f a man, he had screwed his whole
person around on the saddle so as to sit almost sidelong upon the horse,
for the convenience, as it seemed, of watching them more attentively.

Not greatly pleased with this manoeuvre, Quentin rode up to the Bohemian
and said to him, as he suddenly assumed his proper position on the
horse, "Methinks, friend, you will prove but a blind guide, if you look
at the tail of your horse rather than his ears."

"And if I were actually blind," answered the Bohemian, "I could not the
less guide you through any county in this realm of France, or in those
adjoining to it."

"Yet you are no Frenchman," said the Scot.

"I am not," answered the guide.

"What countryman, then, are you," demanded Quentin.

"I am of no country," answered the guide.

"How! of no country?" repeated the Scot.

"No," answered the Bohemian, "of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an
Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may
choose to call our people, but I have no country."

"Are you a Christian?" asked the Scotchman.

The Bohemian shook his head.

"Dog," said Quentin (for there was little toleration in the spirit of
Catholicism in those days), "dost thou worship Mahoun?"

[Mahoun: Mohammed. It was a remarkable feature of the character of these
wanderers that they did not, like the Jews whom they otherwise resembled
in some particulars, possess or profess any particular religion,
whether in form or principle. They readily conformed, as far as might
be required, with the religion of any country in which they happened to
sojourn, but they did not practise it more than was demanded of them....
S.]

"No," was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither
seemed offended nor surprised at the young man's violence of manner.

"Are you a Pagan, then, or what are you?"

"I have no religion," answered the Bohemian.

Durward started back, for though he had heard of Saracens and Idolaters,
it had never entered into his ideas or belief that any body of men could
exist who practised no mode of worship whatever. He recovered from his
astonishment to ask his guide where he usually dwelt.

"Wherever I chance to be for the time," replied the Bohemian. "I have no
home."

"How do you guard your property?"

"Excepting the clothes which I wear, and the horse I ride on, I have no
property."

"Yet you dress gaily, and ride gallantly," said Durward. "What are your
means of subsistence