“Why not?”

“That’s more than I know,” said Charles, with the stupid air servants assume to shield themselves when they wish not to answer their superiors, which nevertheless gave Blondet a good deal to think of.

“Here you are, truant!” cried the general, coming out on the terrace when he heard the horses.  “Here he is; don’t be uneasy!” he called back to his wife, whose little footfalls were heard behind him.  “Now the Abbe Brossette is missing.  Go and find him, Charles,” he said to the groom.

CHAPTER III

Thetavern

The gate of Blangy, built by Bouret, was formed of two wide pilasters of projecting rough-hewn stone; each surmounted by a dog sitting on his haunches and holding an escutcheon between his fore paws.  The proximity of a small house where the steward lived dispensed with the necessity for a lodge.  Between the two pilasters, a sumptuous iron gate, like those made in Buffon’s time for the Jardin des Plantes, opened on a short paved way which led to the country road (formerly kept in order by Les Aigues and the Soulanges family) which unites Conches, Cerneux, Blangy, and Soulanges to Ville-aux-Fayes, like a wreath, for the whole road is lined with flowering hedges and little houses covered with roses and honey-suckle and other climbing plants.

There, along a pretty wall which extends as far as a terrace from which the land of Les Aigues falls rapidly to the valley till it meets that of Soulanges, are the rotten posts, the old wheel, and the forked stakes which constituted the manufactory of the village rope-maker.

Soon after midday, while Blondet was seating himself at table opposite the Abbe Brossette and receiving the tender expostulations of the countess, Pere Fourchon and Mouche arrived at this establishment.  From that vantage-ground Pere Fourchon, under pretence of rope-making, could watch Les Aigues and see every one who went in and out.  Nothing escaped him, the opening of the blinds, tete-a-tete loiterings, or the least little incidents of country life, were spied upon by the old fellow, who had set up this business within the last three years,—­a trifling circumstance which neither the masters, nor the servants, nor the keepers of Les Aigues had as yet remarked upon.

“Go round to the house by the gate of the Avonne while I put away the tackle,” said Pere Fourchon to his attendant, “and when you have blabbed about the thing, they’ll no doubt send after me to the Grand-I-Vert, where I am going for a drop of drink,—­for it makes one thirsty enough to wade in the water that way.  If you do just as I tell you, you’ll hook a good breakfast out of them; try to meet the countess, and give a slap at me, and that will put it into her head to come and preach morality or something!  There’s lots of good wine to get out of it.”

After these last instructions, which the sly look in Mouche’s face rendered quite superfluous, the old peasant, hugging the otter under his arm, disappeared along the country road.