you have done two bad actions," said Pere Niseron.

"Take some wine," said Tonsard, offering a full glass to the old man.

"Shall we start?" said Vermichel to the sheriff's officer.

"Yes," replied Brunet, "we must do without Pere Fourchon and take the
assistant at Conches. Go on before me; I have a paper to carry to the
chateau. Rigou has gained his second suit, and I've got to deliver the
verdict."

So saying, Monsieur Brunet, all the livelier for a couple of glasses
of brandy, mounted his gray mare after saying good-bye to Pere
Niseron; for the whole valley were desirous in their hearts of the
good man's esteem.

No science, not even that of statistics, can explain the rapidity with
which news flies in the country, nor how it spreads over those
ignorant and untaught regions which are, in France, a standing
reproach to the government and to capitalists. Contemporaneous history
can show that a famous banker, after driving post-horses to death
between Waterloo and Paris (everybody knows why--he gained what the
Emperor had lost, a commission!) carried the fatal news only three
hours in advance of rumor. So, not an hour after the encounter between
old mother Tonsard and Vatel, a number of the customers of the
Grand-I-Vert assembled there to hear the tale.

The first to come was Courtecuisse, in whom you would scarcely have
recognized the once jovial forester, the rubicund do-nothing, whose
wife made his morning coffee as we have before seen. Aged, and thin,