to ask them (for, in my anger, I had
firmly resolved to do so), I was held back by some instinct for fair
dealing to which I had hitherto been a stranger, and whose presence in
myself I could hardly explain. Perhaps, too, the words of Patience had,
unknown to myself, aroused in me a healthy sense of shame. Perhaps his
righteous maledictions on the nobles had given me glimpses of the idea
of justice. Perhaps, in short, what I had hitherto despised in myself
as impulses of weakness and compassion, henceforth began dimly to take a
more solemn and less contemptible shape.

Be that as it may, I kept silent. I contented myself with thrashing
Sylvain as a punishment for having deserted me, and to impress upon him
that he was not to breathe a word about my unfortunate adventure. The
bitterness of the recollection was intensified by an incident which
happened toward the end of autumn when I was out with him beating the
woods for game. The poor boy was genuinely attached to me; for, my
brutality notwithstanding, he always used to be at my heels the instant
I was outside the castle. When any of his companions spoke ill of me, he
would take up my cause, and declare that I was merely somewhat hasty
and not really bad at heart. Ah, it is the gentle, resigned souls of the
humble that keep up the pride and roughness of the great. Well, we were
trying to trap larks when my sabot-shot page, who always hunted about
ahead of me, came back, saying in his rude dialect:

"I can see the wolf-driver with the mole-catcher."

This announcement sent a shudder through all my limbs. However, the
longing for revenge produced a reaction, and I marched straight on
to meet the sorcerer. Perhaps, too, I felt somewhat reassured by the
presence of his companion, who was a frequenter of Roche-Mauprat, and
would be likely to show me respect and afford me assistance.

Marcasse, the mole-catcher, as he was called, professed to rid the
dwellings and fields of the district of polecats, weasels, rats and
other vermin. Nor did he confine his good offices to Berry; every year
he went the round of La Marche, Nivernais, Limousin, and Saintonge,
visiting, alone and on foot, all the places that had the good sense to
appreciate his talents. He was well received everywhere, in the castle
no less than in the cottage; for his was a trade that had been carried
on successfully and honestly in his family for generations (indeed, his
descendants still carry it on). Thus he