As well as I remember, he was about fifty-five years of age when I first knew him; from his earliest boyhood he had fancied and loved a forester's life, and for more than forty years had realized his dreams of its wild independence. The woods, the rocks, the streams had no secrets for him; he understood all their murmurs and their silence--he knew the habits of every bird and beast of these forests and the whereabouts of every large trout in his clear cold hole. But it is of no use to describe Père Séguin; to know him you must hunt with him, and that pretty often, too--as I have done from my earliest youth. I am now with him, on one of those joyous mornings of my boyhood, and having threaded the woods for an hour, he has placed me in ambuscade at the corner of a copse. Here, after a short delay, he pulls out his watch, a time-piece weighing about two pounds, and after a mute consultation with the hands, says in a low decided tone: "Good! Three o'clock. Stop here, youngster, and in an hour I shall send you a buck." "A buck at four o'clock? How are you to tell that?" And I felt that I opened my eyes as an oyster does his bivalve domicile at high water. "A buck! you are joking." "I never joke," said the Père Séguin with a hoarse grunt, walking away, and his face did not belie his words. "Well, then, but how can you possibly--Stop, do, for one moment. Hear me! holla! Père Séguin! I say, you old humbug.--By Socrates, he is off." But Père Séguin was already striding fast and far through the bending branches, wilfully, if not really out of hearing, and I had nothing to do but to watch for the promised game. I had no watch, and it seemed to me long after the appointed hour, when my reverie was disturbed by a low voice, from I knew not where,--from heaven, from earth, from a murmuring brook, from a tree,--which dropped these words in my ear. "Silence--four o'clock--the buck." At that moment I saw the ears of the roebuck, and soon after the animal itself, pausing for a moment in his leisurely course, just where he ought to be for a good shot. But amazement and trepidation seized me. I fired in a hurry, and the deer bounded off unscathed. "How clumsy," said I to the Père Séguin, as he emerged from the thicket, "and how unfortunate, for I have some friends coming to dine with me this week." "Never mind, never mind," replied the poacher; "I will fill your larder to-morrow." "Well, you are a good fellow, but remember I require also some fish--a fine dish of trout."