"Joking! am I? You shall see;" and I proceeded quietly to raise my gun.
"Gently, my lad," roared the Père Séguin, and he seized the weapon in his iron grasp.
"I may be but a 'lad,' but I'll not give up my rights; the hare is mine, and I'll have her. Let go my gun!"
"No!"
"By——"
"No!"
"Then look out for yourself," said I, and with a rapid movement I attempted to draw my couteau de chasse; but long before I could get it out, he had seized me with both hands, and in a twinkling I measured my length upon the turf, and the knife was in his possession.
"Child of violence!" he said, as he set me again on my legs, and pushed me from him, "Do you then already love to shed blood? Would you kill a man for a hare? Have you not the sense to distinguish a joke from an insult? There," he added, giving me back my knife, which had fallen from its sheath in the struggle, "young man, do your worst!"
But I was now as angry with myself as I had been with the old man, and heartily ashamed of my conduct. I turned on my heel, and walked off, vexed beyond expression at my intemperate folly.
The very next day, as good fortune would have it, I met him again in the forest, and lost not a moment in asking his forgiveness for my brutal conduct of the previous day.