“Go,” said Michu; and he watched the boy until he was entirely out of sight.  Couraut was barking on the other side of the road in the direction of Grouage.  “Oh, that’s Violette,” remarked Michu.  “This is the third time that old fellow has passed here to-day.  What’s in the wind?  Hush, Couraut!”

A few moments later the trot of a pony was heard approaching.

CHAPTER II

A crime relinquished

Violette, mounted on one of those little nags which the farmers in the neighborhood of Paris use so much, soon appeared, wearing a round hat with a broad brim, beneath which his wood-colored face, deeply wrinkled, appeared in shadow.  His gray eyes, mischievous and lively, concealed in a measure the treachery of his nature.  His skinny legs, covered with gaiters of white linen which came to the knee, hung rather than rested in the stirrups, seemingly held in place by the weight of his hob-nailed shoes.  Above his jacket of blue cloth he wore a cloak of some coarse woollen stuff woven in black and white stripes.  His gray hair fell in curls behind his ears.  This dress, the gray horse with its short legs, the manner in which Violette sat him, stomach projecting and shoulders thrown back, the big chapped hands which held the shabby bridle, all depicted him plainly as the grasping, ambitious peasant who desires to own land and buys it at any price.  His mouth, with its bluish lips parted as if a surgeon had pried them open with a scalpel, and the innumerable wrinkles of his face and forehead hindered the play of features which were expressive only in their outlines.  Those hard, fixed lines seemed menacing, in spite of the humility which country-folks assume and beneath which they conceal their emotions and schemes, as savages and Easterns hide theirs behind an imperturbable gravity.  First a mere laborer, then the farmer of Grouage through a long course of persistent ill-doing, he continued his evil practices after conquering a position which surpassed his early hopes.  He wished harm to all men and wished it vehemently.  When he could assist in doing harm he did it eagerly.  He was openly envious; but, no matter how malignant he might be, he kept within the limits of the law,—­neither beyond it nor behind it, like a parliamentary opposition.  He believed his prosperity depended on the ruin of others, and that whoever was above him was an enemy against whom all weapons were good.  A character like this is very common among the peasantry.

Violette’s present business was to obtain from Malin an extension of the lease of his farm, which had only six years longer to run.  Jealous of the bailiff’s means, he watched him narrowly.  The neighbors reproached him for his intimacy with “Judas”; but the sly old farmer, wishing to obtain a twelve years’ lease, was really lying in wait for an opportunity to serve either the government or Malin, who distrusted Michu.  Violette, by