"Why, master, don't you remember my coming to tell you of this damage the very day after the freshet? and you said: 'In that case you must take 'em away and set out more'? This is the best time to set 'em out and I was hurrying up to make room, especially as these trees are fine to make long ladders, and I wouldn't have liked to have you lose 'em. If you'll just walk as far as our farmyard, you'll see a dozen of 'em under the shed, and to-morrow we will take the rest there."
"Very well," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, ashamed of his precipitation, "I remember now that I gave you leave to do it. I had forgotten. I ought to have come sooner and looked at it."
"Dame! you go out so little, master!" said the honest peasant. "The other day I met Monsieur Emile, as he was going to see you, and I pointed out the damage to him and asked him to remind you of it. Did he forget?"
"Apparently," replied Monsieur de Boisguilbault, "but no matter; you had better go home, for it is dark and the storm is coming."
"But you'll get wet, master; you must come to the house and wait till the rain's over."
"No," said the marquis, "it may last a long while, and I am not so far from home that I can't return in time."
"You won't have time, master; here it is beginning now, and it's going to rain hard!"
"All right, all right, I thank you, I will take care of myself," said the marquis. And he turned his back and walked away, while his farmers and their cattle started for the farm.
"This won't do an old man like him any good!" said the farmer to his son, looking after the marquis, who walked more slowly than ever, not having the support of his cane.
"If he had been willing to wait," replied the young peasant, "we might have gone and got his carriage.—Come, Gaillard! Chauvet!" he shouted to his oxen, "courage, my boys. Gee! steady, boy."