cracked between the foot of a ladder and the top of the
gallows, that, by my halidome, I have been obliged to do my job rather
hastily, for fear the fellows should die with laughing, and so shame my
mystery!"

As he thus spoke he edged his horse sideways to regain the interval
which the Scot had left between them, saying, at the same time, "Come,
Seignior Archer, let there be no unkindness betwixt us!--For my part,
I always do my duty without malice, and with a light heart, and I never
love a man better than when I have put my scant of wind collar about his
neck, to dub him Knight of the order of Saint Patibularius [patibulum,
a gibbet], as the Provost's Chaplain, the worthy Father Vaconeldiablo
[possibly Baco (Bacchus) el Diablo (the Devil)], is wont to call the
Patron Saint of the Provostry."

"Keep back, thou wretched object!" exclaimed Quentin, as the finisher of
the law again sought to approach him closer, "or I shall be tempted to
teach you the distance that should be betwixt men of honour and such an
outcast."

"La you there, how hot you are!" said the fellow, "had you said men
o