"You won't have time, master; here it is beginning now, and it's going to rain hard!" "All right, all right, I thank you, I will take care of myself," said the marquis. And he turned his back and walked away, while his farmers and their cattle started for the farm. "This won't do an old man like him any good!" said the farmer to his son, looking after the marquis, who walked more slowly than ever, not having the support of his cane. "If he had been willing to wait," replied the young peasant, "we might have gone and got his carriage.--Come, Gaillard! Chauvet!" he shouted to his oxen, "courage, my boys. Gee! steady, boy." And the father and the son, thinking no more of aught save guiding their horned team across the wet fields, disappeared behind the bushes, followed by all their people, without further anxiety concerning the old master. Such is the peasant's natural heedlessness. Monsieur de Boisguilbault had reached the end of the field across which he had come and was just about to pass through the hedge, when he turned and saw Jean Jappeloup, who was sitting on a stump among the felled trees, like a conqueror meditating sorrowfully on the battlefield. All of the powerful workman's gayety and ardor had suddenly vanished; he sat perfectly still, indifferent to the rain which was beginning to mingle with the sweat of toil on his brow, and he seemed absorbed in profound melancholy. "It is my destiny to insult that man, and not to meet him without suffering on both sides," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault to himself. And he hesitated a long while between an ingenuous repentance and a violent feeling of repugnance. He decided to motion to him to join him, but Jean did not seem to see the motion, although there was still a little daylight. Then he called him in a voice of which the pitch was no longer raised by anger, but Jean did not seem to hear him. "Well," said Monsieur de Boisguilbault to himself, "you are to blame; you must punish yourself."--And he walked straight to the carpenter. "Why do you stay here?" he said, touching him on the shoulder. Jean started, and said in a sharp, irritated tone, as if awakened from a dream: "What! what do you want of me, I pray you? Have you come back to strike me again? See, here's the rest of your cane! I intended to bring it to you to-morrow to remind you of what happened to you this evening." "I was wrong," faltered Monsieur de Boisguilbault. "It's very easy to say 'I was wrong,'" retorted the carpenter; "and with that, when you are old and rich and a marquis, you think that you have made everything right." "What reparation do you demand of me?"