"I guess that won't strike another man!"
He had no sooner pronounced this apostrophe of extermination, than his eyes, veiled by the excitement of toil, suddenly shone clear, and, by the glare of a vivid flash of lightning, he saw his benefactor standing before him, pale as a ghost. The marquis still held in his hand, which trembled with rage, the stump of his cane and its gold head. The stump was so short that it was plain that Jean had narrowly missed striking off the hand that was rashly raised against him.
"By the five hundred thousand names of the devil, Monsieur de Boisguilbault!" he cried, throwing away his axe; "if this is your ghost come here to torment me, I will have a mass said for you; but if it's yourself, in flesh and blood, speak to me, for I am not patient with people from the other world."
"What are you doing here? why are you cutting down my trees, you stupid beast?" replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, in no wise tranquillized by the danger which he had escaped as by a miracle.
"Excuse me," retorted Jean, in utter amazement, "you don't seem pleased! So it was you who struck me, was it? You're no baby when you are angry, and you don't warn a fellow. Look you, don't do it again, for if you hadn't done me such a great service I would have cut you in two like a reed before this."
"Master, master, pardon!" said the farmer, who had hurriedly left his cattle to place himself between the carpenter and the marquis; "I was the one who asked Jean to cut down our trees. No one understands it like him and he does ten men's work all by himself. See if he's wasted his time! Since noon he has cut down these thirty trees, chopped 'em up as you see, and helped us haul 'em out of the water. Don't be angry with him, master! He's a fine workman, and he wouldn't work so well for his own benefit."
"But why does he cut down my trees? who gave him leave to cut them down?"
"They are trees that the freshet uprooted, master, and they were beginning to turn yellow; one more freshet and the water would have carried them off. See if I am wrong!"
The marquis thereupon calmed down sufficiently to look about him and to see that the June freshet had partially uprooted the trees. The disturbed condition of the ground and the exposed roots attested the truth of what the farmer said. But, unwilling as yet to believe the testimony of his eyes, he said:
"Why didn't you await my orders to take them away? haven't I forbidden you a hundred times to put the axe to a single tree without consulting me?"