“So matters are getting warm, are they?” said Tonsard to little Brunet.

“What can you expect? you pilfer the man too much, and he’s going to protect himself,” replied the officer.  “It will be a bad business for you in the end; government will interfere.”

“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.”