Sons of the Soil by Honoré de Balzac (latest ebook reader txt) 📕

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"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 threshold of a keeper, dressed in green livery, wearing a hat edged with silver cord, a sabre at his side, a leathern shoulder-belt bearing the arms of Montcornet charged with those of the Troisvilles, the regulation red waistcoat, and buckskin gaiters which came above the knee.

After a moment's hesitation the keeper said, looking at Brunet and Vermichel, "Here are witnesses."

"Witnesses of what?" said Tonsard.

"That woman has a ten-year-old oak, cut into logs, inside those fagots; it is a regular crime!"

The moment the word "witness" was uttered Vermichel thought best to breathe the fresh air of the vineyard.

"Of what? witnesses of what?" cried Tonsard, standing in front of the keeper while his wife helped up the old woman. "Do you mean to show your claws, Vatel? Accuse persons and arrest them on the highway, brigand,--that's your domain; but get out of here! A man's house is his castle."

"I caught her in the act, and your mother must come with me."

"Arrest my mother in my house? You have no right to do it. My house is inviolable,--all the world knows that, at least. Have you got a warrant from Monsieur Guerbet, the magistrate? Ha! you must have the law behind you before you come in here. You are not the law, though you have sworn an oath to starve us to death, you miserable forest-gauger, you!"

The fury of the keeper waxed so hot that he was on the point of seizing hold of the wood, when the old woman, a frightful bit of black parchment endowed with motion, the like of which can be seen only in David's picture of "The Sabines," screamed at him, "Don't touch it, or I'll fly at your eyes!"

"Well, then, undo that pile in presence of Monsieur Brunet," said the keeper.

Though the sheriff's officer had assumed the indifference that the routine of business does really give to officials of his class, he threw a glance at Tonsard and his wife which said plainly, "A bad business!" Old Fourchon looked at his daughter, and slyly pointed at a pile of ashes in the chimney. Mam Tonsard, who understood in a moment from that significant gesture both the danger of her mother-in-law and the advice of her father, seized a handful of ashes and flung them in the keeper's eyes. Vatel roared with pain; Tonsard pushed him roughly upon the broken door-steps where the blinded man stumbled and fell, and then rolled nearly down to the gate, dropping his gun on the way. In an instant the load of sticks was unfastened, and the oak logs pulled out and hidden with a rapidity no words can describe. Brunet, anxious not to witness this manoeuvre, which he readily foresaw, rushed after the keeper to help him up; then he placed him on the bank and wet his handkerchief in water to wash the eyes of the poor fellow, who, in spite of his agony, was trying to reach the brook.

"You are in the wrong, Vatel," said Brunet; "you have no right to enter houses, don't you see?"

The old woman, a little hump-backed creature, stood on the sill of the door, with her hands on her hips, darting flashes from her eyes and curses from her foaming lips shrill enough to be heard at Blangy.

"Ha! the villain, 'twas well done! May hell get you! To suspect me of cutting trees!--_me_, the most honest woman in the village. To hunt me like vermin! I'd like to see you lose your cursed eyes, for then we'd have peace. You are birds of ill-omen, the whole of you; you invent shameful stories to stir up strife between your master and us."

The keeper allowed the sheriff to bathe his eyes and all the while the latter kept telling him that he was legally wrong.

"The old thief! she has tired us out," said Vatel at last. "She has been at work in the woods all night."

As the whole family had taken an active hand in hiding the live wood and putting things straight in the cottage, Tonsard presently appeared at the door with an insolent air. "Vatel, my man, if you ever again dare to force your way into my domain, my gun shall answer you," he said. "To-day you have had the ashes; the next time you shall have the fire. You don't know your own business. That's enough. Now if you feel hot after this affair take some wine, I offer it to you; and you may come in and see that my old mother's bundle of fagots hadn't a scrap of live wood in it; it is every bit brushwood."

"Scoundrel!" said the keeper to the sheriff, in a low voice, more enraged by this speech than by the smart of his eyes.

Just then Charles, the groom, appeared at the gate of the Grand-I-Vert.

"What is the matter, Vatel?" he said.

