“Monsieur Brunet, who is a very good fellow, would much rather find nothing but their dung,” answered Vermichel.  “A man who is obliged to be out and about day and night had better be careful.”

“If he is, he has good reason to be,” said Tonsard, sententiously.

“So,” continued Vermichel, “he said to Monsieur Michaud, ’I’ll go as soon as the court is up.’  If he had wanted to find the cows he’d have gone at seven o’clock in the morning.  But that didn’t suit Michaud, and Brunet has had to be off.  You can’t take in Michaud, he’s a trained hound!  Ha, the brigand!”

“Ought to have stayed in the army, a swaggerer like that,” said Tonsard; “he is only fit to deal with enemies.  I wish he would come and ask me my name.  He may call himself a veteran of the young guard, but I know very well that if I measured spurs with him, I’d keep my feathers up longest.”

“Look here!” said Mam Tonsard to Vermichel, “when are the notices for the ball at Soulanges coming out?  Here it is the eighth of August.”

“I took them yesterday to Monsieur Bournier at Ville-aux-Fayes, to be printed,” replied Vermichel; “they do talk of fireworks on the lake.”

“What crowds of people we shall have!” cried Fourchon.

“Profits for Socquard!” said Tonsard, spitefully.

“If it doesn’t rain,” said his wife, by way of comfort.

At this moment the trot of a horse coming from the direction of Soulanges was heard, and five minutes later the sheriff’s officer fastened his horse to a post placed for the purpose near the wicket gate through which the cows were driven.  Then he showed his head at the door of the Grand-I-Vert.

“Come, my boys, let’s lose no time,” he said, pretending to be in a hurry.

“Hey!” said Vermichel.  “Here’s a refractory, Monsieur Brunet; Pere Fourchon wants to drop off.”

“He has had too many drops already,” said the sheriff; “but the law in this case does not require that he shall be sober.”

“Please excuse me, Monsieur Brunet,” said Fourchon, “I am expected at Les Aigues on business; they are in treaty for an otter.”

Brunet, a withered little man dressed from head to foot in black cloth, with a bilious skin, a furtive eye, curly hair, lips tight-drawn, pinched nose, anxious expression, and gruff in speech, exhibited the phenomenon of a character and bearing in perfect harmony with his profession.  He was so well-informed as to the law, or, to speak more correctly, the quibbles of the law, that he had come to be both 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.