When I saw this trusty fellow I felt equal to braving the sorcerer, and advanced boldly.  Sylvain stared at me in admiration, and I noticed that Patience himself was not prepared for such audacity.  I pretended to go up to Marcasse and speak to him, as though quite unconcerned about the presence of my enemy.  Seeing this he gently thrust aside the mole-catcher, and, laying his heavy hand on my head, said very quietly: 

“You have grown of late, my fine gentleman!”

The blood rushed to my face, and, drawing back scornfully, I answered: 

“Take care what you are doing, clodhopper; you should remember that if you still have your two ears, it is to my kindness that you owe them.”

“My two ears!” said Patience, with a bitter laugh.

Then making an allusion to the nickname of my family, he added: 

“Perhaps you mean my two hamstrings?  Patience, patience!  The time, maybe, is not far distant when clodhoppers will rid the nobles of neither ears nor hamstrings, but of their heads and their purses.”

“Silence, Master Patience!” said the mole-catcher solemnly; “these are not the words of a philosopher.”

“You are quite right, quite right,” replied the sorcerer; “and in truth, I don’t know why I allow myself to argue with this lad.  He might have had me made into pap by his uncles.  I whipped him in the summer for playing me a stupid trick; and I don’t know what happened to the family, but the Mauprats lost a fine chance of injuring a neighbour.”

“Learn, peasant,” I said, “that a nobleman always takes vengeance nobly.  I did not want my wrongs avenged by people more powerful than yourself; but wait a couple of years; I promise I will hang you with my own hand on a certain tree that I shall easily recognise, not very far from the door of Gazeau Tower.  If I don’t I will renounce my birthright; if I spare you I will take the title of wolf-driver.”

Patience smiled; then, suddenly becoming serious, he fixed on me that searching look which rendered his physiognomy so striking.  Then turning to the weasel-hunter: 

“It is strange,” he said; “there must be something in blood.  Take the vilest noble, and you will find that in certain things he has more spirit than the bravest of us.  Ah! it is simple enough,” he added, speaking to himself; “they are brought up like that, whilst we—­we, they tell us, are born to obey.  Patience!”

He was silent for an instant; then, rousing himself from his reverie, he said to me in a kindly though somewhat mocking tone: 

“And so you want to hang me, Monseigneur Straw-Stalk?  You will have to eat a lot of beef, then, for you are not yet tall enough to reach the branch which is to bear me; and before then . . . perhaps many things will happen that are not dreamt of in your little philosophy.”

“Nonsense!  Why talk nonsense?” said the mole-catcher, with a serious air; “come, make peace.  Monseigneur Bernard, I ask pardon for Patience; he is an old man, a fool.”