“Here we are, Monsieur le Baron,” said Modinier, signing to the gardeners to tie up the boat; “will you come and look?”

“Look at what?” asked Rosalie.

“Oh, nothing!” exclaimed the Baron.  “But you are a sensible girl; we have some little secrets between us, and I may tell you what ruffles my mind.  Some difficulties have arisen since 1830 between the village authorities of Riceys and me, on account of this very Dent de Vilard, and I want to settle the matter without your mother’s knowing anything about it, for she is stubborn; she is capable of flinging fire and flames broadcast, particularly if she should hear that the Mayor of Riceys, a republican, got up this action as a sop to his people.”

Rosalie had presence of mind enough to disguise her delight, so as to work more effectually on her father.

“What action?” said she.

“Mademoiselle, the people of Riceys,” said Modinier, “have long enjoyed the right of grazing and cutting fodder on their side of the Dent de Vilard.  Now Monsieur Chantonnit, the Maire since 1830, declares that the whole Dent belongs to his district, and maintains that a hundred years ago, or more, there was a way through our grounds.  You understand that in that case we should no longer have them to ourselves.  Then this barbarian would end by saying, what the old men in the village say, that the ground occupied by the lake was appropriated by the Abbe de Watteville.  That would be the end of les Rouxey; what next?”

“Indeed, my child, between ourselves, it is the truth,” said Monsieur de Watteville simply.  “The land is an usurpation, with no title-deed but lapse of time.  And, therefore, to avoid all worry, I should wish to come to a friendly understanding as to my border line on this side of the Dent de Vilard, and I will then raise a wall.”

“If you give way to the municipality, it will swallow you up.  You ought to have threatened Riceys.”

“That is just what I told the master last evening,” said Modinier.  “But in confirmation of that view I proposed that he should come to see whether, on this side of the Dent or on the other, there may not be, high or low, some traces of an enclosure.”

For a century the Dent de Vilard had been used by both parties without coming to extremities; it stood as a sort of party wall between the communes of Riceys and les Rouxey, yielding little profit.  Indeed, the object in dispute, being covered with snow for six months in the year, was of a nature to cool their ardor.  Thus it required all the hot blast by which the revolution of 1830 inflamed the advocates of the people, to stir up this matter, by which Monsieur Chantonnit, the Maire of Riceys, hoped to give a dramatic turn to his career on the peaceful frontier of Switzerland, and to immortalize his term of office.  Chantonnit, as his name shows, was a native of Neuchatel.