The old man dashed toward Blondet through the water, calling out with
the gravity that country people retain in the midst of their greatest
excitements:--

"Don't you see him, there, along the rocks?"

Blondet, placed by direction of the old fellow in such a way that the
sun was in his eyes, thrashed the water with much satisfaction to
himself.

"Go on, go on!" cried Pere Fourchon; "on the rock side; the burrow is
there, to your left!"

Carried away by excitement and by his long waiting, Blondet slipped
from the stones into the water.

"Ha! brave you are, my good gentleman! Twenty good Gods! I see him
between your legs! you'll have him!-- Ah! there! he's gone--he's
gone!" cried the old man, in despair.

Then, in the fury of the chase, the old fellow plunged into the
deepest part of the stream in front of Blondet.

"It's your fault we've lost him!" he cried, as Blondet gave him a hand
to pull him out, dripping like a triton, and a vanquished triton. "The
rascal, I see him, under those rocks! He has let go his fish,"
continued Fourchon, pointing to something that floated on the surface.
"We'll have that at any rate; it's a tench, a real tench."

Just then a groom in livery on horseback and leading another horse by