ascal's hand upon me my blood boiled. I pinioned
him. Fortunately, six or seven men fell upon me, and compelled me to let
him go. But he had better make up his mind not to come prowling around
my vineyard!"

He clinched his hands, his eyes blazed ominously, his whole person
breathed an intense desire for vengeance.

And M. d'Escorval was silent, fearing to aggravate this hatred,
so imprudently kindled, and whose explosion, he believed, would be
terrible.

M. Lacheneur had risen from his chair.

"I must go and take possession of my cottage," he remarked to
Chanlouineau; "you will accompany me; I have a proposition to make to
you."

M. and Mme. d'Escorval endeavored to detain him, but he would not allow
himself to be persuaded, and he departed with his daughter.

But Maurice did not despair; Marie-Anne had promised to meet him the
following day in the pine-grove near the Reche.

CHAPTER VII

The demonstrations which had greeted the Duc de Sairmeuse had been
correctly reported by Chanlouineau.

Chupin had found the secret of kindling to a white heat the enthusiasm
of the cold and calculating peasants who were his neighbors.

He was a dangerous rascal, the old robber, shrewd and cautious; bold, as
those who possess nothing can afford to be; as patient as a savage; in
short, one of the most consummate scoundrels that ever existed.

The peasants feared him, and yet they had no conception of his real
character.

All his resources of mind had, until now, been expended in evading the
precipice of the rural code.

To save himself from falling into the hands of the gendarmes, and to
steal a few sacks of wheat, he had expended treasures of intrigue which
would have made the fortunes of twenty diplomats.

Circumstances, as he always said, had been against him.

So he desperately caught at the first and only opportunity worthy of his
talent, which had ever presented itself.

Of course, the wily rustic had said nothing of the true circumstances
which attended the restoration of Sairmeuse to its former owner.

From him, the peasants learned only the bare fact; and the news spread
rapidly from group to group.

"Monsieur Lacheneur has given up Sairmeuse," said he. "Chateau, forests,
vineyards, fields--he surrenders everything."

This was enough, and more than enough to terrify every land-owner in the
village.

If Lacheneur, this man who was so powerful in their eyes, considered the
danger so threatening tha