“Hark, Maître Frantz;—do you hear nothing?”
“Yes, I hear voices down there,” said the good man, pointing to the valley.
“And I fancy I smell smoke,” replied Coucou Peter. “Sniff, Doctor.”
“I think it is so,” said the illustrious philosopher.
“I’m quite sure of it now,” cried the disciple; “we are not far from a charcoal-burner’s. Which way does the wind come?—That way—forward!”
They had hardly gone fifty paces in the direction indicated, before they entered a deep valley, right opposite to where a troop of gipsies were preparing their cookery on the hillside.
“Hey!” cried Coucou Peter, “we shan’t want for supper, Maître Frantz—we shan’t want for supper!”
They walked towards the gipsies, who were much surprised to see a man on horseback in the depth of this solitude.