"Ah!" said the keeper, wiping his eyes, which he had plunged wide open into the rivulet to give them a final cleansing. "I have some debtors in there that I'll cause to rue the day they saw the light."

"If you take it that way, Monsieur Vatel," said Tonsard, coldly, "you will find we don't want for courage in Burgundy."

Vatel departed. Not feeling much curiosity to know what the trouble was, Charles went up the steps and looked into the house.

"Come to the chateau, you and your otter,--if you really have one," he said to Pere Fourchon.

The old man rose hurriedly and followed him.

"Well, where is it,--that otter of yours?" said Charles, smiling doubtfully.

"This way," said the old fellow, going toward the Thune.

The name is that of a brook formed by the overflow of the mill-race and of certain springs in the park of Les Aigues. It runs by the side of the county road as far as the lakelet of Soulanges, which it crosses, and then falls into the Avonne, after feeding the mills and ponds on the Soulanges estate.

"Here it is; I hid it in the brook, with a stone around its neck."

As he stooped and rose again the old man missed the coin out of his pocket, where metal was so uncommon that he was likely to notice its presence or its absence immediately.

"Ah, the sharks!" he cried. "If I hunt otters they hunt fathers-in-law! They get out of me all I earn, and tell me it is for my good! If it were not for my poor Mouche, who is the comfort of my old age, I'd drown myself. Children! they are the ruin of their fathers. You haven't married, have you, Monsieur Charles? Then don't; never get married, and then you can't reproach yourself for spreading bad blood. I, who expected to buy my tow with that money, and there it is filched, stolen! That monsieur up at Les Aigues, a fine young fellow, gave me ten francs; ha! well! it'll put up the price of my otter now."

Charles distrusted the old man so profoundly that he took his grievances (this time very sincere) for the preliminary of what he called, in servant's slang, "varnish," and he made the great mistake of letting his opinion appear in a satirical grin, which the spiteful old fellow detected.

"Come, come! Pere Fourchon, now behave yourself; you are going to see Madame," said Charles, noticing how the rubies flashed on the nose and cheeks of the old drunkard.

"I know how to attend to business, Charles; and the proof is that if you will get me out of the kitchen the remains of the breakfast and a bottle or two of Spanish wine, I'll tell you something which will save you from a 'foul.'"

"Tell me, and Francois shall get Monsieur's own order to give you a glass of wine," said the groom.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Well then, I know you meet my granddaughter Catherine under the bridge of the Avonne. Godain is in love with her; he saw you, and he is fool enough to be jealous,--I say fool, for a peasant oughtn't to have feelings which belong only to rich folks. If you go to the ball of Soulanges at Tivoli and dance with her, you'll dance higher than you'll like. Godain is rich and dangerous; he is capable of breaking your arm without your getting a chance to arrest him."

"That would be too dear; Catherine is a fine girl, but she is not worth all that," replied Charles. "Why should Godain be so angry? others are not."

"He loves her enough to marry her."

"If he does, he'll beat her," said Charles.

"I don't know about that," said the old man. "She takes after her mother, against whom Tonsard never raised a finger,--he's too afraid she'll be off, hot foot. A woman who knows how to hold her own is mighty useful. Besides, if it came to fisticuffs with Catherine, Godain, though he's pretty strong, wouldn't give the last blow."

"Well, thank you, Pere Fourchon; here's forty sous to drink my health in case I can't get you the sherry."

Pere Fourchon turned his head aside as he pocketed the money lest Charles should see the expression of amusement and sarcasm which he was unable to repress.

"Catherine," he resumed, "is a proud minx; she likes sherry. You had better tell her to go and get it at Les Aigues."

Charles looked at Pere Fourchon with naive admiration, not suspecting the eager interest the general's enemies took in slipping one more spy into the chateau.

"The general ought to feel happy now," continued Fourchon; "the peasants are all quiet. What does he say? Is he satisfied with Sibilet?"

"It is only Monsieur Michaud who finds fault with Sibilet. They say he'll get him sent away."

"Professional jealousy!" exclaimed Fourchon.