ever since his
arrival, and whom he desired to know, the land-steward of Les Aigues. He
saw a man of medium height, about thirty years of age, with a sulky look
and a discontented face, on which a smile sat ill. Beneath an anxious
brow a pair of greenish eyes evaded the eyes of others, and so disguised
their thought. Sibilet was dressed in a brown surtout coat, black
trousers and waistcoat, and wore his hair long and flat to the head,
which gave him a clerical look. His trousers barely concealed that he
was knock-kneed. Though his pallid complexion and flabby flesh gave the
impression of an unhealthy constitution, Sibilet was really robust.
The tones of his voice, which were a little thick, harmonized with this
unflattering exterior.

Blondet gave a hasty look at the abbe, and the glance with which the
young priest answered it showed the journalist that his own suspicions
about the steward were certainties to the curate.

"Did you not tell me, my dear Sibilet," said the general, "that you
estimate the value of what the peasants steal from us at a quarter of
the whole revenue?"

"Much more than that, Monsieur le comte," replied the steward. "The poor
about here get more from your property than the State exacts in taxes.
A little scamp like Mouche can glean his two bushels a day. Old women,
whom you would really think at their last gasp, become at the harvest
and vintage times as active and healthy as girls. You can witness
that phenomenon very soon," said Sibilet, addressing Blondet, "for the
harvest, which was put back by the rains in July will begin next week,
when they cut the rye. The gleaners must have a certificate of pauperism
from the mayor of the district, and no district should allow any one to
glean except the paupers; but the districts of one canton do glean in
those of another without certificate. If we have sixty real paupers
in our district, there are at least forty others who could support
themselves if they were not so idle. Even persons who have a business
leave it to glean in the fields and in the vineyards. All these people,
taken together, gather in this neighborhood something like three hundred
bushels a day; the harvest lasts two weeks, and that makes four thousand
five hundred bushels in this district alone. The gleaning takes more
from an estate than the taxes. As to the abuse of pasturage, it robs
us of fully one-sixth the produce of the meadows; and as to that of
the woods, it is incalculab