"But you, Master Billet, are a cultivator and not a priest: 'Agricole,' says Virgil——"
"Do not you think a farmer is on a level with a larned clerk—you cussed choir-boy? Particularly when the Agricoaler has a hundred acres of tilled land in the sun and a thousand louis in the shade?"
"I have always been told that a priest leads the happiest life: though I grant," added Pitou, smiling most amiably, "I do not believe all I hear."
"You are right, my boy, by a blamed sight—you see I can make rhymes, if I like to try. It strikes me that you have the makings in you of something better than a scholard, and that it is a deused lucky thing that you try something else—mainly at the present time. As a farmer I know which way the wind blows, and it is rough for priests. So then, as you are an honest lad and larned," here Pitou bowed at being so styled for the first time—"you can get along without the black gown."
Catherine, who was setting the chickens and pigeons on the ground, was listening with interest to the dialogue.
"It looks hard to win a livelihood," said the lad.
"What do you know how to do?"
"I can make birdlime and snare game. I can mock the birds' songs, eh, Miss Kate?"
"He can whistle like a blackbird."
"But whistling is not a trade," commented Billet.