ir is settled. He has been met in company
with known Chouans. A word to the wise, Simon. Devise something, or go
to the devil, for I've done with you."

"But there is nothing easier, monsieur! Nothing in the world!" Simon
cried joyfully.

CHAPTER XIX

THE TREADING OF THE GRAPES

The weather for the vintage was splendid. A slight frost in the morning
curled and yellowed the vine-leaves, giving, as it does in these
provinces, the last touch of ripeness to the grapes, so that they begin
to burst their thin skins and to drop from the bunches. This is the
perfect moment. Crickets sing; the land is alive with springing
grasshoppers; harmless snakes rustle through the grass and bask in the
warm sand. The sun shines through an air so light, so crystal clear,
that men and beasts hardly know fatigue, though they work under his
beams all day long. The evening closes early with hovering mists in the
low places, the sudden chill of a country still wild and
half-cultivated. This was the moment, in an older France, chosen for the
Seigneur's vintage; the peasants had to deal with their own little
vineyards either earlier or later, and thus their wine was never so good
as his.

The laws of the vintage were old; they were handed down through
centuries, from the days of the Romans, but the Revolution swept them
and their obligations away. Napoleon's code knew nothing of them. Yet
private individuals, when they were clever men like Urbain de la
Mariniere, were sure by hook or by crook to arrange the vintage at the
time that suited their private arrangements. The ancient connection,
once of lord and vassal, now of landlord and tenant, between La
Mariniere and La Joubardiere, had been hardly at all disturbed by the
Revolution. Joubard was not the man to turn against the old friends of
his family. Besides, he believed in the waning moon. So when Monsieur
Urbain hit on the precise moment for his own vintage, and summoned him
and his people, as well as Monsieur Joseph's people, to help at La
Mariniere and to let their own vineyards wait a week or two, he made no
grievance of it.

"The weather will last," he said, when Martin grumbled, "and the moon
will be better. Besides, those slopes are always forwarder than ours.
And we shall lose nothing by helping the master. But if we did, I would
rather spoil my own wine than disappoint Monsieur Angelot."

"You and the mother are in love with his pretty face," growled the
soldier. "Why