On the evening when Vimeux paid his visit to the Château. Hyacinthe was just entering the house with his gun. Old Fouan was sitting on the trunk of a tree smoking his pipe and watching the bailiff's approach.
"See the disgrace you are bringing upon us, you rascal!" the old man growled to his son.
"Just you wait a moment!" returned the poacher.
Vimeux, on catching sight of the gun, came to a standstill some thirty yards away. The whole of his dirty, shabby, black-clothed person quaked with fear.
"Monsieur Hyacinthe," he began in a weak, quavering voice, "I have come about the business you are aware of. I leave this here. Good evening."
He then laid the official document on a stone, and was already hastily retiring, when the poacher called out to him:
"Do you want me to come and teach you politeness, you confounded paper-stainer? Just be good enough to bring that paper to me!"
Then, as the wretched man stood speechless and rooted to the ground with terror, daring neither to advance nor to retreat an inch, the poacher took aim at him with his gun.
"I'll just send you a little bit of lead," he cried, "if you don't make haste and do what I tell you. Look sharp now, take up your paper, and bring it here! Oh, you must come nearer than that; and nearer than that. Hurry along now, you miserable eunuch, or I shall fire!"