sard, in a threatening voice.

"As for me," said Bonnebault, putting his foraging-cap over one ear and
making his hazel stick whiz in the air, "I'm off to Conches to warn the
friends."

And the Lovelace of the valley departed, whistling the tune of the
martial song,--

"You who know the hussars of the Guard,
Don't you know the trombone of the regiment?"

"I say, Marie! he's going a queer way to get to Conches, that friend of
yours," cried old Mother Tonsard to her granddaughter.

"He's after Aglae!" said Marie, who made one bound to the door. "I'll
have to thrash her once for all, that baggage!" she cried, viciously.

"Come, Vaudoyer," said Tonsard, "go and see Rigou, and then we
shall know what to do; he's our oracle, and his spittle doesn't cost
anything."

"Another folly!" said Jean-Louis, in a low voice, "Rigou betrays
everybody; Annette tells me so; she says he's more dangerous when he
listens to you than other folks are when they bluster."

"I advise you to be cautious," said Langlume. "The general has gone to
the prefecture about your misdeeds, and Sibilet tells me he has sworn
an oath to go to Paris and see the Chancellor of France and the King
himself, and the whole pack of them if necessary, to get the better of
his peasantry."

"His peasantry!" shouted every one.

"Ha, ha! so we don't belong to ourselves any longer?"

As Tonsard asked the question, Vaudoyer left the house to see Rigou.

Langlume, who had already gone out, turned on the door-step, and
answered:--

"Crowd of do-nothings! are you so rich that you think you are your own
masters?"

Though said with a laugh, the meaning contained in those words was
understood by all present, as horses understand the cut of a whip.

"Ran tan plan! masters indeed!" shouted old Fourchon. "I say, my lad,"
he added to Nicolas, "after your performance this morning it's not my
clarionet that you'll get between your thumb and four fingers!"

"Don't plague him, or he'll make you throw up your wine by a punch in
the stomach," said Catherine, roughly.

CHAPTER XIII. A TYPE OF THE COUNTRY USURER

Strategically, Rigou's position at Blangy was that of a picket sentinel.
He watched Les Aigues, and watched it well. The police have no spies
comparable to those that serve hatred.

When the general first came to Les Aigues Rigou apparently formed some
plans about him which Montcornet's marriage with a Troisville put an end
to; he seemed to have wi