the
terror and the counsellor of the whole canton. He was not without a
certain popularity among the peasantry, from whom he usually took his
pay in kind. The compound of his active and negative qualities and his
knowledge of how to manage matters got him the custom of the canton,
to the exclusion of his coadjutor Plissoud, about whom we shall have
something to say later. This chance combination of a sheriff's officer
who does everything and a sheriff's officer who does nothing is not at
all uncommon in the country justice courts.

"So matters are getting warm, are they?" said Tonsard to little Brunet.

"What can you expect? you pilfer the man too much, and he's going to
protect himself," replied the officer. "It will be a bad business for
you in the end; government will interfere."

"Then we, poor unfortunates, must give up the ghost!" said Mam Tonsard,
offering him a glass of brandy on a saucer.

"The unfortunate may all die, yet they'll never be lacking in the land,"
said Fourchon, sententiously.

"You do great damage to the woods," retorted the sheriff.

"Now don't believe that, Monsieur Brunet," said Mam Tonsard; "they make
such a fuss about a few miserable fagots!"

"We didn't crush the rich low enough during the Revolution, that's
what's the trouble," said Tonsard.

Just then a horrible, and quite incomprehensible noise was heard. It
seemed to be a rush of hurried feet, accompanied with a rattle of arms,
half-drowned by the rustling of leaves, the dragging of branches, and
the sound of still more hasty feet. Two voices, as different as the two
footsteps, were venting noisy exclamations. Everybody inside the
inn guessed at once that a man was pursuing a woman; but why? The
uncertainty did not last long.

"It is mother!" said Tonsard, jumping up; "I know her shriek."

Then suddenly, rushing up the broken steps of the Grand-I-Vert by a
last effort that can be made only by the sinews of smugglers, old Mother
Tonsard fell flat on the floor in the middle of the room. The immense
mass of wood she carried on her head made a terrible noise as it crashed
against the top of the door and then upon the ground. Every one had
jumped out of the way. The table, the bottles, the chairs were knocked
over and scattered. The noise was as great as if the cottage itself had
come tumbling down.

"I'm dead! The scoundrel has killed me!"

The words and the flight of the old woman were explained by the
apparition on the thre