“Ah, monsieur! but they are the old lords of the neighborhood; everybody respects their property.  How can you expect me to fight against six districts?  I care for my life more than for your woods.  A man who would undertake to watch your woods as they ought to be watched would get a ball in his head for wages in some dark corner of the forest—­”

“Coward!” cried the general, trying to control the anger the man’s insolent reply provoked in him.  “Last night was as clear as day, yet it cost me three hundred francs in actual robbery and over a thousand in future damages.  You will leave my service unless you do better.  All wrong-doing deserves some mercy; therefore these are my conditions:  You may have the fines, and I will pay you three francs for every indictment you bring against these depredators.  If I don’t get what I expect, you know what you have to expect, and no pension either.  Whereas, if you serve me faithfully and contrive to stop these depredations, I’ll give you an annuity of three hundred francs for life.  You can think it over.  Here are six ways,” continued the count, pointing to the branching roads; “there’s only one for you to take, —­as for me also, who am not afraid of balls; try and find the right one.”

Courtecuisse, a small man about forty-six years of age, with a full-moon face, found his greatest happiness in doing nothing.  He expected to live and die in that pavilion, now considered by him his pavilion.  His two cows were pastured in the forest, from which he got his wood; and he spent his time in looking after his garden instead of after the delinquents.  Such neglect of duty suited Gaubertin, and Courtecuisse knew it did.  The keeper chased only those depredators who were the objects of his personal dislike,—­young women who would not yield to his wishes, or persons against whom he held a grudge; though for some time past he had really felt no dislikes, for every one yielded to him on account of his easy-going ways with them.

Courtecuisse had a place always kept for him at the table of the Grand-I-Vert; the wood-pickers feared him no longer; indeed, his wife and he received many gifts in kind from them; his wood was brought in; his vineyard dug; in short, all delinquents at whom he blinked did him service.

Counting on Gaubertin for the future, and feeling sure of two acres whenever Les Aigues should be brought to the hammer, he was roughly awakened by the curt speech of the general, who, after four quiescent years, was now revealing his true character,—­that of a bourgeois rich man who was determined to be no longer deceived.  Courtecuisse took his cap, his game-bag, and his gun, put on his gaiters and his belt (which bore the very recent arms of Montcornet), and started for Ville-aux-Fayes, with the careless, indifferent air and manner under which country-people often conceal very deep reflections, while he gazed at the woods and whistled to the dogs to follow him.