“Here, Lambernier!”

The carpenter hesitated a moment, at this imperative call, between the fear which he could not overcome and shame at fleeing from a single man in the presence of a witness; finally this last feeling triumphed.  He returned to the edge of the road without saying a word, and stationed himself in an insolent way face to face with the Baron, with his hat drawn down over his ears, and grasped through precaution the knotty stick which served him as a weapon.

“Lambernier,” said the master of the castle, in a severe tone, “your account was settled yesterday; was it not paid in full?  Is anything due you?”

“I ask nothing of you,” replied the workman, brusquely.

“In that case, why are you wandering about my place when I forbade you?”

“I am upon the highway, nobody can prevent me from passing there.”

“You are upon my land, and you came out of my woods,” replied the Baron, emphasizing his words with the firmness of a man who would permit no violation of his rights as a landowner.

“The ground upon which I walk is mine,” said the workman, in his turn, as he struck the end of his stick upon the ground as if to take possession.  This gesture attracted Bergenheim’s attention, and his eyes flashed with a sudden light at the sight of the stick which Lambernier held.

“You scoundrel!” he exclaimed, “you probably regard my trees also as your own.  Where did you cut that stick?”

“Go and find out,” said the workman, accompanying his reply with a flourish of the stick.

The Baron coolly dismounted, threw the bridle over his horse’s neck, walked up to the workman, who had taken the position of a practised pugilist to receive him, and, without giving him time to strike, he disarmed him with one hand by a blow which would have been sufficient to uproot the beech rod before it was metamorphosed into a club; with the other hand he seized the man by the collar and gave him a shaking that it was as impossible to struggle against as if it had been caused by a steam-engine.  Obeying this irresistible force, in spite of his kicking, Lambernier described a dozen circles around his adversary, while the latter set these off with some of the hardest blows from green wood that ever chastised an insolent fellow.  This gymnastic exercise ended by a sleight-of-hand trick, which, after making the carpenter pirouette for the last time, sent him rolling head-first into a ditch, the bottom of which, fortunately for him, was provided with a bed of soft mud.  When the punishment was over, Bergenheim remounted his horse as tranquilly as he had dismounted it, and continued his way toward the chateau.

The young man, in the midst of the thicket where he was concealed, had lost no detail of this rural scene.  He could not help having a feeling of admiration for this energetic representative of the feudal ages who, with no fear of any court of justice or other bourgeois inventions, had thus exerted over his own domains the summary justice in force in Eastern countries.