However, when I had slept upon the adventure, and my senses were calmer, I was convinced that I had not dreamed what I had seen in the undergrowth, and I began to think there was something queer about Joseph's tranquillity under the oak. The animals that I had seen in such number were certainly not an ordinary sight. In our part of the country we have no flocks, except sheep, and those I had seen were animals of another color and another shape. They were neither horses nor cattle nor sheep nor goats; besides, no animals were allowed to pasture in the forest. 

 Now, as I tell you all this, I think I was a great fool. And yet there's a deal that's unknown in the affairs of this world into which a man sticks his nose, and more still in God's affairs, which He chooses to keep secret. Anyhow, I did not venture to question Joseph; for though you may be inquisitive about good things, you ought not to be so about evil ones; and, indeed, a wise man feels reluctant to poke into matters where he may find a good deal more than he looks for. 

 FOURTH EVENING. 

 One thing gave me still more to think about in the following days. It was discovered in Aulnières that Joseph every now and then stayed out at night. 

 People joked about it, thinking he had a love-affair; but it was no use following and watching him, no one ever saw him turn to inhabited parts, or speak to a living person. He went away across the fields into the open country so quickly and slyly that it was impossible to find out his secret. He returned about dawn, and went to work like the rest; but instead of being weary, he seemed livelier and more contented than usual. 

 This was noticed three times in the course of the winter, which was very long and very severe that year. But neither the snow nor the north wind was able to keep Joseph from going off at night when the fancy took him. People imagined he was one of those who walk or work in their sleep; but it was nothing of the kind, as you will see. 

 On Christmas Eve, as Véret, the sabot-maker, was on his way to keep the midnight feast with his parents at Ourouer, he saw under the big elm Râteau, not the giant who is said to walk under it with a rake on his shoulder, but a tall dark man who did not have a good face, and who was whispering quite low to another man not so tall, and who had a more Christian kind of look. Véret was not actually afraid, and he passed near enough to listen to what they were saying. But as soon as the other two saw him, they separated. The 

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