“So you work at the chateau, then,” said he, finally, to change the conversation.

“For six months I have worked in that shanty,” replied the workman; “I am the one who carved the new woodwork, and I will say it is well done.  Well, this great wild boar of a Bergenheim turned me out of the house yesterday as if I had been one of his dogs.”

“He doubtless had his reasons.”

“I tell you, I will crush him—­reasons!  Damn it!  They told him I talked too often with his wife’s maid and quarrelled with the servants, a pack of idlers!  Did he not forbid my putting my foot upon his land?  I am upon his land now; let him come and chase me off; let him come, he will see how I shall receive him.  Do you see this stick?  I have just cut it in his own woods to use it on himself!”

The young man no longer listened to the workman; his eyes were turned toward the castle, whose slightest details he studied, as if he hoped that in the end the stone would turn into glass and let him see the interior.  If this curiosity had any other object than the architecture and form of the building it was not gratified.  No human figure came to enliven this sad, lonely dwelling.  All the windows were closed, as if the house were uninhabited.  The baying of dogs, probably imprisoned in their kennel, was the only sound which came to break the strange silence, and the distant thunder, with its dull rumbling, repeated by the echoes, responded plaintively, and gave a lugubrious character to the scene.

“When one speaks of the devil he appears,” said the workman, suddenly, with an emotion which gave the lie to his recent bravado; “if you wish to see this devil incarnate of a Bergenheim, just turn your head.  Good-by.”

At these words he leaped a ditch at the left of the road and disappeared in the bushes.  The stranger also seemed to feel an impression very like that of Lambernier’s as he saw a man on horseback advancing on a gallop.  Instead of waiting for him, he darted into the field which descended to the river, and hid behind a group of trees.

The Baron, who was not more than thirty-three years of age, had one of those energetic, handsome faces whose type seems to belong particularly to old military families.  His bright, blond hair and clear, blue eyes contrasted strongly with his ruddy complexion; his aspect was severe, but noble and imposing, in spite of his negligent dress, which showed that indifference to matters of personal attire which becomes habitual with country lords.  His tall figure was beginning to grow stout, and that increased his athletic appearance.  He sat very erect in his saddle, and from the way in which he straightened out his long legs against the sides of his beast, one suspected that he could, if necessary, repeat the Marshal de Saxe’s feats of skill.  He stopped his horse suddenly at the very spot which the two men had just vacated and called out in a voice which would startle a regiment of cuirassiers: