with astonishment, my left leg seemed pinned to the spot, while the
right, extended on a level with my shoulder, emulated that of Cerito in
"Giselle;" but recovering myself, I followed the thief, who made off
with the speed of a greyhound, in the direction of a neighbouring wood,
and on arriving at a little green knoll almost as soon as he did, I came
suddenly upon a strange and uncouth-looking figure who was reclining
comfortably on the grass beneath the shade of a large walnut-tree.

CHAPTER VIII.

Le Pere Seguin's collation--The young sportsman and the hare--The
quarrel--The apology--The reconciliation--The cemetery--Bait for
barbel--Le Pere Seguin's deceased friends--The return home.

The extraordinary personage in whose presence I so suddenly found myself
was the celebrated Pere Seguin, who, tired with his morning's sport, was
taking his noontide meal; that is, appeasing his appetite, always
enormous, with a loaf of black rye bread, into which he plunged his
ivory teeth with hearty rapidity, now and then taking a mouthful out of
a turnip he had pulled in a field hard by. The abominable quadruped was
there too, planted on his haunches, just in front of his master, looking
as innocent as a lamb, though still holding my hare between his teeth,
probably not daring to lay it down without permission.

Pere Seguin ate, drank, twisted his wiry moustache, dipped his turnip in
the coarse salt, and from time to time cast a glance at his vile dog,
without deigning to speak a word, or even to acknowledge my presence.
Furious at this behaviour, I bowed and said to him, "So, you are the
owner of this precious cur?"

The poacher signified his assent by a slight movement of the head.

"Well, if the dog belongs to you, the hare in his mouth belongs to me."

"Does it?" said the Pere Seguin, and he looked at his dog, who winked
his eye and shook his paw: "my dog tells me he caught this hare
running."

"I know it, the rascally vagabond! and with no great trouble either,
seeing that the hare was half dead, and had but three legs to go upon."

Pere Seguin threw his yellow eye on the cur again, and, as if he had
understood all we said, he once more shook his paw, and gave a sort of
sneeze.

"My dog repeats, he coursed the hare well, and has a right to her."

"What do you mean by saying he has a right to her, when I tell you the
hare belongs to me?"

"And my dog says the reverse."

"Go to Dijon with y