of the shed near a table to
receive the money tax of the colonists who were in arrears, while
several turning-box sisters of the convent, dressed in their long black
robes and white veils, went from group to group with a parchment scroll
on which they entered the rent in kind. The old goldsmith stood behind
Ricarik and examined one after another the sous and the silver and
copper deniers that were being paid in. He approved them all. The
venerable old man feared to expose the poor people to bad treatment if
he rejected any coin, seeing the intendant was merciless. The colonists
who were unable to pay on that day made a considerable group, and
anxiously awaited their names to be called. Many of them were
accompanied by their wives and children. Those who had the money to pay
having acquitted themselves, Ricarik called in a loud voice:
"Sebastian!" The colonist advanced all in a tremble with his wife and
two children at his side, all of them as miserably dressed as himself.

"Not only have you not paid your rent of twenty-six sous," said the
intendant, "but last week you refused to cart to the abbey the woolen
and linen goods that the abbess sent to Rennes. A bad payer, a
detestable servant."

"Alack, seigneur! If I have not paid my rent it is because shortly
before harvest time the storm destroyed my ripe wheat. I might still
have saved something if I could have attended to the crop immediately,
but the slaves who work the field with me were requisitioned away five
out of seven days in order to work at the enclosures of the new park of
the abbey and in draining one of the ponds. Left alone, I could not take
in the remnants of the harvest; then came the heavy rains; the wheat
rotted on the ground and the whole harvest was lost. All I had left was
one field of spelt; it had not been badly treated by the storm; but the
field is contiguous to the forest of the abbey, and the deer ravaged the
crops as they did the year before."

Ricarik shrugged his shoulders and proceeded: "You owe besides, six
cart-loads of hay; you did not fetch them in, yet the meadows that you
cultivate are excellent. With the surplus of six cart-loads you could
easily get money and fulfill your engagements."

"Alack, seigneur! I never get to see the first cut of those meadows. The
herds of the abbey come to pasture on my lands from early spring. If I
set slaves to keep them off, a fight breaks out between my slaves and
those of the abbey; one day m