Mat never took a man for a sucking-pig, cleaning and scraping
and buttering and roasting him; nor ever twitched God by the sleeve
and swore He should not have His own way.

_Scaliger._ M. de Montaigne, have you ever studied the doctrine of
predestination?

_Montaigne._ I should not understand it, if I had; and I would not
break through an old fence merely to get into a cavern. I would not
give a fig or a fig-leaf to know the truth of it, as far as any man
can teach it me. Would it make me honester or happier, or, in other
things, wiser?

_Scaliger._ I do not know whether it would materially.

_Montaigne._ I should be an egregious fool then to care about it. Our
disputes on controverted points have filled the country with
missionaries and cut-throats. Both parties have shown a disposition to
turn this comfortable old house of mine into a fortress. If I had
inclined to either, the other would have done it. Come walk about it
with me; after a ride, you can do nothing better to take off fatigue.

_Scaliger._ A most spacious kitchen!

_Montaigne._ Look up!

_Scaliger._ You have twenty or more flitches of bacon hanging there.

_Montaigne._ And if I had been a doctor or a captain, I should have
had a cobweb and predestination in the place of them. Your soldiers of
the _religion_ on the one side, and of the _good old faith_ on the
other, would not have left unto me safe and sound even that good old
woman there.

_Scaliger._ Oh, yes! they would, I hope.

_Old Woman._ Why dost giggle, Mat? What should he know about the
business? He speaks mighty bad French, and is as spiteful as the
devil. Praised be God, we have a kind master, who thinks about us, and
feels for us.

_Scaliger._ Upon my word, M. de Montaigne, this gallery is an
interesting one.

_Montaigne._ I can show you nothing but my house and my dairy. We have
no chase in the month of May, you know--unless you would like to bait
the badger in the stable. This is rare sport in rainy days.

_Scaliger._ Are you in earnest, M. de Montaigne?

_Montaigne._ No, no, no, I cannot afford to worry him outright: only a
little for pastime--a morning's merriment for the dogs and wenches.

_Scaliger._ You really are then of so happy a temperament that, at
your time of life, you can be amused by baiting a badger!

_Montaigne._ Why not? Your father, a wiser and graver and older man
than I am, was amused by baiting a professor or critic. I have not a
dog in the kennel th