CHAPTER VIII.
Le Père Séguin's collation—The young sportsman and the hare—The quarrel—The apology—The reconciliation—The cemetery—Bait for barbel—Le Père Séguin's deceased friends—The return home.
The extraordinary personage in whose presence I so suddenly found myself was the celebrated Père Séguin, who, tired with his morning's sport, was taking his noontide meal; that is, appeasing his appetite, always enormous, with a loaf of black rye bread, into which he plunged his ivory teeth with hearty rapidity, now and then taking a mouthful out of a turnip he had pulled in a field hard by. The abominable quadruped was there too, planted on his haunches, just in front of his master, looking as innocent as a lamb, though still holding my hare between his teeth, probably not daring to lay it down without permission.
Père Séguin ate, drank, twisted his wiry moustache, dipped his turnip in the coarse salt, and from time to time cast a glance at his vile dog, without deigning to speak a word, or even to acknowledge my presence. Furious at this behaviour, I bowed and said to him, "So, you are the owner of this precious cur?"
The poacher signified his assent by a slight movement of the head.
"Well, if the dog belongs to you, the hare in his mouth belongs to me."
"Does it?" said the Père Séguin, and he looked at his dog, who winked his eye and shook his paw: "my dog tells me he caught this hare running."
"I know it, the rascally vagabond! and with no great trouble either, seeing that the hare was half dead, and had but three legs to go upon."
Père Séguin threw his yellow eye on the cur again, and, as if he had understood all we said, he once more shook his paw, and gave a sort of sneeze.