when
Courtecuisse finds himself a beggar, like Fourchon, he'll be capable
of anything. Courtecuisse has ruined himself on the Bachelerie; he has
cultivated all the land, and trained fruit on the walls. The little
property is now worth four thousand francs, and the count will gladly
pay you that to get possession of the three acres that jut right into
his land. If Courtecuisse were not such an idle hound he could have paid
his interest with the game he might have killed there."

"Well, transfer the mortgage to me, and I'll make my butter out of
it; the count shall buy the three acres, and I shall get the house and
garden for nothing."

"What are you going to give me out of it?"

"Good heavens! you'd milk an ox!" exclaimed Sibilet,--"when I have just
done you such a service, too. I have at last got the Shopman to enforce
the laws about gleaning--"

"Have you, my dear fellow?" said Rigou, who a few days earlier had
suggested this means of exasperating the peasantry to Sibilet, telling
him to advise the general to try it. "Then we've got him; he's lost! But
it isn't enough to hold him with one string; we must wind it round and
round him like a roll of tobacco. Slip the bolts of the door, my lad;
tell my wife to bring my coffee and the liqueurs, and tell Jean to
harness up. I'm off to Soulanges; will see you to-night!--Ah! Vaudoyer,
good afternoon," said the late mayor as his former field-keeper entered
the room. "What's the news?"

Vaudoyer related the talk which had just taken place at the tavern, and
asked Rigou's opinion as to the legality of the rules which the general
thought of enforcing.

"He has the law with him," said Rigou, curtly. "We have a hard landlord;
the Abbe Brossette is a malignant priest; he advises all such measures
because you don't go to mass, you miserable unbelievers. I go; there's
a God, I tell you. You peasants will have to bear everything, for the
Shopman will always get the better of you--"

"We shall glean," said Vaudoyer, in that determined tone which
characterizes Burgundians.

"Without a certificate of pauperism?" asked the usurer. "They say the
Shopman has gone to the Prefecture to ask for troops so as to force you
to keep the law."

"We shall glean as we have always gleaned," repeated Vaudoyer.

"Well, glean then! Monsieur Sarcus will decide whether you have the
right to," said Rigou, seeming to promise the help of the justice of the
peace.

"We shall glean, and we shall do