ad; the little woman is scared.
I tell you, the thing'll come to an end before long; she'll leave
the place, and if she does the Shopman will follow her, for she's his
passion. That's your plan. Only, to make 'em go faster, my advice is to
get rid of their counsellor, their support, our spy, our ape--"

"Who's that?"

"The damned abbe, of course," said Tonsard; "that hunter after sins, who
thinks the host is food enough for us."

"That's true," cried Vaudoyer; "we were happy enough till he came. We
ought to get rid of that eater of the good God,--he's the real enemy."

"Finikin," added Fourchon, using a nickname which the abbe owed to his
prim and rather puny appearance, "might be led into temptation and fall
into the power of some sly girl, for he fasts so much. Then if we could
catch him in the act and drum him up with a good charivari, the bishop
would be obliged to send him elsewhere. It would please old Rigou
devilish well. Now if your daughter, Courtecuisse, would leave
Auxerre--she's a pretty girl, and if she'd take to piety, she might save
us all. Hey! ran tan plan!--"

"Why don't _you_ do it?" said Godain to Catherine, in a low voice;
"there'd be scuttles full of money to hush up the talk; and for the time
being you'd be mistress here--"

"Shall we glean, or shall we not glean? that's the point," said
Bonnebault. "I don't care two straws for your abbe, not I; I belong to
Conches, where we haven't a black-coat to poke up our consciences."

"Look here," said Vaudoyer, "we had better go and ask Rigou, who knows
the law, whether the Shopman can forbid gleaning, and he'll tell us if
we've got the right of it. If the Shopman has the law on his side, well,
then we must do as the old one says,--see about taking things sideways."

"Blood will be spilt," said Nicolas, darkly, as he rose after drinking a
whole bottle of wine, which Catherine drew for him in order to keep
him silent. "If you'd only listen to me you'd down Michaud; but you are
miserable weaklings,--nothing but poor trash!"

"I'm not," said Bonnebault. "If you are all safe friends who'll keep
your tongues between your teeth, I'll aim at the Shopman--Hey! how I'd
like to put a plum through his bottle; wouldn't it avenge me on those
cursed officers?"

"Tut! tut!" cried Jean-Louis Tonsard, who was supposed to be, more or
less, Gaubertin's son, and who had just entered the tavern. This fellow,
who was courting Rigou's pretty servant-girl, had succeede