tree that I shall easily recognise, not very far from the
door of Gazeau Tower. If I don't I will renounce my birthright; if I
spare you I will take the title of wolf-driver."

Patience smiled; then, suddenly becoming serious, he fixed on me that
searching look which rendered his physiognomy so striking. Then turning
to the weasel-hunter:

"It is strange," he said; "there must be something in blood. Take the
vilest noble, and you will find that in certain things he has more
spirit than the bravest of us. Ah! it is simple enough," he added,
speaking to himself; "they are brought up like that, whilst we--we, they
tell us, are born to obey. Patience!"

He was silent for an instant; then, rousing himself from his reverie, he
said to me in a kindly though somewhat mocking tone:

"And so you want to hang me, Monseigneur Straw-Stalk? You will have to
eat a lot of beef, then, for you are not yet tall enough to reach the
branch which is to bear me; and before then . . . perhaps many things
will happen that are not dreamt of in your little philosophy."

"Nonsense! Why talk nonsense?" said the mole-catcher, with a serious
air; "come, make peace. Monseigneur Bernard, I ask pardon for Patience;
he is an old man, a fool."

"No, no," said Patience; "I want him to hang me; he is right; this is
merely my due; and, in fact, it may come more quickly than all the rest.
You must not make too much haste to grow, monsieur; for I--well, I am
making more haste to grow old than I would wish; and you who are so
brave, you would not attack a man no longer able to defend himself."

"You didn't hesitate to use your strength against me!" I cried.
"Confess, now; didn't you treat me brutally? Wasn't it a coward's work,
that?"

"Oh, children, children!" he said. "See how the thing reasons! Out of
the mouths of children cometh truth."

And he moved away dreamily, and muttering to himself as was his wont.
Marcasse took off his hat to me and said in an impassive tone:

"He is wrong . . . live at peace . . . pardon . . . peace . . .
farewell!"

They disappeared; and there ended my relations with Patience. I did not
come in contact with him again until long afterward.

VI

I was fifteen when my grandfather died. At Roche-Mauprat his death
caused no sorrow, but infinite consternation. He was the soul of every
vice that reigned therein, and it is certain that he was more cruel,
though less vile, than his sons. On his death the sort of gl