Seguin, however,
pretended that if he took up the matter he would know how to bring the
miller to reason, and even secure the enclosure for next to nothing. And
indeed, thinking that he might yet induce Mathieu to purchase all the
remaining property, he determined to see Lepailleur and negotiate with
him before even signing the deed which was to convey to Mathieu the
selected marshland on the plateau.
But the outcome proved as Mathieu had foreseen. Lepailleur asked such a
monstrous price for his few acres enclosed within the estate that nothing
could be done. When he was approached on the subject by Seguin, he made
little secret of the rage he felt at Mathieu's triumph. He had told the
young man that he would never succeed in reaping an ear of wheat from
that uncultivated expanse, given over to brambles for centuries past; and
yet now it was covered with abundant crops! And this had increased the
miller's rancor against the soil; he hated it yet more than ever for its
harshness to him, a peasant's son, and its kindliness towards that
bourgeois, who seemed to have fallen from heaven expressly to
revolutionize the region. Thus, in answer to Seguin, he declared with a
sneer that since sorcerers had sprung up who were able to make wheat
sprout from stones, his patch of ground was now worth its weight in gold.
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