Sentence:  He ... began to descend to familiar questions, endeavouring to accommodate his discourse to the grossness of rustic understandings. The <WSD>clowns</WSD> soon found that he did not know wheat from rye, and began to despise him; one of the boys, by pretending to show him a bird's nest, decoyed him into a ditch; ... 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl; a yokel.